“A CITY OF DREAMS,” BY STACEY GRENROCK WOODS
Every month, it seems, the New York Times publishes a story designed to drive California readers insane. In January, it was a Style section piece that asked, “Is New York Turning into Los Angeles?”
Writer Stacey Grenrock Woods answered with a resounding “no.”
“Bad ideas have to come from places—one could geotag them all day—but they also have to catch on in places,” Grenrock Woods wrote. “A dynamic, constantly changing city full of dreamers and schemers, New York can either absorb these things (like grain bowls) or reject them (like the Kushners).”
“IT CAME FROM SAN FRANCISCO,” BY SEAN WILSEY
Following Tucker Carlson’s ouster from Fox News, author Sean Wilsey looked at Carlson’s roots in San Francisco and found them not too dissimilar from his own. “We both know how to tie bow ties, and we share a great many ties—not just to S.F. but to bucolic Petaluma, in Sonoma County, where our grandfathers George McNear and Hayes Wilsey, respectively, were landowners and connected through the marriage of close relations to the McNear and Swanson clans,” Wilsey wrote.
While Wilsey has mostly made peace with his childhood by the Bay, “Carlson seems to be both from this city and utterly at war with it.”
“A FAN’S NOTES,” BY JESSE NATHAN
In June, poet Jesse Nathan offered an impassioned defense of the beleaguered Oakland A’s and their widely unloved Coliseum. “If there’s a rotten smell at the Coliseum, it’s coming from Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher,” Nathan wrote. “Despite his wealth, he’s strangled the A’s with a shoestring budget for years, seemingly more interested in broadcast rights than building a winning product.”
As the A’s moved to Las Vegas, Nathan’s love letter to the team and its hometown was a reminder of all that was being left behind.
“V. VALE’S NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND,” BY GEORGE CHEN
RE/Search publisher V. Vale has been a fixture of San Francisco’s cultural scene for decades, documenting the emergence of punk rock and hardcore, the dawn of body modification, incredibly strange movies and music, and writers such as William S. Burroughs and J.G. Ballard. Writer and comedian George Chen hung out with Vale to learn more about his life and what makes him tick.
“For a world-renowned counterculture figure, Vale keeps things intensely local. He’s sold books all over the planet (often in person), but these days, he can be found within a few blocks of his home, going to the post office to ship copies or setting up shop and hawking titles like Modern Primitives and Punk ’77 outside Vesuvio Cafe, when the weather permits.”
“SETTING MARGO CILKER’S SCENE,” BY EMILY ADRIAN
Author Emily Adrian spent some time with Washington State–based “folkabilly” singer-songwriter Margo Cilker, whose lyrics draw heavily from place. “Setting is the tool in my songwriting to help me get to the point,” Cilker told Adrian. “We’re always going to start with setting.”
With her star on the rise, Cilker is doing her best to stay connected to Goldendale, Washington, the rural community where she lives and makes music.
