Tag Archives: David Brower Center
The It List: Five things to do in Berkeley this weekend
YEAR OF THE SNAKE Thank your lucky stars that you don’t need to brave Beijing Railway Station, reportedly the busiest spot on Earth this weekend, to find Lunar New Year celebrations. Berkeleyans can instead stroll over to Solano Avenue for a Lunar New Year parade and performance celebrating the Year of the Snake on Sunday. The performances kick off at 1o a.m. in Landmark Theatre’s Albany Twin, and include acrobatics by members of the SF Circus, Chinese dance by Ah-Lan Dance and Lion Dance and a martial arts display by Golden Lion. After the performance, there will be a parade up the entire length of Solano (on the sidewalk), starting at noon. Performance at Albany Twin, 1115 Solano Avenue, Albany, at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
WAKE UP AND HEAR THE BIRDS If you want to get a move on Saturday morning, what could be better than a birding walk through the Botanical Garden. Apparently, birds are surprisingly active in winter in the garden, and Chris Carmichael, associate director of collections and research, and local birder Phila Rogers will be there to point out sights of interest. Registration is required and space is limited. Tickets are $20, $15 for members. The birding walk is from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. … Continue reading »
The environment: Three art shows that reflect landscape
By Plinio Hernandez
As a life long resident of Berkeley, being conscious about the environment and global justice comes as second nature in my daily life. Biking, gardening, beekeeping, or donating to a much needed cause are all part of what I live and breathe in Berkeley. If you want to visually experience art that reflects these issues, three ongoing art exhibits in Berkeley, all varying in medium and style, exemplify ideas of the poetic and the political by exploring concepts of land usage, abstract landscape, and migrant farm workers.
The first and the most conceptual of these exhibits is “Land, Use” at the Hazel Wolf Gallery, located inside the David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley. For this exhibition, the Brower Center has commissioned the first collaboration between Amy Franceschini (San Francisco, CA) and Fernando García-Dory (Madrid, Spain). Individual projects by these artists are also on display. The exhibit is made up of documentary-style videos, drawings, photographs, silk-screen posters, remnants of a workshop facilitated at the gallery, and writings that both artists use to bring their social practice methodology into the gallery space. … Continue reading »
Startup Berkeley: does the past guide a city’s future?
For several decades, Berkeley — and the East Bay more generally — has looked longingly at the vibrant enterprise and job creation on the Peninsula and in the South Bay. Why can’t Silicon Valley spread its secret sauce across the Bay?
After all, Berkeley has two great research institutions — UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab — churning out innovations and the young scientists and technologists that spawn them. All too often, however, those ideas and people go elsewhere to commercialize their activities. Part of the discussion on March 5, at the Berkeleyside Local Business Forum on “Startup Berkeley” will examine whether that dynamic can change.
A recent comment by “Vbkly” on Berkeleyside provided a case in point: “Ah yes how do we overcome the Great Wall of Berkeley? You know the Wall that has stopped Sun, Linux, Medical Radioisotopes, the Manhattan Project, Andy Grove and most of the key people in Silicon Valley, Genentech, Intel, Apple, Inktomi, Google and not to mention RAVE (which overcame a major barrier to Moore’s Law). All of these companies started in Berkeley or were founded/run by Berkeley people.” … Continue reading »
New guide aims to improve school food beyond Berkeley
Regular readers may think that the only person in town doing anything to fix school food in Berkeley and beyond is Alice Waters via her Edible Schoolyard Project.
But that perception would be wrong. Founded in 1995, the Center for Ecoliteracy has also long championed school food reform and channeled funding in the millions to garden programs, cooking classes, and nutrition-based curriculum in Berkeley public schools.
Along with the Chez Panisse Foundation and Berkeley Unified School District, the Center for Ecoliteracy also implemented the School Lunch Initiative, which kickstarted local, seasonal, and sustainable food for students here and connected the classroom and the cafeteria. … Continue reading »
Homegrown truths: Sunny Side Café chef Aaron French
Aaron French, a self-described eco-chef, has headed up the kitchen at The Sunny Side Café on Solano Avenue in Albany since it opened in 2004.
