Arts & Events

FRIDAY, DEC. 7 -more-

AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS -more-

In Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, directed by Berkeley favorite Joy Carlin at the San Francisco Playhouse off Union Square, what at first flush seems to be a loopy burlesque of that seasonal chestnut, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, proves postmodern. -more-

The California Revels opens tonight (Friday) at the Oakland Scottish Rite Auditorium on Lake Merritt, celebrating its 22nd season in two weekends of music, dance and pageantry. -more-

When art dabbles in politics it runs the risk of its politics subsuming its art. No matter how great the artistic achievement, there is always the danger that critical and popular reception may be held hostage to considerations that go far beyond artistic merit. -more-

Stately older houses can be at their best when festively decorated for the winter holidays. -more-

You don’t need an official occasion, you know. If you know a gardener, go ahead and give her a gift just ‘cuz. Call it an Unbirthday Present; I do a certain amount of that with my rellies because after 58 years of living in it I still don’t track time very well. -more-

I was out with a young contractor at the home of a client he wanted me to talk with the other day. The homeowner had a wet basement and garage that never seemed to dry out. We walked around and I looked up the hill to find a line of extraordinarily healthy and prolific trees and shrubs marching to the crest of the hill. They ran in a line from north to south, roughly. “Creek”, I cried, “Well, maybe an aquifer.” -more-

FRIDAY, DEC. 7 -more-

TUESDAY, DEC. 4 -more-

Christmas in wartime America—but it’s the First World War, and the administration is set to declare a moratorium on toy sales to encourage families to buy Liberty Bonds. -more-

TAJ MAHAL IN OAKLAND -more-

A couple of odds and ends: Robert Sapolsky, the Stanford neurobiologist, published a collection of his provocative essays a few years back as The Trouble with Testosterone. Where do you begin? Sapolsky was mostly interested in the hormone’s effect on the behavior of East African savannah baboons (see his A Primate’s Memoirs for tales of fieldwork) and on humans. But it’s not just a primate thing, or even a mammalian one. Birds have testosterone too, as do reptiles, amphibians, even fish: a common vertebrate heritage. -more-

TUESDAY, DEC. 4 -more-

The logo for Berkeley’s Hillside Club was not designed by David Lance Goines as captioned in the last issue. The logo was designed by Hillside Club member Bernard Maybeck. -more-

It’s time to submit your essays, poems, stories, artwork and photographs for the Planet’s annual holiday reader contribution issue, which will be published on Dec. 21. Send your submissions, preferably no more than 1,000 words, to holiday@berkeleydailyplanet.com. Deadline is 5 p.m. on Dec. 16. -more-