Archive for January, 2011
Nearly everyone who passes by Alhambra and T notices Danny O’Neils. Currently, the sign only says his name, but it formerly pointed out the nature of his business, furniture restoration. I have always dug his homemade door and windows. I’ll bet they were something back in the day.
But blah, blah, blah right? We have all seen and wondered at Danny O’Neils, but my very favorite part actually takes place 1.5 blocks away on T under the freeway overpass.
It’s not the easiest thing to take a picture of the sidewalk. It reads “Danny O’Neil 1-12-52” if you can’t read it. Kind of sweet, no?
And in the Odds and Ends dept:
I rode around the alley behind Danny’s place to see if I could see more. I couldn’t, but I found this. I call it Kisses and Kale.
And if that isn’t enough Sacto, check out how trippy this town can be in Zach Hill’s latest vid.
You know we fly kinda by the seat of our pants around here because we are all very busy folks, but I’m happy to say that there’s a new development with our next movie night, which is a showing of The Magic Christian on February 17th at The Verge. Matias Bombal is going to be hosting the screening and we’ll hopefully also be screening a short film that he recommended. If you don’t know who Matias Bombal is, smack yourself in the face. J.K., I’ll fill you in on more soon. Just be sure to pencil the showing in on your calendar.
After exploring Sacramento for 15 years I thought that I had seen the whole town, until a few months ago when I found the Nisei War Memorial on 4th and O while walking to the Crocker.
“Nisei” means Japanese people born outside of Japan and this squat midcentury building was built to memorialize those who fought for the U.S. I love how it has become a valley surrounded by high rise mountains. Those two rocks in front of the building have plaques on them dedicated to prominent members of the Nisei community, one who was nicknamed “papa-san”
Nearer to the street, there is a monument to Japanese American civil liberties. Here I learned that Executive Order 9066, which effectively cleared the way for Japanese internment camps wasn’t rescinded until 1976. And it wasn’t until 1988 and President Reagan that the U.S. apologized.
This plaque says “Stamp out prejudice and racism. By stamping your feet on this plaque you are taking a stand that you will not accept prejudice and racism.”
Two local pets have made the big time on the internet. Both also have had the distinction of being featured in Midmo’s venerable pages. Raffles, a Midtown Essential Character, was chosen as a favorite bookstore cat by Mental Floss readers and December cover model, Miss Heylove the Boston Terrier, was featured in Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds. Congratulations and ear scratches all around!
Yesterday saw some ecstatic rejoicing on my blog over the announcement that KVIE just added Art in the 21st Century to their Friday night programming! This week’s episode features Yinka Shonibare, Cindy Sherman, and Paul McCarthy. Set your Tivo (is that still the rage?) for art viewing excitement.
Guess I may have to score a functional T.V. for the first time in 10 years….. SO WORTH IT!
Here’s a good idea. You could support a great cause, get some drinks and food, listen to music, and probably win some cool prizes. More details here.
Our January MidMoMoNi was almost too successful. By that I mean, it had at least double the attendance of the last one, which we weren’t expecting. I think we (particularly Liv) handled it with aplomb, and everybody did get seats, but wow, what a crowd. There were 60-70 people! We had to go out for a beer run mid-show, there was not nearly enough popcorn (I ran out of butter after two batches), the mulled wine sold out almost instantly, and we didn’t have any water or non-alcoholic beverages available. We are still working things out, and next time we will do much better and (I promise) will have some water for your poor parched throats.
What went well was: the attendance, the energy, Doug’s talk and slide show, the conviviality, and the movies were wonderful and now I love Christo and Jean Claude. They were so inspiring, I know for a fact that I wasn’t the only one who got choked up when the artworks were unfurled.
Next month we are showing The Magic Christian (1969), which will kinda bring us back to our trippy concept with which we started MidMoMoNi. It stars Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, and was written by Terry Southern, who also wrote the screenplay for Barbarella, The Loved One, Easy Rider, and Dr. Strangelove. Also: music by Badfinger!
And I promise we will have our shit more together next time!
MidMoMoNi: Thursday, February 17th
7:30
Verge Gallery (625 S st.)
three dollars suggested donation
As members of the capitol press corps, Jim Lewis and Jeff Raimundo covered Governor Jerry Brown’s first two terms for the Sacramento Bee. Both Lewis and Raimundo earned reps as savvy, committed journalists, and each followed up their newspaper careers with jobs related to California governance- Lewis for the state of California, Raimundo with the well known political consulting firm Townsend, Raimundo, Besler and Usher. These longtime capitol insiders will share their stories and memories of Jerry Brown and the days of Sacramento 1975-82.
Sacramento Living Library
Covering Jerry Brown
Jim Lewis and Jeff Raimundo
January 16
Time Tested Books
1114 21st Street
7PM, All ages, free
.Welcome to the inaugural edition of MidMo Peek – a brand new feature where we visit the spaces of interesting local folks. Today we stop by the Land Park home of Jay Baker and Natalie Head, an archeologist and a librarian, and proud parents of three fluffy bunnies….
Our MidMoMoNi for the month of January is on the second Thursday this month, the 13th. Starts at 7:30 at The Verge gallery. We’ll be showing short films on Christo and Jean-Claude, the artists famous for their large, nay huge-scale artworks. In between the films, we’ll have a short presentation by local photographer Doug Biggert, who participated in their artwork “Valley Curtain” in 1971. That’s one of his snaps above. Isn’t it gorgeous? We’ll have popcorn and some brews for sale, maybe some mulled wine. We have space heaters so it’s pretty warm but wear a sweater. Socks encouraged.
MidMoMoNight
7:30
Verge 625 S st.
suggested donation:three bucks