A mere three years ago, every headline about California from the Times to Buzzfeed was screaming about the droughtpocalypse. Then we had a semi-normal precipitation year, in 2015-16. We learned t...
https://eamonka.com/2018/02/21/dry-lands-wrapping-our-heads-around-californias-ecological-future/
In Alan Lomax’s The Land Where the Blues Began, he spends a great deal of time talking about the fife and drum music of the northern Mississippi hill country, a genre I was completely unfamil...
https://eamonka.com/2016/09/19/the-triumph-of-africa-in-america/
This is the hammer that killed John Henry But it won’t kill me, But it won’t kill me, But it won’t kill me Take this hammer and carry it to my captain Tell him I’m gone, Won’t you tell ...
https://eamonka.com/2016/09/10/roots-music-break-spike-driver-blues/
The Lunatic Express got its name from its notorious expense and the high death rates of the largely South Asian workforce that built it at the turn of the last century. But the main thing that...
https://eamonka.com/2016/06/23/a-look-back-at-my-trip-on-the-lunatic-express/
I’ve been waiting for a deeply reported article like today’s Times piece, “In Cramped and Costly Bay Area, Cries to Build, Baby, Build.” No, not everyone who supports building lots of mar...
https://eamonka.com/2016/04/18/the-times-nailed-it-with-their-article-on-bay-area-housing-wars/
I have no information on this performance besides that in the video description. What presence and skill she plays with! Happy Friday.
Just a quick reminder that, no matter how much El Niño drenches us this year (or doesn’t—we’re actually behind the curve on rainfall), California is still kind of up dirt creek in the lon...
https://eamonka.com/2015/12/17/it-really-doesnt-matter-how-much-it-rains-in-california-this-year/
This week we found out that ISIS has blown up the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, the millennia-old Syrian UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s one of many destructions of ancient Syrian structures tha...
This can’t be good: NASA tells us that the Central Valley is dropping 2 inches a month because of groundwater pumping. It’s a process that has been going on for a century or more, but with th...
https://eamonka.com/2015/08/24/california-is-literally-sinking/
A few weeks ago an old-timer whom I’ll call Bill struck up a conversation with me on a bench outside a laundromat on 116th street. According to him, the neighborhood is “gone” and will neve...
https://eamonka.com/2015/07/14/glory-days-a-different-perspective-on-neighborhood-change-in-harlem/