Culture
Mike and John Manente stand proudly together as they look up at their recent creation: Sheila, a dignified woman with a gentle face blended from yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, and earth tones. The setting sun gives her an amber hue. She’s the subject of the “The Gardener,” the latest in an ongoing series of murals entitled “The People of Oakland” by the father and son team. Last year the two men, both professional artists, created the “People of Oakland” to…
“Space is my middle name,” said elementary school student Cameron Weignant on Friday morning at the Chabot Space and Science Center as his mother adjusted the tinted visor on his helmet. While about a hundred people of all ages had come up to the observatory above Oakland hoping for a glimpse of the Space Shuttle Endeavour on its final flyover of California, only Cameron had arrived in a full astronaut costume. “He’s been interested in space since he was 2,”…
Freedom House: Dancing in the Flatlands is a new performance work by Claudine Naganuma. The piece will be shown three times at East Oakland’s EastSide Cultural Center this weekend, starting with an 8 p.m. performance Friday night. Naganuma is the director of Danspace, a dance studio in Rockridge, and the founder of the dance company dNaga, which will be performing the piece.
SoundWaves continues this Thursday with pop music by Young Digerati, from 5:30 to 7:30pm, on the waterfront of Jack London Square.
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.