upcoming Oakland events

The big event this weekend is the Oakland Running Festival! If you're not running in it, come out and cheer on the runners. I'll be a course marshal near Lake Merritt and Grand Avenue. Let me know about other events by leaving a comment!

Wednesday

What I Hear, I Keep: Stories from Oakland's Griots - Wednesday-Saturday, 2:30-5:30pm. Visual and audio art installation at Peralta Hacienda based on African American stories of modern-day Oakland, with local residents telling about their lives and exploring their identities. (with $5 admission)

Vintage porcelain at the Pardee Home - Wednesdays, 2nd Saturdays, 2nd Sundays. View the historic Pardee Home and the collection of porcelain collected by the globe-trotting Mrs. Pardee. You can take the tour for $5 or have the tour and tea for $25. Read more at World of Mailman. Read about the tea service on the East Bay Express. ($5/$25)

Friday

Off the Grid at OMCA - Friday, 5-9pm. The Off the Grid food truck pod comes to the Oakland Museum for an evening of food and fun.

Saturday

celebrate parklets with WOBO - Saturday, March 23, 11am-2pm. Join Walk Oakland Bike Oakland and Manifesto Bicycles to celebrate parklets in Oakland! Food from El Taco Bike and Fist of Flour Pizza. (free)

Prescott Circus Showcase - Saturday, March 23, 11:30am and 2pm. The Prescott Circus Theatre Showcase features talented youth from 7 Oakland public elementary schools. This 1 hour performance will inspire and amaze as our students perform juggling, acrobatics, hip hop dance, stilt dancing, clowning, and more! (free)

Actual Cafe turns 3! - Saturday, March 23, 6-10pm. Join Sal and the crew to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Actual Cafe. Special beers from 21st Amendment, live music from Even Taylor, Kim Tillman, Genevieve Wolff, Arbielle and Lindee Hoshikawa. (free)

Paintings by Robert Akeley - A Retrospective - Saturdays, 11am-5pm. See an exhibition of paintings by long-time resident Robert Akeley at the Rise Above Gallery.

The Big Painting Show - Saturdays, 1-5pm. See paintings by 8 established Bay Area artists at the Gray Loft Gallery in Jingletown. The Big Painting Show: Layers of Abstraction features the work of Rick Arnitz, Mark Ashworth, Suzy Barnard, Jamie Brunson, Betty Jo Costanzo, Carol Lefkowitz, Simone Simon, and June Yokell. (free)

Sunday

Oakland Running Festival - Sunday, March 24. Whether you're a runner, a volunteer or a spectator, it's a great big blast of Oakland love. There's a 5K race, a 1/2 marathon and a full marathon.

ongoing events:

• Art Murmur (1st Friday)
• Saturday Art Stroll (Saturdays)
• Mt. View Cemetery Tours (2nd and 4th Saturdays)
• Piedmont Avenue Stroll (3rd Thursdays)
• Off the Grid at OMCA (Fridays)

looking further ahead:

Destiny Arts Center - groundbreaking party - Friday, March 29, 6-10pm. Demolition will start soon on our new building at 967 Stanford in Oakland and want to invite all of our friends, family, and community to celebrate Destiny style! Food from Tina Tamale available for purchase. ($25 suggested donation)

Takin' the Beets to the Streets! - Saturday, March 30, 6pm. Pay-what-you-can community dinner project between The People's Kitchen and the Phat Beets Produce. This family-style dinner will feature live music, performance, and a multi-course meal celebrating the food justice work of Phat Beets Produce, the history vibrant and radical history of North Oakland and the new kitchen incubation project with Crossroads Co-op Cafe! (pay what you can)

bike ride to Uptown Art Park opening - Friday, April 5, 5:30pm. The East Bay Bicycle Coalition, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland (WOBO) and Bikes4Life will host a fun, 1.5 mile bike ride to the event. Riders of all ages are invited to gather at 5:30 p.m. at Bikes4Life, 1600 7th Street @ Willow in West Oakland (take BART to the West Oakland station). Free bike lights will be offered to participants courtesy of the City of Oakland (limited supply – arrive by 5:30 p.m.). Bike valet parking will be provided by Richmond Spokes. (free)

Uptown Art Park opening - Friday, April 5, 6:30-8:30pm. Come celebrate the opening of the Uptown Art Park. Nine Sculpture Art Pieces by Local Artists, plus music, tours and food trucks. (free)

Day of Peace 2013 - Saturday, April 13, 9am-noon. Join Project Peace East Bay for Day of Peace service projects around Oakland and Berkeley. (free)

OHA: Great Estates in April - Saturday, April 20. The Oakland Heritage Alliance house tour features Tudor and Mediterranean revival style homes Claremont Pines and Upper Rockridge, which emerged as suburban garden developments in the first decades of the 1900s.

signs: Lungomare

Istill haven't been there to eat, but was at JLS yesterday and snapped this photo of the Lungomare sign. The location used to be Miss Pearl's Jam House which had a much fancier sign, but this one isn't bad.

photo of the week: shapes

One of my more abstract and favorite shots from my most recent Mountain View Cemetery explorations.

more Mountain View Cemetery explorations

Wednesday I took advantage of the amazing weather and stopped by Mountain View Cemetery. I wanted to find the grave of Chris P. Johnson, founder of the Johnson Electric Washer Co. but I also wanted to check some things out at Saint Mary's Cemetery so I figured I wouldn't stay too long. Um, yeah, about that...

