Games of Berkeley is participating in Free RPG Day with giveaways, crafts and activities on Saturday, June 27. Photo credit: Janelle Hessig
Never miss local events! Sign up for Berkeleyside’s arts and culture newsletter, The Scene. And check out our roundup of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley.
🧙 Games of Berkeley is celebrating Free RPG Day with giveaways, one-shot and intro game sessions, and crafts and activities for role play gamers of all ages. No purchase necessary, but if you do buy something, save your receipt and head to Victory Point Cafe for a free drink that day. Saturday, June 27, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. FREE
☀️ Berkeley Art Club is hosting a Midsummer Market, featuring live music, natural wine and local vendors selling ceramics, zines, art prints, upcycled clothing, jewelry and more. Donations will be accepted for Centro Legal de la Raza, an organization that provides legal services to immigrant and Latino communities in Oakland. Friday, June 26, 5-9 p.m. Donkey and Goat Winery. FREE
🎹 With Julian on drums, Steve on bass, and Colin on keyboards and accordion, Berkeley’s longest running residency brings the Hogan Brothers back to their perch under the patio redwoods for the month’s final Friday playing a far-ranging repertoire of funk, jazz, and beyond. Friday, June 26, 7 p.m. Jupiter. FREE
🚨 Bring the family out for Disaster Preparedness Family Game Day, where you can try a digital fire extinguisher, play preparedness games, win prizes and get resources to build out your own emergency plan. Saturday, June 27, 9 a.m.-noon. Field behind the Live Oak Community Center. FREE
🍵 Bay Area Tea Friends is hosting an outdoor gathering for tea enthusiasts to come and enjoy some tea together. The theme is “old tree tea,” but feel free to bring any tea that will steep well with hot water stored in a Thermos, as well as additional teaware, a blanket to sit on, snacks and crafts. Saturday, June 27, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Strawberry Creek Park near Hidden Cafe. FREE (RSVP)
🧵 Right next to Bay Area Tea Friends, artist Van Tran will be hosting an outdoor knit and mend session, where you can bring a craft and/or sewing project to get advice for and work on with other crafty folks. You can also drop off a project for Van to repair. Saturday, June 27, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Strawberry Creek Park. FREE
👖 Berkeley artist Tess Rubinstein is presenting WATERSHED: an art exhibition of paper pulp paintings made from discarded clothing. Visitors are invited to engage with the papermaking process by pulling sheets of paper from recycled denim. Saturday, June 27 noon-8 p.m. and Sunday, June 28 10-3 p.m. 2727 California St. FREE
🍋 🍑 🍊The fruited plains and verdant hills of the East Bay can offer a bounteous harvest if you know where to look, and that’s what Daniel Goldberg of Feral Ecology discusses in a talk about ancestral foodways, foraging, and fermentation, including neglected loquats, untended plums, lonely elderberries and branches laden with citrus. Saturday, June 27, 2 p.m. Claremont Branch. FREE
🧬 Experience the Lawrence Hall of Science for just $5 per person for one day, plus watch trapeze artists Les Aerielles showcase what the human body can do when set to music. Sunday, June 28, 11:30 a.m-2 p.m. $5
👖👕 BAMPFA co-hosts a true swap meet with Swap Circle, a community-driven intentional reuse organization that invites participants to bring clothing and accessories to trade with their neighbors. Sunday, June 28, 1-4 p.m. FREE (RSVP required)
🎻 Over the past two decades violinist Mads Tolling won two Grammy Awards with Turtle Island Quartet, toured the world with Bobby Weir, and celebrated one of his early champions, fusion violin star Jean-Luc Ponty, all of which might surface in his capacious duo with ace pianist and improviser John R. Burr, which they bill “McCartney to McLaughlin.” Sunday, June 28, 3 p.m. The Back Room. $35-$40
📚 Award-winning cartoonist and author Gemma Correll presents her debut graphic novel “Anxietyland,” a work inspired by a weeks-long anxiety attack that led to aimlessly wander the streets of Berkeley until admitting herself to the hospital to address the storm cloud of angst that had shadowed her since childhood. Sunday, June 28, 6 p.m. Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore. FREE (registration encouraged)
🎻 An old-time jam session hosted by the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention takes place monthly, bringing together players of all levels on fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, and other reasonably compatible instruments to play classic American fiddle tunes. Tuesday, June 30, 5:30 p.m. Central Library Art & Music Study Hall. FREE
🪷 Jann Ronis, scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, will speak about a recent delegation to Bhutan, where American specialists in digital cultural preservation (including himself) met with Bhutanese leaders and innovators working to document, modernize and teach their living Buddhist heritage. Tuesday, June 30, 6 p.m. 2018 Allston Way. FREE
📚 Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble, sure, what are those weird sisters cooking up? Historian and author Marissa Nicosia shares her latest book “Shakespeare in the Kitchen” in conversation with Ali Madani, exploring how the Bard’s works reveal tensions not only within early modern food culture about who should eat, what to eat or serve guests, and when to preserve foods, but also how to practice cooking, baking, and serving. Tuesday, June 30, 7 p.m. Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore. FREE (registration encouraged)
🎭 Tell it on Tuesday, the Marsh’s long-running storytelling series, is now old enough to drink, and this 21st anniversary celebration features veteran raconteurs such as synthesizer pioneer Doug McKechnie telling piano stories, Albertina Zarazúa Padilla, who spins tales and dance moves as a mujer luchadora, and Maryclare McCauley, who’s written a half dozen one-woman shows presented at theaters around the state. Tuesday, June 30, 7 p.m. The Marsh. $10-$100
🎟️ The city is hosting a community carnival for kids and teens, including free food, giant inflatables, carnival games, a photo booth and more. Wednesday, July 1, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Grove Park. FREE (RSVP encouraged)
🎷 Tenor saxophonist Jessica Jones, whose experience in the first innovative wave of BUSD’s jazz-infused program set her up for an illustrious career as a player and educator in New York City, leads a Brown Bag Jazz Hang focusing on the life and glorious legacy of recently departed tenor sax titan Sonny Rollins. Wednesday, July 1, 12:30 p.m. The Jazzschool. FREE
🗓️ See more things to do in Oakland and Richmond. And check out our big list of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley. Sign up for our weekly arts and culture newsletter, The Scene.
If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at the-scene@berkeleyside.org. The deadline to submit events for Around Berkeley is end-of-day Monday. If there’s an event that you’d like to promote on our calendar, you can use the self-submission form on our events page.
We know that most readers don’t get to the end of the article. But you did! To support our in-depth, rock-solid reporting, please consider making a donation to our nonprofit newsroom today. We rely on our readers — particularly the ones who read the whole story!
“*” indicates required fields