CONTENT Issue 5.2: INVENT Summer 2013
featuring:
Matt Tennyson_San Jose shark Dan Gordon_GOrdon Biersch Brewer Annie Leibovitz_Photographer Natalie Engels_interior designer Mari Millares_retailer
content magazine, san jose
invent 5.2 $9.95
SAN JOSE’S
INNOVATIVE & CREATIVE CULTURE
C
CONTENT Issue 5.2 “Invent” Summer 2013 The Makers: Sarah Garcia Marketeer
Jeff Gardner Designer
Sarah Hale Sustainer
Sean Lopez Designer
Stacy Ernst Shaper/Blogger
Brian Jensen Designer
Flora Moreno de Thompson Managing Editor
JP Costanzo Designer
Gillian Claus Writer/Editor
Brian Gomez Designer
Mark Haney Contributing Writer
Britt Clyde Proofreader
Kat Bell Contributing Writer
Kristine Young Design Intern
Alyssa Byrkit Publishing Consultant
Lynn Peithman Stock Contributing Writer/Editor Daniel Garcia Cultivator
The creative culture is one of the things we love best about San Jose. While the idea of “innovation” frequently refers to the legendary technology industry of Silicon Valley, this issue celebrates those who are doing something new in other arenas besides tech. From the entrepreneurs starting a business in graphic tees, to the visionaries who are reframing the way work gets done day-to-day, to two people who develop a relationship from which something new emerges and transforms them both. There are a million ways to invent --to come up with a new method to express yourself, solve a problem, improve a process, or simply explore new terrority as you blaze a trail fueled by your passions. This issue is for those who are doers, builders, catalysts of change—here’s to those who invent!
Enjoy. Daniel Garcia
IN THIS ISSUE Matt Tennyson / Annie Leibovitz / Kim Walesh & Lisa Ellsworth / Trapit / NextSpace / Dan Gordon To participate in Content Magazine: editor@content-magazine.com Subscription & Advertising Information available by contacting sarahg@content-magazine.com
Content invent 5.2
Summer 2013 San Jose, California
Non-stop
6 SJC to LAX
history
8 Eggo, Frozen Waffle
Design
10 Interior Design, Natalie Engels 14 Product Design, TJ Scimone
Art
18 Artist, Stephanie Metz 20 Seeing Things Gallery, Jai Tanju & Blanche Gonzalez
tech
Barefoot Coffee, pg. 46
26 Trapit, Gary Griffiths & Henry Nothhaft Jr. 30 MusicianLink, David Willyard
profiles
34 The Usuals, Mari Millares 36 TechShop, Raffie Colet 40 NextSpace, Gretchen Baisa & Julie Kodama
Food/drink
44 Cafe Pomegranate 46 Barefoot Coffee Roasting
Profiles 50 54 58 62 68
Bay Area Curler, Gabrielle Coleman San Jose Shark, Matt Tennyson Brew Master, Dan Gordon Women of Influence, Kim Walesh & Lisa Ellsworth Photographer, Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz, pg. 68
Fashion
72 SJ T-Shirts, Limon Salon
music
82 Slime Girls 84 Local’s Choice, Ben Bajarin 86 Contributors
Content Magazine is a bi-monthly publication about the innovative and creative culture of San Jose. To participate in the production or distribution contact: editor@content-magazine.com
San Jose Shirts, pg. 72
Dan Gordon, pg. 58
Hop on a plane tomorrow and explore with reckless abandon or plan every last detail—whatever your mood, here’s our take on one of many non-stop destinations served by our very own Mineta San Jose International Airport. Now boarding!
The only real way to see all of Los Angeles in one weekend is to sit in a window seat as your airplane descends into Los Angeles International Airport. The City of Angels sprawls over 500 square miles, and it is nowhere near possible to experience everything in 48 hours. The best strategy is to select a neighborhood and explore it like its own city.
