Culture
In May, Rob “Reason” Silver, a part-time record producer from Oakland, and Jason Samel, the owner of a small insurance brokerage in New York, announced their nearly identical but independently conceived plans to bring a new element into the national Occupy protest—marketability. Both had come to the conclusion that there was potential within the anti-capitalistic, determinedly decentralized protest to sell a product that could help raise funds and draw in new supporters. In May, both men launched Occupy benefit albums.
Stephanie Yun, 18, was named Oakland’s first ever youth poet laureate last week. She was honored by Juan Felipe Herrera, California’s poet laureate and a judge for the competition, at the Flor y Canto Festival.
The sun was setting over Oakland’s Dimond Park Monday as Jewish families gathered to toss bits of bread into a small creek running that ran through the trees. The practice, called Tashlich, is part of the Jewish New Year celebration in which individuals “cast off” the sins of the past year. It is also a time for new beginnings.
Around 3,000 people turned out in Mosswood Park on Saturday to celebrate Enkutatash, the Ethiopian New Year.
The small, high-ceilinged gallery was barely big enough for the turnout Friday night. The modest rows of folding chairs easily filled, and then people found space on the paint-smudged concrete floor wherever they could. Some crouched on the stairs, others stood in the back, but everybody listened, because this was a presentation about love.
The debate over Richard Aoki’s status as an FBI informant came home to the former Black Panther’s neighborhood Tuesday night in the form of a crowded basement book discussion.
The first few minutes of a fourth period World History class in room 237 at Oakland Technical High School Monday were spent discussing the question “How did the attacks on 9/11/2001 affect you or your family?”
A white placard completely covers Diesel Bookstore’s neon sign: “Brokeland Records.” On each of the bookstore’s two large glass windows lie canvases displaying the same words in thick yellow and white lettering.
Derrek Bell leans forward and places his elbows on the counter, turning the hat he is holding upside down to expose the price tag attached to the inside. He holds it gently, careful not to pinch it or bend it out of shape. The Panama hat has travelled all the way from Cuenca in Ecuador, where it was manufactured, to a factory in Alessandria, Italy, where it was shaped and tagged with a little navy label that spelled “Borsalino” in a cursive gold font. It is now on a rack at The Hat Guys, an upscale hat shop in downtown Oakland that has served famous heads for over two decades.
Bell has worked here as a salesman for seven years. “Take a look at this,” he says, pointing at the price tag. The Borsalino name puts the hat’s price at $1,200. It is one of the most expensive hats in the store.