Arts & Events

TUESDAY, APRIL 4 -more-

The Ballad Singer strikes up with the one about Mack The Knife—“Mackie Messer,” more properly—and the upside-down underworld odyssey of Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera begins. -more-

“How much do I love my child?” The question is repeated over and over like a mantra in Eric Coble’s Bright Ideas, a comedy that “combines Macbeth, pesto and murder,” now running in Shotgun Players’ production at the Ashby Stage. -more-

There sure are some funny-looking trees in this town. Some of them are the results of whimsical pruning—there’s a big cedar in my general neighborhood, a traffic accident in waiting because I can’t be the only person who reflexively eases up on the gas p edal to stare when passing it. -more-

TUESDAY, APRIL 4 -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 31 -more-

“I get goosebumps listening to that music,” Howard Wiley said. “Anything you do that gives you goosebumps—that experience is good.” -more-

The Jazz House, homeless this past year and a half since losing their lease on Adeline Street, is coming back to Berkeley tonight (Friday) at 8 p.m. with a show by young Finnish drummer Andre Sumelius, with his countryman, saxophonist Jussi Kannaste, and bassist John Shifflett, at Da Silva’s Ukelele Shop, 2547 Eighth St., co-produced by Berkeley Arts Festival. Sumelius won the Finnish Grammy for his 2001 album Kira. -more-

Jacques Demy has taken a lot of hits over the years. He was a man who attempted to make movies for everyone, yet he was never what people wanted him to be. He wasn’t political enough, wasn’t edgy enough, wasn’t rebellious enough. -more-

The following is an excerpt from Richard Schwartz’s Earthquake Exodus, 1906: Berkeley Responds to the San Francisco Refugees. The Daily Planet will run two more excerpts in the coming weeks. -more-

FRIDAY, MARCH 31 -more-

Over the years I’ve probably been asked how I inspect a house or what am I looking for at least a thousand times. It’s a valid question. I guess it’s like saying “How do you inspect a square kilometer of desert?” -more-

Persistent readers may have noticed, in this and other writings in this and other publications (I refer specifically to my every-other-Tuesday back page column on the trees of Berkeley in the Daily Planet), that I have definite opinions and strong feelings about, of all things, the treatment of trees. -more-