Community

As Alyssia Alexandria entered the newly renovated History Gallery at the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) Friday night, a museum volunteer handed her a few scraps of drawing paper, a small yellow pencil, and a black and white pamphlet, an official invitation to play “Choose Your Own California Adventure.”

Oakland amusement park Children’s Fairyland celebrated its 60th anniversary this weekend with two days of special events and activities. The park, which is geared towards young children, opened on September 2, 1950, and is credited as the first storybook-themed park in the nation.

The first rule of bike party is: Have fun during bike party. On Friday night, 300 cowboy-costumed cyclists rolled through three East Bay Cities, bringing the party with them. Listen to Oakland North Radio’s sound report of the happy biker pack out for the night.

Oakland’s Neldam’s Danish Bakery had been in business 81 years before it closed in July. Reopened last week as Taste of Denmark, the new bakery plans to expand its offerings to include Asian pastries, tres leches cakes, and other delicacies from the modern city’s many cultures.

Throughout the city, Jewish congregants meet to symbolically cast away the sins of the past year, and prepare for a ten-day period of reflection and forgiveness.

When conceptual artist Mark Dion needed materials for his new exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California, he headed behind the scenes, or technically, under the scenes. “It was a little bit like raiding the icebox,” he says of his time in the belly of the building. “I began scrounging through the archives, spending a lot of time in storage.” After unearthing an eclectic mix of lost treasures—everything from Reagan campaign buttons to a stuffed baby elephant—Dion constructed “The Marvelous Museum,” which opens Sept. 11.

Some people rested. Some traveled. Others played on Labor Day. Many Oakland residents used their extra day off from work or school Monday to create their own sporting events: a bike ride in the hills, steering an unfamiliar water vessel at Lake Merritt. Check out reporter Laith Agha’s slide show and map for a glimpse of city residents finding their own ways to play.

Dozens of people participated in a different type of art walk along Telegraph Avenue on Friday. It was the launch of Invisible City Audio Tours, which has the goal of showing an alternative way of looking at Telegraph Avenue by bringing together Bay Area authors, visual artists and a composer to guide walkers on a tour from MacArthur Bart Station to the central hub of Art Murmur.