Author Archive
May 29, 2014 by tomdalzell
Gabby, Young Emily, and Thunder Road
Gabby and Young Emily were fond of the Main Point, especially Emily who spent the first 17 years of her life in Philadelphia as opposed to Gabby with less than a year there. In 1975, Gabby was working in the legal department of the United Farm Workers on the first-ever organizing drive sanctioned by […]
April 27, 2014 by tomdalzell
Pub Tiki, Philadelphia
My friend knew the Pub Tiki and asked if I cold track down any more images. I found a few, presented below. My memories of Pub Tiki are slightly traumatic, given (1) the exotic nature of the food by Philadelphia 1962 standards, and (2) my Very picky eating proclivities. But, the images are great: My […]
April 23, 2014 by tomdalzell
Googie Chapel
Let’s start with the premise that there is such thing as a Googie church. And then let’s look at a photo of an architectural model of Christ Chapel and ponder its possible claim to Googie influences. From third grade through 12th grade I went to the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania. Except we called […]
April 23, 2014 by tomdalzell
Gabby’s 1964 Worlds Fair Postcard Collection
Gabby sent my friend his collection of 1964 Worlds Fair postcards. By Gabby standards, it was a small collection. I took the postcards with me recently to Dayton, Ohio, to show my friend Criswell. He remembered our trip to New York in 1965 very well. He carried his extra cash in his shoe. I carried […]
April 18, 2014 by tomdalzell
Architecture – Googie!!!! Or – Semi-Googie!!!!
I still cannot define (or even decide) to what extent I will include architecture in my overall vision of what is Quirky Berkeley, but I know that I will include – and am now including – Googie architecture as officially part of the Quirky Berkeley Fabric. I only wish we had more. Even if you […]
April 15, 2014 by tomdalzell
Gabby and Googie
In the summer of 1970, the consumer boycott of grapes pressured California table grape growers to negotiate and sign contracts with the United Farm Workers, 5 years after the Filipino AWOC and Mexican NFWA went on strike. My friend Gabby had been banished to the Philadelphia boycott from Delano in 1969 because of a romantic […]
April 12, 2014 by tomdalzell
Gone #4: Old Weird Telegraph Part Five – Church and State
Religion and politics – oil and water, gas and fire – mixed on Old Weird Telegraph. Hare Kirshna’s (not treated here) and an old-school fire and brimstone Christian preacher and a new-school liberation theologist preacher shared turf with crazies and serious radicals running unsuccessfuly for public office, glorious defeat after glorious defeat. It was all […]
March 23, 2014 by tomdalzell
Bozo
I was not afraid of clowns, but I didn’t find them warm and cuddly either. Come to think of it, Claribel made me a little uncomfortable. While working on the reduplications, I had an e-mail correspondence with Gabby. He sent me a lot of Hully Gully photographs, and suggested that I contact a friend of […]
March 23, 2014 by tomdalzell
Hully Gully
In an e-mail with Gabby, I mentioned the reduplication project and carelessly gave “hully gully” as an example. The OED defines it as “a dance that is a modification of the frug.” The earliest citation in the OED of Hully Gully as a dance is 1964. The Olympics released the song “Hully Gully” in 1959. […]
March 23, 2014 by tomdalzell