SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SECRETS: Croatian American Cultural Center

Culture at the Crossroads ... An apt term to describe any number of phenomena in the Bay Area; in fact, it could well describe the Bay Area itself. But I want to tell you about a particular crossroads of culture which resulted in a concert series of the same name at San Francisco's Croatian American Cultural Center (CACC), and how it came to be.

For more than 20 years the CACC's cultural director John Daley has been organizing festivals and concerts which highlight the culture of Croatia, the Balkans, and Central Europe. Though everyone else considered these events successful, John wanted more. He wanted to reach deeper into established ethnic communities to ask what their culture means to them; to open a door to recent immigrant communities; and to extend a welcoming hand to younger audiences and families. His goal is to develop programs with a more inclusive lineup of artists and an appeal to a wider audience, especially families and youth.

John figured the best way to do this is go directly to the communities and ask about what's most important to them, and he invited me to come along. We spent the spring of 2008 traveling throughout the greater Bay Area, meeting with 25 artists and cultural workers with roots in Hungary, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia, and Poland. We were treated to wine and cheese, coffee and torte, and home cooked feasts as we sat across the table from our new friends and listened.

We listened to stories about family; about the leaving home -- sometimes involuntarily-- and beginning anew; about finding the balance between preserving culture and assimilating; and always, about the power of food, language, music, and dance. For example:

• College students Antej and Igor are the lead dancers in San Jose's Koraci Croatian Folk Ensemble. Both emigrated from Bosnia as children during the war, and are outwardly just two girl crazed American teenagers who happen to speak Croatian and dance well. But Antej was leaving soon to spend his sophomore year in Dubrovnik, and he got real serious as he told us about the mixed feelings inside him as approached his childhood home as a young adult.

• Rumen is a Romany musician from Bulgaria. Rumor has it that he is the best tambura player in the world, but that only begins to describe his musical talent, for he sings, plays percussion, and any other instrument you put in his hands. We visited Rumen in his Berkeley home and met his daughter -- a dancer -- and granddaughter, who had recently arrived in California. He told us his own emigration story --the lucky series of events which brought him here -- and how much he would like to help his family and musical colleagues do the same.

• Tanya was a professional dancer and choreographer in Bulgaria till she emigrated to the Bay Area in the mid 1990s. She has been instrumental in introducing the Bay Area to Bulgarian culture through the annual St. Kiril & Methody Festival. Tanya would like to increase Bulgarian cultural activities, especially to reach out to young people, and she has the energy and commitment to make it happen. She suggested a "kids pre-conference" to accompany all of the CAC festivals.

John and I left each interview excited and inspired by our conversations, and overwhelmed by the potential opportunities for creative programming at the CACC. But I wondered how John would organize these diverse ideas into a concert series. Well, I needn't have worried. The result is the Culture at the Crossroads concert series, which John produced this fall, based on our 25 conversations.

The series kicked off with a concert in August, appropriately titled Firewalkers & the Sun, referring to the English names of the featured bands, Nestinari (from the Bulgarian word for firewalker), and Helios, (the Greek word for sun). I remembered our evening conversation in their Concord (Calif.) home the previous spring, the feast we were served, and the musical treat afterwards. These accomplished musicians stated clearly that they are in it for the love of music, not for the performance. Which made me especially grateful that they made an exception for this occasion.


The second concert in the series had a Hungarian theme, but not the same-old Hungarian Rhapsody/Csardas theme. Curated by Hungarian born musician, instrument maker, and ethnomusicologist Ferenc Tobak, this concert had a bagpipe theme. Am I kidding about bagpipes in Central Europe? Well, no, but you have a good excuse if you've never heard about them. Ferenc spent much of the 1990s uncovering a bagpipe tradition among the Csango people of Moldova that was literally dying out. Ferenc found discarded old bagpipes in the villages, and inspired some of the elders to play tunes which Ferenc recorded. This concert (and another one in December devoted solely to the bagpipe) featured the bagpipe (called duda in Central Europe) and tamburitza music featuring the Slavonian Traveling Band.

The series concluded with a concert by Sidro Tamburitza Orchestra. A successor to the Blue Adriatic Orchestra, Sidro is composed of family and friends from the San Jose area who have been playing music together since childhood. They blend tamburitza music with rock and roll, and bluegrass to create their unique sound. We were not disappointed at the concert. When I walked into the hall, I immediately noticed a different ambiance. White tablecloths. Tea candles, The lights turned down low. A full bar. I flashed back to our conversation with Emil, Thomas, and Kristine the previous spring. They represent the 30 something couples and families with strong ties to their Croatian culture. In our conversation they emphasized heir wish for a social outlet for young people, but with a Croatian theme. I can see immediately that John Daley listened, and made it happen.

This series was delightful both musically and culturally. I was impressed to see the musicians on stage -- most of whom we interviewed in their homes the previous spring. It was wonderful to see many of the ideas and requests we developed, unfold in this concert series. And the really good news is ... John just told me he hopes to produce a similar concert series next year !

