Albany Hill Mini Mart
Albany Hill Mini Mart / © Neo Serafimidis 2011
Photo of Albany Hill Mini Mart from my Albany Commercial Streetscapes project. I suppose it’s not really that exciting a shot, but I have a soft spot in my heart for it. It is kind of an homage, again, to Ed Ruscha, this time to his Twentysix Gasoline Stations book. Although it could be Shore or Wessel, too. But since the project as a whole turns out to be an echo of Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip, I’ll just go with that.
In any case, looking at images from Twentysix Gasoline Stations online, I was reminded of something from my childhood: the gasoline station across the street from my Uncle Pete’s shoe repair shop. There were two things about that station that I never understood as a small child. The first was the brand name, which was Terrible Herbst. I didn’t even know that it was the name of anything because it was so strange, and I sure didn’t know how to pronounce the second word. I remember sitting in the shop looking out the window at the station, silently mouthing the words, trying to figure how to pronounce the name by trying to figure out what felt right in my mouth. I wasn’t used to seeing so many consonants in a row. Who knew it was a big regional brand, much less that it’s still around?
The second confusing thing to my feeble five-year-old mind were the signs next to each of the drive entrances. As I remember, they were three-foot-high metal signs on stands with springs so they would give a little in the wind. They were plain white and written in red letters were the words “GAS WAR!” I really did not know what that was supposed to mean. I knew what gas was, and what war was, but I couldn’t put the two together in any way that was meaningful to me. Even now, I have to suppose that “PRICE WAR” would be more intelligible. Despite being confused, I would feel the effect of reading the word ‘war’ as a tiny little adrenaline-like rush, because war was exciting. It made me want to be back at home playing with my army men.
Dang, I can still picture that station in my mind. I sure wish I had a photo of it. Besides being an interesting thing to have, it would help me sort out some of my foggy memory about it, because I seem to remember there being a winged horse, which is the old Mobil graphic, of course. I vaguely think the stations were next to each other. Here is a google streetview of where it/they once stood.
View Larger Map
Swivel the view around to the other side of the street and zoom in a bit to see the little white storefront building where Panos Shoe Repair was located once upon a time. There’s lots of memory there. But that’s a story for a different time.
Found Rant #2
Club Mallard's Great Old Sign - © neo serafimidis 2011
Just found: this deep-sixed, gut response to an apparent effort to make Albany yet more wholesome.
“Some of the effort to resolve problems with the Mallard seems to assume we live in some idyllic suburb where we only encounter members of our own tribe, and all the establishments are either only for use by those within walking distance, or are in strip malls with plenty of parking stalls. The reality is that we live in the middle of a huge urban center that will only continue to become more densely populated. We may not want to believe that, but it is true. The dangerous affliction of having strangers parking in the neighborhood is evident all over town, not just in poor ol’ West Albany. God knows its bad out here in North-North-East Albany, near the border with the hinterlands of Contra Costa County and the sphere of influence of AHS.
On the upside, having people around is what makes a place culturally interesting, exciting, and desirable. Indeed, some people here might welcome more culture, nightlife, music, and art geared for adults. Sometimes it seems this town has [censored–too provocative even for the personal blog].
If people can’t put up with the challenges of densely populated areas to enjoy the benefits of same, then they owe it to themselves to move to a place that provides them what they really want. I hear there are good deals on houses in the central valley these days.”
Birthday
Happy Birthday Theo
Kid turned eight years old today. It’s true what they say about it going by fast. Yes, he’s still into Clone Wars. Although, lately it’s been Disney Toontown social gaming, and now the latest is Lego Hero Factory. It’s all so much more involved than just a generation ago when we played just fine with sticks and mud and leaves. I don’t think kids around here make many mud pies anymore.
And in fact, a Wii finally arrived at our house on account of this occasion; we’ve joined the 21 century, video game addiction, and wireless connection from the TV to Netflix!
A little birthday party at the YMCA kids’ gym went well enough with only a few of injuries from which all concerned recovered relatively quickly. Although my ribs are still a little sore from being pummeled by children while trapped inside a large padded barrel. I tried the obstacle course race too, and that didn’t do my knees any good.
