Arts & Events

FRIDAY, FEB. 9 -more-

ACTIVE ARTS THEATER FOR KIDS -more-

Jazz singer Ed Reed will celebrate the release of his first CD, Ed Reed Sings Love Stories, this Saturday (Feb. 10) at Anna’s Jazz Island, performing a rare date with the stellar band that made the album, led by Berkeley favorite (now New York-based) Peck Allmond, a triumph for an unusual vocalist of real excellence, whose hour is long overdue. -more-

There are more than 400 prisoners in the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, rotting away with little or no recourse to the law, no contact with families or lawyers or the governments of the nations from which they came. Tragic as the situation may be, these men are almost celebrity cases in comparison to the hundreds or possibly thousands of wrongly incarcerated men who bide their time in our state and federal prisons. -more-

An old Brooklyn mansion, stuffed with memories—and more than memories—of an eccentric, even grisly past, presently populated by two smiling old spinsters who only want to help lonely men find peace; one nephew, a gangster, who barges in with his drunken plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein; a chorus line of Irish cops; and the other nephew, in love with the minister’s daughter next door, himself the grisliest thing of all—a drama critic. -more-

Luis Garcia and Richard Krech, two lifelong Berkeley poets, will read for Monday At Moe’s, the series produced by Owen Hill at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave., 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 12. -more-

If you’ve ever dined in the rear portion of the Great China restaurant on Kittredge Street, you might have noticed that this space is markedly different from the front part. Redwood board-and-batten wainscots; redwood doors and window trim; a beamed tongue-and-groove ceiling with elegantly carved brackets; and a doorway incorporating a fan of Victorian spindlework all suggest that these rooms were part of a former home. -more-

A couple of months ago, I wrote about Berkeley Indoor Gardens, an indoor gardening (surprise!) store down at the tidal end of University Avenue. I got to feeling bad because I hadn’t written about the other indoor gardening store across the street. This one even advertises on KPIG, my favorite radio station. (So does Memphis Minnie’s, home of the best Sunday brunch in San Francisco. Don’t take my word for it—go eat!) -more-

Breakers of the space-age: In 2003 there were over 73,000 electrical fires and nearly 600 resulting deaths, not to mention about a billion dollars in property loss. Most of these fires were caused by electrical “arcing.” -more-

FRIDAY, FEB. 9 -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 6 -more-

OLD TIME MUSIC IN BERKELEY -more-

In his interview with Robert Hass to an overflowing crowd at International House, the Columbian artist Fernando Botero mentioned that when reading Seymour Hersh’s article in The New Yorker about American soldiers using torture in the same prison at Abu Ghraib where Saddam Hussein used similar violent tactics, he was deeply shocked. -more-

Robert Ernst, cofounder of ’70s-’80s Berkeley experimental performance cooperative The Blake Street Hawkeyes and writer, director, teacher, musician and actor, has a new play, Catherine’s Care, onstage for two more weeks in San Rafael. -more-

All right, the season’s over. Put down that polesaw. I don’t mean the pruning season, exactly. I mean the pruning free-for-all season: that season where a pruner’s only concern is the anatomy and physiology of the tree being pruned. -more-

TUESDAY, FEB. 6 -more-