InBerkeley

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.

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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.

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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

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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:

1. Children aged 6 months up to their 19th birthday
2. Pregnant women
3. People 50 years of age and older
4. People of any age with certain chronic medical conditions
5. People who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities
6. People who live with or care for those at high risk for complications from flu, including:
   1. Health care workers
   2. Household contacts of persons at high risk for complications from the flu
7. 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!

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One of InBerkeley’s most loyal readers, Deirdre, passed us a tip today about “cutting-edge space science presented at the Roda Theatre free to the public”. She saw a poster in a BART station, but couldn’t find any other information.

That’s what InBerkeley is for. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has a (to my mind) poorly promoted series of Science at the Theater. The next event, at 7pm on October 26, is on “Dark Secrets: What Science Tells Us About the Hidden Universe”.

Incidentally, I follow Berkeley Lab on Twitter. When they had the last Science at the Theater event, I had some intriguing tweets about the discussion on biofuels.

Photo: X-ray – NASA / CXC / MIT / D.Dewey et al., NASA / CXC / SAO / J.DePasquale; Optical – NASA / STScI

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I wrote an email to the mail list for the North Berkeley street that I live on saying that construction projects are a fact of life in California towns like the one we live in. I know because I’ve been living in California for 30-plus years, and it seems if it isn’t rainy season there are a bunch of hellacious construction projects going on nearby.

One of my neighbors appeared at the front door, hysterically ringing on the doorbell. I’m greeted downstairs with his anger. “I have a right to do this,” he yells. “And I have a right to say it sucks,” I say.

Never ring a neighbor’s doorbell in anger. Please. Count to 10.

In the mid-90s I lived next door to a high-school-sized project. Sunday morning at 7AM they’re out with the bulldozers. I called 911, fed up, not wanting to fully wake up after a night out. Later that day the neighbor is yelling at me for calling the cops. I should have called him, he says. He should go to hell, I think.

Yes, they have the right to do these projects. But they ruin the quality of life here. I’ve been wanting to say that publicly for some time. Now I have.

I don’t know the rules, but they must prohibit construction at 7:40AM and on Sunday mornings.

We live in paradise. But we also live in hell.

“I can get through this.” I’ll just turn up the music. Turn on a fan. Wear noise-cancelling headphones. Travel.

Last week I was in Boston and New York. The peace and quiet. Coming home, the cab dropped me off in front of my house. For a moment I was fooled. Took a deep breath. Home sweet home. Then I heard the drill next door. The peace shattered, I remembered why I dread living here.

I’ve done one very short construction project of my own on a house I bought in 1992 in Woodside. Other than that I’ve been on the receiving end.

What are the rules? Maybe we need some new ones. Or just a little compromising or understanding. Appreciation for our community.

I think at a minimum we should have the same information about the project that they have. If they know the crew will be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the neighbors should know too. Maybe we should have two months of the year when you can’t do projects so that neighborhoods could enjoy at least some of the sunny season. What about people who move out of the neighborhood while their house is under construction. I understand they can’t live in the house, but it seems a bit unfair that they don’t have to deal with the noise they inflict on their community.

Maybe there should be a cost for excessive noise. An incentive to keep it quieter. I love weekends here. I look forward to rainy season.

I think one thing we can ask for is that the people with the projects at least listen to the people who are effected by their projects. You shouldn’t be able to send a contractor or architect around to notify people about your project. When that happens I refuse to sign the form they put in front of me. I give them my number and ask that the homeowner give a call. It seems pretty basic, no?

Update: Construction suckage extends to the UC campus.

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In case, like me, you missed the one night, pop-up izakaya on Shattuck yesterday, reader Bumble Bee provides a mouthwatering report through the comments:

Wow! That was the best authentic Japanese food I’ve had in a long time outside my house. The dashi for age-dashi eggplants were wonderful, pork belly and daikons cooked to perfection, croquettes had a very nice home-made “crust” with just enough sweetness, and myoga was a great addition to the sardines. I almost asked for a bowl of rice to soak up all the wonderful juices. Thank you, Sylvan!

