Monthly Archives: November 2012
The Berkeley Wire: 11.30.12
Hang in there, monkey. Photo: quinn.anya
Comal: A restaurant with adjustable acoustics (Popular Science)
Berkeley police investigate Telegraph Avenue stabbing (Daily Cal)
Berkeley Lab is part of $120m effort to build super-efficient car batteries (LBNL)
Chancellor-designate discusses his vision for Cal (Daily Cal)
Measure B1 backers to pay for partial recount (Express)
Berkeley studying electrical power options (Mercury News)
Stephen Kaus appointed Superior Court judge (Daily Cal)
Berkeley’s Crowden School to host South American evening (Mercury News)
Young Berkeley composer unveils work for quartet (Mercury News)
“We’re going on a Berkeley business scavenger hunt”
By Pete Rosos
You may know Pete Rosos as 2812 Photography; you will almost certainly have seen many of his photographs on Berkeleyside, including his wonderful Snapshot series, in which he takes the pulse of some of the most interesting, not necessarily high-profile, people of Berkeley, accompanied by gorgeous photographic portraits. Last weekend, Rosos embarked on an interesting Berkeley scavenger hunt orchestrated by Looking Glass Photo. He picks up the story:
It didn’t come as much surprise to me when my daughter of 10 started jumping for joy after I asked her whether or not she’d like to join me on a little scavenger hunt. What did raise my eyebrows was her reaction when I told her that it was a photo scavenger hunt. She has never really expressed much of an interest in photography before but, after explaining the details of the hunt, she was bounding across the house to ask her mother if she could borrow her digital camera. I had found out just a couple of days before that Looking Glass Photo was putting together the hunt to help drum up attention for Small Business Saturday. … Continue reading »
ID theft may affect 931 Berkeley ambulance customers
A total of 931 people who used Berkeley’s Fire Department ambulance services have had their personal information accessed inappropriately and are susceptible to identify theft, according to the City of Berkeley.
Advanced Data Processing (ADPI), the ambulance billing vendor for Berkeley, told the city on Oct. 1 that patient account information from the ambulance billing system had been illegally accessed by an ADPI employee.
Berkeley has begun notifying people that information including their name, date of birth and social security number may have been stolen from an agency that collects bills for ambulance services carried out by the Berkeley Fire Department. Medical records were not accessed. … Continue reading »
This week on NOSH: Japanese fare, cocktails, croissants
Bites: What’s new, what’s hot, what’s happening Our regular round-up of East Bay food news includes a new ramen spot to be opened by ex-Chez Panisse maître d’ Sam White, and a new bakery coming soon from Michael Jackson’s former personal chef.
Sipping an Airmail at Flora Restaurant and Bar The house favorite at Flora is a cocktail called Carter Beats the Devil. But Ms Barstool opted for the Airmail, which moves you from where you are to a mellower place, post haste.
A sneak peek at new French-style Berkeley bakery La Fournée Award-winning baker Frank Sally is set to open his new Claremont neighborhood venture in January. … Continue reading »
The It List: Five things to do in Berkeley this weekend
SHOP, SHOP, GIVE Now that Thanksgiving is over, let the holiday shopping begin! Berkeley is filled with craft and art shows in the coming weeks. We’ve wrapped up our pick of five of them into one It List package:
OPEN STUDIOS One of the longest-running and best-known is the Berkeley Artisans Holiday Open Studios. During the next four weekends, 100 artists will open their studios to display and sell blown glass, ceramics, furniture, garden art, floor cloths, textiles, jewelry, leather bags, recycled art, sculpture, photography, paintings and more. The studios are scattered around Berkeley and will be open Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Dec. 24.
POP UP ART Ten friends who are artists are banding together this holiday season to open a pop up store in the space below the Delaware Apartments at 1800 San Pablo Ave. at Delaware. They named it fancy too: The De La Ware. The artists are hosting an opening party Friday Nov. 30 from 6-9 p.m. and will also be open Dec. 1, 2, 8 and 9 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. … Continue reading »
New waste bin pick-up plans: Impossible in Berkeley?
A recent city announcement about a new approach to waste pick-up in Berkeley has left some readers perplexed and concerned.
The city has begun using automated one-person trucks to collect waste bins using a mechanical side-arm; in the past the trucks needed a second body in the rigs to pick up the bins. The city has said the new trucks will increase efficiency, but a number of readers have questioned the logistics of the new procedures.
