November 27, 2015 by tomdalzell

Contrastive focus reduplication

  You know the construction that I am starting with – I’m going to dinner with a friend. A friend friend, or a friend friend?   Paul Dickson, my slang mentor, named this playful phenomenon “word word,”  Linguists call it contrastive focus reduplication.  There are many scholarly articles about this. My favorite is the Salad-Salad paper […]

November 26, 2015 by tomdalzell

Guanyin

I think we know what I am I saying and what I am not saying about Buddhist iconography. L’iconographie n’est pas bizarre en soi.  Ha!  It is not quirky in and of itself. Its presence as part of our cultural fabric is. Nous ne devons pas répéter, faisons-nous?No need to go over this ground again, right? Guanyin […]

November 21, 2015 by tomdalzell

Jana Olson’s flamboyant confidence of style

Jana Olson arrived in Berkeley the day after I turned 20. I was still in Philadelphia, working at the University of Pennsylvania Dining Service. My family still lived on Old Gulph Road in Bryn Mawr.  All about me!  The point being: on July 6, 1971, Olson came from Minnesota looking for work in landscape architecture. […]

November 16, 2015 by tomdalzell

Gabby’s Paul Bunyan Collection

  A few summers ago, our friend Gabby took the oldest daughter of his daughter Marie-Louise, on a three-week road trip that started in his hometown Nekoosa.  His parents were no longer alive, but his sisters all still live in Nekoosa and Wisconsin Rapids. The first theme of their road trip was the displacement and […]

November 15, 2015 by tomdalzell

Leslie Safarik’s Ceramic Joy

You may have seen them as you drove past Ohmega Salvage on San Pablo.  They’ve been there a few months, these bright and joyful seven-foot ceramic women. You may have seen them somewhere else.  Probably not, but there is a slight chance.  These photos are from the Marin Independent Journal. The photos – and sculpture – […]

November 8, 2015 by tomdalzell

Folk Music at Julie’s Place

  Julie’s Place was the child of Barry Smiler. It existed in the crease between the boom of folk music that started in Berkeley in the late 1950s with the folk festival and folk clubs on San Pablo and today’s scene of Freight & Salvage, Starry Plough, Ashkenaz, and the Art House Gallery. Smiler is a folk music enthusiast […]

November 8, 2015 by tomdalzell

Painted but Not Murals

  Goodness knows I have posted about Berkeley’s murals.  As of today, I have 11 posts on our murals.  Do you doubt me?  Go here if you do. Here I share (share!) photos of painted surfaces that are not murals but are expressive and quirky.  Yes, I know – most are from homes but a […]

October 31, 2015 by tomdalzell

Boy with a Leaking Boot

  Gabby had gotten briefly focused on photographs of statues of the Boy with a Leaking Boot.  He was drawn to them because of the swirl of stories about its origin. Some say it was a young Italian newspaper boy who drowned. Some say it was an a drummer boy in the US Army carrying […]

October 31, 2015 by tomdalzell

Sabato “Simon” or “Sam” Rodia

  Between 1921 and 1954, Italian Immigrant Sabato “Simon” Rodia created the Watts Tower.  If there is a more striking example of outsider art or folk art (hate that term!) in the United States, I don’t know of it. Rodia eventually moved to Martinez, where my friend claims to have visited him.  There are lots […]

October 25, 2015 by tomdalzell

Mosaics

  The word “mosaic” comes from the Old French mosaicq “mosaic work,” from the Italian mosaico, and from Medieval Latin musaicum “mosaic work, work of the Muses.” Medieval mosaics were often dedicated to the Muses. Now you know. You know, either by my confessions or by observing, that I strive for completion.  I want EVERY example of something. This is a weakness, […]