InBerkeley

How refreshing to be reporting on a retailer that is expanding rather than closing up shop.

According to Diablo Magazine, Elmwood Stationers will be opening a second store in Lafayette.  The store, which has being going strong since 1966 on College Avenue, will share space with custom jewelry shop Ware Designs, in a space near Trader Joe’s.

I patronize this store for its personal service rather than schlep down to Office Depot in Emeryville. And, I don’t know if it’s new, but their website’s pretty nice too.

Meanwhile, in case you missed the news, two art galleries recently opened in Berkeley: Hazel Wolf Gallery is in the new downtown David Brower Center; and Alphonse Berber Gallery is in a Julia-Morgan-designed building on Bancroft Way opposite the UC campus.

Arts, Business, Downtown, Retail Arts, Business, Downtown, Retail

I’m a walker. You’ll see me walking around North Berkeley pretty much every day, rain or shine.

I love the hills, and the trees, the gardens, and I really like the fact that just walking around you run into people you know like Allen Holub and his parrot, Cranberry. Allen is the author of a famous compiler design book. Today I was walking on North Shattuck and took a picture of the always-friendly MoveOn-founder Joan Blades.

I moved here from the South Bay where people don’t walk so much. I like living in a place where you can walk to shop, or BART, and you can get anywhere in the world on your own because the transit system goes to the airport.

As with everything, it’s not perfect. Someday I’m going to get hit walking on these streets. Every day at least once I have to do something to avoid it. It’s hard for cars to see you sometimes. I’ve had it happen when I’m a driver. The sun is shining in your eyes, or your mind is somewhere else. You look to the left but there’s a pedestrian to the right.

Today I had two drivers cut me off while I was in the middle of a crosswalk. A man in a sportscar, and a woman in a minivan. This almost never happens, but today it happened twice. I think there’s something weird in the air today!

But there are also times when you make eye contact with the driver while you’re in the crosswalk and they don’t slow down. Not much you can do but hope you don’t trip, cause there’s no margin of error. I wonder what will happen when I get older. Already I find myself stumbling in situations that I wouldn’t have when I was younger.

But California is infinitely more civilized than most other parts of the US. And Berkeley drivers are unusually civic-minded. But I wonder sometimes what we can do to make our streets even safer for pedestrians.

General

General

The Center for Japanese Studies at UC Berkeley is presenting filmaker Hayao Miyazaki with the 2009 Berkeley Japan Prize next month. Miyzaki will be making a rare in-person appearance at Zellerbach Hall on July 25. Four of his films will be included in a retrospective at the Pacific Film Archive July 12, 14, 19, and 21.

For more information, visit the Center for Japanese Studies web site.

General