This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one of the transitions for the new year. I've started it This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004
1:47 PM Thursday, August 17, 2006
[Oakland: is there there there yet?]
Oakland is a grungy, violent city across the bay from San Francisco, about which Gertrude Stein once wrote "There's no there there." To be fair to Oakland (must I?), Stein was returning, after living in Paris, to her old family home and neighborhood, which had been obliterated by the winds of change. Now, in 2006, a group of artists, abetted by, of all people, a landlord named Haig Mardikian, are trying to put the "there" back in Oakland's arts scene.
An artist friend from my printmaking days, Kathleen King, invited me to her show in an artspace which is morphing from a designer's studio to a gallery. Nearby is the Mama Buzz Cafe, Oakland's answer to Zürich Dada circa 1914. The cafe proper is squeezed into a tiny space with a diner-style counter and stools, behind which is an outdoor patio rendered hip (fun, actually, worth hanging out in) by its sheer funkiness. Starbucks it's not. As for the coffee, I haven't tried it. Must I?
Adjoining the cafe at Mama Buzz is the tiny art gallery which usually has some interesting installation pieces, some of which have managed to be innovative in spite of a near-century of worldwide Dada/Surrealist/Avant-Garde/Funk explorations. There was indeed a buzz on the street, mostly young hipsters, or hip youngsters, as it were, packing the sidewalks on the edge of Oakland's sprawling Koreatown. Cheap wine flowed like, er, wine. Yes, it was fun and it's supposed to happen again the first Friday of every month. The event is called "Artmurmur." Plaudits, BTW, to Jim Zamora, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, who podcasted the event.
More links: Oakland GertrudeStein Dada AvantGarde
More Images: MamaBuzz Dada
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