Stay tuned!!

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SECRETS: SF Ferry Building Farmers Market

My cousin Ellen from Montana visited recently. We took the ferry from Oakland to San Francisco and hung out around the piers on stunning morning. Her photos of the food at the Farmers' market are so wonderful, I'm posting them here.

SMART Cars are Smart

The first SMART car appeared on my block last week. Isn't it cute! Be assured, my neighborhood is not "smart" or upscale in any way, which is why I'm so pleased. These new cars have hit the mainstream and, at least in the Bay Area, are now found in ordinary, working class neighborhoods like mine, along with Peets coffee.

I first saw these little cars in Europe in 2007, before they were distributed in the United States. I would never have believed these cute cars would be gracing the U.S. Interstates within a few months, and my very own neighborhood with two years.

Here are some photos of the Smart cars I saw in Europe.







This one in Jelsa, on the island of Hvar, Croatia.












These last two photos from Vienna.

Where is God, and who cares, anyway?

I don't talk about it much, but my spiritual life is important to me. Karen Armstrong is my favorite religious writer, and something of a spiritual guide. So I was excited to find an article by her in the current print issue of Foreign Policy. She addresses current myths such as these, with cogent arguments. Here are some excerpts and paraphrases:

• God is dead. NO, When Nietzsche announced the death of God in 1882, he thought that in the modern, scientific world people would not be able to understand religious faith. ... but it is only since 9/11 that God has proven to be alive and well beyond all question ....
• God and politics shouldn't mix. NOT NECESSARILY. Theologically illiterate politicians have long given religion a bad name ... The manner in which religion is used in politics is more important than whether it's used at all. J. F. Kennedy and Barak Obama have invoked faith as a shared experience that binds the country together ...
• God breeds violence and intolerance. NO, HUMANS DO. All fundamentalism -- Jewish, Christian, Muslim -- is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation. History shows that when these groups are attacked, militarily or verbally, they almost invariably become more extreme.
• God is for the poor and ignorant. NO. The United States is the richest country in the world and the most religious in the developed world. None of the major religions is averse to business; each developed a nascent economy. Still, the current financial crisis shows the religious critique of excessive greed is far from irrelevant.
• God is bad for women. YES
• God is the enemy of science. HE DOESN'T NEED TO BE. Science has become an enemy of fundamentalist Christians who campaign against the teaching of evolution in public schools and stem cell research because they seem to conflict with biblical teaching. ... The conflict with science is symptomatic of a reductive idea of God in the modern West ...
• God is incompatible with democracy. NO.

So I was horrified when I went to the Foreign Policy website to post the link to this article, and found a long litany of scathing comments for my favorite writer: "this is the stupidist article I've seen." "Dumb is right." "How can she miss the most essential points?" And so on. Is it me or the other readers who misses the point? FP is not a magazine I ordinarily read (I got it as a gift subscription), but I didn't know I was so out in the woods as to be 180 degrees off the mainstream.

Figure it out yourself at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/19/god_0?page=full

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SECRETS: Alameda Oakland Ferry

We took a day off from real life today and played tourist in our own hometown. We got up early and took the Oakland/Alameda Ferry to San Francisco getting off at the Ferry Building Marketplace. That old Ferry Building that I remember as the tallest building on the skyline in the later 1950s, is no longer even visible on the skyline, thanks to the skyscrapers that popped up in San Francisco's boom years. No matter, it is a high class destination now -- much more than just a ferry hub. Now you can buy gourmet olive oil, gourmet wines, gourmet organic fruit, gourmet mushrooms and every other kind of gourmet yummy that you'd expect to find in San Francisco. With prices to match.

We stayed simple and started out at Peet's then moved over to Boulette's Larder for a fancy breakfast overlooking the wharf. Here is a photo of Jonathan's poached eggs on a pork and chard loaf. As you can see from the photos it was a sparkling autumn day, and lingered in the sun with our coffee and tea till almost lunch time.


Turns out today is Gandhi's birthday and we witnessed a lot of activity around Gandhi's statue on the Ferry Building Square. First we saw some gentlemen polishing his statue, next we saw a ceremony honoring this great man, and finally, I took a photo of with a wreath.

Our planned destination for the day was the Asian Art Museum, and we arrived there in the early afternoon. Wonderful exhibitions of early photography from India, China, Korea and Japan. Then on to the Southeast Asia galleries. I never tire of that museum and never stop learning. We stayed till closing time.


Which meant we took the ferry back to Oakland at the end of the day with the sun on the water. It was a scrumptious day, and testimony to the fact that if you live in the Bay Area you don't have to go far away to be on vacation.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SECRETS: Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project

Most people think of San Francisco when they think of Chinatown, but actually Oakland Chinatown is as rich and interesting, and without the tourists.