For the past two years he’s served up breakfast standards (think pancakes and eggs) and simple lunch fare (burgers, sandwiches, salads) at a satellite café of the same name in Berkeley.
French bounces between the two popular spots several times a day and jokes that the breakfast-brunch shift is the Rodney Dangerfield of cooking (it don’t get no respect).
Still, he’s proudest of his low carbon emissions menu options and his weekend food specials, a short, seasonal list that emphasizes local farms and calculates food miles.
French isn’t your typical chef. Before he cooked for a living he worked as a scientist. His interest in ecology led him to spend two years living among pygmies in Cameroon, where he studied seed dispersal by monkeys and birds.
An avid nature photographer, he’s also written about the relationship between ecology and food for the Bay Area News Group, where he penned the EcoChef column, as well as for Civil Eats and Fungi Magazine. … Continue reading »
Farm-to-fork tours spotlight local green businesses
Three years ago, Marissa LaMagna started Bay Area Green Tours, a nonprofit, shoestring operation now headquartered in the David Brower Center (and largely staffed by eager, eco-conscious, unpaid interns) because she wanted to showcase the best sustainable farms and food, buildings and businesses, energy practices and employment opportunities in Berkeley and beyond.
The green tour business with a biodiesel bus takes people from near and far to see for themselves and hear the stories behind successful sustainable enterprises … Continue reading »
Bagel man Noah Alper on why doing good is good business
Noah Alper, who founded Noah’s Bagels in Berkeley in 1989 — and sold it and five other ventures six years later for $100 million — will be giving a talk this week on Thursday evening at the Berkeley Hub. The serial entrepreneur will share thoughts on his view that “doing good is good for business”.
The Hub is at the David Brower Center. Details of the talk and ticket information can be found at the Hub’s website.
Read … Continue reading »
Berkeley’s first LEED Platinum building is a living lab
The David Brower Center, which was unveiled two years ago on the corner of Allston Way and Oxford, was always intended to be more than your average edifice. “We set out to create an exemplary building,” said its architect, Daniel Solomon.
Now the center, named after the prominent Berkeley environmentalist, and designed to be a hub for environmental and social action, has earned one of the top green-building accolades, with a Platinum LEED certification from the … Continue reading »
Redford Center to close its Berkeley office
The Redford Center, an organization started by the actor Robert Redford and his three children to foster discussion about social change, will shutter its Berkeley offices in February.
Lee Bycel, the center’s director, revealed the news last week via an email sent to supporters.
“I am writing to update you on some important developments with the Redford Center,” wrote Bycel. “After careful evaluation, the Redford family has decided to centralize Redford Center activity out of the Sundance Village … Continue reading »
Defending rivers and the people who depend on them
Water is the subject of a panel discussion this evening at the David Brower Center to kick off Water, Rivers and People/Agua, Ríos y Pueblos, a photography exhibition in the center’s Hazel Wolf Gallery.
The exhibition, an international collaboration, is an homage to those who fight to defend rivers and the people who depend on them. Through its striking imagery, the exhibition charts inspiring examples of rivers that have been protected by citizen action, and community-led efforts … Continue reading »
Food and farming: Double header this Thursday
Berkeleysiders interested in food and farming may find themselves torn between two edible events being held downtown — or bouncing between both this Thursday.
The Earth Island Institute and VegNews Magazine host a hot-topic debate: “Can You Be a ‘Good Environmentalist’ and Still Eat Meat?” In one corner, Nicolette Hahn Niman, a Marin rancher and author of Righteous Porkchop, who believes there is an ecologically sustainable way to eat animals. Niman’s … Continue reading »
Berkeley Bites: Ari Derfel and Eric Fenster
Each Friday in this space food writer Sarah Henry asks a well-known, up-and-coming, or under-the-radar food aficionado about their favorite tastes in town, preferred food purveyors and other local culinary gems worth sharing.
Ari Derfel and Eric Fenster, who run the recently opened Gather restaurant, met at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Eric’s first week on campus. A road trip to the Rockies cemented the friendship. A few years later, they bumped into each other at a … Continue reading »
