Beast Blog

Local Berkeley author Madeleine Kahn's new book published

Local Berkeley author (and dear friend) Madeleine Kahn's new book, Why Are We Reading Ovid's Handbook on Rape? Teaching and Learning at a Women's College, is finally out in paperback. You can buy it at Amazon, directly from the publisher, or from Berkeley's own Cody's Books. I've created a web site for Madeleine Kahn (the author), where you can read reviews of the book, see where her book tour will take her next, or peek at some of the essays she has been working on since she wrote Why Are We Reading Ovid's Handbook on Rape? Teaching and Learning at a Women's College.

Susan Ito, a former student of Madeleine's, put on a great book party as part of her Shepherd's Canyon Writers series to celebrate the paperback publication. I was there, and managed to get a few pictures of Madeleine Kahn giving her book talk. There are more pictures available to family members at TheBishop.Net photogallery.

Congratulations Madeleine!

Cross posted from The Berkeley Blog

Celebrate the Ashby Arts District - June 12

This came in the inbox:

Sunday, June 12th 1-6pm

7 venues in the South Berkeley/North Oakland Area will be opening up to the public with live performances and food to celebrate the rapidly developing Ashby Arts District (AAD).

What is the Ashby Arts District?  It is a partnership between seven non-profit organizations and performance venues in the South Berkeley/North Oakland/Lorin District area including La Peña Cultural Center, Epic Arts, The Shotgun Players at The Ashby Stage, The Black Repertory Group, Nomad Café, Northern California Land Trust and the Triptych Gallery.  

We are working together to increase awareness of the arts in our neighborhood and to unify the communities we serve.  Thriving arts organizations will bring more people to our area for shopping and dining.  Come out and support your local non profits.

Drop by any one of the above on Sunday, June 12th to join in the festivities.  

SF's >Mexican Party Bus will be cruising around the district from venue to venue all day.

So hop on the bus and come party with us!

Posted by peterme at 11:52 PM | Comments (21)

Temescal Street Fair - Saturday, August 21

The Temescal Merchants are putting together the Temescal Street Fair. From the flyer:

TEMESCAL STREET FAIR
SATURDAY, AUGUST 21ST, 2004 12PM-6PM
Telegraph Avenue between 51st and 48th, North Oakland
ACTIVITIES
•Kid art making with Studio One and East Bay Depot
•Craft and community booths
•Martial arts demonstrations
•Italian wine and beer garden
•Delicious food from local restaurants

CULTURAL PERFORMERS
•Montuno Groove (salsa)
•Otis Goodnight (hip-hop, funk)
•Crooked Jades (old-time string music)
•East Bay Church of Religious Science International Choir
•Colibri (South American kid’s music)
•Asheba (Caribbean kid’s music)

Latest Berkeley/Oakland Border Shooting

"BERKELEY/Shooting Victim was hit numerous times" - Chronicle

And here's an email I received through a neighborhood mailing list:

From: Don Link
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:18:31 -0700
Subject: [OPD] Shooting on Adeline 8/16/04

Re the last 2 postings about the trouble on Adeline, there was a shooting at around 2 pm today, a very serious one at very close range, 3 or 4 of the shots probably at point-blank range. It occurred at Harmon and Adeline (half of that block is Harmon, the Berkeley half, the other half 65th St. in Oakland. The shooting occurred on the Northeast corner of this intersection.

I was driving to the Post Office on Adeline and approached the corner just as the shooting started. Three or four shots with no shooter in sight, then 2-3 more as he turned in the middle of the crosswalk across Harmon and fired again. He then ran south on Adeline and either had a bicycle waiting, or took one, and rode off towards Alcatraz. He crossed Alcatraz onto a small street/parking area next to the commercial area on Alcatraz and continued toward 63rd St. and 62nd St. I attempted to follow him, but traffic and the signals made effective pursuit impossible.

Berkeley PD and OPD were combing the neighborhoods of Beat 11 for the perpetrator. He is an African American male 18-22, 5'7'' or 5'8'', with a muscular build and a weight of probably 150-170 lbs. He is clean-shaven and was wearing a black or midnight blue knit cap and white clothing otherwise. His weapon was a semi-automatic gun-metal blue or black handgun with a very deep pop when the shots were fired. I don't think it was a 9 mm, but something larger, maybe a .45 caliber.

