“THE TIME HAS COME,” …

… the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things: Of shoes –­­ and ships – and sealing-wax – Of cabbages – and kings …”

We are approaching the end of my diligent blogging, dear readers; this will be my last post about Berkeley; only two more to go, dealing with the trip back to the old continent.

This post is difficult for me to write, which is why I saved it to the end. It is dealing with the underbelly of UCB, a short segment of Telegraph Avenue that starts just outside the university, when you are traversing Sproul Plaza, starting from Sather Gate, and crossing Bancroft Avenue. As the eternal nerd I am, I have always entertained a peculiar love/hate relationship with this extraordinary place. Actually, when talking about Telegraph, we will discuss here only the small, rather narrow, part of the avenue, ranging about four blocks southward from UCB’s Sather Gate.

The Avenue continues much farther, about 7 kilometres, all the way into Downtown Oakland. But, already after 300 metres it is shifting character rather abruptly at Dwight Street, at a sharp bend, about where the young lady below is urging on reluctant passersby with her whip. Beyond the bend lies just an average broad city street, with business districts interspersed by residential homes; a far cry from the hustle at its very beginning.

'

Telegraph Avenue started out, in Berkeley, as Choate Street way back in 1873, when the university was moved there. Already at that time, a horsecar line connected it to Oakland, along the present stretch of Telegraph Avenue. In 1892, the whole stretch, by then already trafficked by electric streetcar, got its present name.

Telegraph proper is a phenomenon cumbersome to describe, being rather remote from the average American street as it is. We may best consider it as an earthly counterpoint to the more lofty atmosphere reigning at the adjoining UCB Campus. Whereas Campus is full of energetic and smiling youngsters, ambling among classical buildings and cooling off on the greens under shady trees, with bright hopes for the future and full of glee and games, Telegraph is more of a sleazy urban canyon through which wallows a most amazing diversity of human beings, often bound on a downward journey through life.

Having said this it is also true that coursing through all this ruckus can be an exhilarating experience for the occasional visitor or the odd student, homeward bound after a day’s good work at Campus. The human condition, exposed in all its misery along this street, is largely mitigated by the generous Bay climate, which leads to a general atmosphere of good humour encompassing high and low, good and bad, fast and slow.

If you are looking for cheap, but amazingly varied and good, food, this is the place to go, keeping company with many a poor student who otherwise could not afford a healthy meal. Sitting at one of the cheap eateries, you can have the most surprising meets of people at any day, from students to beggars, or from artists to IT experts (like the one I met myself at the veggie eatery, see “The green, green Grass of Ho-ome”).

The shopping experience can also be extra-ordinary, at least if you are interested in music and literature. Two large music shops, one of them harkening to the intriguing name of “Rasputin”, can find for you and sell you any CD ever produced; and Moe’s bookshop has an amazing variety of used books to satisfy your most eccentric requests. Sadly, Cody’s bookshop, my personal favourite from 35 years back, has recently folded up; still, its façade can yet be admired from a corner table in Caffe Mediterraneum, the same table where Dustin Hoffman was filmed, sipping coffee and glancing at Cody's in the cult movie “The Graduate”, way back in the mid-sixties.

But, all in all, Telegraph as phenomenon stands and falls with the people living and working on it, or just passing through, quickly or more slowly, over weeks and even years. Have I already mentioned that I never was completely at ease when walking this arena of the human condition? If so, I trust you understand that you cannot expect from me a comprehensive survey. Let me just give you an inkling of it, by drawing sketches of typical fellow human beings that seem to thrive on this amazing stretch of land.

The first, most impressive, category of regulars consists of the PROPHETS, fellows with a distinct and forceful message, sometimes engaging crowds of listeners, but, more often than not, spreading the gospel to precious few. The gentleman above is swearing by the Old Testament and rather knowledgeable about its most hidden stanzas. Out of them he has deduced that Judgement Day will come on May 21, 2011 and end on October 21 2011. Although rather forceful in his speeches, garnered with fire and brimstone, he was easily accessible for private discussions and proved to be quite amiable when queried about details of his bible studies. He even accepted, with a condescending smile, that I did not fully rely on the logic of his analysis, but kept assuring me that his deductions were sound, as was his belief in the One Old God.

