Culture
At the Occupy Oakland encampment at Snow Park near Lake Merritt, cooking equipment that used to serve hot meals in the middle of the camp is gone, and the library and clothes donation area are a shell of what they once were–but, since the evacuation of the Frank Ogawa Plaza Occupy camp this Monday, the number of tents at Snow Park has been growing.
The Community Rejuvenation Project (CRP), a nonprofit best known for large mural projects throughout Oakland, released a declaration on Tuesday decrying property destruction during last Wednesday’s general strike.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every week, we will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s photo is by Cynthia Gorney.
Tourettes Without Regrets is a monthly performance extravaganza of lewd audience contests, dirty haiku battles, and onstage improvisation. Reporter Dylan Bergeson takes a turn as a TWR judge to figure out what makes this raunchy vaudeville show so popular.
Sara Davis Buechner, an associate professor of piano at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, established her success early in her career. She joined the Oakland East Bay Symphony on November 4 to play Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety,” as part of their kick-off concert for the 2011-2012 season. Buechner has an incredible off-stage story as well. She was once known as David but in 1998, at the age of 39, underwent gender reassignment and transitioned to being Sara. Although facing walls as a transgendered woman, Sara remains positive and hopeful for the future generation. “I have often said to people, ‘I don’t know why we’re so obsessed with what’s between the legs—I think what’s between the ears is a lot more important,’” she said.
As protesters trickled out of the Port of Oakland Wednesday night, after Occupy Oakland demonstrations shut down business at the port, scores filed into a retrofitted former AC Transit bus for free rides back to the encampments in downtown Oakland.
The Nightcap is a series that features a favorite Oakland drinking establishment every Friday afternoon. This week it’s The Layover, a bar and music lounge on Franklin Street at 15th Street in downtown Oakland.
Marches and protests continued Wednesday as part of the day of action organized by Occupy Oakland. Around 11:30 am, the Oakland Educational Association (OEA) teachers union, high school students and parents of children who attend the five Oakland elementary schools up for closure gathered in the outdoor plaza at Laney college in support of today’s strike.
Occupy Oakland activists launched the first of three rallies at 14th and Broadway Wednesday morning, with Angela Davis and others speaking. Occupy Oakland, along with out-of-towners and employees from local unions, will meet at the intersection again Wednesday evening to converge on the Port of Oakland and attempt to shut it down.