Sunday Streets Berkeley

This Sunday saw the first Open Streets in Berkeley. Shattuck Ave was blocked from autos and reserved for the activities. Gang and I walked there at noon and looked around. It was nice to see so many people hanging out in weekends, and also quite exciting to get a taste of connections in a community.

We arrived there at around 11:30am. Obviously the Sunday Streets in Berkeley followed a Berkeley time - i it was supposed to start at 11:00am, but very few people were wandering around on our arrival. We passed several vendors and campaign stalls before we found a tent to promote local communication. Two lovely volunteers, both around 5 to 6 years old, were distributing cards to pedestrians. They looked at you sincerely, and asked with that special children's tone: “Would you like to take a look?" No one could reject them. Yes they were probably the most successful flyers today.

At the cross of Shattuck Ave and Lincoln Street, a young lady was giving away her oil paintings for free. She showed me the oil paints and palette she was using, and the ideas of her painting. Her paintings had luscious colors and dynamic compositions. It looked like she enjoyed the creative work, as she said, "you can understand my paintings as you like." I didn't pick one on our way to the Cheeseboard, but when we were back, all her works were taken away. Not too far away from her, there was a face painting workshop where children were waiting in queue. A little girl just had her face painted as a cute cougar. Artists are everywhere.

Interesting activities, such as a minivan theater, human-sized chess games on the floor (like the one in Harry Potter), Hula-hooping and Yoga classes, as well as drumming workshops, attracted big crowds, children in particular. But the highlight of the day was a pedal-powered concert. A band was playing music, with about 8 people, most of whom were volunteers riding bikes around to generate electricity for the audio equipment. Both Gang and I tried for a while. It might not be easy for one person to provide enough electricity supply for the entire performance. But since the crowd found this new green performance interesting, people kept joining in, and helped the performance continue.

After a big lunch at Cheeseboard, we headed back. Shattuck became more packed with pedestrians and cyclists. Children were having fun in different craft workshops and games; parents could relax with their fellows by looking at their children; all sorts of organizations seized the opportunity of advocating/opposing certain bills, and very luckily that the bay area is so blue that no one even bothered to campaign for Obama.