According to Oakland journalist and Chinatown native Bill Wong, Oakland Chinatown was settled in waves, the first in the 1850s following the Gold Rush. Most of the early settlers came from Southeast China near Hong Kong. The early settlers made a living however they could -- as cooks,gardeners, and laundry men, and of course as workers on the railroad.

The next wave came in 1906 earthquake when great numbers of Chinese from San Francisco, displaced by the earthquake, relocated to Oakland. Families put down roots, family and business organizations emerged and evolved, and the community found an identity within the larger Oakland community.

World War II accounted for another change and the emergence of a Chinese American Middle class in Oakland, and became home to a larger Asian American community. Japanese Americans found a home in Chinatown, as did Filipinos, Koreans, making a lively mosaic of cultures, languages, traditions, and values.

The Oakland Asian Cultural Center, located right in the center of Chinatown at the Pacific Renaissance Plaza, has recently completed an oral history project, bringing the stories of Chinatown through the words of longtime residents. The digital archive is now online and there will be a public celebration in Saturday, September 19, at 1:30 p.m.

For more information and photos about this event, check Bill Wong's blog.

DEEP LANDSCAPE

My mother ... and her mother as well ... grew up in the Midwest where the landscape is lush and moisture hangs in the air. Though they both moved to California as adults and never looked back, they never quite got used to the western landscape. To them, a desert was simply a badland, and the golden hills in the Bay Area were just an ugly brown.

I, on the other hand, am a product of western landscape. It's natural and comforting for me to see the horizon far in the distance, either across an expanse of ocean or a wide stretch of desert. I like expansive unobstructed views where plants grow sparingly, so that each tree or shrub or cactus has its place in the landscape, without competitors. I like to watch the sun set and the moon rise when the air is crisp and dry, and then you wait a little longer and the whole sky comes alive with with stars, so many more than you could imagine if you lived in the humid east. (And yes, I'm a fan of the Dark Sky Association.)

A recent trip to Pennsylnvania took me out of my "western landscape comfort zone." I was bowled over by a total sensory experience, not just visual but also aural, olfactory, and tactile. It was the hot damp air that hit me immediately, as I stepped out of the airport. Walking through a park the sounds and smells hit me hard -- taking me back to my own early childhood in the Midwest. I guess it is the smell of cut grass, or maybe just aroma of so much plant life in a small place, that took me back to long ago when I played in the weeds and grass, my little body so small that they enveloped me. And the plant life nourishes the noisy bugs, cicadas I believe, who treat you to their own music 24/7. It's part of the landscape.

The visual impact of the eastern landscape came later in the trip, but stayed the longest. Green in the summer? Seems upside down. The foliage blends together to form a visual impression with textures, filtered light, shades of green, and layers of density. They form a kind wall between you the viewer and the horizon, so much so that I feel closed in and a little uncomfortable.

Some people are deeply affected by the physical landscape, others not at all. My trip to the east reminded me how deeply I am affected by my own physical landscape, how deeply I am a child of the West, and the West is me.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SECRETS: Lilla Serlegi Musician

When Lilla Serlegi came to San Jose from Hungary two years ago as an au pair, she didn't know a word of English, so she used her musical talent to find her community in the area. She joined several tamburitza bands, including San Francisco's Slavonian Traveling Band and is becoming entrenched in the Bay Area's Eastern European music community.

Lilla was was raised in the Croatian community of Horvatzsidany in western Hungary and is fluent in both the languages and musical traditions of both countries. Lilla's specialty is in plucked instruments of the tamburitza family, and her singing talent is close behind.

Lilla is sharing her musical expertise through lessons and workshops for more information, contact tamburitzalessons@gmail.com

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA SECRETS: Freight & Salvage Re-opening

Yesterday was the Freight & Salvage's grand opening in its new location in the Berkeley Arts District (2020 Addison St.). Musicians, long time fans, and curiosity seekers joined for a two day celebration of roots music -- from Balkan to Appalachian to Celtic. The new space is a quantum leap from the old in concept, size, and elegance. The auditorium is similar to the design of Berkeley Rep theater, and lined with planks from the old Freight (so I'm told). The acoustics are to die for. There is a large lobby and second floor for classrooms.

But the Bay Area secret, and what I really am here to write about, is the Freight & Salvage Oral History Project, master minded by Andrea Hirsig. If you've ever attended a concert at the Freight, you know Andrea because she is the one who introduces each concert and tells us all to dispose of our "detrius." Off stage Andrea is a ball of energy and one of the nicest people I know.

Over that past year or so, Andrea initiated a documentary history of the Freight, and has interviewed long time audience members, performers, and staff members. Plans for a commemorative book are in the works. Interviews include Nancy Owens, the founder of the Freight; performers Terry Garthwaite and Toni Brown; and singer Holly Near.

Stay tuned for the next phase of the oral history project, and if you are a Freight musician or audience member with a story, stop by and talk to Andrea next time you come by.