Photo of Japanese izakaya by Aya Brackett

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This report is coming to you from your New York correspondent, here on family business…

The Breakfast-Cabal mail list is abuzz with news about helicopters flying over Berkeley today.

Art Medlar wrote: “…there’s no place to go to get an immediate answer to the general question, ‘what’s up with the helicopters?’ For the most part, the online edition of the Oakland Tribune tends to post breaking news long before either the Chronicle or the Daily Planet, both of which are equally hopeless on that front. Attempting to get the info from the websites of the actual news companies involved is beyond laughable.”

“It would seem like there’s an opening for someone like inberkeley.com to add a ‘helicopter’ tag and become the default source of info.”

Art, let’s see what the InBerkeley.com readers know about the helicopters…

David Rowland adds: “I live near Willard Park, and about once a year something happens that draws the news copters to our area. Although it’s very expensive to keep them up there, if nothing else is happening they will linger for hours, making square miles of noise. I have called the FAA noise complaint line and the individual stations when I can determine which are involved. I think the word gets through, and it may have some effect.”

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A coffee insurgency may be in the making as startup coffee impresario Phil Jaber readies his first foray into the East Bay with a new Philz Coffee store to be located at 1600 Shattuck Ave. at the corner of Cedar, site of a former Starbucks Coffee Cafe de la Paz, and just a stone’s throw from the original Peet’s outlet.

I have never tasted Philz coffee, but their web site emphasizes the “special customized blends” used to make every “hand-crafted to your liking” coffee drink, and describes their drinks this way: “The amount of beans we put into each cup is equivalent to 3 cups of your normal coffee so you will be as high as a plane!” The web site sells T-shirts and other swag, and even features a cartooned Quentin Tarantino quote about their mocha drink.

Since opening his first store in 2003, Jaber has expanded to six outlets in San Francisco and down the peninsula in Palo Alto and San Jose, and Philz has generally gotten good reviews, so they must be doing something right. And all their shops feature free Wi-Fi.

Watch out Peet’s. Here comes Philz.

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Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion created a storm of controversy over the question of God’s existence. Now, in The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins presents a stunning counterattack against advocates of “Intelligent Design” that explains the evidence for evolution while keeping an eye trained on the absurdities of the creationist argument.

Berkeley Arts & Letters presents Richard Dawkins on Wednesday, October 7, 7:30 p.m., at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana St. Tickets are $12 in advance ($6 for students with ID) at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006, or $15 at the door.

Update Melissa Mytinger from Berkeley Arts & Letters reports that the Dawkins talk will sell out in the next few days. If you want to attend, order tickets online. There will be nothing left at the door.

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We’ve written about dumpster diving in Berkeley before, but that was for someone’s pigs. In I Love Trash, an independent documentary which came out last year, David Brown and Greg Mann try a three-month experiment. Can they live in Berkeley purely on trash?

It’s more than a stunt. The film is a powerful polemic against waste in our society. Worth a look. (Thanks for the tip, Catherine.)

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The Twitterstream is buzzing about Ellen DeGeneres being in Berkeley.  Tomorrow?  Soon?  Who knows?  It all started around 6:41 p.m. this evening with this tweet from TheEllenShow:

Are you in Berkeley, California? Are you near Berkeley? Can you get to Berkeley by tomorrow? Then keep following my Tweets.

No other explanation.  But the Twitterstream quickly lit up like a Christmas tree with retweets and responses from all over the world, some excited, some dejected because they can’t make it to Berkeley. Even Oakland-based Ask.com has offered their assistance, tweeting:

The Ask.com office is near Berkeley! We’ll rally the office if need be!

If anyone out there know more than this, let us know.  In the meantime, we’ll be following her tweets.

UPDATE: At 11:30 this morning (Wednesday), TheEllenShow tweeted:

Tweet to UC Berkeley: Students, faculty, honored guests, keep studying my Tweets. There’s gonna be a test today.

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We love getting mail from people like Douglas Smith, Deputy Director at the Berkeley Public Libary. He says: “I realize this is in a sense promoting the organization that I work for, but I do believe this is exactly the sort of thing that downtown needs and I’m really proud to be involved in creating innovative, community-building events here in my hometown.”

