Arts & Events

Front Steps of Berkeley Public Library, Shattuck at Kittredge, downtown Berkeley

6:15 Sign up for public comment at the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) meeting
6:30 Speak out at the BOLT public comment session

The library director, Jeff Scott, resigned under pressure, effective today.
But the rampant weeding, mistreatment of staff and breach of trust with the community is not just about one person.

We're calling for an immediate investigation of what went wrong, and how the library can learn from these mistakes.

We're calling for the 34 librarians to be returned to their work of buying and weeding the book collection, and having access to the book budget.

We're calling for BOLT to leave the Deputy Director position open to allow for continuing applications. This will enable the new Director to choose a Deputy from the greatest, professional pool of applicants.

Please meet up on this WEDNESDAY evening to persuade the BOLT to renew, rebuild and restore the community's trust in the library.

And get your friends to sign the petition!

Thanks!
www.savethebplbooks.org -more-

On Sunday, August 30, The New Esterházy Quartet presented the third and final concert at Berkeley’s Hillside Club in their series devoted to the Late Quartets of Ludwig von Beethoven. The Sunday program featured the14th Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, and the Grosse Fugue. Prior to performing these works, New Esterházy violist Anthony Martin noted that they would play these works through without stopping to re-tune their period instruments between movements; and he begged our indulgence if by the end of each work their instruments were no longer in tune. This, of course, is a problem with period instruments and gut strings. I for one do not mind the re-tuning between movements that occurred, for example, during Wednesday evening’s concert, though some members of the audience had problems with this. (Pace Larry Bensky.) My attitude toward period instruments is to cherish the advantages they offer while tolerating their limitations. In any case, on a hot, humid Sunday afternoon, in a packed to the brim Hillside Club where 200 bodies were seated in the audience, thereby raising both the room temperature and the humidity, both of which are inimical to gut strings, The New Esterházy Quartet managed to complete each work without a pause and without sounding out of tune. To this I can only say “Bravo!” -more-

Alex Gibney's new biopic about Steve Jobs—the charismatic force-and-face forever associated with the rise of the iRevolution—is a long (127 minute) scramble of a film that lacks the designed beauty and functional simplicity of an Apple product. It's more like the kind of term paper compiled in the era of Google searches. -more-