The Strange Story of Yoshie Akiba, War Orphan Turned Club Owner
My name is Yoshie. But my club is called Yoshi’s. It’s easier for Americans to say.
From the Summer 2019 issue of California.
Perspectives
Editor’s Note: Up in Smoke
One day, California will fall into the sea. That’s what we used to say, anyway.
It’s an idea that goes back to huckster-clairvoyant Edgar Cayce. It had nothing to it, of course, but has kept circulating. I suppose that’s partly because so many people are jealous of California—from the beginning an imagined paradise, the domain of Queen Calafia—but also because the state really is a dangerous place, given to flooding and drought, eruptions and landslides, earthquakes and fire.
From the Spring 2019 issue of California.
To Hell and Back: A Paradise Educator Reckons with the Fire
That day started out as any other for Ambrosia Krinsky. She woke up in her Chico home, dropped her four-year-old off at day-care, then drove up The Skyway, the road that connects Chico to the smaller city of Paradise. Even before she got into town, she knew something was amiss: The sky was turning red. Paradise was burning. She sped to the town’s high school, where she teaches biology and English.
Posted on December 21, 2018 - 10:31am
Editor’s Note: Kids Don’t Play Like They Used To
Kids don’t play like they used to. For one thing, they are too often locked to their screens. For another, we’ve got ’em on tight schedules, shuttling from play dates to practices, music lessons to ball games.
From the Winter 2018 Play issue of California.
Life After Berkeley: How an Alum Survived Running with the Bulls
I blame Hemingway. Looking for something to read last year, The Sun Also Rises fell into my unwilling hands. I’d never understood why so many people lived and died by his writing, so I decided to offer him a second chance. There it was: the book that brought Pamplona to the world and then the world to Pamplona. Hemingway be damned; I found myself booking a flight to Spain.
I was going to run with the bulls.
From the Winter 2018 Play issue of California.
How to Sit Better, and Other Questions
You’ve been working on ethnography and space. What are some examples of other cultures’ uses of space that we could learn from?
From the Winter 2018 Play issue of California.
These Robots Are Learning the Old-Fashioned Way—By Playing
From the Winter 2018 Play issue of California.
Go Play! You Can Read This Later.
was during the Great Malaise of the Jimmy Carter years that Zippy the Pinhead, clown prince of non sequiturs, first wondered, “Are we having fun yet?” The questioner was a simpleton, but time has endowed his question with the ring of profundity.
Or is that an alarm bell? A warning from our inner child to slow down, ease off, throw our hands in the air like we just don’t care?
Listen up, America. We are failing at play.
From the Winter 2018 Play issue of California.
Locker Room Talk with the Boys of the Berkeley Gazette
Once upon a time, Berkeley had its own daily newspaper, the Berkeley Gazette, and for a brief, semi-glorious moment, it had two sports-reporting brothers. The paper was small enough that the brothers weren’t exclusively sports-reporters, but being born and bred in Berkeley, with Bear-blood in their veins, they wasted as much ink and newsprint on Cal’s sports program as they could possibly get away with.
Posted on December 3, 2018 - 9:36am
Polling in PJs: A Day in the Life of an Election Worker
Tonight, I’m cleaning out my garage. Not because it’s dirty or cluttered, but because I’m expecting a lot of guests tomorrow. I need to move some boxes, sweep the floor, finally put those pots and pans on the shelf. I also need to set up the tables, lay out the reading material, and hang some signs. Cleaning is deceptively relaxing; tomorrow has the potential to be hectic, and there’s a lot at stake. I don’t know exactly who’s going to show up—certainly some people I’ve never met before—but I’m hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
Posted on November 5, 2018 - 12:48pm
After the Playa: Decompressing with Burning Man’s Lawyer
Every morning on the playa, Ally Deraps wakes up in her trailer and stumbles outside into the dust to make breakfast, joining friends climbing out of tents and teepees for a bowl of oatmeal in the shade. She chooses an outfit for the day, usually something bright or themed. Then, around 10:30, she grabs a can of coffee and her Motorola radio and hops on her playa bike (furry purple seat, powder blue frame, strung with colored lights and sparkly pipe cleaners) for the 20-minute commute across Burning Man to work.
Posted on October 23, 2018 - 10:15am
Kuwa Bora, or Friendly Advice From a Fellow Mzungu
Dear Melania,
I hear you’re going to Kenya—that’s great! Kenya has a special place in my heart. It was my home for a year while I worked at a remote field site studying baboon social behavior. Not unlike your job at the White House, I’d dare to say.
Posted on October 8, 2018 - 1:31pm
The Mannequin In the Room
Years ago, I worked for a San Francisco woman who had a mannequin named Lady Lillian. I found that odd, but I was there to cook, not judge.
I took the job because it meant I could cook in a quiet space and would have access to health care.
Posted on July 10, 2018 - 1:53pm
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Columnist
“Let’s go for a walk.”
Five seemingly innocuous little words, but they were enough to scare the hell out of me. I had read enough John le Carré spy novels to know what comes next: “…where we can talk without being overheard.”
From the Summer 2018 Our Town issue of California.
Q&A: Former FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel on Dark Money
When most people think of Watergate, they likely think of the hotel break-in, the Saturday Night Massacre, or the Nixon tapes. But few know that, at its heart, Watergate was a campaign finance scandal. The Watergate Hotel burglars were paid with campaign funds, and the subsequent investigation uncovered millions in illegal payments to the Nixon White House by corporations—some of which arrived in bags of cash.
Posted on June 4, 2018 - 4:15pm
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