Berkeleyside30%
Around Berkeley: Central Works’ final production, Elmwood Beer Crawl, game convention 58%
By Karen Nguyen Vo84% Andrew Gilbert84%
7/16/2026, 1:00:00 PM
Topics: Arts And Culture, Community Events
BS Summary: This article contains 12 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Framing Effect, and Attempt to Sell a Product or Service, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 50.4% saturation with 487 hits. Analysis detected 1,560 faulty-reasoning hits from 966 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 55.5% and a BS Rank of 58% (7,873 of 18,604 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 57.70% of the article peer group.
Central Works presents their final production, “The Prince Parts 1 and 2,” — a two-play, six-act work that chronicles the life of Niccolo Machiavelli, an influential Florentine diplomat and philosopher during the Italian Renaissance.
The two plays will be played in rotation from July 18 to Sept.
6.
$20-$45
Get your game on at Games of Berkeley’s sixth annual GoBCon, a mini-convention featuring a variety of family-friendly games, game designers, publishers, artists and more to peruse and play.
Convention runs from July 16 to 19.
$17-$55
The grooves emanating from La Peña will be mighty indeed with the Born to the Drum faculty concert, which marks two decades of the international gathering of leading women percussionists in the Oakland Hills.
The concert precedes the four-day camp, and features more than a dozen drummers.
Thursday, July 16, 7 p.m.
La Peña Cultural Center.
$25-$35
A bevy of master Berkeley improvisers convene for Subconscious Life, a quartet featuring ROVA saxophonist Larry Ochs, cellist Ben Davis, bassist Lisa Mezzacapa, and trumpeter Daren Johnston (a ringer from San Francisco).
Thursday, July 16, 8 p.m.
The Back Room.
$22.50-$25
Learn about the history of Berkeley’s tank houses — windmill-topped water tanks that once provided pressurized water to Berkeley residents in the 1900s — in a three-mile walking tour by local architect Aaron Goldstein and the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association.
(Read more about Goldstein and his obsession with backyard water towers.)
Tour starts at the corner of Sixth and Harrison streets.
Saturday, July 18, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
FREE
Car enthusiasts can browse iconic Toyota and Lexus builds at the Fourth Street car meet and craft market, which will also feature a maker mart, live music and local food.
Saturday, July 18, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
1919 Fourth St.
FREE
Berkeley Public Library is hosting an International Chess Day tournament with trophies and medals up for grabs for youth, young teens and adult competition brackets.
Saturday, July 18, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Claremont Branch.
FREE (RSVP)
Quench your thirst at The Elmwood Beer Crawl, where over 20 local businesses will be pouring craft beers from all over the world for you to try.
Saturday, July 18, 1-5 p.m.
$40
The San Francisco Mime Troupe travels throughout the Bay Area but will be in Berkeley this weekend for “Wreckage — A Musical Tragicomedy,” a performance that explores four people’s respective journeys in religious freedom, the age of AI, the pathway to citizenship and achieving security in a world that is falling apart.
Saturday, July 18 and Sunday, July 19, 2 p.m.
(Live music starts at 1:30 p.m.)
Live Oak Park.
FREE
Science writer Roberta Kwok presents her new book, “Lost in Curiosity: Field Notes from Scientists' Adventures Into the Unknown,” an inside look at the often bumpy and uncertain path to new discoveries.
She’s joined by San Jose science journalist Elizabeth Svoboda.
Saturday, July 18, 7 p.m.
Mrs.
Dalloway’s Bookstore.
FREE (registration encouraged)
Even by the boisterous standards of the Berkeley Balkan Bacchanal, this show is going to raise the roof — with a birthday celebration for Bulgarian Roma multi-instrumentalist and longtime West Berkeley resident Rumen “Sali” Shopov’s Balkan Ensemble Merkalii, a rare reunion of the acoustic ensemble Édessa, and an opening set by Ivan Velev on the double-sided tapan drum and Hector Bezanis on Bulgarian gaida.
Saturday, July 18, 8 p.m.
Starry Plough.
$20-$25
Pocket Opera presents Puccini’s “La Rondine,” the tale of a Parisian courtesan’s reawakening to the power of love and passion in a fully staged production featuring leading Bay Area vocalists performing intelligible English translations by Donald Pippin, the company’s founder and artistic director emeritus.
Sunday, July 19, 1:30 p.m.
Hillside Club.
$45-$89
Flutist Jane Lenoir, reed expert Harvey Wainapel and percussionist Brian Rice are longtime collaborators in the Berkeley Choro Ensemble, and for this performance they’re joined by the great guitarist/composer Julio Lemos, who’s visiting from Brazil on a short tour.
Sunday, July 19, 2 p.m.
The Back Room.
$25-$30
Learn about the challenges and opportunities for creating a more resilient Berkeley shoreline through two presentations at the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum that will highlight sea level rise science, nature-based adaptation options and upcoming planning efforts.
Ellen Plane, senior scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, and Katie Van Dyke, the City of Berkeley’s climate action program manager, will present, followed by a Q&A.
Saturday, July 19, 3 p.m.
Veterans Memorial Building Auditorium, 1931 Center St.
FREE (donations appreciated)
Berkeley writer Bora Lee Reed celebrates the release of her debut novel “Song For Another Home” with a reception and program featuring a conversation with Gene Luen Yang, graphic novelist and author of “American Born Chinese.”
Tuesday, July 21, 6 p.m.
Albany Community Center.
FREE (with registration)
Alto saxophonist Beth Schenck, an intrepid improviser with a lustrous, velvety tone, hosts this week’s Brown Bag Jazz Hang with a conversation about the music of Lee Konitz (1927-2020), the singularly prolific, inventive and peripatetic altoist.
Wednesday, July 22, 12:30 p.m.
The Jazzschool.
FREE
Bike East Bay is hosting a summer brake party with snacks, drinks and activities for all ages.
Free bike parking is available, and a group bike ride to the venue will start at North Berkeley BART at 5:15 p.m.
Wednesday, July 22, 5-7:30 p.m.
FREE (RSVP)
See more things to do in Oakland and Richmond.
And check out our big list of affordable things to do anytime in Berkeley.
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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.
Analysis
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