Nonetheless, it was wonderful day. Happy birthday little buddy.
West San Pablo
San Pablo Ave, West Side of 500 Block
Today I began photographing the Albany commercial streetscapes. Throughout I used a Nikon D300s with a 35mm-f/1.8 lens at f/16, and ISO 200. I began on San Pablo Ave., at the northern border with El Cerrito and worked my way south toward Berkeley, shooting only the west side of the street. I paced off about 18 to 24 paces between shots.
I didn’t quite finish the side because I ran out of memory near the end. I might have ten more shots to go to finish the side. As it was I came home with almost 200 shots, and it took me a little over two hours of walking and shooting. I have already managed to edit this down to about 130 or so. I think San Pablo will end up being a set of 300 or so. Perhaps Solano will be about the same. The shot above is near the north end, and the one below is at the south end, just below Marin Ave.
San Pablo Streetscape at the Gill Tract
Documenting the Streetscape
Test Shot for Streetscape Series
Yesterday’s post had me opening my big fat mouth about the sorry state of Albany’s commercial streetscapes. The rant led up to my mention of a project to photograph the retail zones in Albany in their entirety. Once one starts talking like that, one becomes committed to undertaking the project. And if I don’t, I know somebody else will.
Today, I took a couple test shots, and here’s how my approach is shaping up. I want to have a consistent scale across all the shots, so I am going to try to do it entirely with the 35mmf/1.8 and shoot from across the street. On my D300s this ends up being a 50mm angle of view. I will at least start out using a tripod to get the sharpest and most consistent results possible.While I admit I have an axe to grind, I don’t want to intrude too much into the frame, so I hope to take a kind of documentarian “just the facts, ma’am” approach.
I plan to shoot all of San Pablo Ave from the El Cerrito border to the Berkeley Border, and Solano Ave from San Pablo to the Berkeley border. I’m going to try to shoot at regular intervals, about 12 to 14 paces, so that’s going to be a lot of photographs.
It would be nice if it were overcast for that nice even light. Not likely to get that for awhile, at least not without rain. I’ll shoot the west side of the street in the morning hours, and the east side in the late afternoon. Mutatis mutandis for Solano.
Wasn’t there an artist who did a piece where he photographed all of Sunset Blvd.? This is like that, only quainter and more family-friendly.
Over 50 Years Later
Today is my mother’s birthday. She is 92 years old, we think. Happy birthday mom. I love you. I wish you didn’t have to live there at the γηροκομειο. I wish a lot of things were different.
Here she is on her wedding day, more than half a century ago. She was 41 and my dad was 61. She never expected to be married at all, by that time, and he didn’t really expect to get married again after being widowed. But there it is. And here I am.
I feel a confessional coming on, but I’m not in the mood for it, and I’ll bet you’re not either. So, I’ll just leave it at that.
Found Rant
"Shopping Cart" / © Neo Serafimidis 2009
Here’s a funny idea: what if took my ranty responses to stories and reader comments on albany.patch that I wrote and never posted, and instead posted them as out-of-any-context blog entries?
“Come on. I don’t believe for a freaking second we have a “unique 50’s street ambiance” on San Pablo. The “main street ambiance,” such as it is, is dingy and uninteresting–a retarded mess of new and old architecture, endless hair and nail salons, mediocre restaurants that last a few months, car repair shops, some old storefront buildings too small and moldy to hold a sustainable business of any kind, and a couple bars that we seem to be trying to drive out of business. And shockingly few actual pedestrians. From Livermore to Santa Rosa, other cities have much, much nicer and more vibrant “1950’s” main streets, including Solano. If you think this shit is special, I feel sorry for you. You need to get out of town more.
If one is so deluded about how precious Albany’s commercial street-scape is, I suppose it is easy to put down Bay Street as being a grotesquely inferior fake. I thought of it as corporate and fake too. But quite honestly, I was at Bay Street a couple times recently and had a realization. Each time, there was a band playing in the courtyard area, lots of people sitting around listening and enjoying the sun, eating ice cream or food, children running around playing, shoppers shopping. It was like a community of people congregated and enjoying the public square. Is it fake? What’s fake about it? IT WORKS.