LOS ANGELES Written by Susan Chmelir
Westside: One of LA’s best-known areas—and the one closest to LAX—is the Westside, home to all of LA’s world-famous beach communities. From Malibu all the way to the Long Beach Harbor, there are hundreds of beach-side bars, restaurants and activities to enjoy. For a unique, only-in-LA experience, rent a bike and ride along the Venice Beach Boardwalk. Watch graffiti artists in action, and enjoy paninis and fresh-baked mini donuts at Zelda’s Corner Deli. Ride your bike all the way up to Santa Monica, and join the tourists in playing carnival games on the Santa Monica Pier. For a sit-down meal, try the Library Alehouse on Main Street for a bespoke hamburger and over 50 different beers on tap. There is also Bay Cities Deli on Lincoln Avenue, inarguably the best Italian deli in the LA Basin. An absolute must-see for a first-timer’s trip to LA is the Getty Center, which sits atop a picturesque mountain above Brentwood. The admission is free, and the panoramic view alone is worth the trip. On Saturday nights, they serve cocktails and have live music. Enjoy walking through the Central Garden at twilight, or peruse the museum’s stunning ancient Greek and Roman collections.
flight time Nonstop flights from SJC to Los Angeles depart daily every hour except at 8 pm and last approximately one hour.
Hollywood:
Downtown:
It’s not a complete trip to Los Angeles without a visit to Hollywood. Park a few blocks away from the epicenter at Hollywood & Highland and walk along the section of Hollywood Boulevard known as the legendary “Walk of Fame.” Skip the majority of the touristy restaurants and museums, but do pop into the Hollywood Museum, for a vast collection of film memorabilia and a stunning tribute to Max Factor and the originations of true Hollywood Glamour.
If you’re looking for a true “city” experience, head east to LA’s Downtown District, with a vast array of activities and attractions that show off yet another side of Los Angeles’ eclectic culture.
If the Hollywood Boulevard tourist crowds turn you off, instead opt for a horseback ride from Sunset Ranch Stables. For a mere $45 and 2 hours of your time, enjoy riding a trail-sturdy horse along the edge of Mount Hollywood. Experience unparalleled views of the Hollywood sign, downtown, all the way to the ocean from paths only accessible by horse, bike, or fire engine. After a long day in the (practically guaranteed) sunshine, cool off with a cold beer at one of LA’s only microbrews, Golden Road Brewing, just east of Hollywood. In the evening, treat yourself to $10 of improv comedy at a show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Several SNL and comedy veterans regularly do shows here, and you can do a little celeb-spotting at the surrounding bistros.
For a history lesson on Los Angeles’ origins (or to stock up on decorations for next year’s Cinco de Mayo party), stop by Olvera Street, which is conveniently right across the street from Union Station. Be sure to take a walk through LA’s first home, El Pueblo de Los Angeles, after enjoying tacos and margaritas at any of the several authentic Mexican taquerías. A short walk from Olvera Street but definitely off the beaten path is The Last Bookstore, a true LA gem. The first floor is a typical used book store, but the 2nd floor is a wonderland of literary and artistic oddities that takes hours to explore but, at only $1 per book, is light on the wallet. On a sunny day in summer, there is no better place to get a tan east of the 405 than the outfield bleachers at 60s-retro Dodgers Stadium (bonus points if the Giants are in town!). Grab a Dodger Dog for the novelty, or go to Philippe’s before the game to enjoy the best French-dip sandwich available in Los Angeles. For dinner, Bäco Mercat has been getting buzz in recent months as one of the best new restaurants in the country. Bottega Louie is a darling of LA food critics, with an affordable menu, huge cafeteria setting and a rainbow of French macarons to die for. If there’s a ridiculously long wait, put your name on the list and head across the street to Seven Grand and try one of their 350+ whiskeys. Overall, the best advice you could receive in preparation for a Los Angeles weekend trip: don’t get overwhelmed, don’t try to do it all, and make sure to bring sunscreen.
Zelda’s Corner 9 Westminster Ave Venice, CA 90291 310.314.6458 zeldascorner.com
Library Alehouse 2911 Main St Santa Monica, CA 90405 310.314.4855 libraryalehouse.com
Bay Cities Deli 1517 Lincoln Blvd Santa Monica, CA 90401 310.395.8279 baycitiesitaliandeli.com
Getty center Counterpoint 1200 Getty Center Dr Los Angeles,CA 90049 310.440.7300 getty.edu
SUnset rANCH 3400 N Beachwood Dr Los Angeles, CA 90068 323.469.5450
sunsetranchhollywood.com
Counterpoint Olvera Street 845 N Alameda St. Los Angeles, CA 90012 213.628.1274 olvera-street.com
The Last Bookstore Counterpoint 5410 W San Fernando Rd Los Angeles, CA 90039 213.373.4677 Brewinggoldenroad.la
Upright Citizens Counterpoint .Brigade theater 5919 Franklin Ave Los Angeles, CA 90028
losangeles.ucbtheatre.com
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Eggo
The waffle that revolutionized the frozen food industry. Written by Mark Haney Photography by daniel Garcia
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Eggos caught on immediately since consumers no longer needed to own a waffle iron to make a waffle. They could simply pop it in a toaster or convection oven. No batter, no mess, and breakfast was available in a matter of minutes. The waffles were especially popular with parents who could let their children make their own breakfast.
he frozen waffle is an item that has graced breakfast plates all over the world. Invented here in San Jose in the 1950s, it revolutionized the frozen food industry.