I ran into some friends I know from Habitat for Humanity who were out for a walk with their 10-week old baby in a carrier. We got to talking, and I showed them the map of the cemetery which shows the locations of some of the interesting people buried at Mountain View.

After we parted, I looked at the map to figure out the route to plot 66A, and noticed that I would be going close to the grave for Enoch Homer Pardee, the 18th mayor Oakland and his son, George Pardee, 29th mayor of Oakland and later governor of California. Oh, and Moses Chase is buried nearby. Just one more little side trip...

A few side trips later, I did make it to plot 66A and found the Johnson Grave. The entire plot is markers that are flat with the ground, like in plot 54. In theory, this makes it easier to maintain, as you can just run a lawnmower over everything, but in practice it was found that flat stones have a tendency to sink over time. It also makes it harder to find graves, as from a distance there's nothing distinctive about any of them. Plot 66A is in a lovely area, and though it doesn't have the sweeping vistas of nearby "millionaire's row", the views aren't too shabby.

But then I was off to check on something else I'd seen...a truck with a compressor and sandblaster working on a gravestone nearby. I talked for a while with Dale, the owner and chief of Gateway Memorials. He was mostly done by the time I got there, but I learned a bit about the marking of gravestones. Whether they're working in the shop on a new marker or in a cemetery on an existing one, they use a heavy, slightly adhesive sheet of rubber as a mask. What's not covered gets sandblasted, then painted with black or white paint. It turns out Dale's company also does work in Kaua'i, so it's entirely possible I've seen some of their work when I was there last summer.

I did some more looking around plot 66A, and then realized I didn't have time to go to Saint Mary's Cemetery, too, so I might as well make the most of my time here. I checked the map again to see what other well-known markers I could visit that I hadn't seen before. I went along the row of mausoleums below "millionaire's row".

From there I swung past the Folger (of Folgers Coffee) plot then back to find the mausoleum of David Hewes, who was an associate of The Big Four, and lived for a time at Camron-Stanford House on Lake Merritt. Oh, look, some of the Camrons and the Marshes are just down the hill. And Ina Coolbrith—I think I've seen her grave, but do I have a picture of it?

After only a few more side trips, I eventually left the cemetery. But as usual, I had a few answers, but I had even more questions than when I'd arrived. At least for a change, I'd actually found what I was looking for instead of getting completely sidetracked.

Lots more photos from my exploration:

upcoming Oakland events

Running late, and definitely running behind. Let me know about other events by leaving a comment!

Wednesday

What I Hear, I Keep: Stories from Oakland's Griots - Wednesday-Saturday, 2:30-5:30pm. Visual and audio art installation at Peralta Hacienda based on African American stories of modern-day Oakland, with local residents telling about their lives and exploring their identities. (with $5 admission)

Vintage porcelain at the Pardee Home - Wednesdays, 2nd Saturdays, 2nd Sundays. View the historic Pardee Home and the collection of porcelain collected by the globe-trotting Mrs. Pardee. You can take the tour for $5 or have the tour and tea for $25. Read more at World of Mailman. Read about the tea service on the East Bay Express. ($5/$25)

Thursday

Conversations with Julia Morgan - Thursday, March 14, 1:30–2:30pm. OMCA celebrates Women's History Month and renowned architect Julia Morgan as portrayed by Betty Marvin, a historian and preservation planner. (with admission)

Friday

Off the Grid at OMCA - Friday, 5-9pm. The Off the Grid food truck pod comes to the Oakland Museum for an evening of food and fun.

Bay Area Underground reading - Friday, 7-8:30pm. Join author Matt Werner and photographer Joe Sciarrillo for a reading and discussion of Bay Area Underground. See some photos from the book here. At SoleSpace, 1714 Telegraph. (free)

Saturday

Paintings by Robert Akeley - A Retrospective - Saturdays, 11am-5pm, . See an exhibition of paintings by long-time resident Robert Akeley at the Rise Above Gallery.

The Big Painting Show - Saturdays, 1-5pm. See paintings by 8 established Bay Area artists at the Gray Loft Gallery in Jingletown. The Big Painting Show: Layers of Abstraction features the work of Rick Arnitz, Mark Ashworth, Suzy Barnard, Jamie Brunson, Betty Jo Costanzo, Carol Lefkowitz, Simone Simon, and June Yokell. (free)

ongoing events:

• Art Murmur (1st Friday)
• Saturday Art Stroll (Saturdays)
• Mt. View Cemetery Tours (2nd and 4th Saturdays)
• Off the Grid at OMCA (Fridays)

looking further ahead:

celebrate parklets with WOBO - Saturday, March 23, 11am-2pm. Join Walk Oakland Bike Oakland and Manifesto Bicycles to celebrate parklets in Oakland! Food from El Taco Bike and Fist of Flour Pizza. (free)

Oakland Running Festival - Sunday, March 24. Whether you're a runner, a volunteer or a spectator, it's a great big blast of Oakland love. There's a 5K race, a 1/2 marathon and a full marathon.