Cal Culture

New Law Dean Talks Comey, Campus Free Speech, Trump’s Legacy

Erwin Chemerinsky, the incoming dean at UC Berkeley Law School and a constitutional law scholar of national repute, has been ruminating much of late on the ongoing shenanigans in Washington and their implications for the Republic. Chemerinsky weighed in with CALIFORNIA late last week and shared some of his thoughts, including his take on reports that President Donald Trump might attempt to invoke executive privilege to prevent former FBI director James Comey from testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee this week.

Posted on June 6, 2017 - 3:34pm

Vijay Iyer Jazzes Up the Ojai at Berkeley Music Festival

A couples counselor could have warned Vijay Iyer that the relationship was doomed, but he needed to figure it out for himself. When he arrived at UC Berkeley in the summer of 1992 to start a graduate program in physics, Iyer was also nursing a simmering passion for jazz. The pianist quickly started connecting with some of the Bay Area’s leading improvisers, and after two years, he found himself in something of a crisis—uninspired by his academic courses while increasingly drawn to intensive jazz sessions.

Posted on June 5, 2017 - 11:31am

Dan Siegel on Free Speech and People’s Park 48 Years Later

Five questions for Dan Siegel, famous as an articulate firebrand on the UC Berkeley campus during the heady 1960s. He is now 71 and is a civil rights attorney in Oakland. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Posted on May 24, 2017 - 1:11pm

Reading Roundup: Cal Clashes, Tragedy, Budget Cuts, Silk Road

Conservative Students on Political Hostility at Cal

Five UC Berkeley conservatives give firsthand accounts of clashes with others on campus, describing the tactics of those who oppose them to be “unnecessarily provocative.”

Posted on May 11, 2017 - 2:07pm

Ann Coulter at Berkeley: Untangling the Truth

It’s been about a week since Ann Coulter tried but failed to speak on the Berkeley campus, and the outrage continues unabated. Outrage that once again a conservative was silenced on a liberal campus. Outrage that the university cancelled her appearance and refused to provide appropriate protection for her. Once again, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement is depicted as a place where free speech—at least for conservatives—went home to die. But what actually happened between the university, Coulter and the three student groups that wanted to host her?

Posted on May 6, 2017 - 9:17am

WATCH: The Music Keeper

Cal Performances will stage the first ever modern-day performance of the original The Temple of Glory, a gem of the music library’s collection, this weekend at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. 

Posted on April 26, 2017 - 2:04pm

Berkeley Flashback: Chuck Berry—What a Jerk

Chuck Berry is dead at age 90. He is considered one of the founders of rock ‘n’ roll, but Beatle John Lennon thought he was unrivaled, once saying, “If you had to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you’d call it Chuck Berry.” Unlike Elvis, Chuck Berry actually wrote all of his own songs. Elvis was a good performer, but Berry wrote songs that captured the teenage experience which was the foundation of rock ‘n’ roll.

Posted on April 25, 2017 - 10:44am

Earth Week Reading Roundup

In celebration of Earth Week, we’ve rounded up the best of Cal in environmental news this week.

Living for the City

The remote locations of tech company campuses have provided certain benefits for employees and a creepy setting for every techpocalypse novel and film EVER, but they also have their drawbacks, as a recent UC Berkeley study concludes.

Posted on April 20, 2017 - 4:31pm

Berkeley Flashback: The Crunchy Munchy Man

During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a perpetually cheerful older gentleman who wore a white smock and cap while peddling ice cream on the Berkeley campus. He was known as the Crunchy Munchy Man and was a fixture on campus from 1952 to 1968. He often stationed himself outside Sather Gate, and his customers—the students of UC Berkeley—came, it seems, as much for the friendly service and engaging conversation as they did for the ice cream.

Posted on April 13, 2017 - 1:22pm

WATCH: A Dream Denied?

Join the conversation on immigration on Tuesday, April 11 at the Cal Alumni Association’s panel discussion “A Dream Denied? The Immigrant Experience in the Campus Community.” Click here for information on how to attend and watch the live online broadcast of the event. 

If you missed the event or would like to watch it again, you can view the recording here.

Posted on April 10, 2017 - 11:23am

Finding His Tribe: The Art of Charles Gatewood

I couldn’t decide what made me feel dirtier—looking at hundreds of pictures of naked girls, or rifling through the personal belongings of a man I’d never met. But I was doing both one evening in the Bancroft Library reading room, traversing the late photographer Charles Gatewood’s massive archive chronicling the kink, tattoo, and body modification subcultures of America and especially the West Coast.

From the Spring 2017 Virtue and Vice issue of California.

Reading Roundup: Chancellor, Gig Life, Animal Videos, Immigration

 

The Health of the Gig Economy

Living that gig life isn’t always easy. The repeal of Obamacare would likely mean more challenges for the state’s many independent workers who aren’t entitled to health coverage through their work, according to a UC Berkeley Labor Center study. 

Posted on March 16, 2017 - 11:49am

Our House: Chaos and Creation in the Berkeley Student Cooperative

In the Winter of 1979, the residents of Barrington Hall built a stage on the ground floor of their home, opposite the entrance to the dining room. With only about eight feet between the linoleum floor and the concrete ceiling, the stage couldn’t be taller than seven or eight inches. But it was tall enough—upon it, the legendary Berkeley cooperative hosted legions of punk rock and funk metal bands, both famous and forgotten. Everybody played there over the years, from Black Flag to Primus.

From the Spring 2017 Virtue and Vice issue of California.

The Peace Corps: What Could Be More Berkeley?

In 1961, the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States was heating up, relations between Cuba and the U.S. were cold, and soon after John F. Kennedy’s inauguration as America’s youngest president, he asked Congress to fund a new Peace Corps. The Peace Corps had its inception in a campaign speech Kennedy gave on the Michigan campus in October 1960, when he challenged students to consider spending at least part of their lives helping the poor overseas.

From the Spring 2017 Virtue and Vice issue of California.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

“You can always eat more, but you can’t eat less.”

My boyfriend Mark (whose name has been changed to protect the embarrassed) was reading the back wrapper of a marijuana-infused peanut butter cookie we’d just purchased from a Berkeley dispensary. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“I think it’s a caution to start with a small bite because once you eat it all, you can’t go back.”

From the Spring 2017 Virtue and Vice issue of California.

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