Italian-American Frank Dorsa, with the help of his brothers Tony and Sam, started a food company in 1932. The company later became known as Eggo Food Products. By 1938, the company had grown. The brothers expanded out of their parents’ basement and bought a potato chip plant in San Jose.
With a company that was nationally selling Eggo potato chips, syrup, and the famous frozen waffle, Eggo Food Products caught the interest of larger food companies looking to expand their product lines. By 1970, Frank and his brothers had sold their company to Kellogg’s.
Always the inventor, Frank created the first automatic and continuous potato peeler, a fryer that didn’t curl bacon, and a large rubber squeegee for cement. But Frank had an even greater invention coming: the frozen waffle.
Kellogg’s first introduced the phrase “Leggo My Eggo” in a 1972 advertising campaign. Soon after Kellogg’s took over ownership of the frozen waffle, they began introducing new flavors and, as of 2009, the Eggo holds a 73 percent share of the frozen waffle market.
The Dorsa brothers started experimenting with waffle batter in the 1930s. The first attempts used mayonnaise in the batter, but later a mixture was made which allowed cooks to just add milk. The pre-made waffle batter mixture became extremely popular because of its long shelf life. Frank began working on a machine which could mass produce waffles. By 1950, he succeeded with a carousel machine that could make thousands of waffles in an hour.
The Dorsa brothers were also very involved in the San Jose community, donating to schools and community projects. They were even known to hand out Eggo chips at Halloween to trick-or-treaters. Frank’s legacy continued, even after his death in 2009 at the age of 88. He has over a dozen US Patents contributed to him. Not only did he invent the automatic potato peeler and frozen waffle, but he is also credited with creating a waterless cleaning apparatus for fruit and nuts that simultaneously peels the fruit and hulls the nuts.
The Dorsa brothers then took a chance on the new postWWII American craze of frozen foods, which filled the country’s new large refrigerators and freezers. They began freezing and shipping waffles all over the country. Within a year, the waffle plant was putting out 10,000 waffles an hour with demand continuing to grow. The frozen waffle was a hit.
The family’s production plant off 101 and Julian just southeast of Watson Park is still making Eggos six decades later. His achievements are recognized on a park banner in Little Italy next to other important local Italian-Americans. But it is the hundreds of thousands of Eggo waffles eaten every morning that testify to his accomplishment as an inventor.
The waffles were first named “froffles,” a combination of the words “frozen” and “waffles.” But the consumers of “froffles” thought they had an eggy taste and started calling them “Eggos.” So in 1955 the brothers renamed them “Eggo Frozen Waffles.”
The family’s production plant off 101 and Julian just southeast of Watson Park is still making Eggos six decades later.
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Natalie Engels, IIDA, LEED AP Senior Associate
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InteriorLife Written by Steveyann Jensen Photography by daniel Garcia
“Design goes beyond how it looks and functions. It’s the little surprises; what the user feels when they sit down and what they see when they look up.” Natalie Engels
little things, and that’s what I think is so fascinating about it.
is a commercial interior designer living and working in San Jose. She has over 16 years of experience in her field, and has spent the last ten working for the downtown San Jose global architecture and design firm Gensler, most currently as a Designer and Senior Associate. If you work in the tech industry, you’re surrounded by her work everyday, at places like Intuit, Hewlett- Packard, Dell and Intel. She is also the Northern California Silicon Valley City Center Director for the IIDA (International Interior Design Association) where she heads up the 2013 volunteer project to renovate the YWCA Emergency Shelter.
How do you incorporate these elements into your design when you are working with budget constraints? One of the first projects I worked on here in the Bay Area with Gensler was Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara. As we were going through the design process, our client voiced concern about how the design would affect the budget. Art Gensler, my firm’s co-founder, was friends with the client and I remember him saying, “good design should cost no more.” It is such a true statement. Look at the difference between Walmart and Target; they offer similar products at similar prices, but they are presented very differently. Each one conveys a different message and is branded toward a certain type of clientele. Even with very small budgets, you can look for one element to make it amazing.
