Gray Brechin is a historical geographer at UC Berkeley. Before participating in a panel on the divide between northern and southern California, he revealed his crush on FDR and love of the New Deal-and why he became a geographer.
Q. What’s the last place you traveled to outside of California?
A. Tromsø, Norway-it’s a beautiful place.
Q. What’s your guilty pleasure?
A. Reading. I like to read books, which seems very archaic these days.
Q. Who’s the last person to send you a letter by mail?
A. It was my mother. She’s the only one I get letters from anymore, because she doesn’t have email.
Q. What is your favorite thing about Los Angeles?
A. The view of the mountains rimming the city. I think it’s one of the most beautiful locations for a city I’ve ever seen. When the freeways aren’t clogged, driving here-it’s an incredibly freeing experience.
Q. What is on the walls of your living room?
A. A portrait of Franklin Roosevelt over the fireplace. I live in a house that was built in 1937, and so many of the houses at that time had pictures of FDR on their walls. I’ve got a crush on him.
Q. What’s the brief definition you give for the study of geography?
A. The study of how people have used and abused land. Basically it justifies anything, which is why I decided to become a geographer instead of a historian.
Q. What music did you listen to today?
A. I didn’t listen to any music today. I don’t listen to much music; I’d rather hear birds.
Q. What topping are you most likely to order on your pizza?
A. Anchovies.
Q. What teacher or professor changed your life?
A. Clarence Glacken, a cultural geographer who seduced me into the field. He was a great teacher.
Q. How do you cure the hiccups?
A. A spoonful of vinegar. Stops it immediately.
Q. What inspires you?
A. What I work on: the public works of the New Deal. And what they say to us about the people who built them.
Q. What’s your most prized material possession?
A. My cat, Quartz.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.