Cellar Door, the indie bookstore in Riverside, is moving in mid-May to a new location. You’ll recall the drama over the cancellation of its lease at its current home. I have the details, because you would expect no less. Also, readers wish me well on my recent birthday, an arts event is plugged and a planned Disney housing development in Riverside County is tweaked, all in my Friday column.
Monthly Archives: March 2023
Column: Flash! Grandson visits famed Frasher photo archive
The Pomona Public Library’s special collections department has the archives of Burton Frasher Sr., some 60,000 photo negatives as well as prints, postcards and more from the photographer who was based in Pomona from 1920 to 1955 and roamed the Southwest shooting images for Frashers Fotos postcards. Frasher’s grandson, a third-generation photographer who lives in Joshua Tree, visited the library for the first time recently to see the collection. I was there to greet him and learn more about the family. Find out more in my Wednesday column.
Column: Myrlie Evers, 90, lauded as ‘inspiration to us all’
The civil rights activist has called Claremont home for portions of her life, moving here with her three young children from Mississippi in 1964 after her husband, civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was assassinated. She graduated four years later from Pomona College. Recently she donated a portion of her archives to the college, which on Wednesday threw her a tribute at Bridges Auditorium for her gift and for her recent 90th birthday. I attended, along with hundreds of others, and write about it in my Sunday column.
Column: More pandemic hobbies: ham radio, running, gardening
In an immediate sequel to Wednesday’s column, here are more responses to my query about pandemic hobbies that you’re still doing today. Some are fresh interests, others are revivals of interests that lapsed decades ago. And, unlike Wednesday, Riverside is now represented. I share the responses in my Friday column.
Column: Pandemic hobbies: watercolors, walks, retro video games
Readers tell me the interests and hobbies they developed during the pandemic that have become part of their routine, from painting to research to crosswords, for my Wednesday column. There were too many for one column (responses were still coming in Monday night and Tuesday morning), so look for a second column soon.
Column: Redlands man reflects on working for Jimmy Carter
Journalist James Fallows was Carter’s head speechwriter from 1977-78. When the former president entered hospice care a month ago, I soon thought of the Redlands native, who’s had more extensive contact with Carter than anyone else from the Inland Empire. He spoke about his former boss on Thursday by phone from Washington, D.C., for my Sunday column.
Column: What pandemic-era habits have stayed with you?
Have you taken up a hobby or habit, or revived an old interest, since the start of the pandemic? I ask that question in my latest column, as well as telling you about a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” scene filmed in Claremont and other matters, in my Friday column.
Column: For fans, Shake Shack’s arrival in IE is a smash
I’m one of those fans, and I ate during a preview event Sunday with a few others at Victoria Gardens. The NYC-based chain opened to the general public the next day. I write about my love for its food and why Rancho Cucamonga gets first-in-the-IE chains in my Wednesday column. (I feel like I’ve been preparing to write a pro-Shake Shack column my whole life…or at least since 2014, when I first ate at one.)
Column: Anti-warehouse art show offers fulfillment
Speaking of The Cheech, as we sometimes do, a free show in the Riverside museum’s community gallery is devoted to an exhibit by San Bernardino-area artists and titled “Life Logistics.” Many of the pieces take aim at warehouses in general and Amazon in particular. Others are more about the resilience it takes to live in San Bernardino. I talk to some of the artists for my Sunday column.
Care for a little backstory? On Feb. 25, a Saturday, I drove to Riverside for opening receptions at the California Museum of Photography and then at The Cheech, where the artists involved were present. I left with notes for three (!) columns.
My column space was already kind of booked for the coming week, alas. This past week, though, I was able to write them all in turn: KD Ganaway exhibit (Wednesday), MexiCali Biennial exhibit (Friday) and “Life Logistics” exhibit (Sunday).
That’s a bit more of an art focus than I really intend here, art aficionado that I am, but that’s how it worked out, and there was no good reason to delay any of them to next week. Better to get them out in the world and out of my way. Anyway, hope you enjoyed at least one of them, if not all of them, and thank you for your forbearance.
Column: MexiCali Biennial art show migrates to Riverside
The Cheech’s new upstairs exhibition is a product of the MexiCali Biennial, in which dozens of artists from California and Mexico contributed pieces around agriculture, food and labor. The show is titled “Land of Milk and Honey.” While the effort is mostly serious, the biennial is something of a joke on pretentious art events. Also, one artwork is made up entirely of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos as a comment on unhealthy food. I tell you about it in my Friday column.