What made you pursue interior design? When I was little, I didn’t think, “I’m going to be a designer.” I had originally wanted to be a literature teacher. I went to a very liberal performing arts school where there was a lot of flexibility in the way we were taught. My mother, who is a teacher, told me, “that is not how it works in most schools, you went to a really unique school.” That made me question that path and I began to reconsider my options. My mom told me, “I have this friend who practices ‘architecture, but on the inside,’ you should talk to her.” She ended up being one of the professors at Louisiana State University, where I was going to school. When she explained the field of interior design to me, I was surprised to learn that it was so much different from what I had initially thought. I enrolled in the program and the rest was history. Essentially I got into it almost by chance...and a mother’s wisdom.
What people have inspired and influenced your work? Initially, in school, I learned about Margo Grant, a pioneer for women in design and a leader at Gensler’s New York office. To me, she was on a different level; I thought, “look at this incredible professional who is a leader in this really large, influential organization...and she is a woman.” At that time it was still a very male-dominated work force, and I felt like the general path was that a woman worked until she had kids, and then she stayed home – and I just wasn’t seeing myself in that role. My mom always worked and she was able to balance it with raising us, and so that felt familiar to me. From that point forward I started latching on to these women who I admired that did both. Now, there are so many.
What is something that you love about design? I love that you can really create a whole experience for the end user. Design goes beyond how it looks and functions. It’s the little surprises; what the user feels when they sit down and what they see when they look up. Even people who aren’t inclined toward design can still take note of these
John Scouffas has also been very influential in my career. He was the Design Director at Gensler when I first started there and he was just so nice.
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Intuit Campus Center photography by Jasper Sanidad
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He would listen to my opinion and valued what I had to contribute. It created this loyalty and I found myself wanting to do whatever I had to do to make John look good. That was my job, to over-deliver. There really is a lot to treating people nicely. Why can’t we all just be nice? You can still be a very effective leader. John definitely has a lot to do with how far I’ve come in Gensler and, really, how I viewed the firm. It really made a difference for me and I try to remember that as the next generation of designers join our firm.
What does your role in IIDA look like now? At first I was only involved in the events, and then I started participating on the board. When I had my daughter I stepped down for a while, but after I was back to work, they asked me to be the director. I love it because it allows me to take on a different role, one that I don’t get to exercise as often at work. I love design, so at work, that is my focus. I also love to organize and manage, so my position at IIDA fulfills that desire and gives me that experience.
How did you get involved in IIDA?
What do you love about San Jose?
I originally got involved when I was working up at Rapt Studio in San Francisco and found it was a great way to make connections and meet people. When I started working for Gensler in San Jose, the IIDA Silicon Valley City Center was just starting. Everyone was getting tired of driving up to the city to participate in IIDA events, and we thought, “there are enough designers in the San Jose area, why don’t we start a local chapter?” It started as a small group and just grew bigger and bigger. To me, it’s become more than a way to connect; it’s a neutral ground where we can all play together. There’s no competition. We all help each other out. I don’t see that so much in other fields. Maybe it is our creative side? We just want to be inspired by the people around us; we crave it.
I’ve always had a thing for the underdog, and that’s kind of how San Jose feels to me. There is this underdog quality and it makes you want to stand behind it. It makes you feel like it is just as good as any other big city; we have good food, great people, and beautiful neighborhoods. I mean, why not San Jose? There is this vibe here, like we are right on the cusp of something great. There is a younger, creative side that really needs to be tapped into. I think we need to get the 45and-under crowd more involved and inspired to be down here and take pride in this city. It’s close, I really feel like it’s close. Oh, and the weather’s amazing. gensler.com twitter: @GenslerOnCities facebook: GenslerDesign
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TJ Scimone Written by jennifer elias Portrait by Daniel Garcia
The Art of The Blade What started as a way to support TJ Scimone’s son with special needs has become a breakthrough in industrial safety and design.
TJ Scimone’s desk is filled with knives and jelly beans. A confusing sentiment at first glance, it is actually a very complex and artistic display that is his life.
Slice’s success lies in the art of the blade. A zirconium oxide mixture with ceramic creates a unique thickness that results in a safer blade to touch and one that is ten times more effective than a traditional metal blade.
At his fourteen-year-old son’s age, Scimone was working on one of the first computer models as a hardware engineer. He assisted in producing the VIC Commodores under computer tech icon and Commodore founder Jack Tramiel. “Amazing guy,” Scimone says. “I was so lucky to have worked for him. But, man, was he tough on me.”
