Foxes, lakes, fake highways, and more

Everybody has their own preferred method for dealing with anxiety. Lately my favorite fix has been going for long walks through Redwood Regional Park while listening to Fall of Civilizations, a podcast that traces the trajectories of cultures ranging from the Khmer Empire to viking settlements in Greenland. The factors that caused past societies to collapse are often strikingly similar: incompetent and greedy political leadership, pandemics, failed military campaigns, depletion of natural resources, and climate-change induced droughts, floods, and sea-level change are some of the most common.

The podcast avoids pointing out the parallels between the downfalls of earlier civilizations and our current one, because it’s not necessary. The cycle has been repeated so many times by now that the milestones are obvious. However, there is one major difference between previously fallen regional empires and our current, global civilization: scale. The planet has never been this connected. The power of that combined humanity could be enough to break the rise/flourish/implode cycle… or it could be fuel for the greatest flameout yet. Only time will tell.

So, why do I find listening to these apocalyptic historical narratives relaxing? Because the collapse of one civilization has never been the end of the whole story. Every time a society crumbled, something else rose from the ashes. Extending this perspective beyond human cultures, just look at Earth’s history. As the title of the 2014 bestseller “The Sixth Great Extinction” implies, there were several planet-wide collapses long before the rise of homo sapiens, who never would have existed if that comet hadn't wiped out the dinosaurs*. It’s not that I take any comfort in the inevitability of demise, what I find reassuring is the pattern that some form of life always manages to survive and take the world in a new direction. (*Another great book on this topic is "Scatter, Adapt, and Remember" by Annalee Newitz.)

Anyway, here’s a picture of the only fox I’ve seen at Redwood Regional in the last few years...East Bay Yesterday updates
Thanks to everyone who’s been sending me positive feedback about my most recent episodes. It’s always nice to be praised, but much more importantly, I’ve been hearing from teachers and city officials who have been utilizing my episodes about Chinatown history and Oakland’s infrastructure in their respective positions. One of the constant themes of the show is the importance of learning from the mistakes of the past, so it’s thrilling to hear that educators and people in positions of power are using my little podcast to help spread that belief. (And, yes, I know how idealistic this sounds, but I’d rather feel like this as opposed to hopelessly cynical.)

Big thanks to Dan Gentile for writing this hilariously headlined profile of yours truly: “This East Bay journalist started a podcast to keep himself from trespassing.”

In Other News
My dear friend Dorothy Lazard of the Oakland History Center has curated another eclectic lineup of events for this year’s Oakland Library history month series. The topics range from Mills College to the 30th anniversary of the tragic 1991 Oakland/Berkeley Hills firestorm to a conversation with "Hella Town" author Mitchell Schwarzer (who you may remember from my most recent episode). Sadly, the events will all be virtual again this year, but they’ll definitely be worth tuning in for.

For the past year or so, the Rotary Nature Center Friends have been hosting a series of online events about the lake and its history. Even though I’ve walked the lake hundreds of times (and did an episode about it), I’ve been learning a ton from these videos. Some of my recent favorites include Andrew Alden’s lecture on geology and Damon Tighe’s talk on “mushrooms of the lake.” You can catch up with the whole series here. (And if you want to watch more online lectures about local history, don’t forget about the Oakland Heritage Alliance’s excellent collection.)

With The Matrix reboot coming out this winter, now seems like a good time to remember the time “The Matrix Reloaded” filmmakers built a massive fake highway on Alameda [see below] to stage one of the greatest car chase scenes of all time. Nerdstalgic breaks down how they made this "impossible" scene come to life in this video. (Thanks to Fernando Hernández for the tip!)

For years, advocates of “Save Tesla Park” have been lobbying to protect a large parcel of rolling grassy landscape in southeastern Alameda County. Now their victory is official: “3,100 acres of open space to be preserved as state park,” according to Andrew Chamings of SFGate. Hopefully part of the state park conversion process will include commemorating the long history of this area’s Native inhabitants. According to Save Tesla Park, “The canyon and ridge tops were seasonal hunting, gathering and trading grounds for Native American Yokuts from the floor of the Central Valley and the Ohlone peoples from the East Bay.” (Shoutout to Todd Nelson for the tip.)

The Black Panthers’ 50th anniversary event at the Oakland Museum of California in 2016 was an incredible experience. Former Panthers, some who hadn’t seen each other for decades, flew in from all over the country to celebrate and analyze their legacy. In the five years since that gathering, especially in the wake of last year’s national uprisings against police violence, the Party’s significance has only grown more relevant. Now, this October, there will be a series of events marking the Panthers’ 55th anniversary. Panther historian Billy Jennings gives an overview of the festivities here and here’s a link to the event schedule. You can also read a roundup of the upcoming events from Pendarvis Harshaw.

In this poignant piece on the many challenges faced by Dorothée Mitrani, the owner of La Note, Grant Marek includes some fascinating background on the structure that has housed the Berkeley restaurant since 1997: “The building in question was a more than 100-year-old, Victorian-era edifice that’s now a city of Berkeley landmark and believed to be one of the oldest remaining commercial buildings in Berkeley. Built in 1894, it has housed a revolving door of decades-old restaurants, all fondly remembered by generations of Berkeley denizens who still visit to ask about when it was Yellow House in the ’70s or Continental Garden in the ’80s and ’90s.”
The Oaklandside is “launching a series exploring the history of residential buildings in Oakland—and the people who’ve lived in them.” They’re looking for suggestions, so if you have a house worth digging into, drop them a line. The first article in the series looks at Temescal’s distinctive Sagamore Building (where Jesse Michaels of Operation Ivy fame briefly lived in the 1990s. Shoutout to Janelle Blarg for that bit of trivia.)

Local writer José Vadi just released “Inter State,” his first published collection of essays about growing up in California. His piece about living in downtown Oakland during the mid-aughts vividly captures the transitional vibes of an era when you could still find a decent apartment for $400 a month (but you could already tell the prices wouldn't stay that low for long). Read an excerpt at The Paris Review.

Remember how strange it was to watch the center span of the old Bay Bridge slowly disappear, piece by piece, back in 2014? Jef Poskanzer stitched together this incredible mosaic of the disorienting spectacle in case you forgot.
A new film about Wilbert "Cowboy" Freeman McAlister, the longtime president of the Oakland Black Cowboys Association, will be premiering this weekend at Eli’s Mile High Club. Get all the details about the screening (and musical performance) from this article by KQED’s Nastia Voynovskaya.
Northwestern University’s library recently published a huge online exhibit on the Berkeley Folk Music Festival, “which took place annually on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley between 1958 and 1970.” Check out the collection to see images and read stories about Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bessie Jones, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, Los Tigres Del Norte, Jefferson Airplane, and many other performers who played the influential gathering.

Finally
I was flipping through my archive of vintage postcards the other day and this image of Lake Merritt stopped me in my tracks. Everything about it, from the soft, blurry tones, to the unusual vantage point, is simply magical. Enjoy...

Thanks to everyone who read this far and extra special thanks to all of you folks supporting East Bay Yesterday though Patreon. I really couldn’t do this without you!

-Liam

PS: Levar Burton has been in the news lately over the Jeopardy! host controversy, but did you know that he also once played the Oakland Fire Department chief in a made-for-TV movie? (h/t Brian Krans)