Culture
Occupy protesters throughout the nation managed to create an informational campaign that went globally viral for months. Now, as activists scramble to build a phase two, a look at the creative legacy of Occupy 1.0 shows how Bay Area artists helped develop its artistic language.
The morning light came up around them by degrees. No one was still; there were shaking maracas, beating drums, last-minute adjustments to pieces larger than an Alexander McQueen headdress. They moved their bodies in Mayan tradition—dancing as a form of prayer. Nearly 2000 Catholic worshipers gathered at East Oakland’s St. Louis Bertrand Church Saturday morning for a six mile pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Christ the Light, near Lake Merrit.
Families flocked to the 12th annual Comcast America’s Children’s Holiday parade, lining Broadway from 20th to 11th Streets and stretching all the way to Lake Merritt, where a short while earlier, a religious processional had brought walkers from East Oakland to the the Cathedral of Christ the Light.
The Nightcap is a series that features a favorite Oakland drinking establishment every Friday afternoon. This week, it’s Heart and Dagger Saloon, a beer and a shot, rock ‘n’ roll bar in the Grand Lake area.
As a growing number of Oakland residents embrace urban farming—including the raising of chickens, goats and pigs in their back yards—the city planning commission is investigating the trend’s potentially negative impacts on the surrounding community.
On Sunday morning at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, the sounds of high-pitched singing, a ringing organ and a mumbling congregation filled the huge cathedral as people tried to catch on to the new version of the Catholic Mass. Sunday, also the first day of Advent, was the first time the updated Mass text was used at English-speaking Catholic churches across the world.
On any given day, close to 90 clients come to God’s Gym for personal training from 49-year-old Gary Shields. Some clients lift heavy weights and work on their massive physiques. Others have more modest routines, toning or rehabbing injuries. The two-story storefront on the corner of Broadway and 25th Street is painted jet black from top to bottom. Images of two posed, flexing bodybuilders fill the front windows. One is a silhouette of Shields in his prime. Centered between the bright, bold white words of the gym’s name, is a painting of a buff, black Jesus breaking free of chains.
Deep in West Oakland, a collective of artists called Five Ton Crane (5TC) is hard at work tuning up their submarine Nautilus. Although it doesn’t go underwater, there seems to be little else this lifesize submarine can’t do—it even defends its perimeters with a water spear gun and bumps tunes from its built-in iPad technology.
This December, a “pop-up” neighborhood is coming to Old Oakland: three downtown blocks of hip—albeit temporary—retail shops that showcase local designers, artists and goods…just in time for holiday shopping.