InBerkeley

Overheard today on the Twitterstream:

quefortuna: If you have to pull off the freeway to feed a screaming baby, you can do a lot worse than the Berkeley Marina.

Deppified: Class or Berkeley Bowl? Easy: Berkeley Bowl.

chucklessmith: Berkeley defaces their red STOP signs to read “STOP Driving!” Oakland defaces theirs to read “STOP Hammertime!”

eric_c_klein: Fact I learned at this week’s School Board meeting: the majority of people in adult ed in Berkeley are over 60.

Eckmania: Why is everything in Berkeley uphill?

General

We’re in the midst of the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, which offers plenty of opportunities to hear free music. At lunchtime today, for example, Rodney and Clay Sutton and Charmaine Slaven are doing a free demonstration of southern dance styles at the new Freight & Salvage on Addison. Tonight’s concert at Freight & Salvage is preceded by seven hours (!) of jamming in the lobby, also free.  Tomorrow there’s a morning children’s concert at the main branch of the Berkeley Public Library and an afternoon string band contest at the farmer’s market in Civic Center Park.

You can gain some sense of the festival’s spirit by reading its history. The first convention in 1968 was the “35th Annual”. It was followed by the 17th Annual and the 22nd Annual. The first convention had one rule: “No fair electric instruments.” First prize in the convention’s competition was three pounds of rutabagas — which went to a banjo player then in Switzerland because the judges ruled that “the ultimate thing a banjo player could do, in terms of good taste, was to be at least 8,000 miles away”.

Music