mordechai latte

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[ucdavisguy-deactivated20140722]

I had never been to Mishka’s cafe before. I heard my friends talk about it, referring to is as “the place all the hipsters go to”. My friends are not hipsters though and they go there often. I had seen my friends post photos on their instagram of the drinks from Mishka’s. So I was excited when I...

[monicagutfinger]

I agree it really is very different from Starbucks, it has its own unique style that really separates it from being like that corporate chain type of coffee shop and makes it more of homey but fancy at the same time. And coming from a place with 108 Starbucks Coffees, Mishka's is really nice to have around in Davis. Mr. Novakovic really did a great job speaking to us and he did inspire me too, I think that is so nice how he followed his passion rather than the trail of money. And that is great that he is telling younger groups of people like us these things to truly motivate us and have an impact on what we would like to do with our lives.

[monicagutfinger]

La finale.

Last week we had our last class ever, which was a scavenger hunt downtown! I thought this was a really great idea Professor Andy Jones. My group had 2 murals to find, Mathanasium, the amtrack and a statue. One of the people in our group didn't have a bike and we had to walk, which at first I thought would take a long time, but actually since downtown is so close and not too big it was actually better walking (so we didn't have to keep re locking our bikes). When we started searching we had no problem getting the amtrack, statue, and one of the murals out of the way since people in my group already knew exactly where they were. When we found those we did have fun making silly poses of course:

Of those items I really liked was this mural:

Surprisingly I hadn't seen this downtown before so I'm really glad this was one of the assigned things to hunt down! What is interesting about this mural, and I guess probably the reason I hadn't seen it before, is that it is on the side of a building in a really small and hidden alleyway. But I did enjoy seeing it a lot. Its colors are absolutely magnificent and as one may see from the picture, the trees in front of the alleyway create a beautiful flowery shadow on it at sundown hours. Also I love the complex figures in this painting. This strong and maybe older man in the middle has one fish arm and is wearing sort of tribal clothing, him sitting in the water and in painted in such bigger proportion than the neighboring houses even mountains makes him seem intimidating and powerful. There are also so many smaller details that are wild too, like the people on the bottom right and left who were half alligator and something that looks like a half skeleton. The ocean is also portrayed very well with those big whirl pools and endless swirly waves, just looking at it it makes me want to get lost in it. After that we went around looking for the Mathanaisium, which is pretty hard to find and in a random place. After looking for a while without success we gave up and went to ask a nice old couple and later a middle aged couple too. I love how friendly and helpful people in Davis are! Then we looked for our last one, the Columbia cafe mural, which I finally remembered where it was when we were walking back towards school.

Overall I did like the scavenger hunt, but I think it would have been more fun if we had to find an item from each place we went to, like a business card or flyer. I also think for the things like the murals it would be cool if we had to take our picture of them having us pointing to a certain small detail in it that you have given us to find, like playing eye spy!

As for the class itself, I really did enjoy it a lot. I am sad that its ending so soon and I wish I could meet more shop owners and learn about more culture and events downtown! This class was really helpful to getting me involved in the Davis community and I am so happy I was able to have taken it. One thing I would do to improve it, would be that the day we went to the museum, instead of having us work on our blog posts for the rest of the day, I think we should have gone to 3rd Space and met the owners.  Thank You Professor Andy Jones for a great first quarter!

[monicagutfinger]

John Natsoulas Gallery

I joined the class late so I did go touring the Natsoulas gallery itself this week. This gallery is a huge holder of events in downtown Davis. From Jazz festivals to poetry readings this place holds a variety of them and is a huge contributor to the Davis artsy culture. The building itself is located at the end of town across from whole foods neighboring sugar daddies ice cream and local homes. In front of it there is a giant robot  statue. When passing by this statue really draws attention to the gallery. This statue is very unique and special. It is made of tons of rainbow mosaic pieces that are shaped like CDs or maybe vinyl records and is really tall.  It is very memorable, everyone who passes it once never forgets it, and that's how I reference to people where this gallery is. The Gallery itself is a huge supporter of local arts. Every month they show a different local artist's collection of paintings in the main gallery room, in addition to the events with local artists' participation. This week there was an exhibit by Kelly Detweiler and Jennifer Pochinski. Their work is very interesting because it entails messages about the modern day world economy. They used the word "YES" repeatedly throughout their artwork to emphasize it as their main message. The word "YES" is spelled in the characters for money, the Y being yen, the E being euros, and the S being $/dollars. I thought that this repeated combination emphasizes how in this huge world the biggest thing connecting all of our countries is money, each of our economies are supported by one another. And that money is so important in all of our cultures, that everything people do, does "yes" require money. Almost all activities now are costly, and the money sucking machine of our economy is very greedy, as if saying yes, yes, yes more money. They had an interesting painting about nature that had a sign painted listing the cost to looking at things, like a tree or rock cost hundreds of dollars. I believe this displays the message of how now in modern America everything requires money. Even just viewing the public, national parks, just to simply view it and not change, take or affect it in anyway costs money. It illustrates how the artist beleives in this economy we, as citizens are being over charged for everything, and many things we shouldn't be. The artist feels that the people regulating costs and charges in the U.S. are just sucking us dry of all our money, not making anything fun or careless because there is always the concern of money.  The Gallery also supports small businesses by having a coffee co-operative installed in it going by the name Pachamama Cooperative. This co-op is owned by small scale farm owners from all over the world. From each region they sell coffee from thousands of different farms. In this way they have flavors of coffee from many cultures and places and bring them together in one place.

