Beyoncé’s Dance Floor Liberation
From the Golden Age of House to ‘Break My Soul,’ Black Divas Continue to Lift Us Up in Hard Times
I can very clearly remember in 1993 the first time I heard Robin S.’s “Show Me Love.” I felt moved ...
-
-
My Summer at the Graveyard
Observing That Final Resting Sites Aren’t Always Quite So Final, KCRW’s Warren Olney Considers What He Wants for His Own Remains
We never heard about “recycling” when I grew up, during the Age of Plastics. But, during one summer ...
-
What Happens When the ‘Indispensable Insider’ of Sacramento Steps Down?
Ana Matosantos Is a Once-in-a-Generation Financial Wizard. Without Her Sorcery, California Will Need a New Budget Whisperer
Send help, Harry Potter! Sacramento needs a new wizard! Ana Matosantos has announced she is departing ...
-
Where Bad Air Carries Peril and Promise
Can the Science and Resources That Polluted the San Joaquin Valley Be Poured Into Building a More Just, Livable Region?
California’s San Joaquin Valley is a place of contradictions: It is the most agriculturally productive region in the world ...
Where I Go: The Specter of the Cinema Café
My Favorite Diner Became a Casualty—and a Warning—of Merced’s ‘City on the Rise’ Ethos
Merced is a place for dreams and new beginnings. At least that’s how it was advertised to me when I moved there from the Bay Area to attend college at the University of California’s newest outpost, a campus intended to serve the Central Valley and invigorate the local economy. If the pursuit of an education brought me there, places like the Cinema Café—a restaurant nestled into the historic Mainzer Theater building—were what made me feel at home.
The café closed just before the pandemic, a victim of Merced’s own success. Ever since, it has been a specter—a ghost of the Merced I had known and a reminder of progress’s voracious appetite.
I didn’t have any expectations the first time I visited the eatery, for a Saturday brunch, after I moved off campus in 2016. But as my friends and I walked up to it, I was instantly charmed. It was a light-green building with art-deco features ...
Can California Lead a Reproductive Justice Movement?
From Sister-Friends to 'Full-Spectrum' Doulas, the Golden State May Be a Model for Care
Why Are Our Sports Stadiums Becoming More Like Roman Amphitheaters?
Today’s Shift to Status-Based Seating Is an Unwelcome Return to the Rigid Social Divides of an Imperial Age
More than 230 amphitheaters, among the largest and most memorable monuments left to us by the Romans, survive in cities from northern England to the banks of the Jordan River. The Romans built amphitheaters for more than 500 years in a range of sizes—from a capacity of a few thousand to 50,000 in the Colosseum—using a variety of techniques. The amphitheater at Pompeii was built in the first century BCE by workers who excavated hillsides, placed terraced seating on the packed soil, and erected retaining walls to hold the rows of seats in place. The amphitheater in Bordeaux was built nearly 300 years later as a freestanding oval fashioned out of brick, concrete, and cut stone.
In every one of these diverse structures, the proximity of one’s seat to the arena floor corresponded to one’s social standing in the community. That method of letting status determine seating is having a rebirth today ...
-
Is It Time for Californians to Vote in Florida and Texas?
People Need Representation Not Just Where They Live—But Also Where They Have Interests
-
Hike the High Sierra, See the Future Unfold
Science Fiction Writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s Visions of a Changing Climate, and World, Run Through California’s Great Mountain Range
-
Is It Time for California to Go?
America Keeps Failing the Golden State—And the Supreme Court Decisions on Abortion, Guns, and the Environment Are Pushing Us to the Edge
-
Why Americans Love a Dance Challenge
From the Early 20th-Century Grizzly Bear to Lizzo’s Latest, Social Dancing Has Always Been Silly and Subversive
-
Elvis Is an American Tragedy. Elvis Is Just Tragic
The Singer's Story Has a Lot to Say About This ‘Pitiful Country’—But Baz Luhrmann's Biopic Ain’t Nothin’ But a Dog
-
The Buffet Is Dead. Long Live the Buffet!
The Swedes Have the Smorgasbord; Americans, Vegas and Sizzler. Can All-You-Can-Eat Return Responsibly?
-
‘It’s Difficult to Win Hearts and Minds When You’re Holding a Gun’
When War Becomes the Means of Governing, Civilians, Soldiers, and Veterans Lose
With wars playing a crucial role throughout history in shaping American influence and character—and with present-day conflicts devastating countries such as Ukraine and Yemen—Zócalo convened a panel to probe the question, “What is Our Responsibility for Our Government’s Wars?” ...
-
Where I Go: A Big, Slow-Moving Boat
Aboard a Container Ship, I Found the Courage to Navigate Toward a New Future
-
Where I Go: Your Doctor, My Car, Our Neighborhood
What Volunteering to Drive My Aging Neighbors Taught Me About Life and Community
-
Where I Go: The Best Basketball Court in Lisbon
At Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, There’s Only One Shared Language, and Everyone Is Welcome
-
The Marshall Project’s Keri Blakinger
The Title of My Book Sounds Like a Tattoo Memoir
-
Ragamala Dance Company’s Aparna Ramaswamy
I Think of My Life as a Series of Traditions
-
Ragamala Dance Company’s Ranee Ramaswamy
In Bharatanatyam You Have to Be an Actress
