4a Group #3

1. Bienvenidos a Newport Beach
Firoozeh Dumas

2. This piece is Dumas's description of her family's move to Newport Beach, California. At the age of eleven, this is her eighth move, and she finds many of the quirks and conveniences of the orderly planned community where she lives to be exciting and fun. Despite this, there is an undercurrent of not fitting in, as Dumas's family is the only Iranian household amongst the community of white homeowners and Mexican gardeners, and her family finds some of the customs and culture of the area to be downright bizarre. Problems notwithstanding, Newport Beach becomes her family's permanent home.

3. "All the streets in our planned community had Spanish names starting with "Vista" meaning "view of" in Spanish. This was really wishful thinking since the homes mainly had views of the other houses that looked just like them. There was Vista Suerte, which means View of Luck. I guess you were lucky to have that view instead of a clunker on the neighbor's lawn. There was Vista del Oro, view of gold. I think that referred to real estate prices. My favorite was Vista Roma, view of Rome. That street overlooked the elementary school parking lot. I don't know how you say "elementary school parking lot" in Spanish, but I'm sure Roma sounds nicer." (93)

4. Reading this story made me think of the other book by Dumas that I have read, "Funny in Farsi." Knowing the backstory of her and her family made this story particularly interesting. As always, I enjoyed Dumas's understated sense of humor and her amusing insights about her life.

5. I learned a lot about Newport Beach from this story, as I didn't know anything about the area before reading this. I think this piece told a lot of unique details about Newport Beach, such as the funny and pretentious naming conventions of the streets in the planned community.

1. Cotton Candy Mirrors
devorah major

2. This story is major's description of her childhood trips to a summertime fair in San Francisco, Playland at the Beach, and her favorite part of the fair, the Fun House. The Fun House was a great place for children, with enormous slides and trick mirrors that fascinated major as a child. She tells how children would come from all around San Francisco to spend their days at the fair for a small amount of money, and learned valuable lessons about life, that were more of an education than many they learned later on in school.

3. "But it was the summer learning, the lessons on when to jump and when to stay still, when to show courage even when you didn't have it, when to use a surprise attack to throw off your opponent - it was those classes that helped us in ways we didn't expect, so that we could surmount the trials that faced us in, and out, of the official educational institutions of our childhood." (102-103)

4. This story reminded me of my own experiences at fairs as a child, particularly the Santa Rosa fair that I used to attend every year. It made me notice how there is no longer any fair of the type that major describes - a place where children can go mainly unattended to learn and explore on their own.

5. From this story I learned about the summer fair, "Playland at the Beach," since I did not know that fairs of this type even existed. The prices, entertainment, and experiences are very different from any type of fair I have been to.

1. Berkeley
Michael Chabon

2. "Berkeley" is Chabon's detailed and amusing description of the life and population is his beloved hometown. Chabon lists the many strange and unpleasant aspects of life in Berkeley, from the introverted (if intelligent) population to the bizarre arrangement of the city's streets. Despite Chabon's annoyance with Berkeley's quirks and problems, this short story serves to explain his love for his very unique home town.

3. "When Berkeley does not feel like some kind of vast exercise in collective dystopia - . . . then paradoxically it often feels like a place filled with people incapable of feeling or acting in concert with each other. It is a city of potterers and amateur divines, of people so intent on cultivating their own gardens, researching their own theories, following their own bliss, marching to their own drummers and dancing to the tinkling of their own finger-cymbals that they take no notice of one another at all, or would certainly prefer not to, if it could somehow be arranged." (107-108)

4. This story made me think of my own trips to Berkeley, and how very good Chabon is at capturing the feel of the city. I particular, I remember one journey there with my family, when we got lost and couldn't find our way out of the city. Chabon's amused frustration with Berkeley is something I can relate to.

5. I learned a lot about Berkeley from this piece. I thought it was interesting that the city has municipal ordinances in place to prevent new businesses from taking over the old industrial buildings. This sort of thing helps explain why Berkeley has such a unique atmosphere for a city.

1. California Honky-Tonk
Kathi Kamen Goldmark

2. In "California Honky-Tonk," Kamen Goldmark tells about how her band, El Rancho Motel, got their start and describes their very first disastrous gig at a biker bar. She and the band had no idea what they were doing, except that they were excited and wanted to play their music. Despite being picked up and subsequently dropped on stage by an enormous biker who was an overly-enthusiastic fan, Goldmark believes that the experience taught her a lot about performing for an audience that she used in her 30-year career as a folksinger.

3. "The only real injury I sustained was a black-and-blue thigh, not from being dropped on my butt by a four hundred-pound biker, but from hitting myself, over and over again in the same spot, with a rhinestone-studded tambourine. It was a little embarrassing at the time, and I never told anyone about my bruised leg - or my bruised ego. But bruises heal, and sometimes even turn into good stories." (120)

4. This story reminded me of my own experiences with public speaking. It seems like everything possible went wrong for Goldmark, and that's always what it feels like is going to happen when you have to perform for a crowd.

5. I think this story captured the feel of a small band's experiences very well, which is not something I knew anything about before this reading. Goldmark's descriptions of the quirky people, places, and music bring this story to life.