The Barb staff assembles by their office on University Ave. Photo by Dave Patrick, courtesy of Gar Smith In 1965, a bar owner named Max Scherr stitched together a small leftist publication he called The Berkeley Barb. The “I” key on his typewriter was broken, so he drew the letter by hand each time it […]
Berkeley Barb
Posted inArts
‘Blade Runner’ screenwriter made lost film of Moe’s Books
Moe Moskowitz at the infamous 1965 party at his store. This photo has been at the store for decades. A film of the event was recently discovered. Photo: courtesy Moe’s Books Moe Moskowitz at the infamous 1965 party at his store. This photo has been at the store for decades. A film of the event […]
Posted inCommunity
How Quirky was Berkeley? Religion on Telegraph Avenue
“Holy Hubert” Lindsey at Sproul Plaza. Photo (1968) courtesy Bible Truth Berkeley, especially Berkeley of the 1960s, enjoys a reputation as a predominantly secular city. We may be less religious than the United States as a whole, but religion plays a strong and important role in Berkeley today. More relevantly for our purposes here, religious […]
Posted inArts
Made in Berkeley: Along Came a Spider
The 1970 Made for TV film Along Came a Spider was set in, and partly shot in, Berkeley Made for TV movies have a terrible reputation. Network staples from the mid-‘60s until the late ‘80s, these anodyne films generally featured low production values (including unimaginative scoring, predictable plotting, and lazy cinematography), and were produced with […]
Posted inArts
Shooting for posterity: Berkeley’s ‘Seven Days in May’
Soldiers pushing the crowd back toward the campus on Shattuck Avenue in May 1969. All photos copyright John Jekabson John Jekabson may have missed the summer of love, but he was in the thick of the “Seven Days of May” which saw Berkeley occupied by the National Guard under a state of emergency in 1969. His […]
Posted inCity
Berkeley’s Grassroots House helps send boat to Gaza
By Jane Stillwater The Berkeley Barb used to be my hometown’s most famous “newspaper of record” and we also had another hometown rag called Grassroots. However both these papers have been out of print for more than 40 years and now most of our local Berkeley newspapers have gone digital — except for Grassroots, which […]