And then we came home to Albany through the Solano-San Pablo intersection. There was a boarded up cafe on the corner, no one really hanging around except the angry homeless guy with the dog, a big ugly billboard peeling off, and a bunch of passing-through traffic. I had to admit to myself that the corporate fake was actually infinitely more attractive and functioning far better as a gathering place for people than anything in Albany. I’d trade a couple blocks of San Pablo for a couple blocks of Bay Street in a heartbeat. I’ll bet the City budget would, too.
Three years spent balancing quality of life with attracting development? What development has occurred? Another doomed restaurant went in next to Ivy Room? How many businesses have closed and not been replaced in that time?
I don’t blame the Adams/Kains neighbors one bit for opposing rezoning. I did too at the time. But if every proposal is successfully put down by those who don’t want it in their backyard, then we will have what we have now, family-oriented stagnation.”
Do I hold to all this? Maybe not all. But it does suggest a photo essay on Albany’s commercial street-scape. I’ll get right on that.
Location, Location, Location
"XXX" From the "Where in Albany" series. Albany CA. January, 2011
It was a spooky evening for photography in Eastbania last night when I went out to shoot for the “Where in Albany” game feature on albany.patch.com.
The current obsession in Albany is the locating of a marijuana dispensary somewhere in our little town. The current application to open a dispensary was coming before the City Council again tonight, and it was expected that the applicants’ appeal would be rejected. It would locate it in a largely residential neighborhood on Solano Ave. But there is another application right behind that one that locates a dispensary down in the light industrial edge of town next to the train tracks.
With all that in mind last night, I set out to photograph the locations under consideration. The Solano location results weren’t all that interesting. But the fog helped produce something of interest down by the tracks.
"Light Silhouette" / © 2011 Neo Serafimidis
I suppose that all in all, this looks more like where expects to find one’s pot than a row of quaint storefronts surrounded by suburban-style homes.
Vegetarian Duck Fat Burger
Veggie Burger Mix
We needed a quick and simple dinner. Digging around in the pantry produced a box of veggie burger mix. It wasn’t too exciting but it would meet the criteria, along with the added benefit of reducing the number of forgotten boxes in the pantry by one.
The only question was how much of this stuff to make. The directions gave amounts for making three patties, or six patties. I needed four patties. To hell with it. I’ll mix up the whole thing and just make four big patties.
Once the patties were made, I set about getting ready to fry them up. Got out the pan. Got out the olive oil. Got out the, hey! Wait a minute… Why use olive oil when you can use something magical?
Duck Fat
Yes, that’s right. Duck fat!
I started with a couple of tablespoons of that and threw some onions in. Then I fried the patties in there.
To be perfectly honest, the burgers did not turn out all that great. Making four big patties probably had a lot to do with it. The patties were about 3/4 inch thick, which meant that the outside was getting pretty dark by the time the middle was approaching done. But the real problem I think, is that one can really only eat so much of this dried and reconstituted grainy mix. Even though a 3-inch patty as directed on the box seemed too small in theory, the bigger patties we ended up with were too much in practice.
On a side note, another problem here was the arugula for the burgers. I have basically written off all Trader Joe’s produce, but every once in a while I give in and try again with something like the bags of arugula. This is absolutely the blandest arugula I have ever come across. You may as well just use iceberg lettuce. Really. Not only that, but it only lasts a couple-three days after you get it home, and then it’s on its way to becoming arugula soup, right in the bag.
So, ummm, yeah, the duck fat was about the best thing about it. I should’ve used more.
Family Heirloom Project: Sewing Kit
Mom's Sewing Kit / © Neo Serafimidis 2009
Another of the photos I took while preparing to move my mother out of her apartment and into a board and care facility. That was almost exactly two years ago. Somehow it seems like decades ago, so much has changed since then: she went through surgeries and medical emergencies, and is so much more out of it; I went through job changes; we lost a few people; Theo has grown so much.
Anyway, my mother kept a lot of her sewing stuff in an old tin. It probably had butter cookies or something like that it in it originally. The holiday design caused me to associate holly with sewing rather than Christmas for years. At least they have sharp pointy things in common.
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