Month: March 2009
Wow. I just got this email:
THE PARKWAY SPEAKEASY THEATER CLOSES ITS DOORS
AND GOES DARK FOR GOOD THIS SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2009:
THE END OF AN ERADear Loyal Supporters:
This is a sad but true message from Kyle Fischer, CEO of Speakeasy Theaters, and Catherine Fischer, President of Speakeasy Theaters.
After more than twelve years of serving the great cultural crossroad of Oakland, the Parkway Speakeasy Theater will be closing at the end of business day this Sunday, March 22, 2009. From African Diaspora to Thrillville to lesbian fashion shows and educational porn, the Parkway has offered an eclectic array of movies and events. It was the first theater in California to offer food, beer and wine service in a lounge style movie theater. With a nudge or a push from the community, there was little programming the Parkway theater would not try in order to better be a community center and a safe haven for diverse ideas. The Parkway brought Baby Brigade for the shuttered and abandoned parents of newborns, the first international black gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender film festival and Sunday Salon, a free event for cultural and community enhancement. We, at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, are deeply proud of the Parkway and will profoundly miss serving its community. Thank you for your patronage.
Programming at Parkway will remain as scheduled this Friday and Saturday, March 20 and 21. Stay tuned for special announcements about this Sunday, the final day of operations.
The Speakeasy Experience lives on at the Cerrito. Most special events booked for Parkway, including regular attractions like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” will be moving there. Stay tuned to our web site and this newsletter for updates.
Please direct all inquiries to Kyle Fischer, kf at speakeasytheaters dot (you know how this works) com. Messages should be brief and pertinent, out of respect for this difficult reality, but will be appreciated. This is a tough time for all of us.
Cheers.
A sad thing for Oakland, and for the brilliant idea of “picture, pub, pizza.” Unfortunately, I haven’t gone there much after I got shot riding home from there a year and a half ago. I haven’t supported it nearly as much as I could have, though I went there at least a couple times a year.
The Cerrito still exists, but it’s just not the same.
Me, today: “It’s hard to say ‘Kafka’ with chips in your mouth.”
I’m too angry to write about this, but I can’t let it go without note.
I’ll leave it to the esteemed Glenn Greenwald to explain the Bush-era documents that the Obama administration released yesterday detailing the regime of secret laws and memos the Bush administration used to rule the country (you know, instead of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights).
Greenwald writes:
It’s somewhat surreal to witness — now that George Bush is out of office — the avalanche of establishment media reports suddenly acknowledging today, rather explicitly, how radical and lawless his presidency was, as though we only learned of that this week with the release of these memos. As the commenters to Michael Scherer’s Time post point out, there were people who have spent the last several years documenting that and trying to sound the alarm over it, yet were largely dismissed as shrill unSerious partisan “leftists” and “civil liberties extremists.” I suppose it’s acceptable to observe these facts now that Bush is no longer the President (this happened in the “past”) and the evidence for all of it is rubbed so unavoidably in our faces that denial is no longer possible.