Let’s move on to the New Testament. As could be expected, the prophet in question, proselytizing on the basis of this more recent biblical underpinning, shone with a more modern and suave appearance, using a rather laid back approach to teaching his gospel. His message was inscribed on a flag held in his steady left hand (the right hand being used to shake hands with passersby), on which were written the following holy words: “It’s easy to be an atheist if you don’t think where everything came from”. His poise was unmoved by my humble attempts to explain to him the original big bang from which the universe came from, since, as he assured me, someone had had to cause that explosion as well.

Let’s move on to more mundane messages. The Gentleman writing the slogan “UC Berkeley: out of Peoples’ Park” is a forceful politician of native Indian descent, being a Member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana and owning the impressive name of Zachary RunningWolf. He is calling himself “Leader” and has been running for Mayor of Berkeley several times, albeit with limited success. When queried about the slogan written on the sidewalk he explained to me that, according to native Indian philosophy, private persons did not have the right to own land and, if such rights existed, they should be attributed to the native population, that is, the Indians. A case in hand in his view was Peoples’ Park.

Now, that got me interested. In the ‘sixties, the University had bought up a residential block, adjacent to Telegraph, with the aim to build student athletic facilities on the land. This plan was met by furious opposition from a coalition of radical forces, squatting on the land, despite heavy police involvement, and effectively transforming it into a park that exists to present days, the Peoples’ Park. Legally, the situation is in limbo, with the University not ceding its right to the land. In practice, the park is a going concern that no public authority would dare to negate, after almost 50 years’ of occupancy. A grove of rather large trees is already dominating one third of the land, the remainder consisting of greens and a scene for performances. The scene’s platform is usually being used as sleeping ground for down-and-outs in between performances.

After this small aside we are moving down from the lofty heights of prophets to their more humble followers, the MARTYRS. These are the people who keep the big leaders going, collecting means for their sustenance and helping to propagate their masters’ voice. It is in their nature to be self-effacing, so we cannot, to our regret, tell any elaborate story about these personalities.

Next in line comes a considerably more colourful bunch of people, the STREET VENDORS. Tourists, paying a short visit to Telegraph, usually believe that these are the main attractions populating the street. There is no denying that they provide spice to the experience, both in terms of personality and the goods/services they provide. These are the schooled actors on the scene, depending on their apparition and performance to attract willing customers.

The products they are selling are usually cheap trinkets, with the occasional good buy, hidden among the manifold, which many a tourist discovered to his/her delight.

One product I found beguiling was the painting of nice young ladies’ hands and feet with “henna”, giving rise to all kinds of colourful tattoo-like adornments, with the additional advantage that the “tattoos” would bleach out in time and not give rise to irreversible mistakes.

Let’s leave this crowd to the tourists and move on to less promising folks, the VAGABONDS. The engaging atmosphere of Telegraph is attracting all kinds of drop-outs, be they former students, runaways from home or simply people having tired of the labours of normal living. They are the most pleasant to behold when they have just arrived and still are exhibiting joy and enthusiasm, whilst sitting on the sidewalk in this marvellous outdoor theatre, being spectators as well as actors.

Circumstances will gradually become less enticing for them, when the charm of the place is wearing off and the play-acting becomes daily routine. The peregrinators are eventually becoming locals, start dressing up in army fatigues, getting dogs and getting “under the influence”. Thus mellowed, they pass their days in patient passivity, living on the street and begging for their sustenance from eager bystanders.

Their artificial mellowness has, of course, to be maintained by continually adding appropriate smoking paraphernalia to the mix. The task of providing this falls on the DEALERS who move around rather circumspectly and can usually be observed and pictured only at a distance.

Quite apart from the usual drop-outs we find the more serene gentlemen without a home who have their fixed abode for sleeping in the small streets adjacent to Telegraph, usually below sheltered shopping windows and other nooks and crannies. When the morning sun is warming up their sleeping bags they pack their belongings in shopping carts or knapsacks and gravitate towards Telegraph, to sit quietly in the sun amongst the buzz, which provides them with company of a kind.

In the middle of the hubbub we can find several nice places, to drink coffee and have a good time, that were my favourite haunts for relaxing and reading a newspaper after lunch. The most renowned of these is Caffe Mediterraneum that, since the ‘fifties, has catered to distinguished customers, such as, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg of the Beat generation. Allegedly, Caffe Latte was invented here, since the customers could not stand the strong espresso coffee on offer in the café, with its Italian barista, and would ask that generous amounts of milk be added to the brew.