We’re totally with you on that. One thing a local blog like InBerkeley has a conflict about is our hometown — we admit to being biased. We like things that make our town more interesting like the events you guys are hosting.

For example…

This evening at 8PM, on the front steps of the library, 2900 Kittredge, there’s a free reading and performance by local writers, artists and musicians. It begins just after the library closes.

And Douglas, please keep us posted on upcoming events at the library!

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We’ve been evolving InBerkeley organically since its launch in June. It’s gratifying to see more and more people providing comments to our posts, and we’re beginning to get occasional tips on interesting things in Berkeley.

We’d like to know if there are particular Berkeley issues you’d like covered, people you’d like to see interviewed, little-known Berkeley treasures you’d like revealed. Let us know through the comments, or send us an email through tips@inberkeley.com.

If you want to become more deeply involved and write for InBerkeley, look at our notes for contributors and get in touch.

Photo by Ryan Greenberg from Flickr

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Overheard today on the Twitterstream:

connortmcdonald: Walking by Berkeley High this morning – Guys prepped out in sweater vests – Girls in cuffed jean shorts. John Hughes is smiling.

kibird: Flushed and disoriented from 1st trip to the new Berkeley Bowl. Maybe this organic elderflower soda and a pluot will calm me down.

nitin: Just passed a girl sitting in a tree by Euclid and Hearst in Berkeley talking on a cell phone. Voice from on high a little disconcerting.

peterberen: Just saw an exhibit of protest posters from the 60’s and early ’70s at the Berkeley Historical Society called “Up Against the Wall.”

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In conjunction with its revised and expanded edition of the popular 41 Walking Tours of Berkeley, the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association will be leading a series of five walking tours in select Berkeley neighborhoods over the next five weeks. All tours take place on a Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon starting tomorrow with a tour of the Dwight Way Station area.

Nineteenth-century business boosters tried unsuccessfully to shift the center of Berkeley’s Downtown several blocks south to Dwight Way Station. They failed, and instead the area became today’s district of fascinating Victorian homes, small-scale commercial buildings, and nearly forgotten historic sites at the intersection of Downtown, the Southside, the Le Conte neighborhood, and the areas west of Shattuck Avenue.

Steven Finacom will lead the Dwight Way Station walking tour. Other tours on subsequent Saturdays include West Berkeley, North-Central Berkeley, Claremont Creekside and Berkeley Villa Tract.

All tours are limited to 25 people. Tickets cost $10 per tour for association members, $15 for the general public, with discounts available for the whole series. For more information visit the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association web site.

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You’re invited! Come join in a lively local conversation about mothers, families and the women’s movement. The Hillside Club in Berkeley is hosting the event with MomsRising’s co-founder Joan Blades leading the conversation.

WHAT: “Mothers, Family, and the Women’s Movement in the 21st Century”
WHERE: Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley CA 94709
WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 20, 7:00 PM
WHO: You, your kids, friends, neighbors– all are welcome!

This Hillside Club event is $10, or $5 for club members and members of momsRising.

Tickets available online and at the door. Seating is limited.

We’d love to see you there!

A Woman’s Voice will present Joan Blades in conversation with friends and audience members discussing the role of mothers, families and how they relate to the on-going women’s movement now and in the future. Joan is a co-founder of both MoveOn.org and MomsRising.org. The former is a political education and advocacy group; the latter
works to bring together millions of people who share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America.

This is the first in a monthly series of lectures at the Club. The series, A Woman’s Voice, gives women an opportunity to express their passion to a new or wider audience.

Joan Blades is a co-founder of MoveOn.org, which has an online membership of over 5 million. Mother’s Day 2006 she co-founded MomsRising.org with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner to tap the power of online grassroots organizing for mothers and families in the U.S. MomsRising has an online membership of over 1 million. She is the co-author of The Motherhood Manifesto, which won the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize in 2007. Last century she co-founded Berkeley Systems, taught mediation at Golden Gate Law School, practiced mediation, and wrote Mediate Your Divorce. She is also a mother, a writer, an artist, a jeweler, a soccer player, and a Hillside Club member.

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