Dec 28, 2023
“Old heads” are basketball fans who go way back. They’re eager to reminisce about Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Not mere nostalgists, they’re up on the current scene as well. Magpie Café is old head central for the farm-to-fork crowd in Midtown.
Owners Janel Inouye and Ed Roehr bring history with them. Roehr worked in Midtown eateries before Midtown was cool. Inouye has been in the restaurant business for decades.
Their passion for fresh, local ingredients and seasonal cuisine predates the slow food peak. Their farm-to-fork credentials go back before the city slapped the logo on the Pocket water tower.
Dec 28, 2023
Inside Land Park/Grid January 2024
“This painting is based on a small drawing of my front yard in Land Park. I was given a challenge to make a drawingusing only analogous colors. I chose blue, green and yellow, but I didn’t want to use blue for the sky. It was fun mixing all the values and variations.”
Dec 28, 2023
Generations of families loved Land Park Plunge and Riverside Baths. They celebrated the pool’s opening every April, rode bikes, walked or took the No. 2 bus down Riverside Boulevard.
They splashed in “artesian” waters on summer days. They swam on moonlit nights. Admission was 25 cents, kids a dime.
Then Land Park Plunge and its diving boards, patios and dressing rooms disappeared, dropped from conversations, expunged from memories, an embarrassment best forgotten.
Today nothing memorializes the significance of a once-grand community sports and recreation center. Let’s pretend this never happened. But it did happen.
Dec 28, 2023
Inside East Sacramento January 2024
Laurie Curran studied art at UC Berkeley and San Francisco Art Institute. Her style is a masterful balance between abstraction and realism.