“I don’t recommend this,” he says jokingly while rubbing his hand against the blade for demonstration. It doesn’t cut him. It looks as if it’s so blunt, it couldn’t cut the thinnest paper. He then puts some pressure on the handheld blade, effortlessly breaking through thick plastic, resembling a magic trick. But it’s real. Scimone has collaborated with various globallyrenowned talents, including San Jose natives industrial designer Scot Herbst and Liquid Agency’s Alfredo Muccino. He starts playing with the Ceramic Box Cutter, their best-seller. “Alfredo co-designed this with Scot,” Scimone says. “Alfredo is not an industrial designer by trade, but he’s so talented he could do almost anything.”
The young talent traveled around the world coding until July of 1989, when he decided to stay at one of his layovers—San Jose. “I loved the weather here. And I was ready to try something different,” he says while fidgeting with loose desk items. He later revisited his coding experience and went to work on his new venture: MyJellyBelly. com. He created a business of making custom containers filled with Jelly Belly beans; an idea that came to him while working as founder of a promotional company called Private Label.
Scimone has also partnered with designer Michael Graves on several beauty tools, including tweezers hailed by fashion magazines’ “must-have” lists and cosmetic pencil sharpeners for the beauty retailer Sephora. “They (Sephora) wanted to buy a lot of our products, but with their logo on it,” Scimone says while playing with a pair of the praised tweezers. “But that’s like giving away your child or something,” he jokes.
These days, the serial entrepreneur spends most of his time growing an unlikely industry of cutting tools for a company he founded called Slice. His business has cut out the competition winning numerous awards, including the Oscars of design: the Red Dot Award.
Scimone’s perfectionism has required Slice products to be well-designed, even when
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it comes to packaging. He enlisted iPhone packaging designer Tom Crabtree to help design its simplistic and modern wrapping. “Industrial packaging doesn’t have to be ugly,” Scimone explains while shuffling boxes around the table. “[The companies who receive the shipments] don’t care about packaging, but it doesn’t mean it has to be in a big, hideous box.”
With Stanford up the road, Scimone began digging around Stanford’s autism efforts, when he came across Dr. Antonio Hardan. Hardan needed funding for his autism research at the Autism and Developmental Disorders Clinic at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. They’ve since become partners, and Slice donates a minimum of one percent of each product purchase to autism research, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. “But I’d like to raise a lot more than that,” Scimone says. “What I’d like to do is third-party donations, so I’m trying to figure out what I can do to bring people together beyond my own efforts and donations.”
To Scimone’s surprise, the safety industry is growing and Slice is reaping the benefits. “It’s a huge issue now, because all these companies are trying to reduce injuries and don’t mind spending money to prevent it.”
The self-made millionaire gives a surprising amount of hands-on attention to every one of his businesses, motivated by his duties as a husband, entrepreneur, and father to a child with special needs.
By May of 2013, the industrialist will have given Slice its own headquarters from the live/work lofts of downtown San Jose’s Axis condominiums. He plans on using the space to focus on perfecting industrial products and hopes it will, in turn, produce more money for autism research—a cause near and dear to his heart. Scimone’s son, Alex, will never be self-sufficient. While he’s only fourteen years old, he is autistic and will most likely always have the mind of a child. When his father found this out, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life’s work toward Alex. Alex is part of a larger-than-typical generation who will not outgrow autism by the age of 22. “He won’t be able to work, and he’ll be very expensive to take care of,” Scimone says. Since his son was born, Scimone has donated to various autism entities, but he wanted Slice to focus on a broader impact. “I realized my donations weren’t really impacting people I knew in France and other global parts,” Scimone says. I wanted to find something that was local that I could keep my hands on that would have global ramifications.”
“ Wo r k is actually a nice escape,” Scimone says, lifting an energy drink. “They make fun of me because of how much caffeine I drink. It’s the only way I make it through the day.”
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design
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I wanted to find something I could keep my hands on that would have global ramifications
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sliceproducts.com facebook: sliceinc twitter: @slicetweet
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“When people see my work, especially my teddy bear skulls and bone things, I think they assume that I am going to be really dark or Goth. I guess I surprise them that I just don’t come across that way.”
