Category: Berkeley

Posted on

Mudville

section129a.jpg section129.jpg

Two shots from last night’s A’s game. The local nine was overwhelmed by the Detroit Tigers and Justin Verlander, a pitcher who seemed completely in command of the game–though the fans had several little two-out-type rallies to get excited over. I’m in the habit of counting the outs a team has left in a game: 12 when they go to bat in the sixth, nine in the seventh, and so on. I took these shots when the A’s were down to their last four or five outs and trailing 6-0. Most of the crowd seemed to accept that the miracle of the night before, when the Athletics ripped the game away from the Tigers in their very last at bat, probably wasn’t going to be repeated.

After the final out, the crowd booed the Tigers briefly as they began their celebration for the cameras on the infield. But after a few seconds, the whole place started to cheer and chant “Let’s Go Oakland!” That’s what’s happening in the shot below. The players hung out near the home dugout for five, maybe even 10 minutes. I hoped they’d take a lap around the Coliseum, but maybe that would be seen as showing up the Tigers and maybe they were dealing with a disappointment that was much bigger than the fans were going through. One by one, they walked off the field. When we made our way out of the stadium about 20 minutes after the game, a lot of people were still lingering, apparently trying to hang on to the last glimmer of a season that surprised and pleased just about every fan who made it to the ballpark this year. As we left, a couple of the A’s drummers were giving a final spirited performance before the Coliseum is locked to baseball for the winter, the infield is sodded over, and football takes over for the rest of the year.

section129b.jpg

Posted on

Cat at Work

glovecat092912.jpg

I recently heard a story on NPR about how Berliners use lampposts as “virtual totem poles of information.” In some parts of the city, the posts are covered by layer after layer of flyers and personal announcements. One that attracted the reporter’s attention said, “A HORRIBLE ACCIDENT HAS HAPPENED.” It turned out a woman had lost one of her favorite stiletto shoes. A guy who collects samples of the Berlin notices describes them as affording “a deep insight of the soul of the city. These are real treasures that need to be documented, because it’s part of our everyday life culture.”

There are places in Berkeley (and elsewhere nearby) where lampposts and telephone poles and have been converted into conduits of information (or requests for information). Notices reporting yard sales and lost pets are the most common. Sometimes the inquiries are more unusual: a guy looking for a lost belt buckle, a neighbor berating the thief who broke into their car. Occasionally the postings become more elaborate. The person who lectured the break-in artist, for instance, augmented the note with the charger for a flashlight that had been stolen.

Pictured here is a uniquely elaborate example of the Berkeley street notice, over on Sonoma Avenue. The sign reads: “Bentley, our cat, loves to hunt, and brings us garden gloves he finds. Please take those you own with our apologies.” The best part is the improvised mini-clothesline with the stray gloves pinned to it.

glovecat092912a.jpg

Posted on

Looks Like Home

sfoapproach091112.jpg

As noted often before, my Number 1 favorite activity during a plane flight is staring out the window at what’s below. My Number 2 favorite activity is taking pictures of whatever it is. Above is a shot from Tuesday evening, as we approached San Francisco International Airport on our flight home from Chicago. This shot looks north across Sunol Regional Wilderness to San Antonio Reservoir (one of the many reservoirs in the San Francisco water system). I love the light on the contours of this landscape. (The air? I believe it was smoky from fires we’ve been having in Northern California, though I never followed up on that to figure out where the closes fires were.)

Posted on

Your Friendly Neighborhood Low-Flying Radiation-Detecting Helicopter

Helicopters circling over a local news event: That’s just one of those noises you get used to in our modern urban soundscape. When you hear the sound of choppers orbiting over some downtown or campus or some random intersection, you know a protest is going on or maybe a fire or maybe someone’s spotted a picturesque car crash.

This morning’s helicopter visit is different. Starting sometime in the groggy hour before 8 a.m., I started to hear a helicopter nearby. It would pass, then return. It sounded like it was flying low. Once I was up and attending to the morning’s first ritual, making coffee, I heard the helicopter coming back and went out and took a look. It looked like it was only about 500 feet up, if that, and it was not orbiting or following anything at that height.

I remembered seeing an article somewhere about some government agency taking radiation measurements over parts of the Bay Area. This helicopter must be part of that whole thing, I thought. After the chopper passed, I went in and tried to find some information.

