About David Allen

A journalist for more than 30 years, David Allen has been chronicling the Inland Valley for the Daily Bulletin since 1997 and blogging since 2007. He is the author of three books of columns: "Pomona A to Z," "Getting Started" and "On Track." E-mail David here.

Column: In Riverside, a vibrant survey of Chicana pioneer’s art

Judithe Hernandez, an East L.A. woman who’s been making art for 50 years, is the subject of the first solo retrospective at The Cheech in Riverside. I interview her at her studio to learn about her life and career for my Wednesday column.

Side note: The museum offered to make her available on her next visit, which would be…March 14. Really? March 14? My 60th birthday? Sigh. Playing the birthday card, I instead got to interview her at her studio last Saturday. Everyone wins.

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Column: Rite Aid closures a tough pill to swallow

Rite Aid is closing 22 stores in California, including seven in the IE. (Or eight, if Needles is IE.) Plus, the figure “$2.5 million” is repeatedly invoked at a San Bernardino council meeting, it’s my 27th anniversary at the newspaper, two chances are coming up to meet me for my 60th birthday, and a Riverside judge’s ruling in a high-profile vandalism case is unusual. All this is in my Sunday column.

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Column: Home canning contest preserves kitchen tradition

Amateur cooks in the LA County Fair’s preserved foods competition dropped off their jams, jellies and marmalades on Saturday for judging. It’s one of the homiest parts of the fair, which will run May 3-27. I talked to a few entrants about their hobby, some of whom picked it up during the pandemic, for my Wednesday column. This is a column yours truly has wanted to write for years, but since the competition drop-off is two months before the fair’s start, this is the first year I thought of it in time!

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Reading Log: February 2024

Books acquired: “Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers,” Riverside Art Museum; “Shot in the Heart,” Mikal Gilmore; “Good-bye to All That,” Robert Graves

Books read: “Letters to My City,” Mike Sonksen; “Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers,” Riverside Art Museum; “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou

For 2024’s second month, I decided to chip away at the backlog of books given to me by friends, writers or publishers. This was a good plan. But although I read three, three more arrived (one of which I managed to read the same month). So the month was a little like running in place, but at least I didn’t fall further behind, right?

Here’s what I read:

“Letters to My City” (2019; revised 2023): A winning combination of L.A. neighborhood histories (Florence-Firestone, South Central, North Long Beach and others), tributes (to Huell Howser, a beloved teacher, the 562 area code) and poetry, some of which lists streets, writers or cities by name, a la Chuck Berry, to great effect. “Who’s rockin’ the populace in the postmodern metropolis? LA authors.” Third-generation Angeleno Sonksen loves LA’s present as much as he does its past, a rare and welcome thing. As a prose writer, he’s an enthusiastic amateur, but he’s earnest and he pays close attention. I like and admire this book. (Copy sent to me in December 2023 by the author.)

“Collidoscope” (2024): This is a museum catalog for one of the opening exhibits from the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture in Riverside in 2022, with overall and detail photos of the pieces as well as some text about Einar and Jamex de la Torre, who live and work on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Their glass sculptures and lenticular art (think of 3-D baseball cards) are often silly or scatological and sometimes evoke wonder with their panoramic sweep and myriad of details. (Copy sent to me by the museum.)

“Caged Bird” (1969): Angelou’s first memoir, this tells the story of her childhood, bouncing between locales and parents/grandparents, as seen through a child’s eyes and memory, with some pieces unknown or only guessed at. Generous, warm, well-observed and the funnier and more vivid for it, and sometimes shocking. I listened to the audiobook, which is read by Angelou, effectively, although I sped it up to 1.25 because she read so deliberately. (Copy bought in September 2023 at Pasadena’s Octavia’s Bookshelf with a gift card, but primarily read via a library borrow of the audiobook.)

I can’t really recommend “Collidoscope,” unless you saw the exhibit and want a memento, but the other two books might interest you, and surely I don’t need to tell you that “Caged Bird” is a modern classic. You may well have read it yourself.

Two other gift books were in progress during February, but I didn’t get them read in time. One was finished March 2, after I wrote the bulk of this post and had uploaded the photos. But there’s no rush; it can wait for my March Reading Log. Since I expect to only get to three or four books, I’m going to make that another gift-book month. And it’s my birthday month, which will mean — more gift books!

I’m looking forward to April and May, when I can get back to some pre-pandemic books. In the meantime, what did you all read during February? Let us know in the comments.

Next month: “Station Eleven” and more.

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Column: Impact of Emmett Till’s murder is focus of exhibit

“The Impact of Images” at Riverside’s California Museum of Photography is devoted to Emmett Till’s 1955 lynching, his mother’s decision to have an open casket so the world could see her son’s mutilated face and the trial of his killers, who were acquitted but later bragged about their deed. It’s a powerful exhibit, and free. It’s the subject of my grim Sunday column.

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Column: In lit talk, ‘Picard’ writer provides canon fodder

Writer Michael Chabon talked about “canon” in relation to writing for “Picard” during an appearance in Claremont; 500 people turned out for the church concert in Claremont by a Notre Dame Cathedral organist; plus three Culture Corner items and a 100th birthday wish to a reader in Menifee, all in my Friday column. Those first two events took place on different days a short walk from my home, one of the pleasures of living in Claremont.

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