Feels . .Like Art: Stephanie .Metz
Written by Gillian Claus Photography by Daniel Garcia
Organic Sculpture
A
it’s like to hang a show. I feel as artists we have to work twice as hard to show that we are responsible, thinking business people.”
skull, a pelvis, some vertebrae—warmly familiar ivory tones and archetypal shapes resonating deep in our memories. Looking closer, the shapes lack the sharp edges of bone. They are fibrous and irresistibly tangible. Stephanie Metz’s studio is filled with such contradictions. Can bone be soft and warm? Can folds of flesh be firm? Everything requires a second look. Each piece provokes.
At the frame shop, she first came across her medium of choice: wool. Someone gave her a Sunset Magazine article about making a little drink cozy out of felt. By simply wrapping a cup in wool and dunking it in hot soapy water, a solid thing could be created. “I was thinking it’s like alchemy—you take it from one form, and then you do something to it, and it’s another form. I went to a local yarn store and was immediately directed to a book on needle felting.”
Bay Area native Metz grew up in Sunnyvale. After studying sculpture at the University of Oregon, she settled back in San Jose with her high tech husband. “When I came back, I didn’t have any connection with anybody art-related around here,” says Metz. With a vague inclination toward animatronics, she put together her portfolio and ended up getting a job with a company in Hayward that did themed environments like the pyramid outside of Fry’s Electronics. She enjoyed the hands-on making part of the job the most, she says. “Just getting back there and making huge things out of styrofoam with a chainsaw.” Being told how to produce something was less enjoyable, and the job only lasted a year.
The process proved fascinating and infinitely variable. By compacting the fibers together with a needle, the resulting felt can be shaped into any form Metz imagines. It can be built up or stripped down, compacted as densely as she desires. “For me, a lot of it is the dichotomy between hard and soft, and sharp and round,” says Metz. To create the felt, Metz forces the fibers together with really sharp needles notched in one direction. The scales on the fibers interlock and hold tightly together. Although the concept is simple, it affords Metz almost infinite control. Even large forms don’t need much structure because the tightly-bound network of fibers creates its own armature.
Metz next tried her hand at working in a frame store. “It was good and it was maddening,” she says. The job brought her into contact with WORKS San Jose, where she did everything from writing grants to becoming president of their all-volunteer board. “It was a good learning experience from the other side in knowing what
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“Pelts” series, the work features a baptismal gown fringed with hair. “When I had kids, suddenly I was so in touch with the fact that I am a mammal,” says Metz. “One way we differentiate ourselves from other mammals is we change our hair for aesthetics. Try to grow it in certain places and not in others. I was having the hair come through different clothing pieces as if it were trying to reassert itself—like ivy or moss.”
Challenging the way humans have shaped their environment is part of what drives Metz. “It came together in a really nice way to use this organic, really alive-looking stuff to talk about how we shape the world around us.” Her “Teddy Bear Natural History” series explores the anatomy of a found teddy bear with distended snout, oversized eyes and sharp teeth normally hidden behind the fur. Metz explains that the teddy bears evolved out of her experiments with sheep skulls because she was “interested in looking at the hardest part of the animal and making it out of this soft material, but also giving them teeth and thinking about the fact that they’re based on this real creature that could eat any one of us.” The toys mirror the way our culture morphs unpalatable predators into more socially acceptable shapes.
Having a home studio, Metz’s kids find it “totally normal for mom to be poking wool in the back room.” Her older son loves to draw and already identifies himself as an artist. Her children respect her space and, much as they want to try, she never lets them near the needles. “After ten years of doing it, I still poke myself and it is wickedly painful.”
“We live in Silicon Valley and there’s But not everyone feels comfortable so much that is high Her work is becomingly increasingly abstract and large. She is exploring with the bears. “Just like with all my new ways for people to interact with tech, so I like going work, I find out who’s kind of a kindred her pieces. “From further away it looks spirit and who’s not. Some people see kind of cool and minimalist, clean these [skulls] as signs of death, or the back to really death of a childhood icon, and I don’t hand-made things— lines,” says Metz. “But when you get up closer, you see this texture and want see them that way at all. For me, they’re to touch it—although you know you’re specimens of life. Looking at bones but doing it in a not supposed to. It makes you think talks about what happened in life. It’s about how physically present it is.” not death and gore. It’s the evidence left different way.” behind.”
There is no mystery about her process. Metz has painstakingly documented her work in time-lapse video. “Art is so alienating to people so that’s why I talk about how I do this. I want it to be an entry point, so people can interact with it and feel like art is a part of their lives.”