I am sorry if the young man died. There was a pool of blood just seconds after the shooting and it took the Berkeley ambulance 4-5 minutes to arrive at the site and begin triage.

I spoke to the young man's brother who appears to be middle eastern, perhaps Yemeni. One or two other relatives were there as well. Perhaps they own a business in the immediate area. They saw the perpetrator more clearly than I.

I made it a point to drive the beat looking for the perpetrator or perhaps an abandoned bicycle. I went to the hot spots to see if anyone looked familiar, but saw no one who fit the description.

I will be very interested to learn about motive and particularly whether there is any connection to the North/South Oakland/Berkeley war that went on earlier this summer and last summer with disastrous consequences.

It surprises me how upsetting and disconcerting incidences like this are after all of them that I have read about and heard about. The finality of the actions, the brazenness of the perpetrator, the aftermath and the disruptions it causes for hundreds of people unconnected to the victim and connected alike. A train wreck and a disaster for everyone involved.

I sincerely hope that the case is solved and solved quickly. The number of shots and the close-range quality of the incident make it more of an execution than a shooting. I don't believe that the victim was armed.

Don Link, Shattuck NCPC Beat 11

a little background

When I lived in Oakland as a young adult I thought the Bay Area was as big as it got. I never even left California until I was 27, and that was for my honeymoon (divorced now, and swell friends with my ex, photographer Carl Posey, who is Berkeley High class of ‘83). I was at Cal for a while, then freelanced at The East Bay Express, the Bay Guardian, and was music editor at SF Weekly. It all seems a very long time ago. I used to party at Geoffrey’s in Jack London Square. I favored LaVal's pizza over Blondie's. Ate often at Lois'. I dealt with the gruff staff at Flint’s for the tangy barbeque ribs and bright yellow potato salad. Had brunch (when I had some money) at Rick & Ann’s up by the Claremont Hotel. I used to live at the Vulcan Foundry Studios at San Leandro Boulevard and High Street), and bought dollar burritos from the catering trucks over near there. I hung out at Yogurt Park in Berkeley. I worked at Saks Fifth Avenue for years (and was a good saleschick, too!). I used to go to Slim's in San Francisco, and to the DNA Lounge and to the Kennel Club (it’s no longer there? Or is it?) for hip hop shows. I listened to KALX as well as KMEL (which I know has changed a lot). Screamed through Cal basketball games when Kevin Johnson was at guard. I swore by Peet's (and still do). They serve it at a place here in Brooklyn called Boerum Hill Food Company, and please believe I go there often. I started writing for NY magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone (I still write for them sometimes). And finally ended up at Billboard, then at Vibe, then at Time Inc. Wrote More Like Wrestling while on a journalism fellowship at Northwestern University. Got some good reviews here and here and here, as well as a bad one (you thought I’d post it?!? Not). Started teaching at places like NYC’s Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center and The New School University and St. Mary’s College of California. As of today I haven’t had a day job in almost three years, and I like it. I write as much as I can, mostly fiction, and after fourteen years in journalism (Deadline! Deadline! Deadline), sometimes I feel like I’m not writing enough. It’s funny how life works out. I’m going back to school in the fall (after dropping out of Cal a thousand years ago) for my MFA (ask me how, with my no-BA-having self; it’s a good story).

More later.

great sushi, no waiting!

looking for an alternative to sushi joints like kirala (with their long lines but yummy eats)?

bonsai is a japanese restaurant with sushi (& other items for the non-siushi lover- like teriyaki chicken & fish) that has amazingly fresh selections, friendly staff, and not enough patrons currently.

the economy affects small family-run businesses most of all, and i would hate to see an east bay diamond-in-the-rough like bonsai become the latest victim of george w bush's economy.

bonsai is on shattuck at 43rd street in oakland.

Nomad Cafe - $7.50 for a Sandwich?