Can INTELLECTUALS still be found lingering in cafés like Mediterraneum or, more recently, Peet’s Coffee & Tea? Before answering this question, allow me to issue a warning. The jovial person in the picture below, sitting in Mediterraneum, drinking Latte and reading the San Francisco Chronicle IS NOT an intellectual! He is definitely one of the pretenders, hoping, no doubt, to attract to his table the odd artist still frequenting this café.

Having said that, the person sitting opposite him on the table IS an intellectual. In fact, you are looking at the famous Berkeley street poet Julia Vinograd, the Poeta Laureata of Telegraph Avenue, author of some fifty poetry books and honoured with a Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award by the City of Berkeley. You can appreciate her as the last living link to the earlier, more proficient period of radical poets, having had Allen Ginsburg as her mentor when she was a budding youngster. By the way, Allen wrote his famous poem “Howl” at the exact table were she is sitting.

Not to be bested, also Peet’s Coffee & Tea, even if established on Telegraph only recently, can be seen housing one or the other creative artist. The group depicted below can surely be counted among the intellectuals. We can but guess its members’ occupation. I would wager that we are seeing here two authors, busy with analysing their latest projects, their muse smiling encouragingly at the amiable discourse.

Let us round up the presentation of the human condition by looking at another of Telegraphs’s striking features, the numerous murals adorning building walls. They are found in varying circumstances, from embellishing a school front, like in the picture below, via hiding a raw façade with a colourful banner-like painting, to the most impressive of them all, spreading out over half a block and telling the story of the early, radical, days of UCB and Telegraph.

You can see a small section of the latter, monumental, painting in the picture below. It shows the gathering of the crowds fighting for the creation of People’s Park. The whole mural, which is actually almost as old as the events it is depicting – preserved as it is, no doubt, by the generous Bay climate – is letting us glimpse the curious mix of radical revolution, public elation and inclusive participation that characterized the Free Speech and Anti-Vietnam Movements, in the ‘sixties and early ‘seventies, as practised at major campus sites and as originating, to a great degree, from this very Campus and city blocks.

You have to be of the same generation as the painters of, and those painted in, this impressive piece of street art to really understand and appreciate its impact. Alas, we are talking about a generation soon to be gone – let’s face it, I am also part of it – and the generations after us may read the monument in different ways, grounded in THEIR experiences and challenges. I could imagine them reading the tale, NOT, as a story of triumphing over repressive forces, RATHER, as a tale of vainglorious efforts by LES MISERABLES, ever destined to fail, to rise against the stream of globalized progress that is forcing ever increasing shares of the middle classes on a down-ward path away from prosperity.

“Wow!” I see that I am getting carried away by my own rethoric, as usual. Let’s stop here and finish this exotic post with a poem by Julia, our beloved Poeta Laureata. The few verses that follow, being rather dear to me, manage to capture the essence of the Telegraph Avenue of our times, putting my more voluminous scribblings and pictures to shame.

HARD TIMES
Things are so bad
that one of the young street guys
was pimping his puppy.
It was only 5 weeks old, eyes filmy, couldn’t walk yet,
just rolled around trying to play
with a small stuffed flappy-eared white rabbit toy
its owner kept dangling in its face
and grabbing back.
There was a scrawled cardboard sign
saying “puppy love, only a quarter”.
It costs to stop and smile.
The young guy caught people’s eyes to draw them closer.
After all he buys dogfood and deals with the cops,
he’s entitled.
Maybe the puppy will make him enough money
to buy himself a pimp’s classy new cap
with a feather in the band.

CLIMB THE LOFTY INDIANS!

On Convocation Week Friday, when most of the boisterous events of that week had begun to abate, I was sitting, on Campus, at the café outside Cesar Chavéz Center as usual, sipping my vanilla and hazelnut flavoured afternoon coffee and reading the Daily Californian (the campus newspaper). Nothing special in the paper, since the run-up to the summer session had yet to start, but one article still caught my attention. It dealt with actions that graduates should have undertaken during their stay at UCB and which they should catch up on now, if left undone.

One of these actions entailed to pay homage to Indian Rocks and watch the sunset over Golden Gate there together with one’s college sweetheart. I have to admit that I am sorely lacking the latter, but still, would it not be a good idea to pretend being young again and to undertake the challenge of mounting the rock in question? Said and done! I decided to start the hike this very afternoon around 17 hours, from my apartment at Stuart Street, and counted on arriving at the target point about three hours later, in time for the sunset.

