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02/04/08
The newish Danville clothes boutique, M Clothing, is serving free mimosas in the store from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Browse the spring lines and sip some bubbly—sounds like a fun way to start the week!
402 Railroad Avenue, Suite 102, Danville, (925) 314-0911, www.martymclothing.com
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01/31/08
It’s time to flip the pages on your calendars, which means one thing for East Bay art lovers: First Friday. Kick off your evening at the Oakland Museum of California, which will be hosting an event to celebrate Black History Month. The Many Cultures, One Night, Your Museum festivities start at 5 p.m. and include live music from the Zydeco Flames and appearances by spoken word artists Sistahs Wid’ Gaps and memoirist Adam David Miller. Admission is included with the museum entrance fee.
If you’re still in the mood for a little gallery-hopping after you’re done at the Oakland Museum, head uptown to the Oakland Art Murmur....
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01/30/08
I'm a big fan of anything and everything Tony La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation does—from the rock star-studded concerts in January to various celebrity golf tournaments to the Animals on Parade day in downtown Walnut Creek, this organization's events are always fun and first-class. Even more important is the amazing work ARF does finding good homes for rescue animals, educating children about caring for animals, etc.
Looks like ARF is planning another winner this Thursday night. Check it out:
WINEMAKER'S DINNER AND CANINE FASHION SHOW
If you’re looking for a great post holiday season treat for yourself, friends and family, please join the Concord Hilton for its second annual Winemaker’s Dinner and Dog Fashion Show on Thursday, January 31 at 6...
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01/25/08
Before Whoopi Goldberg ever donned a habit, the Little Sisters of Hoboken charmed audiences in New York City. Nunsense is the second-longest running off-Broadway show in history (after the Fantasticks), and its many sequels are mainstays at Willows Theatre Company’s cabaret theater.
Opening tonight and running through February 24, Willows presents Nunsense II: The Second Coming. The singing sisters are preparing a thank-you show for their supporters, but chaos erupts when two Franciscans come to claim Sister Mary Amnesia, who has won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. With audience-participation Bingo and the riotous duet, “What Would Elvis Do?”—plus in-theater snacks like Nunsense Nachos, the Pope’s Popcorn, or the...
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01/24/08
I love hanging out at bookstores. I don’t mean trying to keep from spilling a Starbucks mocha latte in the antiseptic aisles at Barnes & Noble, and I don’t mean surfing the bestsellers list on Amazon.com. I mean flipping through a book of beat poetry at City Lights in San Francisco; staring in awe at the huge stacks at Powell’s in Portland; squeezing through the overstocked shelves at Bonanza Street Books in Walnut Creek.
That last pleasure is one I won’t get to enjoy for much longer: Bonanza, which has been open in downtown Walnut Creek for over 20 years and has been named the East Bay’s best indie bookstore in Diablo many times, recently announced it will be closing in March. Due to a variety of factors, including the changing downtown landscape,...
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01/18/08
The Lesa Johnson Fine Art Gallery is having a Champagne reception to meet artist Sam Nejati on Friday, January 18th, from 7-9pm. Nejati's exhibition, called "Sharing the Moment," showcases his abstract expressionist paintings and runs until February 16th.
Lesa Johnson Fine Art Gallery, 1041 Stuart Street, Suite B, Lafayette, (925) 962-0980
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01/16/08
If you read The Kite Runner, the blockbuster debut novel by Khaled Hosseini, or his best-selling follow-up A Thousand Splendid Suns, this is an event you won't want to miss. Hosseini's appearance is a benefit for the Trust In Education (T.I.E.) non-profit, dedicated to providing health care, education and economic development programs in Afghanistan, and to educating Americans about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, past, present and future.
T.I.E.'s founder, Budd MacKenzie, has invited Hosseini to speak at the Dean Lesher Theatre on Friday night, January 18th.
What: An Evening with Khaled Hosseini (Interviewed by Lynn Carey and Budd MacKenzie)
Where: Lesher Center for the Arts
Sponsors: Contra Costa Times
When:...
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01/14/08
On the first Friday of 2008, I went down to the Walnut Creek Yacht Club on Locust and Bonanza, to order an appetizer. WCYC's Monterey Bay Calamari, rolled in cornmeal, is my favorite calamari dish in the Bay Area. To my horror, the restaurant was not just closed, but EMPTY.
Fortunately, the Yacht Club wasn't closed for long. Turns out owners Ellen McCarty and Kevin Weinberg had been dreaming of expanding their space for years, and finally got the chance when they took over the neighboring space on Locust formerly occupied a pizza restaurant. The Walnut Creek Yacht Club reopened today, January 14, after being closed for just two weeks.
The renovated Yacht Club is 25% larger, and the bar has been opened up to...
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01/14/08
Who says the East Bay suburbs don’t have culture? We have opera, regarded by those who decide such things as the queen of all performance art forms. First, of course, there is Walnut Creek’s Festival Opera, which presents two live shows each summer at the Lesher Center for the Arts.
But if you want to get your fix for grand musical spectacle much sooner—and without battling Bay Bridge traffic to see San Francisco Opera—head this weekend to one of three local multiplexes in Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill and Dublin. And watch the curtain rise on a live, high-definition simulcast of Verdi’s Macbeth, presented by New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
The Met, one of the world’s premiere classical music companies, launched its groundbreaking series of...
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01/10/08
From the minute I grabbed the lobster door handle to get a sneak peak at Lafayette’s new Yankee Pier last night, I knew I was in for a New England treat.
Yankee Pier, in the Lafayette Mercantile, is scheduled to open this Saturday, but I was invited to a preview training dinner last night. Even the owner, Michael Dellar was busy hanging a three-foot trout (or was it a salmon?) on the wall near our table. And since every employee was on hand for the training, the dinner guests were quite outnumbered. But none of that mattered when they brought the chilled Florida shrimp and hot Dungeness crab. The seafood was fresh and absolutely delicious.
Dellar, who also heads the Lark Creek restaurant chain, is a former long-time resident of Orinda. This is his fourth Yankee...
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