Archive for August, 2013

Hitchcock Stuns Pacific Film Archive With Silence

Posted in Film Reviews, The Berkeley Scene on August 20th, 2013 by admin – Be the first to comment

by Steed Dropout
Aug 20, 2013

Berkeley, Ca

A HITCHCOCK YOU NEVER KNEW

Opening night of a Hitchcock nine-silent films series brought laughter and amazement to U.C. Berkeley’s PFA, Friday.

Never mind that the laughter was inappropriate — in response to the facial contortions and eye-popping of British silent film idol Ivor Novello.

The amazement was appropriate enough. Tinting and formerly unassembled film elements from nine film archives produced a startling version of the 1926, “The Lodger.”

Hitchcock’s first British hit — drawing on German film expressionism — played like fifties technicolor, if you allow for 1920’s stage-conventions — which evoked laughter.

Challenged to tell a story in faces, one silent-era director urged his actors to “move your face.” Ivor Novello (hamming it up) reflected that approach admirably, topping even Bella Lugosi.

The great Ivor Novello as the Lodger at PFA
Poison: You know you're at PFA when….. Photo by Ted Friedman.

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Two Berkeley Girls of the Street

Posted in Telegraph Avenue, The Berkeley Scene on August 17th, 2013 by admin – Be the first to comment

by Steed Dropout
Aug. 16, 2013

SOUTH SIDE TALES

One is nearing fifty, the other twenty-six.

They, too, are drawn to Telegraph/Haste — Berkeley’s Center.

Sunshine, the veteran (more than two homeless decades on the streets of Teley).

“Miss Hollywood,” as she was called in her People’s Park debut a few years ago — is a novice.

Both rely on the kindness of strangers. Sunshine, cigarettes, a flop-spot, spare change, and the often unwanted assistance from Berkeley police.

Miss Hollywood, kindness of men, scavenged clothes, cash donations (from friends) and suspension of disbelief that she will appear in an upcoming episode of a famous talent scout show.

Sunshine has not seen any of her three East Coast daughters in more than twenty years. She misses them.

Sunshine. Photo by Ted Friedman.

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Exclusive: Berkeley’s P.O. Protest on the Move

Posted in The Berkeley Scene on August 14th, 2013 by admin – Be the first to comment

by Steed Dropout
Aug. 14, 2013

No one knows when the tent city encamped at the Berkeley main post-office downtown will be cleared by postal police, but when David Welsh, a retired letter carrier and San Francisco Labor Council delegate heads south for an early September AFL-CIO labor convention, the P.O. protest may lose its driving force.

In a statement to his fellow demonstrators, Monday, Welsh sounded like an elder statesman, proud of his efforts to save Berkeley’s post office — but preparing to leave.

“…the encampment has won broad support in the community, with non-stop favorable media coverage, daily dinners and cultural events at the post office and two large rallies on the post office steps,” Welch wrote.

Leaving Post Office. Photo by Ted Friedman.

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Berkeley Drop Out City

Posted in Telegraph Avenue, The Berkeley Scene on August 13th, 2013 by admin – Be the first to comment

by Steed Dropout
Aug. 13, 2013

WHICH CAME FIRST, DROPOUTS OR BERKELEY?

How many dropouts do I know on Berkeley’s South Side?

More than fifty, but they’re the visible ones — open about their lives. Others around town may be more secretive, but I can usually spot them.

When you carry cast-off books (Berkeley’s awash in them, the literary detritus of our times), use them as props in a coffee house, then leave them behind for the props department — you’ve been made.

Or when you make a beverage out of coffee, milk, and sugar.

Or If you hang out in record stores, bookshops, and retail stores and never buy anything.

I’ve just described my homeless, then drop-out years from the late Seventies.

Drop-Out Motto: 'We Will Not Comply.' Photo by Ted Friedman.

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Crime Blotter Blah-Blah

Posted in Telegraph Avenue, The Berkeley Scene, The Global Scene Through Berkeleyan Eyes on August 8th, 2013 by admin – Be the first to comment

by Steed Dropout
Aug. 7, 2013
Berkeley, Ca

THE END OF CRIME REPORTING; WHO’S EVEN READING CRIME BLOTTERS?

Who’s even reading those blah-blah police crime “blotters.”

Roughly the same number, 57,000, who have looked up Berkeley’s Alta Bates Hospital Cafeteria. That number is an accumulation of months or years of reader site-visits.

I’ll take the cafeteria over the blotters any day.

Purse snatchings, e-phone grabs, car-break-ins, strong arm robberies (force), gun brandishing, and the occasional failed home-invasion — although scary — lose their impact with repetition.

Same crimes, week after week with changing addresses.

Know this. “Police Blotter” as hyped online is a misnomer. Perhaps a fraud.

Photo by Ted Friedman.

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Shocking Berkeley

Posted in Telegraph Avenue, The Berkeley Scene on August 2nd, 2013 by admin – Be the first to comment

by Steed Dropout
Aug. 1, 2013

She mooned a fire-truck racing up Durant.

The truck swerved almost hitting a nearby pedestrian.

She stopped me entering 7-11 to ask for a smoke. Then,”would you buy me a cigar on the way out?”

She was perched on the hood of a Berkeley Police car.

She copulated outside a Berkeley business on lower Telegraph.

She will expose herself for a smoke, or small change.

I recently took her pic as she sprawled on the walk.

'Our Bleeding Street Girl.' Before she bled, she led. Photo by Ted Friedman.

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