Written on the Dock of the Bay: 10/19 - 10/25
Written on the Dock of the Bay is your weekly guide to literary and bookish happenings in the pleasantly literary and bookish Bay Area
BAY AREA BOOK WORLD BREAKING NEWS
WHEN CHEESE GETS POETIC
When’s the last time you thought long and hard about cheese? For many of us, it just doesn’t happen. But Rainbow Grocery’s long time cheese buyer, Gordon Edgar, thinks about cheese a lot. And now he’s put his most cheesy thoughts and insightful cheesy adventures in one book, Cheddar: A Journey to the Heart of America’s Most Iconic Cheese. He recommends you read this book while eating Montgomery cheddar, a classic, clothbound English-style cheddar. Sure thing!
WHEN A MARIJUANA MOGUL WRITES A BOOK
This week Stephen DeAngelo, founder of Harborside Health Center in Oakland and legendary pioneer in the weed world, released Cannabis Manifesto. In this book, readers can wander inside the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Johnny Green, blogger for the Weed Blog, writes, “The Cannabis Manifesto will likely go down in the history books as the most influential cannabis book of all time.” Well, that sounds important. Better check it out.
WHEN A RARE BOOK SELLER WANDERS
This week the East Bay Express ran a piece about Scott Nanos, a nomadic rare bookseller described as one of Oakland’s most defiant book vendors. Without a bookshop of his own, he’s still managed to set up shop and sell antiquarian books whenever he can. Check it out.
CALENDAR: MONDAY, 10/19 - SUNDAY 10/25
Monday, 10/19: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF MARIN
Ever wondered what Marin was like, but never got around to visiting to find out? Then Cyra McFadden’s The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin might be just the thing for you. It may have been published 30 years ago, but this satire of two people trying to stay “hip and loose” through a blend of lotus loaves, natural fibers, enzymes and Zen jogging is still pretty relevant. McFadden and will be at Folio Books for an evening of dramatic readings of an enchanting place called Marin. Lotus loaves not provided.
DETAILS: Folio Books. // 3957 24th Street // 7 p.m.
Tuesday, 10/20: WRITE ME ACROSS YOUR LANDSCAPE, WITH LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
Most people know of Lawrence Ferlinghetti because he opened the iconic City Lights Books and later published the sexually explicit poem, Howl. But he also served as a commanding officer on a Navy sub-chaser during D-Day, nearly died once in Moscow, and hung out with beloved cats in London. His new volume, Writing Across the Landscape, documents these adventures in a blend between travelogue and poetry. And while Ferlinghetti is rarely in the bookstore he opened anymore these days, he'll be at City Lights this Monday for a rare reading. Swing by.
DETAILS: City Lights Books // 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco // 6:30pm
Wednesday, 10/21: LYRICS & DIRGES
Crawl on over to Pegasus in Berkeley this Wednesday for Lyric & Dirges, a monthly reading series. It’s got all the levels of literary -- featuring a mix of beginning, emerging, and prominent writers alike. This month’s event highlights Missy Church and Denise Benavides.
DETAILS: Pegasus Books Downtown // 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley // 7pm
Thursday, 10/22: FACTS GET ERRATIC
“We turn out as tippy as eggs. Legs are an illusion. We are held as in a carton if someone loves us. It's a pity only loss proves this,” so goes Kay Ryan’s poem, Eggs, from her new poetry collection, Erratic Facts. I don’t know about you, but after reading that poem, erratic is how I want all my facts to be. Kay Ryan will be at Mrs. Dalloway’s this Thursday to deliver eggs.
DETAILS: Mrs. Dalloway’s // 2904 College Avenue, Oakland // 7:30pm
Friday, 10/23: HOLD ONTO THIS BOOK
Things you can hold onto: rope, water bottles, shampoo bottles, hands, hope, and, sometimes, books. You can also hold literary journals, like HOLD, a journal of prose, poetry visual art, essays, and interviews. Their motto is “We like things you can hold onto.” We like that this literary journal will be launching this Friday at Oakland’s bookstore and gallery space E.M Wolfman.
DETAILS: E.M Wolfman // 410 13th Street, Oakland // 8pm
Saturday, 10/24 - Sunday, 10/25: CALL ME ISHMAEL (For the Next 24 Hours)
Attention members of the Call Me Ishmael / Herman is My Melville Man / Moby Dick fan club: This Saturday is YOUR day. It marks the beginning of the Moby Dick marathon, wherein Moby Dick will be read communally for 24 hours, featuring 100 readers and performers eager to bring the beloved classic to life. There will be plenty of coffee, and possibly “Call me Ishmael” name badges, but I may have made that last part up.
DETAILS: Fort Mason Center // 2 Marina Boulevard, San Francisco // Saturday, 12pm - Sunday, 12pm
Sunday, 10/25: SECRET AS AN ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD
In this Sunday’s edition of Poetry Flash, Peter Neil Carroll and Lucille Lang Day bring out the fiery nature poems. Carroll’s new book of poems, Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land, is about the American landscape, and its destruction, while Lucille Lang Day writes with a scientific precision that’s been described by poet F. D. Reeve as “plangent as a sunset, as secret as an electromagnetic field.” Wowzer. Come hear the pair read at Diesel for yourself.
DETAILS: Diesel Books // 5433 College Avenue, Oakland // 3pm
Have a great tip on bookish news or events? Email us at [email protected]
