Arts And Entertainment

Berkeley Playhouse Presents ‘Once Upon This Island’

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Wednesday February 25, 2009

On an unnamed island in the French Antilles, a little girl, found sheltered in the branches of a tree after a storm by a peasant couple, grows up to rescue someone herself, the son of a creole “grand homme” who lives in a great “hotel” on the other side of the mountain, and falls in love with the young man she’s healed—a love everyone says she cannot have. -more-


Berkeley’s Modoc Past: ‘A Homesick Indian Girl’

By Richard Schwartz Special to the Planet
Wednesday February 25, 2009
This 1908 image of an undeveloped area in Berkley’s Thousand Oaks neighborhood reveals a rock with Indian mortars. There were many scores of Indian sites all over Berkeley, more than anyone, including archeologists, anticipated, most having been recorded only in the past decade or so. There is evidence of Indian occupation from at least 5900 years ago in Berkeley. When the Spanish arrived with the mission system in 1769, the Indians of the East Bay were essentially driven from their homes by the forces of the church and Spanish military. When the Americans arrived, he treatment of Indians in California reached a new low. There were many incidents of slavery, including child slavery in the area around Berkeley. Raids were made to the North and Indians, many women and children, were brought to the area against their will to work on local ranches. By the late 1800s the practice had been modified to the use of Indian children as domestics in houses in the area, including Berkeley.

This article from the Berkeley Daily Gazette of Feb. 17, 1905, gives but a momentary glimpse into the life of a Modoc Indian girl on the threshold of womanhood: -more-


Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival This Weekend

Monday March 02, 2009

Just an hour up the road in Sonoma County, the Sebastopol Center for the Arts presents the second annual Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival this weekend, March 6-8. -more-