Week 4 June, 2010
This week’s highlighted local treasure is Our Oakland: Eastside Stories. From their website:
Our Oakland : Eastside Stories is an integrated public art project by artist Rene Yung that will beautify the new East Oakland Community Library and create a new platform for community storytelling about East Oakland. The overall theme of the project is Mutuality + Transformation, meaning that as members of a community, each of us is interconnected and we have the power to individually and collectively take action to make positive changes in our communities.
This project consists of three parts:
- Public Art in the Library with art glass in a 64-foot clerestory window and an Interactive Pod
- A Digital Archive of Community Stories about East Oakland
- Community building activities including forming new partnerships and hosting storytelling events to build a new community online that will help build community on the ground.
If you’ve ever traveled through east Oakland you know there are plenty of challenges there. The under side of the glitz and glamor of America’s big cities is pretty consistent in this regard. But low income does not have to equate to low-pride and low-joy, certainly not if equal justice under the law is truly protected. WeekendWanderings salutes Our Oakland: Eastside Stories for its commitment to cultivating pride and joy from within in an area that knows all too well how its reputation precedes it.
So, let’s find some fun ’round the bay…
Music and Meditation at Nyingma Institute: Saturday in Berkeley. From the East Bay Express: Music can alter the human brain’s rhythms in ways that facilitate stillness and open the mind to new modes of thinking ñ and not thinking. At the Tibetan Nyingma Institute (1815 Highland Pl., Berkeley) on Saturday, July 3, performer/composer/scholar Tracy McMullen leads a workshop titled “Music and Meditation,” which offers techniques for listening to music in different ways and is part of the institute’s “Emotions, Intelligence, and the Mind” series. 9 a.m., $15.
Independence Day Celebration at Ford Point: Saturday at Richmond waterfront. Inside the historic Ford Point Building on the waterfront in Richmond, a patriotic celebration for the whole family featuring live music, food and fireworks. Free show features the Oakland EastBay Symphony, Khalil Shaheed, Oaktown Jazz Workshops, and Hilltop Community C’hurch Choir. Have a great Independence Day weekend!
Interdependence Day Celebration: Sunday in Berkeley. From the East Bay Express: It wouldn’t be Independence Day in Berkeley without a few counter-celebrations. Among the most sublimely seditious is Tikkun magazine’s Interdependence Day Celebration, which promises to turn the rah-rah patriotism of Sunday, July 4, on its head by celebrating our dependence on each other and the environment, as well as individual and collective independence from corporate power, the military industrial complex, and the like. The event at Strawberry Creek Park (1260 Allston Way, Berkeley) also features a vegetarian potluck followed by affirmations and singing; bring songs, stories, food, and drinks to share. Free, 1 p.m.-4 p.m
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Pic of the Week:
A Friday afternoon view from Oakland