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Live Wire: Starry Plough

A while ago I went to a great show at the wonderful Starry Plough featuring Buxter Hootn, Dgiin and The Loyd Family Players. Check out the video! This Saturday, I’m going to Café VanKleef’s Brass n’Burlesque show – featuring Bluebone Express and the Hot Pink Feathers. Its going to be a great night. Show starts at 9pm. http://www.cafevankleef.com/index.html

A retail oasis moves into an empty Oakland block

On a stretch of Oakland pockmarked with vacant storefronts, the 3000 block of Telegraph Avenue looks particularly bleak. 3003 Telegraph, formerly a medical center, has been up for lease for two months; 3031 Telegraph, formerly a Portuguese fraternal society, for a year. A few years ago, the old brick courthouse on the adjacent block, just past 29th Street, was a popular athletic center. Now its windows are boarded up. So when Mohsin Sharif opens his new grocery store on the…

Art Quest along the 40th Street Corridor

North Oaklanders came out Saturday, Feb 21, for the first ever 40th Street corridor Art Quest. There were raffle prizes, great art, and a fun night exploring the neighborhood for everyone who came out.  

Seniors and health care: The musical

The patient, a gray-haired grandmother of 75, is unabashedly hitting on her twenty-something male nurse. “What are you going to do to me today?” she says coquettishly. “I’m going to start by taking your vitals, ” he says, trying to quash the flirtation. She cocks her head and flutters her eyelashes. “I think I’m going to need a bath.”

Gambling for one of Oakland’s small schools

Tamara Arroyo, a young woman with her hair in a ponytail, pulled up the corners of the two cards she’d been dealt, an ace and a jack, and then looked at her dwindling pile of chips. With a gleam in her eyes and a slight smile, she obviously did not know the meaning of a poker face. On the table lay two jacks, a queen, and a king. The dealer dealt the final card-an ace. She cleaned up.

The Book About Books

Eric Lyngen, the owner of Book Zoo on Telegraph Avenue, talks about the mania and the business of book collecting.