After two years at WORKS, Metz had her first child. Some of her peers made comments about choosing children over art as if the two choices were mutually exclusive. “That probably made me work harder,” says Metz. “I still have things that are galvanizing to me and I feel the need to make something tangible.”
Metz’s work is certainly physical. It has weight and texture and tugs at something deep in the psyche. Much of it makes me smile. “That’s what I hope to affect in people— that they take a moment in their life and see something differently.”
One of Metz’s pieces is featured in the “Milestones: Textiles of Transition” exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles through July 21, 2013. From the
stephaniemetz.com facebook: stephaniemetzsculpture
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An Eyeful of Art: Seeing Things Gallery Written by Kat Bell Photography by Daniel Valencia
Seeing Things Gallery entered the San Jose
And it was. Walking into the space you are struck by its crisp feel. Artwork hangs on three of the walls and a door in the back leads to more spaces and businesses which they partner with to promote. To the right, Tanju has a desk and in one corner of the room they offer a mix of zines, books, totes and other items not readily found anywhere else.
art scene last November, joining a lineup of new art spaces that have been spreading through the city. The brainchild of creator Jai Tanju and his wife Blanche Gonzalez, Seeing Things is a gallery that has been years in the making. “We would talk about this place as we went for morning walks,” Gonzalez says. “We would look at empty buildings and call the numbers posted in windows. We looked at so many places.”
Seeing Things Gallery has a definitive style. “I’ve been a skateboard photographer for about twenty years,” Tanju says. “I used to work for magazines, photographing professionals—a lot of the things that we do here involve skateboarding, because it is very free.”
“Too expensive!” Tanju says with a laugh. For years, he thought about creating his own gallery, but the large, sleek commercial spaces of downtown were less than willing. “They’re all waiting for a Starbucks to knock on their door,” he says. Many of the spaces were too large, too hot, or too difficult to find. Gonzalez recalls looking at endless spaces, each time hoping to find “the one”.
Many of the artists that show at the gallery are skateboarders or other friends from Tanju’s career. Skateboarding and art, it seems, are rarely mutually exclusive. “There is so much freedom in skateboarding and being a skateboarder.” Tanju says. “There are a lot of great artists in the community, whether they are a performer, a painter, or a photographer.”
“There were a few places we were so excited about,” Gonzalez says. “Something would always not be right. I never wanted him to settle; I just knew the right place was out there.”
A global brotherhood of sorts. “It’s really become one of those things where you can just go to Japan or Peru and you’ll meet another skateboarder and it’s just like your
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Frida has also inspired a link to the community. For the last five years Tanju and Gonzalez have been holding the Frida & Friends Fuzzy Blanket Drive, collecting clean used blankets for the San Jose Animal Pet Shelter. This December they added a silent art auction.
friends,” Tanju says. “You can stay at their house, they’re an artist or photographer or do something creative like make a zine.” Seeing Things is like that. You feel at home the moment you walk in. A gallery, once the bastion of stuffy intellectuals and endless thesis papers, has been transformed into your best friend’s living room, a place where you can hang out, exchange ideas and discuss the newest trends.
“People will recognize Frida before me,” Tanju says, laughing. “I’m always being stopped around the neighborhood by people wanting to say hello to her or give her a treat.” It is this link to community that also makes the gallery an automatic native.
Seeing Things doesn’t have a mission statement. It’s future is not defined by committees or boards; it is a labor of love and an extension of its creators and their seemingly bottomless pool of inspired associates.
“We have had a lot of support from our friends and the people around us. We get a lot of support from A.D. Gallery and Empire Seven Studios, and all the other places that are already established and they are really excited that we’re here. It’s the friends that we’re making. It’s really great to be able to find the artist and put together a good show and get a great response, that’s really amazing.
“As far as the magazines go, it’s a little bit of me and my wife,” Tanju explains. “I like this magazine Monster Children, so I contacted the people [behind it]. The Surfer’s Journal is the same thing, we just track these people down. My wife is somebody who likes Anthology or Kinfolk. She got this great magazine called Bad Day and it has really interesting articles and layouts. It’s really amazing.”
“Everyone wants to help us in some way.” says Gonzalez. “San Jose is getting there.” Tanju observes. “You have amazing places like Black and Brown, The Usuals, The Arsenal, Empire Seven Studios, and Cukui. We are starting to grow all these little things. People are just done with having regular jobs. They are trying to do their own thing, and with the internet and global community you can have something and sell things online, and really put out what you want.”
