When we started InBerkeley in June this year, Dave and Lance had the idea of a site where the things that puzzled us, excited us or provoked our curiosity about our city could find a home. Where our fellow Berkeleyites could also write, or send in photos, or respond to the things we wrote about.
We’ve had 429 posts since then on a bewildering variety of topics, and over 1,500 comments. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and contributing.
But our interests in the site have diverged. We’re going to leave InBerkeley exactly as it stands. Lance is starting a new site, Berkeleyside. He hopes readers, writers and commenters will follow what develops there with as much enthusiasm as they had here. You can subscribe to Berkeleyside’s feed or follow it on Twitter as well.
In a post on scripting.com, Dave said: “Other projects are consuming more of my time. And in the last couple of months, family stuff has taken me away from Berkeley, and I’m not at all sure where my attention will be drawn in the future. So a big part of my decision to move on is personal.”
He goes on to explain what he learned about hyperlocal from the InBerkeley experiment, and wishes Lance well, and may even contribute to the new site.
I didn’t get a chance to hear Bob Dylan play at the Greek Theater on Saturday night, but you can have some vicarious pleasure by parsing through the live set list.
Did any InBerkeley readers hear the concert and wish to comment?
Update One attendee posted a recording of Gonna Change My Way of Thinking:
UC Berkeley’s Oliver Williamson has shared this year’s Nobel prize for economics* with Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University. Williamson was awarded the prize “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm”.
Williamson is the fifth Berkeley economist to win the prize, and the university’s 21st Nobelist. The eight Nobelists currently on the faculty are unique in the university in that they get the greatest award of all: a reserved parking place on the campus.
The best quick analysis of Williamson’s contribution to economics is at Marginal Revolution. Read the whole thing, but the intro gives some of the flavor:
In Adam Smith there is the pin factory and the market and from that beginning we trace the long literature in economics focused on the twin questions, What price to set? How much to produce? Following Coase, Williamson asks different questions, Why a pin factory? Why are the 18 steps to make a pin performed by a single firm rather than two or more? Why are there many firms instead of one large firm? Why does the pin factory not vertically integrate upwards to buy the steel factory and downwards to buy the retail hardware shop?
* For any pedantic readers, the economics prize is not one of the traditional Nobel prizes. It’s awarded by the Swedish central bank in memory of Alfred Nobel, rather than by the Nobel Foundation. The official name is The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
InBerkeley would like to apologize to The Daily Californian for violating its copyright by publishing its photograph by Emma Lantos on a post dated October 9th, titled “Berkeley High teens: too close for comfort?”
We did not have the required permission to use the photo and we have taken it down.
Books Inc opened its Berkeley store at 1760 Fourth Street today. The doors opened early to welcome the crowd that had gathered outside eager to experience a new book store after witnessing so many go the other way in recent years.
Co-owner and president Michael Tucker told Carolyn Said at the Chronicle: “I’m a Berkeley boy, so for me it was absolutely anathema that there wasn’t a general-interest bookstore left here.” Said’s story also explores why an independent chain like Books Inc has managed to survive against the odds. Read it here.
Berkeley Hillside Club LECTURE—Friday, October 9 at 6 pm
ART SHOW & SALE—Saturday–Sunday, October 11–12, 11AM–6 PM
Free admission
The Hillside Club is pleased to present the Fourth Annual Landscape Art Show and Sale and a special lecture by Thomas Reynolds on the long tradition of collecting California landscape paintings. Thomas Reynolds is the owner of Thomas Reynolds Gallery in San Francisco, an authority on early California landscape art, and a supporter of local bay area landscape painters. He will also give a tour of the show and discuss the exhibited paintings.
The lecture will begin at 6 pm on Friday,
October 9th.
The show and sale will continue Saturday through Sunday, October
10 through 11 from 11am to 6 pm.
The Hillside Club is located at 2286 Cedar Street, at Arch in Berkeley.
For more information contact 510-848-3227.
Artists presenting their work include:
* Bryan Mark Taylor * Christin Coy
* Daniel McCormick * Dean Holland
* Dennis Ziemienski * Douglas Morgan
* Elaine Carpenter * Erma Wheatley
* Jack Cassinetto * Jerrold Turner
* Julie Nunes * Julie Seelos
* Kevin Courter * Mark Farino
* Nikki Basch-Davis * Paul Kratter
* Ray Carpenter * Robin Moore
* Tim Horn * Tom Soltesz
* Zenaida Mott
A friend was complaining the other day about the experience of being in downtown Berkeley at lunchtime. It’s a madhouse with all those students milling about, she said. “And some of them are really not that attractive.”
Now, having a son who attends Berkeley High, and is of course very attractive, my immediate reaction was to go on the defensive. However I admit I have never actually experienced the lunchtime rush — I do know around 3,000 teenagers need to find a place to buy lunch and be back in their classrooms in about 40 minutes.
And I can appreciate that having huge numbers of big — for they are invariably big — possibly unruly, teenagers bearing down on you when you are just popping into town to get a replacement battery for your camcorder at RadioShack might be intimidating and a tad unpleasant.
But Berkeley High has been at its current location for 108 years. (The first public high school classes in Berkeley were held in 1880 at the Kellogg Primary School at Oxford and Center Streets adjacent to the campus. In 1901, construction began on the northwest portion of the present site of the high school.)
