Author Archive
April 5, 2020 by tomdalzell
Who is that masked man?
He is roaming the streets of Berkeley. Our data points on him suggest that he has confined his roaming to North Berkeley. These two photos show what he is doing. What a rose that is in bloom on the trellis in the background of the lower photo, no? Rosa banksiae, common names Lady Banks’ rose, […]
March 30, 2020 by tomdalzell
The Enclave Apartments – Ken Sarachan’s “Moorish Tudor fever dream”
The corner for decades, the northeast corner of Telegraph and Haste was home to the Berkeley Inn, which I glorified in this post. It started life as an almost-elegant apartment house. It was advertised as having “100 rooms equipped in the most complete modern manner, beautifully furnished.” By the time fires ripped through it in […]
March 23, 2020 by tomdalzell
Our Dark, Satanic Mills, Tertiam Partem
These are times that try our souls. I am keeping up my Quirky Berkeley project in the belief that anything distracting or positive is more important and helpful now than ever. I was convinced of this when I got an email from Lenny Pitt. He sent a link to a 7-minute film he made using […]
March 15, 2020 by tomdalzell
Chocolate Club
Lenny Pitt has opened another quirky door for me – It meets every month in the cottage behind Leonard Pitt’s home in North Berkeley. You perhaps remember my post on Pitt from late 2015, in which we visited the cottage in question. And more recently Pitt took me to meet and see the perfume world […]
March 9, 2020 by tomdalzell
HELP WANTED: Quirky Restaurant Interiors
Ever since Dara closed (Shatuck and Cedar), Tuk Tuk at 2468 has been my go-to Thai restaurant. The formal name for a tuk-tuk is an auto rickshaw because it is a motorized development of the traditional pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. “Rickshaw” originates from the Japanese word jinrikisha (人力車, 人 jin = human, 力 riki […]
February 22, 2020 by tomdalzell
Duke
My friend had told me this about Duke: “When we were young, we were kind of close to our cousin named Duke. At least we thought he was our cousin. Like us, he had a Norse god nickname – Ve. Right after this Christmas photo (below) our aunt and uncle moved to the Upper Peninsula with […]
February 22, 2020 by tomdalzell
Jim Riley – Collections and Art He Made
I posted previously about Jim Riley and the sweaters he has knitted, with smaller posts about his rude sweaters and Sweaters of Adoration for the Chelsea Football Club. Here I show you more of the art and quirk in his house. There are two collections in the house that are in the sphere of control […]
February 16, 2020 by tomdalzell
Jim Riley – Sweaters – And More
I met Jim Riley at the 7-Eleven on University at Sacramento. I am reminded of my childhood hymn “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” and its assurance that we can meet saints of God “in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at […]
February 16, 2020 by tomdalzell
Jim Riley’s sweaters – soccer/football/Chelsea
The Chelsea Football Club is a professional football club – in American English that would be “soccer team” – in Fulham, London. Founded in 1905, Chelsea competes in the Premier League, the top division of English soccer. Fulham is an posh residential area known for posh shopping streets like King’s Road and Fulham Road, which […]
February 16, 2020 by tomdalzell