I think the Natsoulas Gallery is a wonderful place that is fully immersed in the arts of Davis and is really key to Davis's art community, bringing diverse types of art  and coffee to local viewers. 

[ameliaevard]

This week for class we met in our computer lab classroom in the basement of Olson. While I was initially disappointed we wouldn’t be biking off somewhere exciting for the afternoon, it ended up being an interesting class. We had two guest speakers, the first of whom was from the Davis Shakespeare...

[monicagutfinger]

Making a trip out of the chore of driving up for the delivery of the boat seems like it was a great idea! Those pictures and descriptions of the Shakespearean plays sound and look incredible. I find that really interesting how instead of like most plays that really put a lot of work into having fancy sets with very detailed backgrounds and fancy props they used minimal set decor to focus on the act. And it being in this outdoor setting, which I am surprised because it rains so much in Oregon, under the stars sounds very comforting, beautiful and enjoyable. Your post makes me really want to check it out!

[mmaands]

A small town can be a destination. Today we had two guest speakers that spoke to the topic of public theaters here in Davis. Our first speaker was part of the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble. He is one of the few acting companies here. Although Davis is a welcoming city of all the arts I was surprised...

[monicagutfinger]

I love the picture you included, that's really funny. I definitely got the same feeling from listening to the speakers; I felt a huge respect to artists and their determination in the struggle to succeed. And I agree with you, Davis is really an artist hot-spot, and is continuing to grow in talent, scale, and success in helping local artists get known in the world. In Corey La Rue's presentation he did a great job of teaching us those ideas of how art can't be read in a superficial way because then it is not being perceived as the artist wanted and the person is not understanding its true purpose. Corey also discussed how an artist needs to do whatever they can to get their art out there, whether its doing graffiti, wearing it, or asking local shops to display it.

[mmaands]

There is never a lack of options here in Davis. Whether it comes to food, clothes, bikes, stores! It’s every hungry individuals dream. Whether your stomach is craving Thai, Italian, American, Chinese, and dessert food. Davis is ready to accommodate everyone and anyone’s cravings. For a small town,...

[monicagutfinger]

It really is great how many options of food there are in Davis. I agree that Davis does a really good job of intertwining so many different cultures through food, and its not even that big of a place. I think that not only is there such a huge variety of types of food to eat, but almost all of them are native to Davis. There are mostly mom and pop restaurants and fast foo places which I find a really special and amazing thing. For one people in Davis automatically must support their local community because there are so few big corporation choices in places to eat. In addition this really contributes to Davis's culture because people can visit here and find a uniqueness in art, shops and food.

[brandicoley]

I chose to include The Oddity for those of you who didn’t get a chance to look at it yourselves. I chose three pieces in particular that struck me; August Revised, Cinco De Mayo, and Many husbands (the first two poems, and the latter a short story). My everyday trip to class is about 20 minutes long on the A-Line so I used that free time to read over the journal and even though these pieces may not have been the typical feel good type of themes, they all made me smile one way or another.

I liked August Revised specifically because of its two first lines, “In July the heat comes, but it stays in August—”. I feel like that is just something we all know all too well how it feels, unless maybe you live in San Fransisco. But anyways, the poem brought back memories of care free summers as a kid, picking berries, running through tall grass with my cousins, touching cactus and doing other silly things because I didn’t know any better.

