Author Archive
February 5, 2014 by tomdalzell
Signs: Reminders of the Past
Faded signs move me. With faded as the operative word, let’s see who that is coming down the road: Damn! It’s Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys! Singing, of course, “Faded Love.” When I worked for the United Farm Workers, I spent a great deal of time in the Imperial Valley. My friend Gabby from […]
February 5, 2014 by tomdalzell
Gabby at the Hotel De Anza, Calexico
I spent much of my life between 1972 and 1980 in Calexico. It is right on the border, with the much larger Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, butting up against the fence. I wasn’t normally there in July and August, but the lettuce harvest in the winter and melons in the summer kept me there […]
February 4, 2014 by tomdalzell
Cajun Culture: Murals and Posters
I am so inspired by the posters at Popeye’s – and at the same time so afraid that I will learn something about them that I don’t want to learn – that I went looking for murals and posters that celebrate Cajun culture in general, zydeco music in specific. The earliest recorded usage of “Cajun” […]
February 3, 2014 by tomdalzell
Gabby and Accordions
My friend Gabby’s memoir has a couple mentions of accordion. The first is from the September, 1973. He and Sandy (whom he calls Dusty) and I (whom he refers to as “Dazzler,” the name by which I was universally known within the Union) were living on Gage Street in Bakersfield, a ratty little house […]
February 3, 2014 by tomdalzell
Basque Restaurant Signs
This is turning into infinite digression. It is raining, almost cold. No futsol games to watch for another few hours. So – why not? They speak of the Basque diaspora. The OED defines Basque as “A native of Biscay; name of the ancient race inhabiting both slopes of the western Pyrenees, adjacent to the Bay […]
February 3, 2014 by tomdalzell
Gabby’s Accordion Album Covers
My friend Gabby is a collector. He has had several great collections in his lifetime. It’s funny, though – he can walk away from a collection he has spent 30 years amassing. Just like that. His girlfriend Emily is something approaching a genius when it comes to music. Gabby could appreciate what she was up […]
January 30, 2014 by tomdalzell
Murals #2: Ethnic Pride
The line between murals that celebrate struggle and murals that celebrate ethnic pride is not a bright line. This posting and the murals-of-struggle posting should be considered a whole, or a continuum. I have some slight reservations about these murals because they are mostly commissioned works of public art. I am, I think, ignoring […]
January 28, 2014 by tomdalzell
The Wild West
The artists and artisans and savants and anarchists of West Berkeley speak of the Wild West, meaning the open and free and funky character of their part of the city. That is not what I am talking about here. Cue theme song for this posting: CBS Friday nights 1965-1969. Black and white in […]
January 28, 2014 by tomdalzell
Revolutionary Literacy Campaigns
An aggressive literacy campaign – La Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización en Cuba – was a centerpiece of the Cuban revolutionary government in 1961. The outreach was successful, raising the national literacy rate to that of a developed nation. If you want to read more, The revolutionary government called attention to the campaign through marches dramatizing literacy. […]
January 28, 2014 by tomdalzell