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May 9, 2013 by tomdalzell

Miscellaneous Quirky No. 1

1242 Spruce

1242 Spruce

For a project devoted to quirk, my love of categories sometimes seems counter-intuitive. Collectors are compulsive organizers and categorizers – I get that.  But shouldn’t the infinite and disjointed nature of quirk over-ride those tendencies?   I will get back to you on this point.  But for now, here are some photos of quirk that don’t fit my neat pigeon holes and don’t find themselves in albums that I have created.

William Carlos Williams almost wrote a famous poem about a red boot tacked to a wooden fence.     He changed his mind when he spotted a red wheelbarrow, but I found the boot:

1387 Virginia

1387 Virginia

John Storey, who made the best pictures on this site, makes wine.  Here is one of his labels:

IMG_6890

I think that Mr. Williams maybe should have stuck with the red boots and forgotten about that blue wheelbarrow.

Quirk often celebrates unexpected materials as art, and that is the essence of this gate, found on Ashby Avenue, not a hotbed of quirk in general but here, yes.  The cell phone as art!

2231 Ashby

2231 Ashby

Assuming, for a brief moment, the role played by Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Strip” (1950),”All right Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close- up”:

2231 Ashby

2231 Ashby

Popeye is quirky.  Canned spinach with the Popeye brand is quirkier.  An antique can of canned spinach with the Popeye brand is quirkier still.  An antique can of canned spinach with the Popeye brand nailed to a gate post is quirkiest:

2507 Woolsey

2507 Woolsey

And now, a brief exploration of big and little, of big things made little and little things made big.  First, a big bridge made little:

1421 9th

1421 9th

And now some big trees tucked behind Don’s Tires on Gilman:

820 Gilman

820 Gilman

And finally back to big to little.  I generally don’t consider kid toys in the yard to be quirky.  I don’t think that is the case here.  This is much too deliberate:

1311 Lincoln

1311 Lincoln

Having a large cut-out figure of Arnold Schwarzenegger outside your business is prima facie quirky, unless you are a video rental store, which almost doesn’t exist and isn’t the case here.   But that cut-out in Berkeley and the quirk is off the charts. The fact that this is a stone’s throw from the Emeryville border doesn’t diminish it’s charm:

3045 Hollis

3045 Hollis

Words don’t do justice trying to describe this lovely little piece of quirk next to Jesse’s house:

 

2230 8th

2230 8th

To my generation, Pac Man seems recent.  Pac Man, though, we have had with us since 1980.  A popular culture icon of the 1980s, Pac Man is with us still, on demand on Gilman:

1304 Gilman

1304 Gilman

You have been a patient audience. We finally reach the climax, the collection of stripes, brought to us by the fences and awnings of Berkeley.  But let’s cheat first and go to one Berkeley-adjacent Albany striped fence:

 

1122 Cornell (cheating! Albany adderss)

1122 Cornell

And now pure Berkeley, starting with a cool ski fence on a cool alley:

1200 block Telvin

Followed by – striped fences.

1621 Curtis
1607 Delaware
3001 Dohr, on Ashby
1149 Cedar

Awnings, fixtures of the non-quirky norm, can provide quirk by color:

2113 6th

2113 6th

1405 Channing

1405 Channing

Encore: snowboard fence:

2411 Channing

2411 Channing

Stay tuned.  More miscellaneous to come.  Much more.

IMG_3677

 

Here you will find photos of the oddball, whimsical, eccentric, and the near-rhyme quirky material culture of Berkeley.
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