We panicked, and looked around anxiously, thinking that this was some kind of sick demonstration by the mischievous Professor Filippenko to show the effects of cosmic time warps or something, but then we remembered that it was Homecoming week. And Homecoming means parents … and alumni. Everywhere.

We’re guessing that Filippenko’s entertaining and informative lectures got placed on some kind of “Berkeley treasures we need to show off while sugar mamas and daddies are here” list. In any case, the zany astronomer was in full form, talking about the planets, moons, and other spacey stuff. He even managed to work in a little spiel about global warming by using Venus as a vision of Earth’s possible overheated future. Hm … smart man, that Alex Filippenko.

Image Source: Jeffrey Silverman under Creative Commons

We love ourselves some “Get Fuzzy” comics–but when we tire of ye old cat-eat-dog slapstick, our eyes divert to the smart political commentary of “Candorville.” Obscure comic blog “Panels and Pixels” recently interviewed Darrin Bell, the Berkeley alumnus and cartoonist responsible for The Daily Californian’s favorite comic strip fixture. If you didn’t know, the strip is nationally syndicated and is quite a favorite in the Bay Area, where San Francisco Chronicle readers banded together to keep it in the paper.

Oh, and did we mention that Bell got his start at the Daily Cal?

I started writing for the Daily Californian — UC Berk(e)ley’s daily college paper. I was excited about it. I was interviewing people like the governor of California, our local congressman, Senator Boxer. I wrote articles and at the same time I had these cartoons that I was drawing in my spare time. I just dumped them on the paper and told them run whenever they feel like.

When my articles ran I asked my friends what they thought. None of them had read any of the articles but everybody had read my cartoons and loved them. So after a few months of that I figured maybe my future lies in that direction.

…

Candorville grew out of those cartoons that I did. At the time it was called Lamont Brown. It was an autobiographical strip. It gave me an outlet to vent my frustrations about college life. After I graduated from college it gave me an outlet for other things.

Check out the full interview for more about Bell’s politics, influences (he draws inspiration from sitcoms), experience as a black cartoonist and his thoughts on the state of newspaper comics. Yay for successful alumni!

Image Source: Glynnis Ritchie under Creative Commons
Graphic Lit: An interview with Darrin Bell [Panels and Pixels]
Candorville by Darrin Bell [Web site]

While the ASUC candidates were duking it out over god-knows-what in Barrows Hall, somewhere just out of earshot, the Superb Spring Concert rocked Lower Sproul Plaza. By the time the show started, most people knew that the “surprise” guests were, in fact, the Counting Crows, so we didn’t see anyone stalk off in a huff mumbling about how they’d heard William Shatner was coming.

If they sound familiar, but you can’t quite put a tune to a band name, the Counting Crows are most recently known for their Academy Award-nominated song, “Accidentally in Love,” but are much better known for their slightly-sporadic string of massive hits during the nineties. Whatever associations the audience had with the band, they all melted together into a big, steaming pile of love when front man Adam Duritz, a Berkeley alum, slurred fondly about playing on Sproul Plaza in the past, then later pulled on a Cal sweatshirt.

After the performance, which finished with a 4-song encore, the air was abuzz with raging debate about Duritz’s precise level of intoxication, as the crowd–largely comprised of an awkward combination of hipster students, and alumni from the nineties who brought their young children–dispersed. In Duritz’s defense, however, sources say that the jumping and wobbling lead singer had injured his ankle (or heel, or something … ), not to mention the guy did sound great.

Quite a few audience members also expressed displeasure at what they viewed as the band’s implied stubborn refusal to play their most currently recognizable hit, “Accidentally in Love.” But hey, if you wrote an over-played toe-tapper for “Shrek 2,” you might not feel like playing it all the freaking time, either.

Image Source: Alex Cohen
Earlier: The Daily Californian Elections Circus … er, Forum
Counting Crows [Wikipedia]
Counting Crows Mr. Jones Live From Sproul Plaza 4/4/08 [YouTube]