Nice. A great evening of theater at the Bruns. Tonight I saw CalShakes production of Spunk, a fairly modern play adapted by George C. Wolfe from three stories by Zora Neale Hurston. The all African-American cast was outstanding, including a great performance by the always solid L. Peter Callander. The three separate stories were accompanied by a sound track of blues music (accompanied by a live guitarist), singing, and juke-type dancing. The guitarist played a couple of songs before the play in lieu of the grove talk.
The three different stories all dealt with the relationship between men and women. There was a very interesting way in which theatrical physicality was used to convey emotions, and violence. The middle story was fun, carried out in very colorful zoot suits, with the men striking very exaggerated poses full of meaning. I had no preconceptions as to what to expect with this play, and I was extremely pleasantly surprised.
The Winters had to switch nights, so it was just Rita and I, another group of two-only. A very pleasant evening with a great play.
Today I met up with Mike and Tina in Berkeley, who were visiting his parents in the bay area. Originally we planned to meet for lunch at Juan’s Place, where I haven’t been in about 20 years, but it wasn’t yet open. We ended up in the new shopping zone on 4th street and found a little cafe for lunch. Afterwards, we ventured up to campus to visit some of our old haunts. We managed to get into Etcheverry Hall and do a little exploring. Then we walked around campus. It was a perfect time since most of the students were gone and it was pretty vacant.
After that we went up and drove through Tilden park, going past some of our favorite picnicking spots of old. Finally, we took a ride on the steam trains, which was a nice relaxing end to a fun day.
Tonight I finally restarted my Shakespeare diet of the year with 
I walked to downtown to see the annual Wine Festival. They had closed off a good stretch of 1st street and some of the side streets as well. It was a nice event to kick off the summer season. There were lots of booths featuring the usual collections of artists and crafts as well as food and wine.
After finally discovering the repositioned entrance that I’d lost, I took a little trip to Sycamore Grove Park. Unfortunately, I think I missed the full fall colors by about a month, and recent wind storms had taken away a lot of the leaves. 
It’s been a hectic few weeks at work, and as last week wound up a lot of things, I needed a little break. Today was a beautiful sunny warm fall day, so I decided to go up to Del Valle and take some pictures. It was nice to get away and get a little fresh air. There weren’t many people there despite the nice weather. I tried out some aspects of my camera that I hadn’t previously explored much, including panoramas and bracketed shots to try out blending for HDR images. If the weather holds, it’s probably worth trying for a picnic up there, just to get away and enjoy some restful peace.