The hike, besides being rather long, is not very difficult to trace. It is just a question of traversing the campus and thereafter following Oxford Street to its bitter end, up North on the Berkeley Hills. It is far from difficult to find the Rocks; Oxford Street ends at its feet, since it cannot proceed through solid stone. The Rocks is actually a harsh promontory on the hills, providing a panoramic view of the Bay, with its two bridges, by now well known to our readers (see “Earth Day à la Berkeley), the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge.

So, having drunk plenty of water to keep me in shape during the journey, off I went from Stuart Street along the lovely small side streets adorning Berkeley South of Campus. When walking along some houses owned by Japanese immigrants, I could not but observe that their gardens differed markedly from those owned by other Americans. Whereas the latter generally favour to leave their garden, more or less, to its own devices, leading to rather uninhibited growth of brushes and flowers along, and all over, the sidewalk, the Japanese tend to keep a tight ship, with short-cut lawn, model-cut trees and flowers rather strictly kept in line and off the “trottoir”.

The supreme opposite to this well-organised regime was soon reached, when I ventured east along Carleton Street. There, a cosy little redwood cottage lies almost hidden in lush greenery, the villa of a late professor in botanics, Charles W. Woodworth, and actually designated as one of Berkeley’s landmarks.

I had often passed by this little wonder, but always without my camera; but this time I was ready and, furthermore, lucky to get the sun shining at an angle that did the garden justice. Forgetting, for the moment, my quest to the Rocks, I lost myself among the flowers, taking picture after picture until my lust for colours and shapes was completely satiated.

The little cottage is resting in a happy slumber of gradual decay, with the builder long dead and the present owner, a trusted psychologist, also reaching an advanced age. But this does not seem to affect the stage of the garden, which is always being kept in a marvellous, if not very orderly shape! One of the inventories of this cosy marvel is a Methuselah among cats, always on guard to monitor visitors and showing them the door if unwelcome. I had seen the cat many times from afar when passing the cottage, but this time, since I had dared step into the garden for my photographic excesses, it came quite close and watched me with an air of suspicious disdain, as if telling me that gentlemen did not step into other peoples’ domain.

Thus chastised, I was able to tear myself from this photographic detour and refocus my mind on the Rocks. Soon Telegraph was reached and the road towards Campus lay straight ahead, garnished by large commercial buildings instead of lovely flowers, so my steps hastened without unnecessary delay. But wait! There was a picture asking to be taken. You may recall that AnnaLee had, in a comment to an earlier blog post (“Happy ending …”), informed us about the institution first to introduce drinkable coffee in the US. That was none other than Peet’s Coffee & Tea. So here we have it, dear readers, this is the very place. Starbucks, eat your heart out!

Now back to our journey; there was still a long way to hike! Next stage of my quest was to cross Campus, entering by Sather Gate, ambling past the Campanile and descending towards the Western Entrance. To my surprise (or should I not be surprised?), graduation ceremonies were still in full swing on lower Campus, with black capes flying and faces smiling. A small group of girls was lining up in front of the Campanile, trying to take portraits of each other. I took pity on them, having had a quick look at their performance, and promised them a better picture if they would line up for me. They were quite thankful to receive the above result a week later. Glad to have done a good deed for a change, I ambled forth, or rather downward, along Strawberry Creek, the little brook passing straight through Campus. In the intense green of late afternoon peace reigned at last, and I could but sympathise with the lonely reader who had found the perfect spot for relaxing studies.

Towards the western end of Campus, Strawberry Creek is surrounded by rather dense glades of Eucalyptus, Redwood and Oak. We may come back to this semi-wilderness in a further blog. Suffice it to say that I was rather enchanted by these small woods, through which the brook was gurgling its way, enriched by several days of rain prior to this sunny afternoon. When crossing the last bridge over the creek, under which a small waterfall fought its way towards the city, the appropriate moment had arrived to pay tribute to the exquisite scenery with my trusted old Nikon. Now comes the interesting part of the story: hardly had I relieved the camera of its housing that, suddenly, an apparition made itself felt in the camera’s viewer: a little "vixen" was wading up-streams, smiling at me and inviting me to join her in her happy mood.

