Here is a video shot to accompany the Night Owl story about De Lauer’s.
As for this weekend, tonight begins the 14th annual Brainwash drive, bike and walk-in movie festival at the Mandela Village Arts Center, 1357 5th St. (the groovy shack behind the West Oakland BART station). The movies are short, the start time is 9 p.m. and admission costs $9. Fo mo info visit www.brainwash.com.
Over at the EastSide Arts Alliance tonight a film slected by Oakland Sin Fronteras starts 7 p.m. The event is free. I missed a whole bunch of cool events at the center including Hip-hop karoake Wednesday  and Holla Back open mic series on Thursdays.  
Heads up: Next Friday is First Friday, which means Art Murmur and the Oakland Museum’s monthly culture extravaganza including a screening of Paperback Dreams, the story of two local bookstores-Cody’s and Kepler’s-and their struggle to survive. Timely, you think?

It was just a misunderstanding. DeLauer’s Super Newsstand will remain a 24-hour business, at least for now despite reports by yours truly and other reporters that the new business plan called for shutting down at midnight.  The new owners are throwing around ideas like Dock Ellis pitched so nothing is set in stone as yet. Changes have been made to the downtown newspaper mecca, including fresh coffee and tea offerings as well as magazine racks plump with stock. The pink Financial Times is there to greet incomers like a rosy beacon of daily journalism (the color is rosy; the news is not so good). Around the corner, 14th Street is still evolving. Awaken Cafe’s art and performance space in the old Golden Bull bar (414 14th St) won’t be open until the end of 2008 although the to-go cafe portion has been operating for a while. Exhale Salon and Body Spa went into to the storefront next to the Joyce Gordon Gallery but what will occupy the space on the corner of 14th and Franklin is still a mystery. I thought Jesso’s was supposed to open in that block but there was no sign of the restaurant from where I was standing.