Then I got to Many Husbands, where a woman is trapped in her dreams trying to follow a string that might lead to the end of a tunnel (that has maybe light or music in it), but her various husbands (she is polygamist in her dream) always block her way for some time when she is getting close. If I remember correctly, her final husband was herself (or maybe just a woman) and I thought that was particularly interesting as if she was facing herself or her womanhood that was blocking her own path of what she was trying to get to. Too bad, before she finds whats at the end of the tunnel, she wakes up to her husband -who I can’t tell if she is genuinely happy or just settling for- and goes through her next day as normal but in the end asks herself “why can’t I find the end of the string?” This story was kind of quirky and strange, but that last line really hit home. I feel like she grew up and realized she settled for something, and those things she settled for are blocking her path to what she really wants-whatever that may be.

As for Cinco De Mayo, what I loved was the part about ants. Well first of all, I thought it was funny that they were intoxicated watching the ants so intensely on Cinco De Mayo. I thought it was cute how one of the people suggested that they try to help the ant in its efforts to carry that stick wherever it was trying to take it, and I thought it was an incredibly common response for the other person to suggest standing by instead of helping simply based on the fact that they don’t know what the ants goal is. I guess you do have to take into account the fact that they are ants that they are talkign about and it’d be super hard to help an ant carry a stick, but if you think about it on a larger scale that person was falling victim to the bystander affect which I talked about before.

Anyways, all three of these pieces represent some kind of feeling that all of humanity goes through, and I think that is what made them special to me. They were almost like a story of growing up and wanting to do these things, but not know how to get them done.

[monicagutfinger]

This seems like a great use of your time on that bus ride! I actually got the oddity but still haven't had a chance to look at it so this blog is definitely making me eager to check it out. I like how in this blog you wrote about your analysis of the meanings to these works. From what you described I think the second poem seems to really stand out with its intriguing and unusual story-line, really showing a struggle for this women within herself. I agree with your interpretation that she must be regretting her decisions to settle and those stopped her from attaining the true happiness she feels she could have had.

[ucdavisguy-deactivated20140722]

My class meet up at the Hattie Weber Museum. When I got there I was surprised, I was expecting it to be much larger. It is a little building located on the corner of Central Park in downtown Davis. The building says “library” outside. It was originally a library located on F Street, but the lot...

[monicagutfinger]

I was really surprised too! I actually biked right past it at first, ignoring it because I was looking for a much bigger place. I was looking at your pictures and I think the bike one is so cool! I can't believe they actually kept one of the first bikes to roam Davis. This really shows how Davis finds biking here as transportation instead of driving very important. It illustrates how not only do so many people bike here in Davis, but the museum saved the first bikes to be ridden here meaning that to Davis it is key to the city and a gem of the past and present.

[djess17-deactivated20140406]

Culture. Paintings, music, dance, everywhere we go, we are surround by manmade creations.

But what does culture mean to? The latest Johnny Depp movie? Or is it a Justin Timberlake concert? Culture is so immersed within our lives, that without it our lives would not have meaning.

John...

[monicagutfinger]

I really like how you started your blog, the first sentence really gives a good larger scale view on culture and how you perceive it. I enjoyed reading as you continued on this world view of how the art world brings so many differing ideas and opinions together, and people are really able to learn from each other the different perspectives on things from art. I do agree with this, that art itself is much more than a pretty or ugly thing to look at. It has meaning and messages and is usually the creator's way of telling the world what they have to say on a certain topic or idea. The artist wants the public to see how he or she sees things and understand different angles to how things work or even political, environmental, and societal issues.

[alyssaindavis]

This was always one of my favorite murals in Davis. When I see it, it makes me think of the first time I saw this while I was walking with my friends downtown one night. I remember all of us thought it was cool & we took a picture of us shadowing one of the people in the mural. I think this is one of those pieces of art that makes you stop everything you’re doing, even for a second, like the little boy we saw on the art walk who didn’t want to leave the mural. It draws your attention, mainly because of the vibrant colors. When one of my classmates mentioned that the people in the mural were painting each other, I was surprised because I never really noticed that. I was so distracted by the colors. Now that I think about this more & using the knowledge of the community of Davis from John Natsoulas, I believe this mural represents Davis as a community. People of many different colors & races working together, helping each other grow & develop. These are the things we strive for in a community & ultimately, the world.

