Alumni of Bookshop Santa Cruz

I didn’t particularly love my time at UC Santa Cruz. Aside from its small but devoted journalism department, my experience at UCSC was more summer camp with extensive journaling than rigorous academics. But I stayed in Santa Cruz in large part because I got a job at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

Bookshop Santa Cruz is a Santa Cruz institution. It’s been on Pacific Avenue since 1966. It survived the 1989 earthquake (it continued operating out of a tent when the quake destroyed its building) and it survived the infiltration of chain bookstores that attempt to put it out of business.

Bookshop is an unofficial information center for Santa Cruz.  In summer, people from ‘over the hill’ would call the store to ask about the weather or the surf. People stopped in to ask for directions or for restaurant recommendations. Just about anyone who visited Santa Cruz made their way through Bookshop Santa Cruz. I once ran into my 6th grade teacher while I was working there.

It wasn’t necessarily an easy job. Working with the public is always a challenge, but it was even more difficult in Santa Cruz, where the store, like the town, attracted crazies like moths to a flame. (A customer once told me I looked like a ‘peaceful dolphin’.) But in the 10 years since I left Bookshop, I’ve looked back on it fondly. My work there felt more meaningful than any job I’ve had since, certainly more important to me than making wealthy people wealthier. I believed in Bookshop, in the importance of  an independent bookstore, a place with personality and determination. It’s an endangered species these days.

It isn’t nostalgia that’s made me look back on my days at Bookshop Santa Cruz, though. Rather it’s the news that my old employer is ‘going rogue’ (to quote a certain Alaskan nutter) and selling copies of Sarah Palin’s new book with a pack of nuts — and not just any nuts, “Sarah Palin’s Just Plain Nutz”. The online offer states that the nuts are also sold separately: “A bag of Sarah Palin’s Just Plain Nutz is also available for $3.98 to those who can stomach a 1 ounce bag of walnuts, but can’t stomach 432 pages of Sarah Palin’s writing.”

This isn’t Bookshop’s first stab at creative bookselling, but it is one reason that I’m proud to be an Bookshop alumni.

Update: Green Apple Books, my favorite SF bookstore, has another option. Buy the Sarah Palin book at Green Apple and the store will donate the proceeds to the Alaskan Wildlife Alliance.

Rave: Presidential Flickr

On this one year anniversary of the election of Barack Obama, I’d like to highlight one of the things I appreciate about this administration. It isn’t Michelle’s focus on fresh, local food or her awesome sense of style, nor is it the President’s commitment to health care reform or repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Instead, it’s decidedly less political: it’s their willingness to have their life and work at the White House documented and shared with the public through The White House Flickr photosteam.

It doesn’t sound exciting, I know. I had pretty low expectations myself. The day-to-day workings of government seem kind of boring, even if you’re the president. Cabinet meetings and speeches don’t seem like they’d make for compelling photos, but this administration doesn’t just show us the official events or meetings with world leaders. Peppered throughout the  Flickr photosteam are pictures like this one that show such a human side to the President.

President Barack Obama bends over so the son of a White House staff member can pat his head during a family visit to the Oval Office May 8, 2009. The youngster wanted to see if the President’s haircut felt like his own. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza).

Of course all U.S. presidents have had a life of their own while they were in office, but for the most part, we the people didn’t get to see much of it and that’s part of what makes The White House Flickr photosteam so interesting. There are the meetings, of course, and then there are the pictures that show the President is just another dad playing with the family dog or watching his kid’s soccer game.

Some of the pictures give the sense of seeing the DVD extras, the outtakes from the Presidency, like Obama joking around in this picture, or the unusual interview, shown below.

If you haven’t seen the pictures yet (or even recently), head on over. I can almost promise that you’ll be charmed.

Police Blotters – October 2009

• 9:46 a.m. — A caller reported feces was smeared on an office door.
• 10:11 a.m. — A caller reported seeing a loose buffalo in the area.
• 1:27 p.m. — A caller reported a chicken on a fence.
• 4:54 p.m. — A caller reported a man with a beard and a Santa hat was passed out in the laundry room. He was gone when officers arrived.
• 11:08 a.m. — A caller reported a large yak by the road. The owner was to attempt to corral it. {this is very strange: neither yaks nor buffalo are common in the area.}
• 4:45 p.m. — A woman reported a man possibly casing her house. When she looked out the window, he gave her the finger.
• 2:54 p.m. — A man reported his estranged wife tried to throw a deep fryer at him. It was off and the oil was cold. She also struck a female friend of his. The woman called and reported her husband poured oil on her and hit her. Neither party wanted to press charges.
• 10:42 a.m. — A man reported his neighbor was yelling that he wants to die. He said his neighbor yells like this often.
• 9:44 a.m. — A caller reported a “Mexian” wearing “Mexian clothing” was sending money by the mail.{I assume this is a typo and they meant Mexican}
• 2:47 p.m. — A caller reported a man in the street with a large hat and dreadlocks, dancing to his own beat.
• 2:51 p.m. — A caller reported two severed deer legs in the road.
• 7:52 p.m. — A caller reported someone went into a barn and moved a bale of hay.
• 12:55 p.m. — A woman reported she thought there was a bear in her basement. An Animal Control officer could hear a snoring sound, but no bear was found.
• 10:37 p.m. — A man reported hearing a woman screaming, It was found to be a loud TV.
• 11:40 p.m. — A woman called to say she stopped for a man in the roadway who then threw himself on her car, crawled up the hood and growled. She said the man seemed disoriented.
• 4:22 p.m. — A caller reported a neighbor was harboring five skunks that play with the neighbor’s cats. The smell was very strong and “chewy.” The person was advised to call Animal Control.
• 1:26 p.m. – A caller said that while he was walking, an elderly driver’s vehicle struck him without injury, but the man who was about 80 got out of the vehicle, shoved the caller to the ground and drove away. Officers are investigating the matter.
• 4:03 p.m. — A caller reported a man possibly wearing a Halloween costume that included a gas mask and bloody clothing was following people to their vehicles. It was a group of juveniles from the high school drama club trying to sell tickets to a haunted house.
• 9:11 p.m. — A woman reported three people running down the road. She believed it was a little too late to be jogging at this time of night.
• 12:32 p.m. — A man reported being the victim of credit card fraud. He said this had happened to him 22 times in the past.