Celebrating Black voices: Here s a look back at Dr. Maya Angelou s Bay Area connection, legacy
KGO
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OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) As millions of Americans clung to the poem flowing from National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman during President Joe Biden s inauguration, it was hard not to draw connections to a scene in that same spot decades earlier.
In 1993, Dr. Maya Angelou became the first female inaugural poet in U.S. presidential history. In Gorman s words, If you can t see it. It s hard to become it. I think its beautifully poetic the way their work weaves together, but also the impact it has had just on our community at large, said Nia McAllister, public programs manager at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD).
The New Yorker,
London Review of Books,
The London Times, and
The New York Times to decide which fiction should be ordered. Fiction accounts for fully a quarter of the forty-eight hundred books the library acquires each year. There are standing orders for certain novelistsâMartin Amis, Zadie Smith, Toni Morrison, for example. Some popular writers merit standing orders for more than one copy.
But first novels and collections of stories present a problem. McGuirl and his two assistants try to guess what the members of the library will want to read. Of course, they respond to membersâ requests. If a book is requested by three people, the staff orders it. Thereâs also a committee of members that meets monthly to recommend books for purchase. The committee checks on the librariansâ lists and suggests titles theyâve missed. The whole enterprise balances enthusiasm and skepticism.
When audiences and art workers prefer gathering outside, the Bruns Amphitheater becomes prime artistic real estate.
Lily Janiak February 2, 2021Updated: February 2, 2021, 4:42 pm
The ensemble of California Shakespeare Theater’s “The Good Person of Szechwan.” Photo: Kevin Berne, California Shakespeare Theater
California Shakespeare Theater plans to host an in-person season this summer at its Bruns Amphitheater in the Orinda hills, but with only one show produced by Cal Shakes itself, the company announced Tuesday, Feb. 2. The company is sharing its space with other arts organizations including Bandaloop, Destiny Arts Center and West Edge Opera at a time when audiences and arts workers will probably prefer gathering outside.
Thursday, Feb, 4, 12:05 p.m. to 1 p.m., free, via
Worlds collide as UC Davis graduate students in music and the creative writing program come together to bring us a performance. This concert will showcase collaborative works among five creative writing MFA students and four doctoral students in music composition and theory. The noon concert will also include music, theatre and dance students performing, as well as music faculty. The prerecorded concert will be shown on the
and available for viewing after its premiere,
Feb. 4, 12:05 p.m to 1 p.m. This is the third year of the collaboration. Originally scheduled for spring 2020, the concert was delayed due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Scott Thomas Anderson January 27, 2021Updated: January 31, 2021, 7:06 pm
Ambrose Bierce was a San Francisco journalist in the late 19th century. His “The Devil’s Dictionary” codified the template for a satirical dictionary. Photo: Bancroft Library
On a summer night in 1870, Ambrose Bierce began a newspaper column about a corpse discovered in an alley of Chinatown.
“The body was found partially concealed under a paving-stone which imbedded in the head,” he jotted for the San Francisco News Letter. “A crowbar was driven through the abdomen and one arm was riven from its socket by some great convulsion of nature.”
Writing with a human skull on his desk, Bierce ended the report with, “it is supposed he came to his death by heart disease.”