by Sheila McCormick

Note: Items in red are neighborhood events.

Friday, 3/1, 7-8 pm Rotary Nature Center Friends, Explore Lake Merritt Underwater via Video. Explore an urban estuary lagoon underwater before & after the environmental catastrophes of 2022-2023 with video capture from a Trident ROV!

Saturday, 3/2, 6-9 pm Peninsula Open Space Trust: Screening of Wild & Scenic Film Festival Short Films (75 minutes) Jojo: A Toad Musical; Song of the Hermit; Giant Sequoias: Yosemite Nature Notes; Forward; Paddle Tribal Waters; Forests Above & Forests Below; Soundscape.

Tuesday, 3/5, 4:15-5:30 pm Austin Forum: Live Long and Prosper: How AI, Robotics, and Other Technologies Are Advancing Healthcare & Wellness

Wednesday, 3/6, 10 am Aldo Leopold Foundation: Interview with Karl Malcolm, Assistant Director of Renewable Resources with the U.S. Forest Service

Wednesday, 3/6, 1 pm Sacramento Library: Dinner with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships, Nina Totenberg will discuss her book about her friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Wednesday, 3/6, 3-4 pm Library of America: Deadline Artist: The Genius of Jimmy Breslin. Panel about the larger-than-life New Yorker, with Dan Barry, Mike Barnicle, and Mike Lupica.

Wednesday, 3/6, 7-8 pm Friends of the Alameda Library: Docent Event: Facing Mecca: Reflections of Islam in Art

* Thursday, 3/7, 1:30-6:30 pm Verizon is providing free headshots for the community at their Lakeshore store.

Thursday, 3/7, 5 pm Aldo Leopold Foundation: Presentation from Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist and Author of An Immense World

Thursday, 3/7, 6 pm City Lights: 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool. James Kaplan will discuss his new book. 

Friday, 3/8, 11 am Together! 2012 CIC: International Women’s Day Musical Celebration. Celebrating disabled women in music, with artists including Jo-anne Cox, Mx Dennis Queen and Clare Summerskill.

Tuesday, 3/12, 11am-12 pm Monterey Bay Aquarium: What I Did on My Fall Vacation: Submersible Research on the Fishes of Southern California Oil/Gas Platforms

Tuesday, 3/12, 4-5 pm NY Public Library: How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon. Lynn Salter will discuss her book.

Thursday, 3/14, 10 am AARP: Outfit Your Home for the Long Term. Learn about design features you can incorporate now to make your home comfortable and safe for aging in place.

Thursday, 3/14, 11 am-12:30 pm From Queen Anne to Queen Victoria: A Heroine for Girls of Today: Ada Lovelace in Recent Girls’ Books. Dr. Dorothea Flothow will discuss the depiction of the skilled mathematician and the ‘first computer programmer’ in books and biographies for young girls.

Thursday, 3/14, 3/21 and 3/28, 4-5 pm AARP: Introduction to Irish Step Dancing (3 part series) 

Thursday, 3/14, 6 pm UBC: Viet Thanh Nguyen: Speaking for an Other. His debut novel The Sympathizer reimagined what we thought we knew about the Vietnam War. In this talk, he will revisit the narratives facing migrants today. 

Thursday, 3/14, 7:30-9 pm Bay Area Skeptics: COVID Myths and The Hits Just Keep on Comin’

Sunday, 3/17, 11 am Saint Patrick’s Day US: St. Patrick’s Day in San Francisco. Virtual parades, live music, and lots of green fun.

Sunday, 3/17, 3-4 pm SF Library: A North American Total Eclipse of the Sun: April 8, 2024. Andrew Fraknoi will explain how solar eclipses come to be and what scientists discover during eclipses. 

Monday, 3/18, 4-5 pm NY Public Library: The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age. Sasha Issenberg will discuss his new book. 

Monday, 3/18, 6 pm City Lights: Joyce Carol Oates in Conversation with Steve Wasserman. To celebrate the publication of Joyce Carol Oates: Letters to a Biographer.

* Wednesday, 3/20, 7-8:30 pm Grand Lake Neighbors Meeting. Barnett Hall (next to Lakeshore Baptist Church). Where Grand Lake neighbors come together to share information, solve problems and effect change to preserve and improve our community.

Wednesday, 3/20, 2-3 pm Univ. Wisconsin: Processing the News Through Poetry with the Pulitzer Center. Hear about how students worldwide have used poetry as a tool for empathetic connection and raising their voices through the Fighting Words Poetry Contest.

Wednesday, 3/20, 3:30-4:30 pm New York Studio School: Day Jobs. Curator Veronica Roberts will talk about the upcoming exhibition at the Cantor Arts Center, about how economic and creative pursuits are intertwined. 

Wednesday, 3/20, 6 pm City Lights: I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition. Lucy Sante will discuss her new book. 

Wednesday, 3/20, 7 pm Fleet Science Center: The Sky Tonight – Messier Marathon

Thursday, 3/21, 4 pm Sacramento Library: On Retelling Greek Classics: An Exploration of the Modern Epics. Madeline Miller, bestselling author of The Song of Achilles and Circe, will chat about her process in turning Greek classics into modern epics in fiction. 

Saturday, 3/23, 10am-5pm and Sunday 3/24, 10 am-4 pm East Bay Heritage Quilters: Voices In Cloth: Extraordinary Quilts by the Bay. Center for Arts & Ideas at the Henry J. Kaiser Building, 10 Tenth St. ($10 one day, $15 for 2 days) 

* Sunday, 3/24, 9am-Noon Splashpad Park — Volunteer park and garden clean-up

Monday, 3/25, 1-2 pm AARP: The Story of Four Harriet’s of History. Happy Women’s History Month! Hear about Harriet Robinson Scott, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Monday, 3/25, 4-5 pm East Hampton Library: Zion National Park: Chat with a Ranger

Tuesday, 3/26, 3:30 pm CUNY Graduate Center: Vision is a Battlefield: Histories of Race and Media. Experts on art and visual culture explore how our perception is influenced by ideas of race.

Tuesday, 3/26, 4-5:30 pm The Village Square: The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. Alexandra Hudson will discuss her recent book.

Tuesday, 3/26, 6-7 pm Taylorsville Library: Two Years of JWST: New Discoveries Across the Universe. Dr. Josh Lothringer will provide an update on what NASA’s newest and biggest space telescope has been observing in its first two years of operation.

Tuesday, 3/26, 7-8:30 pm American Cetacean Society: The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean. Susan Casey will talk about her latest book. 

Wednesday, 3/27, 4:30 pm Teaneck International Film Festival: Screening of Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s. A political cartoonist, a mother turned boxing coach, and an optician navigate their lives in the face of a degenerative illness.

Wednesday, 3/27, 5 pm Russ Colchamiro: The Legacy of Rod Serling with Mark Olshaker, Nick Parisi and Ann Serling! Panel discussion about the Twilight Zone legend. 

Thursday, 3/28, 6 pm City Lights: Who’s Afraid of Gender? Judith Butler will discuss their new book. 

* Sunday, 3/30, 10 am Hop & Shop Derby Parade along Lakeshore. Includes Derby Hat Decorating Contest, parade, and scavenger hunt through the shops to collect chocolate eggs.

Sheila McCormick is an Adjunct Professor Emerita in Cal’s Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. Prior to her retirement in January 2016, she had a research lab at the USDA/ARS-UC Berkeley Plant Gene Expression Center in Albany, studying the molecular biology of plant reproduction. She also helps with editing and is a frequent contributor to the Splash Pad News, beginning with a series of seven neighborhood walks – the first of which was posted in April 2017.