A Gilded Planet

We, in Berkeley, are fortunate to have Telegraph Avenue which bustles daily with culture and commerce. Telegraph's vibrancy is a tribute to our community and to our faith in Berkeley's spirit. Today we are concerned with vagrancy amongst the young and able-bodied on Telegraph Avenue along with its causes and its effects. This article will only scratch the surface of the concern. However, we believe that public awareness is a first step toward a remedy for any problem. It is in this spirit and with this faith that THE WILD STREET KIDS OF TELEGRAPH AVE was composed. You’ve seen them on the street corner, you’ve passed them on the sidewalk, you’ve heard them ask for change. They disdain tests and grades and resumes, they care not for extracurriculars and externships and Panhellenic exchanges. They do not live by the daily shower or the hourly wage. They go their own way, and they seem somewhat proud of it. But who are they? Who are these ageless children, these eternal youths ...

A version of this article I wrote 9 months ago was originally published in the zine Connect the Dots. The online supplement to Connect the Dots can be found  here. We know of a remote arcade in Berkeley. Every Friday night, games are played there. Down an unlit street in the southern reaches of town, one may find an unmarked blue door with an ornate knocker at its center. When the intrepid soul enters for the first time, bathed in the ethereal glow emanating from dozens of seemingly ancient pinball machines, one is likely to be struck with an astonishing sense of rapture. Just like falling down the rabbit hole, stepping into this enigmatic House of Games almost seems like entering another world filled with curious amusements – Egghead, Trade Winds, Magic City, Cover Girl, Gottlieb’s Two-Player Surfside, Gottlieb’s Four-Player Masquerade, Rotospin and dozens more, glittering with midcentury light, ringing and echoing caustically about every win and loss, haunted by fun until th...

An abridged version of this article I wrote just short of a year ago was originally published in the zine Connect the Dots. The online supplement to Connect the Dots can be found here. When my editor called with an assignment about a rumor she had heard in Solano about some Ohlone shaman who had apparently carved mystical Kuksu inscriptions on five great rocks in the hundreds of years prior to white settlement in what is now North Berkeley, I was intrigued. Knowing the Ohlone – famous for their giant shell mounds as well as their skill at dancing on the rim of the world – I was certain I had a killer story on my hands. So certain that I briefly considered hiring a semiotician to assist me in decrypting the strange Ohlone symbols before abandoning the idea because I did not want to go overbudget on my very first assignment for the publication. My editor directed me towards the Friends of Five Creeks, who have uncovered some of the history of Berkeley’s major rock parks as part their...