| 1 This is somewhere on the Northwestern corner of campus, what I like to call the Giannini Green. At this time of year, the ginko tree there comes alive with an amazing yellow fire. Sometimes, I see unwitting passersby just stop in their tracks and gaze in astonishment. |
| 2 Here's the ginko tree (another of its names is the "maidenhair tree"), its foliage as seen from below. It sheds its leaves fairly quickly, so this sight is rather evanescent, fleeting. If I see the wind whip up (the trees outside my window start scratching the glass urgently!) I run out, to stand under the ginko, under a rain of yellow leaves. Soon, the ground is covered in cadmium snow. |
| 3 Wheeler Hall is one of the most beautiful buildings on campus (both outside and inside), esp. if you like classical architectural forms. There are these marble or concrete Grecian urns in the front facade of the building -- I've always wondered how they've survived the various Bay Area earthquakes over the years, without toppling over onto hapless students below! They must be using a super-secret glue developed here at Cal's world-reknowned labs... heh-heh. The Wheeler Oak in front is ancient, known to many generations of Old Blues. |
| 4 Sather Gate, untypically uncrowded. Finals are over, and students have gone home. During regular schooldays, this is where to go if you want to people-watch at UC Berkeley (and to nearby Sproul Plaza). {Brag alert!} It could be that, per square meter, this area is where you can find the most intense concentration of brains and smarts in Northern California, or even the US... |
| 5 What's a Berkeley album without the requisite tie-dye image? This one is from the usual location on the corner of Durant and Telegraph Avenues. Granted, the image has been "KPT Sharpened" by a factor of +3, which is probably the way a normal human eye would perceive the scene anyhow. (Even though my new digital camera can render an image at 24-bit resolution, the resulting image is still a shade below ideal. Ergo, some Photoshop tinkering is still required.) |
| 6 Here, I was testing the macro capabilities of the camera, and asked the redcapped vendor if I could get a pic of her magnetic warez. She graciously assented (unlike some other vendors on the Ave., who snippily refused -- and there goes the holiday Spirit!). The image doesn't quite approach a real camera's macro function. You can't quite read the magnets, eh? Still, not bad for broad image-parsing purposes. |
| 7 This is a terrific new mural on the Avenue's blighted sinkhole, the site of the old Berkeley Hotel, which burned down almost a decade ago. Usually, the wall there is graffiti- and propaganda-laden, and the mud-and-grass plot in front of it filled with debris or post-modern sculpture (usu. garishly painted toiletbowls and the like), which is sometimes the same thing. As is usual around here, the mural is vaguely politically correct. |