[monicagutfinger]

This was definitely one of my favorite murals too! That sounds like a fun night and like a really cool picture you guys took you should post it! This mural really does draw people's attention with its brightness and vibrant colors and it is really distracting from what is actually going on in the painting, like the people painting each other as you mentioned. I think that is what makes this mural so special: it is able to get people's attention from far distances with its wild colors, and then as people see it up close they can find so many interesting and creative details in it the artist used to display his message.

[alyssaindavis]

Decisions are always difficult to make. Especially when one of the choices involves free mac & cheese (which is my favorite). On Friday, October 18, I chose to take a short bike ride downtown to central park & E Street plaza, mainly because I had a 4:10 pm class and I could not miss any minute of...

[monicagutfinger]

I like how you pointed out how there was names and dates in the park, I think its interesting how big Davis is on remembering the past. It seems like all over Davis there are little things like memorial stones or history FYIs. In Davis's culture it seems like as it is always moving forward in the arts in general technological advances, Davis always makes sure to remind the people of the past and connect it to the present. Also I find it interesting how you say it feels quiet and private during the farmers market, since I really felt like I was in a very fast-paced environment, surrounded by many people anxious to buy their food and vendors anxious to sell when  I was there, so I guess it really depends on what time you go!

[monicagutfinger]

Hello my name is Monica

This is a little late but this is my introduction blog. I am a freshman and I came here from Irvine. Back home one of favorite cultural activities was going to concerts. I had a favorite  local concert venue that was called the Observatory in Costa Mesa, which was where I have seen some of the best and my favorite concerts.  This venue showed a lot of unknown and interesting local artists as well as popular artists all at very reasonable prices. Another one of my favorite culture activities was to go to the young and vibrant part of Costa mesa that had the Camp and Lab anti malls. These anti malls were both half outdoor were home to extremely unique shops including lot of thrift shops, local vendors of home made jewelry, clothes and even miniature gardens, with incredibly artsy sculptures an scenery all over. Everything down to the seating was interesting and unique to look at and was created by a local artist. Even though Irvine itself was very boring and bland, having Costa Mesa near was very fortunate and great since I was still able to get a taste of my local culture.

[monicagutfinger]

Finding davis's 3rd place

Friday during class Dr. Andy mentioned how people look for their third place/space in their life. This is the place where one can find comfort between work and home. Where there is opportunity for more creative interactions and connecting with the community. Here in Davis they have exactly that place and funny enough they call it 3rd space. 3rd space is a one room place filled with retro furniture, artwork and more random artsy things, a great setup for crafty events. I would like to meet the people who run it some day, seeing how they are so creative themselves in what events they put on in this space. During the day it functions mostly as an art gallery which is nice and cute, but then at night it entirely changes. I could barely recognize the place! The room is all entirely filled with chairs (some also funky and interesting) except for one spotlighted corner where they create a sort of stage area. while the rest of the space is only lit by a few funky dim lamps, giving a main focus to the performance in the corner, but still keeping an underlying warm and comforting vibe throughout the audience from those faint funky lamp lights. So the night I went they were having an event called "Uncle Sedgwick’s Curious Spectacle." This was a 3 hour event comprised local artist performances of music, comedy and poetry. Although I couldn't stay very long, I did get to see the comedy act. I noticed the crowd attending this event was less broad, as most people looked between mid 20's to late 40's. It seemed like this event catered to a more sophisticated crowd. But it being that this is Davis and people are easygoing and like to have fun, the room was filled with laughter and not uptight at all. This comedy act was interesting to me because the comedian was really acting most of the time very exaggeratedly and making jokes here and there about topics like politics. The following shows did sound very interesting and unique, as the music was performed by a 7-piece folk band, and the poetry was from a set of improvised lyrical poems. This is one of many of 3rd space's intriguing and special events and I really look forward to seeing what else they have to offer. Davis's 3rd space really does seem to embody one's 3rd place. In its own ways it is a very creative place to interact, be entertained, and support the local arts; Perfect for the hard workers of Davis who need a place to kick back and relax on a Friday night.

[monicagutfinger]

Meeting Mr. Mishka!

