Author Archive
July 22, 2017 by tomdalzell
Fito
Newspapers reported that in the early morning of September 12, 2010, Adolfo “Fito” Celedon Bravo died shortly after being shot on this spot at Emerson and Adeline during an armed robbery as he walked home with his fiancée Amber Daniela Nelson after a night of dancing at Ashkenaz on his birthday eve. Nelson uses a different […]
July 22, 2017 by tomdalzell
Imagine – Two Years of Photos
As we learned in the main Fito post, Amber Nelson took a photo of the painted Imagine on Emerson above Adeline almost every day for two years. The photo was the last step in a daily ritual: look over the garden and marvel at the growth since yesterday; close the best of the decaying […]
July 15, 2017 by tomdalzell
Izzy Sher Metal Art for Sale
In 2015, I published a post about Emil “Izzy Sher,” a Berkeley wire and metal worker who died in 1999. His son Zalman was selling some of Izzy’s work in his Virginia Street backyard. Contrary to widespread opinion, Berkeley-as-Rebel was not born with the Free Speech Movement in 1964 or even the HUAC demonstrations in 1960. […]
July 8, 2017 by tomdalzell
Fuji Inn – Research Rapture – Victory!
This post is about my obsessive search for any photograph of the Fuji Inn, formerly at 2505 Telegraph. The story starts with Jack Kerouac. Well, before Jack, with Allen Ginsberg. Allen Ginsberg lived in Berkeley from September 1955 until August 1956. Ginsberg lived in a back cottage at 1624 Milvia Street. I have never found a photo […]
July 5, 2017 by tomdalzell
Field Trip: Susan’s Store Room in San Anselmo
It’s the Fourth of July which means that it is time for a notional Quirky Berkeley holiday field trip. Susan Alexander has never given me a bum steer. She invited me to her place in Glen Ellen. BINGO. She introduced me to Patrick Amiot and Brigitte Laurent in Sebastopol. BINGO She introduced me to Art Moura […]
July 5, 2017 by tomdalzell
Ric’s Toys
I saw this for sale at Susan’s Store Room in San Anselmo. Check out the cards you use for the quizzes: Cool graphics! My father had this toy in the 1920s (he was born in 1916). He handed it down to his first son, my half brother Ric, who was known for most of his […]
July 1, 2017 by tomdalzell
Julia Vinograd and her visual creativity
Julia Vinograd sat amidst bright quilts and pillows on the bed in her apartment at the California Apartments on University, wearing her trademark long skirt and black and yellow hat, surrounded by photographs and paintings and stained glass and beads and skulls, reading out loud from her 2006 Cannibals and Casseroles. She read “On the Berkeley […]
June 25, 2017 by tomdalzell
Asia in (Quirky) Berkeley
Asia Colombo spent the 2016-2017 school year as a foreign exchange student at Berkeley High. She is from Italy. Her name is not pronounced as we pronounce the name of the continent, but as “Ah-zia.” She was a part of my family for the year. She took a strong interest in all things Berkeley, […]
June 24, 2017 by tomdalzell
Ian Wood’s Garage Door Photos
My final post of 2016 was about painted garage doors. In response, if some months later, Ian Wood wrote me and sent me a link to his Instagram collection of several hundred photos of Berkeley garage doors. As R. Crumb would say: Wood was born and raised in Berkeley. He left in early adulthood, living in […]
June 20, 2017 by tomdalzell