So, I went back to the Nomad Cafe last week for lunch, and saw that the sandwich that once cost $5.50 now cost $7.50. That seemed rather steep for lunch (I can't see paying more than $5.50 for a sandwich, really), and so I wrote to the Nomad folks to voice my displeasure. The proprietor wrote back. It's a thoughtful response, addressing some community issues, so I asked if I could post it to the Beast Blog, and he said yes.

Peter, I really appreciate you making the effort to share your feelings about our price increase (as well as your previous mention of our business on the beastblog listserv). If it troubles you to see our prices increase, imagine how I must feel. The whole purpose of me leaving my $150,000-per-year Hollywood film industry job and going into the cafe business (!) was to invest in my local community; to bring my earth-friendly, arts-and-community-oriented aesthetic down from my global cyber-community to a local scale, in real time and space, in my own neighborhood.

We brought a facelift, a kickstart, to this neighborhood. We created a top-end presentation where nobody would feel alienated. We have kids, old people, people of all ethnicities and orientations, some who have been neighbors for years, interacting with each other for the first time! We have internet, live music, art. Last night our installed artist, Caleb Kenna, gave a narrated slideshow presentation based on his photojournalistic experiences in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Morocco, Thailand, Cuba. Weekly, several writers' groups gather to discuss their latest projects. This Sunday, we are catering in-house to a group of 30 supporters of the Kucinich for President campaign. Next month, hip-hop animators from West Oakland will be installed at the cafe and making multimedia presentations. We are a crucial, vibrant community crossroads. Today I spent three hours with the Coordinator of Oakland's Facade Improvement Program, canvassing the neighborhood, attempting to get City monies dedicated to Nomad Cafe's neighbors for the improvement of their businesses.

Last week, we were officially certified by the City of Oakland's Green Business program as a green business. We are implementing measures to conserve energy, water, and materials and to cut pollution. We use safe cleaning products that are mixed using an enclosed system which protects employees from spills and splashes and cuts the chances of a spill to the City's storm drain system. 95% of the waste produced at the cafe is compostable, and is recycled through a local food waste recycling program, or directly to our customers. ALL of our coffees are 100% Fair Trade, Organic. Our teas are certified organic. All of our dairy, and the majority of our produce, are organic and sustainably-produced. Our smoothies are made with fresh-squeezed juices and organic fruits. Our food, in particular our sandwiches, are EXTRAORDINARILY high-quality, delicious meals, and are served with a side of roasted potatoes and a fresh, organic fruit garnish. They and all of our foods are labor-intensive to the point of being insupportable even at the higher cost. We are in fact in the planning stages of a move toward more "grab-and-go" foods that can be prepared in advance (on premises) without compromising quality, while allowing our customers, many of whom have busy lives, to get in and out quickly.

The Earth-friendly aesthetic applies to my employment practices as well. My full-time employees are very well-paid for coffeehouse employees; they are fully benefited with medical, dental, vision and paid vacation, as well as large yearly bonuses. I provide special work opportunities for local, socially-disadvantaged teens. We donate all of our leftover pastries to the nearby Women's Refuge. All of these sustainable and arts-and-community-based business practices come at a very high cost. I am not an independently wealthy man. If I do not pass on enough costs to make this a break-even business (we are still nowhere close), the business will be gone within months, and your question will be moot.

... [omitted by request of author]

Given these considerations -- and not intending to sound patronizing -- how do you justify NOT paying that much money for a sandwich at the Nomad Cafe? We know we can't please everyone, nor fit everyone's budget; all we can do is try to survive, and try to remind people like you of all the reasons to support a business like ours. We really would like to have your business, even if you have to limit it to special occasions. God knows the economy has most of us in that position these days.

Thanks again for your patronage. I hope we can see you back at the cafe often.

Christopher Waters

Even More Free Wi-Fi!

On the corner of 65th and Shattuck is the 3-weeks-old Nomad Cafe. It's got great big windows, a range of menu items, good outside seating, and all the wireless you can eat.

Free Wi-Fi - First in a Series

One way that the BeastBlog can be useful is pointing out free Wi-fi access points throughout the Beast.

Here's the first: Jumpin' Java,. It's on Shattuck, across the street from Flint's BBQ.