During this Friday's class we met Sinisa Novakovic the owner of Mishka's cafe, Varsity Theater and Icekrimski Cafe. It was very surprising to me that a place that seems so well established and loved by the people of Davis would have had so much trouble to be here. Mr. Novakovic talked about his struggles starting up Mishkas and how most of the time he had barely broke even in the beginning. He started Mishkas while being a grad student in microbiology at UC Davis. Working 90 hour weeks, balancing mishkas and his studies, he was very ambitious. I admire how he was so driven by the want to succeed and have his own business and still worked towards getting his extremely challenging science degree! In the first couple of years he had a lot of problems with his land owners where Mishkas used to be, going through even legal problems with them. Another surprise to me, Mishka's used to be at an entirely different location. Due to these legal problems it even was closed for a couple of years. But things did turn for the better for Mr. Novakich as he found his current venue, that was a deal including the land for mishkas, Varsity Theater and gelato shop (Icekrimski Cafe) next door. Although he did have more struggles with this land and the city, because of historical pieces on the property, he did succeed to surpass all this and finally bring Mishka's to where it is now: a well established, beautiful European coffee shop (might I say with the best coffee and desserts), in the center of everything, really in the perfect spot downtown. 

I think Mishkas as well as Varsity Theater really contribute to the culture downtown in Davis. While Mishkas brings a European and classy cafe culture, Varsity brings also a foreign culture with their art house, foreign, and independent films, no "popcorn movies" as Mr. Novakich calls it. It is a very unique theater in that way. Mr. Novakich explained how even though these movies are of the top notch quality and some of the best modern films in the world, people don't seem to be very interested. Instead most people go for these "popcorn movies," the cheaply made and mass produced movies that have way to many commercials for on TV. But he said even so, he doesn't want this theater to be really about making money, he wants to give the people of Davis this option to see these films and show what is offered in the more artistic film world instead regal's blockbuster movies.  His want to bring this movie culture to Davis is truly wonderful because it just makes Davis even more involved in the arts and music even on the big screen. Mr. Novakich alone has had a huge impact on Davis's culture. He has worked so hard to come this far and is still working very hard but it really is all worth it because he makes an incredible contribution to the community of Davis.

[monicagutfinger]

Its all about art about Fridays <3 Continued

Art about Fridays are where almost all the stores and galleries in downtown show local art in their venues, making it almost a massive art show that is all over Davis. Even places like a Realtor's offices and the Hallmark inn showed art! All of Davis gets really involved and people of all sorts come out for the fun. I saw many old couples, families and college students attending these exhibits. And at Pent's Gallery which was my favorite, they really gave options of entertainment for all this night. First off as I mentioned earlier, there was a live band. The band this time was Big Sticky Mess: a Davis funk music band. This helped the already beautiful and intimate setting become fun and cheery for the gallery attendees. In addition to music, there were tables set up with local vendors of wine and honey giving free glasses of wine and samples of honey. Also there was a giant table of gourmet food like brie cheese and fresh fruit, and home made cookies for the kids. And there was a crafts table where anyone could make doodle or color drawings and make them into cute buttons! Then there was the art itself. I absolutely loved the art in this gallery. This gallery specifically showed a lot of political, environmentalist and funky art. I like how in this way one can tell what taste the pent's gallery has and which local artists they generally choose to support: the more daring and risky art with extremely vibrant colors and strong opinions. The political artist had interesting paintings of many national buildings sinking or portrayed as military tanks.Then the environmental one had a painting of piles and piles of cars and  another with a giant complicated knot compiled of freeways. Also there were two other artists who had crazily colored and funky modern art, one with a lot of creative sci-fi images and the other with a ton of faces painted rainbow colors with weird and funny expressions. Overall I really like how Pent's gallery incorporated something for everyone: music, good food, wine and wonderful art for the adults, and cookies and crafts for the kids!

[monicagutfinger]

Its all about art about Fridays <3

This Friday I attended my first 2nd art about Friday in Davis! this really is a huge cultural thing in Davis. One can see how our town is truly connected through art and support of local artists, musically and painting/drawing wise. First I started off at Pent's Gallery which was entirely by accident actually, since my friend and I heard the lively loud funk music and were immediately drawn  towards the outdoor setting in Pent's Backyard. It seems like a little hidden treasure since its in the back closed off by other buildings; so it is more of a hunt to find it when not following the musical sounds. But of course when one does, they have found treasure! At night they have string lights hanging all around it to give it that intimate and warm glow, in addition to the interesting wall murals on the adjacent buildings and funky statues placed randomly throughout. To give it more of a comforting feel there are huge pine trees planted in the corner, which I found very unexpected, but it makes the place even more special. The trees' placement there makes a connection between nature scenery and graffiti art style with the idea of mural next to it. This combination of decor in this small backyard/courtyard really does give off a feeling of Davis's local support, in supporting artists' freedom to paint on buildings, and nature itself, in not disturbing the nature that was previously there when building this site.

[monicagutfinger]

Pictures from Rock University concert :)