Jumping out of the stream with joyful giggles, she came to meet me and embrace me with stubby hands still icy cold from having bathed them in the stream. Slightly aghast at this youthful advance, I could still not prevent myself from savouring the moment. The more so since the little lady requisitioned my camera to, as she put it, “explore my inner personality”.

You can judge for yourself if she succeeded, but we both agreed that my personal aura indeed might have been caught in this expert picture taken by a female mage. Thus convinced of my noblesse, she cordially invited me to enter into a true union of the spirits. This offer I sadly felt obliged to decline, well knowing that my vitality would not be up to the task, encroached upon as it was by advancing age. A fatherly kiss on the forehead had to suffice and with great regret we bade goodbye and went our separate ways as the best of friends.

Highly enlivened by this unexpected pleasure I carried on, as having wings on my feet. To round up this spiritual interlude with yet another outer worldly experience, I made a slight detour to pay homage to an intriguing sculpture situated just on the western border of Campus. It may look to you just like a slightly outsize marble, maltreated by children playing games. In fact, it is a huge globe of solid bronze, almost 3 meters in diameter, delicately balanced on a hardly noticeable base. The students call it jokingly “Luke’s Revenge”, the meaning of which is of course immediately clear to you. It is not? Haven’t you had the patience of enduring the long sequence of Star Wars movies, until finally arriving at Part IV of the series?

Now remained only half of my journey, along Oxford Street in steady incline. I have to admit that I took hardly notice of the walk, my head being filled with pondering the unexpected adventures experienced so far. A pity it is, since this part of Berkeley, in the hills, is supposed to show marvellous vistas of houses splendidly located along the avenue. But no regret! Eventually, my nose got in contact with solid rock and I knew that I had arrived.

In front of me rose a steep incline, part of the pronounced promontory that constitutes Indian Rocks. The ritual involved in paying homage to the Rocks consists of climbing that promontory to the very top, where your sweetheart is sitting, admiring your vigour and rewarding you with an embrace upon your arrival. So far so good! Several forerunners were already on their way to the top, inviting me to follow their lead.

I was sorely tempted to follow their example but, not having access to a lovely lady to welcome me up there (the young lady in the picture is, to my regret, not waiting for me) and being of a more advanced age than the forceful climbers, I chose to take the high road to the Rocks, which happened also to be the easy road, with stairs leading up to the top from the northern part of the cliffs.

And now at last, MY reward for three hours’ hike! Far in the distance, a marvellous panorama unfolded before my eyes. Late sunshine was blessing the Bay, its enormous expanse reaching from the Bay Bridge, along the Golden Gate and all the way to Mount Tamalpais on Marine County. In front of it all you could perceive the wide expanse of greenery that is Berkeley, with the Berkeley hills in front and, below, the western Berkeley suburbs, reaching all the way down to the sea.

Should I wait for sundown, still about an hour ahead? I had expected the sun to set over the Golden Gate, which would have made a wondrous picture. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time of the year, sunset would be far to the right, behind the coastal ridges opposite Richmond. So no need to spend an hour in vain; I decided instead to have a leisurely return along Shattuck Avenue, whilst there was still daylight to guide my steps. I did not regret this premature return. It allowed me to admire the formidable alley on upper Shattuck Avenue. It was like walking in a gigantic ballroom, with green tapestry on walls and ceiling, and sparkling sunlight glittering like candles on the walls.

When I arrived back down in the centre, I thought about Per’s comments to this blog and took a brisk left turn at Berkeley Square, directing the steps to my favourite eatery, the Burgermeister, for refreshments. Contentedly munching on a burger well done, I rose my glass of Papst Blue Ribbon to salute this splendid town with all its treasures.

Whilst I was eating, late sunglow gradually receded into bluer tones, and street lights began to sparkle in the mellow evening turning into night. Pondering the day’s events, I was attempting to recollect my early student days, in Vienna, when I was as young as the students I had met on Campus and on the Rocks. Did I have that intensity of feelings back then, which the youngsters nowadays seemed to entertain? I tried in vain, memories were too far gone to permit an even partial recollection. The cells of the body are ever being remade, as do the memories. There was hardly any part of me remaining from those turbulent days of youth. The more reason to savour the events that evolve whilst we are still alive! Recalling an invocation that stems from one of our great poets, I whispered to myself “Verweile doch! Du bist so schön …”, hoping to preserve the magic moments of this trip for evermore.