Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sends first Tweet on March 21 – Garbage deal probed; Mayor Ron Gonzales indicted – McClatchy buys Knight-Ridder, whose execs receive $57 million in bonuses – Google acquires YouTube – Tesla Motors introduces battery powered car, the Tesla Roadster
The Mayor’s Race Heats Up
OK, suddenly the Dow breaks 11,000 and digital music has its richest week in history. But what’s the true barometer of a genuine economic recovery? It’s got to be the San Jose mayor’s race. We did an early poll of mayoral fundraising booty, and came up with some ka-ching. Chuck Reed had been pegged as the campaign-contribution front-runner, and he says even he’s surprised by the $104,000 he’ll be declaring to the city clerk, considering the season only opened officially on Dec. 8. The Fly, Jan. 17, 2006
Driving in Place
In Californians, his 1982 book about the state of the Golden State, novelist James D. Houston revisits San Jose, where he spent his formative years, graduating from Lincoln High School in the early 1950s and attending San Jose State. Driving around “a town I thought I knew quite well,” Houston writes that he “got lost in a district that had once been orchard land” before “the land was scraped” for a housing tract. This spring, Houston is back in the place he once knew on automatic pilot, teaching writing and postwar California literature. Michael S. Gant, April 12 [Houston, who contributed several articles to Metro, passed away in 2009.]
Art on the Edge
Donated art hangs from the walls while mechanics wrench on vintage autos. A dog lounges in the parking lot, basking in the hot sun. I’m over at the Ministry of Transport, a foreign car repair shop with an art studio attached next door. Located on a sleepy side street, the yard is filled with beat-up cars, metal sculpture and all sorts of oddball projects in various states of progress. Artists Katie Salen and Marina Zurkow are busy working on an ice cream truck that will eventually house a full-blown karaoke system. Gary Singh, Aug. 2, 2006