The summary, by way of the excellent Oakland North blog: “Some government agency” is the Department of Homeland Security’s Nuclear Detection Office and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Despite what I say in the video above, the helicopter is a Bell 412, and it’s outfitted with equipment to measure background radiation levels in the area. The stated purpose: to assist research and development on airborne radiation detection systems. (More on the chopper(s) at Berkeleyside: Low-flying helicopters over Berkeley.)

Posted on

Ruminants Among Us

deerscat082312.jpg

Yes, that up there is common deer poop, left right next to a manzanita bush in our front yard. Or so I believe from previous experience in wilder parts of the country. I can’t think of another animal in our parts that would leave scat that looks quite like this. More circumstantial evidence: a deer hoof print in our next-door neighbor’s front-yard garden, which contains lots of roses, reputedly a favorite food of our semi-urban deer.

Joking aside: the deer have moved in. There’s not enough cover in our yard for them to stay full time, but I’ve heard of places within three or four blocks where deer families have taken up residence. I don’t object, though they are larger than our average wild neighbor and the thing that sometimes worries me about them is scaring one at night and getting run over. Hasn’t happened yet, though.

Posted on

Carved in Stone: Epitaphs, Actual and Proposed

With my dad’s recent passing, and having made several (unrelated, except for my mood) recent visits to Chicago cemeteries, I’ve been thinking about epitaphs. Webster’s defines epitaph as “1. an inscription on or at a tomb or a grave in memory of the one buried there. 2.: a brief statement commemorating or epitomizing a deceased person or something past.”

Most of what’s carved on graveyard monuments is pretty simple: names, dates, and relationships. Beyond that, most of the common people buy at most a brief fragment of a sentiment. In Catholic cemeteries, I’ve seen a lot of “My Jesus Mercy.” On my dad’s parents’ grave, In largely Scandinavian-American (and Lutheran) ground, the message is “Christ My Hope.”

But except for the expense involved–I think we’re paying $150 to have “2012” carved on my dad’s headstone–I think a secular message might be reflect more the concerns of today’s future deceased Americans. I’m thinking of phrases that reflect the preoccupations of most of us for most of our waking life: Phrases like:

Has anyone seen my keys?

Do you mind getting me another beer?

It’s time to get up already?

Turn here. No–here!

Have change for a 20?

Hey–there’s no toilet paper in here!

Sorry I’m late–traffic was terrible!

I meant to get in touch.

Don’t blame me.

What time is it?

Yeah–I’ll send that check tomorrow.

Later–we’ll discuss it later.

Posted on

For Dad: Three Readings

“…When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me. …”

—Stanley Kunitz

* * *

“I sauntered about from rock to rock, from grove to grove, from stream to stream, and whenever I met a new plant I would sit down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance, hear what it had to tell. I asked the boulders where they had been and whither they were going, and when night found me, there I camped. I took no more heed to save time or to make haste than did the trees or the stars. This is true freedom, a good, practical sort of immortality.”

—John Muir

* * *
“The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me;
It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any, on the shadow’d wilds;
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.”

—Walt Whitman

Posted on

Red Tails, Berkeley Hills Edition

hawk072012.jpg

We went for an afternoon hike up on the Seaview Trail in the Berkeley Hills. It was hot up there for the dog, but it was apparently perfect flying weather for red-tailed hawks. We saw a couple of them as we got up onto the ridge, apparently young one without the darker adult plumage. At the top of the ridge, another one appeared–that’s the picture above. And when we were lower down, returning to the car on the Quarry Trail, what appeared to me to be an adult began circling close by. The pictures aren’t National Geographic quality, but they give an idea of the intricacy of the plumage, and I love the translucence of the feathers. What beautiful birds.

Posted on

Thistle

thistle071512.jpg

Growing just up the block, at the edge of a neighbor’s yard. I’m sure it’s noxious, non-native, invasive. For today, anyway, it’s both severe and beautiful, something to steer clear of and wonder at. (And yes, whenever I see a thistle part of my brain zips back to the lobby of the Holiday Theater in Park Forest, which sold hard butterscotch candies by Callard & Bowser. Their trademark includes a flowering thistle.