If anything, the rest of downtown has evolved around it and the UC campus. And, I ask myself, is it not healthy for educational establishments to be at the heart of cities? Or should they be banished to the outskirts so good citizens don’t need to encounter teen spirit up close and en masse on a daily basis?
I’m worried about my kids crossing Ashby at Pine Avenue in the Elmwood. But a wild turkey just ambled placidly down my street and crossed without so much as a by your leave.
OK so Berkeley is not exactly chic on the street. Love it though we may, we do not usually think to turn to the city’s thoroughfares and gathering spots for sartorial inspiration.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t stylish people out there. You just have to know where to look, and the Cal campus is – perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not — a good place to start
A group of undergraduates recently launched a fashion magazine and a blog to explore “fashion as more than just cloth on a body”. It’s called Bare (Bear/Bare, get it?) and the students “aim to represent creativity and inspiration, ingenuity, and passion. Passion for art, passion for the aesthetic, and passion for one’s own tastes, biases, and self-expression.”
The blog might dissect the look of a student who is photographed on campus, suggest ways to put together an outfit, or report on the retro fashions on TV series True Blood.
So far it’s all lookin’ good. Check out Bare’s website here.
Last time InBerkeley looked, Google Maps had a bizarre error in the center of Berkeley. Berkeley High School was called Armstrong University.
Yesterday Google announced that it was using a new dataset for its maps, and whatever other benefits it may have, it looks as though it corrected this one major error for downtown Berkeley (hat tip: @jmccyoung). There still, however, is the oddity of placing Armstrong University just east of BHS, on Harold Way. That was the last location of Armstrong University, but it has been a vacant building for a number of years.
The White House yesterday released a list of 45 art works that the president and first lady have borrowed to decorate the Obamas’ private residence and the East and West Wings. Among the works is Richard Diebenkorn’s “Berkeley, No. 52″, painted in 1955, and part of the collection of the National Gallery of Art. Diebenkorn lived in Berkeley between 1955 and 1966. According to Flavorwire, the painting will hang in the Obama’s private living quarters.
Photo: Courtesy of the Estate of Richard Diebenkorn/National Gallery of Art
I’d like to see InBerkeley expand the breadth and depth of its coverage. To do that, we need more people who want to write about some aspect of our city.
There’s no end of subjects we’d like to cover: schools, local politics, culture, the university, nature, sports and more. Writers get the same benefits as those involved on InBerkeley now — no pay, but the enjoyment of people in our community finding information and getting involved in debates on issues large and small.
If you think you can write for InBerkeley, email me with an idea or two for things you could post, and either a sample post or a pointer to your writing.
How have I missed The Bone Room? I was looking at the latest post on one of the more delightful blogs I follow, Curious Expeditions, and lo and behold, it was enthusing about a store on Solano Avenue. Curious Expeditions describes it as “electrifying”. Here’s The Bone Room’s own description:
The Bone Room is a store in Berkeley specializing in natural history items. We’re the place to come to for real bones, genuine fossils, quality bone and fossil replicas, exotic insects, and all manner of weird and wonderful things. Visiting us is like a trip to a mini-museum. We are a source for teachers, artists, illustrators, collectors and imaginative gift buyers; it’s “the best store on earth,” according to an ardent twelve-year-old customer.
The store at 1569 Solano was founded by Ron Cauble, who also founded the East Bay Vivarium. The Bone Room is open 11 to 6, Tuesdays through Saturday.
Photo Credit: James Gathany, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
I’ve caught a mild case of the sniffles that seem to be going around. I’m going to consider it a good reminder of how miserable it is to be sick, and go do what I can to avoid a worser fate in the future. Luckily, the City of Berkeley is here to help me out.
The city is offering FREE seasonal flu shots, starting today at the Berkeley Adult School from 3-7 pm. The walk-in free shots will continue every Friday, from 9-11 am, at the Berkeley Public Health Clinic, while supplies last (and excluding the Friday after Thanksgiving). Find out more, or be a good grasshopper and fill out your paperwork ahead of time, on the city’s flu shot website.
Note that this is the seasonal flu shot, the same old one that’s offered every year and according to the CDC is a must-have for:
Children aged 6 months up to their 19th birthday
Pregnant women
People 50 years of age and older
People of any age with certain chronic medical conditions
People who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities
People who live with or care for those at high risk for complications from flu, including:
Health care workers
Household contacts of persons at high risk for complications from the flu
Household contacts and out of home caregivers of children less than 6 months of age (these children are too young to be vaccinated)
Along with “anyone who wants to reduce their chances of getting seasonal flu”. That’s me.
The H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine is a separate affair. The health department official I spoke to said she didn’t know what the city’s plans were for distributing that one, other than that they will be giving it to doctor’s offices; they don’t have it yet, so we’ll just have to wait and see. She suggested I try calling back next week. For now, I’ll settle for a free dose of the regular stuff. Thanks Berkeley!
David Gelles explains in the Financial Times the intertwined stories of PowerBar, Clif Bar and Gu. It’s a fascinating story of innovation, entrepreneurship and (seemingly friendly) corporate rivalry.
All were founded in Berkeley. Nestle bought PowerBar in 1999 and moved its base to Glendale in southern California. Clif Bar recently moved to Emeryville. Gu is apparently looking for larger premises, but plans to stay in Berkeley.
I’d like to see InBerkeley expand the breadth and depth of its coverage. To do that, we need more people who want to write about some aspect of our city.
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