As outlined in the brochure below, bins should be set one foot apart — in the gutter or driveway, with wheels against the curb — three feet from parked cars. On street cleaning days, or when the previously noted placement is otherwise impossible, bins can be set in the ‘parking strip’ between the sidewalk and gutter. … Continue reading »
Storm fells tree as rain pounds Berkeley, more to come
A tree limb heavy with leaves was felled by the storm Thursday night on Channing between 9th and 10th streets. Michael O’Heaney shot the photos here and said how impressed he was that the city was out at 7:15 a.m. Friday morning cutting the branches and clearing them away. “Good job Berkeley!” he wrote.
The National Weather Service forecast is for rain to continue almost without stop through to Sunday night, thanks to the so-called Pineapple Express (not the stoner movie, but the meteorological phenomenon). … Continue reading »
Sheila Jordan: An improvised life
If Sheila Jordan made a deal with the devil, she seems to be getting the best of the bargain. At 84, jazz’s most intrepid vocalist sounds like a woman half her age. She’s come through just about everything that life can throw at you: grinding rural poverty, thuggish police who harassed her for hanging out with black men, decades of scuffling for gigs in obscurity, and her own alcohol-driven demons. Nothing deterred her, and today she stands virtually alone as a survivor of the bebop era who literally sings praises for her late friend Charlie Parker at every gig.
Jordan makes a rare Bay Area appearance Monday at Freight & Salvage as part of a Jazzschool concert in her honor featuring Laurie Antonioli, Madeline Eastman, Kitty Margolis, and Ed Reed. The concert is a fundraiser for the Jazzschool Institute Mark Murphy Vocal Scholarship, which is awarded to a highly promising student (Jordan is also conducting a workshop at the Jazzschool on Sunday afternoon). … Continue reading »
Airmail at Flora: Rum, lime, honey, a dash of bubbly
Flora Restaurant and Bar, located in the 1930s Oakland Floral Depot building on Telegraph Avenue, combines Art Deco ambiance with Uptown panache. While a likeness of stage magician Carter the Great dominates the dining room, behind the bar the magic begins with Liam, bartender and teacher.
A barstool is the perfect place to observe some bartender sleight-of-hand and pick up a few tricks of the trade. So, notebook out, pen at the ready. Better still, Liam had an apprentice on a recent evening, so two bartenders fielded a series of questions about cocktails and techniques.
The house favorite is a concoction called Carter Beats the Devil which Liam describes as a smoky, spicy Margarita. But we opted to go top of the menu: the Airmail. … Continue reading »
The Berkeley Wire: 11.29.12
Ceiling at Doe Library. Photo: hammons.jane
Banned Berkeley marijuana collective may move to Vallejo (Times Herald)
Manning and Wikileaks supporters rally in Berkeley (Indy Bay)
UC Berkeley student Cody Johnson dies at 20 (Daily Cal)
Cal’s 2013 football schedule leads off with Northwestern (Tribune)
Berkeley Police investigate gunshot at Ed Roberts Campus
The Ed Roberts Campus near the Ashby BART station has been locked and closed for the day following a report of a gunshot inside one of the building’s public restrooms.
A sign on the doors as of about 3:15 p.m. informed people that the campus, at 3075 Adeline St., will re-open tomorrow. Those inside will be able to leave but people not on campus have been emailed not to come to the site. … Continue reading »
Cannabis collective 3PG closes its Berkeley operation
The sign for Perfect Plants Patients Group is still in the window of 2840-B Sacramento Street, but the cannabis collective has closed up shop, according to its owner, Eric Thomas.
The collective shut its doors on Nov. 14, the day after the Berkeley City Council held a public hearing that determined the collective was a nuisance and was in violation of zoning laws, according to Thomas. While he moved out his product, many files, and some furniture that day, the landlord changed the locks on Nov. 15 when Thomas did not pay the next month’s rent. He has been unable to get inside to retrieve the last of his possessions and take out the sign, he said.
Thomas has no firm plans to reopen the collective, which has been operating since September 2011. He runs another 3PG in Vallejo and he is offering Berkeley clients a 25% discount on medicine purchased there, he said. 3PG is also doing Berkeley deliveries from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. … Continue reading »
New Sproul, design ideas provide optimism for Telegraph
The future of Telegraph Avenue was the focus of a special work session of Berkeley’s City Council on Tuesday evening. Where most discussions of Telegraph concentrate on the many problems of the area — declining retail sales, vacant lots, troubling street behavior — Tuesday was filled with positive images and ideas for the avenue.
At the center of the discussions was one concrete project — the University of California Berkeley’s Lower Sproul Plaza redevelopment — and one ambitious series of new ideas, created by Berkeley Design Advocates following their design charrette last April. … Continue reading »
