Author Archive
November 29, 2014 by tomdalzell
The Milk Farm & Vacaville
When I think about signs featuring the moon, my mind goes to Dixon where the cow still jumps over the moon. My friend had the same thought when we were doing our moon motel exercise, but I didn’t have the energy to pursue the Dixon sign then. I do now. Aside: the earliest printed […]
November 29, 2014 by tomdalzell
Fences (and maybe a wall)
There are several great images as candidates for illustrating a wall. Fences are tricker, but I think that there is one obvious choice: The poem is, of course,”Mending Wall” by Robert Frost. He uses “wall” and “fence” interchangeably, with the truly famous “Good fences good neighbors,” a dogma of his neighbor which he challenges. Why […]
November 29, 2014 by tomdalzell
San Francisco 1957
In the summer of 1957, my friend’s dad packed the family into his 1954 Hudson Hornet and they headed west. They followed their AAA Triptik from Detroit through the Great Plains, Denver, Cheyenne, and then through Utah and Nevada to California. This was the first major road trip for my friend’s family. He remembers […]
November 28, 2014 by tomdalzell
Miscellaneous #2
In case you had not noticed, I confess that I like to categorize my photos. I like thematic organization. I feel that I have failed if I cannot find ten photos that fit a theme. Maybe it is an over-application of the Protestant work ethic which was instilled in me in my childhood. Or maybe […]
November 28, 2014 by tomdalzell
Black Sambo – African Image
You see, what happened is this… Gabby read my post where I comment on the early versions of Little Black Sambo that portray Sambo as a South-Asian Indian, not as an African, and in which I mention the Sambo’s Pancake House in El Centro which Gabby and my friend and I knew in the 1970s. In response, […]
November 26, 2014 by tomdalzell
Shack Out on 101
I can’t clearly explain why my friend is so taken with the 1955 movie The Shack Out on 101. It is film noire, cliched characters, with the hard-as-nails, everybody-lusts-after waitress ending up being – spoiler alert – a spy for the commies. Or it could be simpler, it could be that he has a […]
November 26, 2014 by tomdalzell
Movie Theaters: Gone Before We Knew Them
The Berkeley Courier reported on December 12, 1914, that “There are now ten motion picture theaters in Berkeley and there will be more. There are some people who yet sneer at the motion picture, but they are to be pitied.” Pitied indeed. Strolling down memory lane, here are the photos I have found of movie theaters […]
November 26, 2014 by tomdalzell
Heino (!)
Gabby sent my friend a box of record albums with a short note: “I saw my first Heino album at the Second Mile thrift store a couple blocks from Tavia’s house in West Philadelphia on December 8, 2011. I picked up the rest on and off since then. There is an end to everything, to […]
November 23, 2014 by tomdalzell
Quirky Religious
Early in my blogging, I created a post about pre-Christian religious iconography. I argued not that the icons themselves were quirky, but that they collectively add to the fabric of Berkeley and are part of what makes the city quirky. Ditto with my posts about sculptures of Buddha and Guanyin. Here I present photos of religious […]
November 23, 2014 by tomdalzell