Culture
An overflow crowd packed Oakland’s Cathedral of Christ the Light near Lake Merritt early Sunday evening for a concert on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Titled “Requiem of Remembrance,” the concert was part of a series of Requiem performances nationwide to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks with a day of thoughtful remembrance and reflection.
We asked six Oakland residents to remember the events September 11, and reflect on how it’s changed their lives in the decade since. For some the impact was immediate and life-altering. Others experienced the drama from a distance. None of them will ever forget it.
Meet the next watering hole in our new bar series, The Nightcap: Room 389 opened last year on Grand Avenue near Lake Merritt, and its laid-back atmosphere and good music has helped its popularity steadily grow. The bar, says owner Benjamin Cukierman, is a place where neighbors “come hang out with their friends without having to yell over the music.”
At a yarn store at the corner of San Pablo and Alcatraz in North Oakland, a new exhibit will transport visitors to a remote corner of India. The shop, called A Verb for Keeping Warm, is kicking off its third art show today, titled “The Rabari People, Their Culture, and Their Textiles.”
A comedic troupe of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus clowns made the rounds through the fifth floor of Oakland Children’s Hospital yesterday, waddling room-to-room, clad in big floppy shoes, and bright red noses and oversized apparel presenting each child with a special bead, and an unorthodox prescription: smile.
During a day of national remembrance for the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, on Sunday the Oakland Symphony Chorus and the Oakland Civic Orchestra will perform Mozart’s Requiem at the Cathedral of Christ the Light near Lake Merritt.
The First Friday art crowd packed the room, backing all the way up the stairs. This wasn’t a conventional event for one of Oakland’s downtown art walks. It was a youth fashion show, featuring local kids trained by Mario Benton, a San Francisco native who moved to East Oakland 16 years ago. “From childhood I wanted to be a fashion producer and have models,” Benton said. “That’s my first love.”
Thousands of East Bay residents, gay and straight, celebrated last year’s gay rights triumphs on Sunday at Oakland’s second annual Gay Pride Festival. A landmark year in gay rights, 2011 saw the elimination of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy that banned openly gay personnel from serving in the military.
Touted by locals as the center of the medical marijuana industry, Oakland seems a fitting host for the nation’s first marijuana outdoor street festival: the two-day International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, which opened its doors Saturday.