Asked if their styles ever differ, he laughs. “She has her own aesthetic and I have my own. Basically I look like a bum and she looks like a fashion model, but we just thought if we started putting things in the shop that we like, that other people will like them as well.” It all works. The art, the zines, the atmosphere. In one corner of the gallery a dog lies lazily, watching us from the corner of her eye. Frequenters of Seeing Things Gallery and viewers of their Facebook page know Frida the dog well. She often introduces people to the newest additions to the space, through posts of her lying next to magazines or viewing the latest installments.
And that’s what Seeing Things Gallery is ultimately about. Taking the things you love and sharing them with new people, whether it’s a painting, a magazine, or just a thought. Seeing Things is bringing San Jose a whole new perspective. Seeing THings gallery 30 N. Third Street San Jose, CA 95112 408-891-7553 seeingthingsgallery.com email: seeingthings.jaitanju@yahoo.com facebook: SeeingThingsGallery
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trapit Digitized Discoveries Written by Lynn Peithman Stock Interview and Photography by Daniel Garcia
Cooking with cicadas…the first quilter in space…U.S. drones kill Pakistani Taliban deputy…Steven Seagal in Chechnya…100 handmade gifts for dad. These are the headlines of the articles curated just for me on a recent Wednesday afternoon by Trapit, a personalized news and features app developed in our own backyard.
Created by Gary Griffiths and Henry “Hank” Nothhaft Jr., the concept was partly born out of Nothhaft’s father’s old habit of sending interesting articles to his son. Nothhaft quickly caught that curating bug and, thanks to his technical experience, has worked with Griffiths over the years at a multitude of Silicon Valley tech companies: they met at Everdream and worked together at WebEx, which was acquired by Cisco.
“featured traps,” articles it selects. Trapit chooses from its own growing library of blogs, journals, magazines, and newspapers, and then over time, it learns what you like to read (or not) by your interaction of giving stories a thumbs up or thumbs down.
“Hank was one of these bright, hard-working, young kids who just kind of got it and who could do anything. Whatever we asked Hank to do, he just did it and did it really well,” says Griffiths, CEO and founder of Trapit. “There’s only one guy who has been with me at every company since then and it’s been Hank.” Nothhaft is now chief product officer and co-founder of Trapit.
“One of our values is we actually go out and handpick every source, so content curation and source curation and optimization was something we wanted to really invest in,” Nothhaft says. “We approached Tommy Ziemer (vice president of operations) and he started building a team of part-time post-graduate students. They’d meet at coffee shops. One of them actually has a master’s degree in library science. She’s full time with us. She’s our ontologist and so she’s developed the whole methodology we use to follow up sources.”
Thanks to Trapit’s intuitive algorithms and its stable of curious human editors, the app explores any subject and gathers articles to libraries of your choosing (California, DIY, email marketing, or gardening, for instance) or
Griffiths adds, “This is not a question of machines vs. humans. It had to be machines AND humans. On one hand, you have this balance of precision vs. serendipity. The other balance was machine vs. human. And we do it
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“One of our values is we actually go out and handpick every source.”
“This is the difference between what we call divergent and convergent information.”
Henry “Hank” Nothhaft Jr.,
Gary Griffiths,
Chief Product Officer
Chief Executive Officer
and co-founder
and co-founder
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Founded in January 2010, the company now has 18 employees and has raised $10 million in backing. Griffiths is a 25-year veteran in the tech industry, and Nothhaft developed Trapit while serving as an Entrepreneur-InResidence at SRI International. In short, they’ve been around the Silicon Valley tech block and have a bit of advice for would-be entrepreneurs: “It’s the same advice you read everywhere, but you don’t realize how valid is it until you’re knee deep in it and that is be prepared to sacrifice everything for your dream,” Nothhaft says.
across the company in so many different aspects, from the way we discover sources and embed them to the way we’re looking at curation and handling content.” On the back end, “the world’s most advanced personalized content discovery application” is “built with AI technology developed for DARPA, Trapit delivers highly relevant recommendations based on rich contextual analysis of information and user preferences. Trapit is a spinoff company of SRI International and is derived from a DARPA-funded Artificial Intelligence project known as CALO,” according to Trapits Facebook page.
“There are no boundaries. This is 24/7 and you need to be ready for a roller coaster ride. The Instagrams of the world, one year to a billion-dollar acquisition, that’s one in a billion—and (then there is) the rest of us,” he adds.
For you and me, Trapit is simply a personalized magazine, delivered to your iPad on demand. Like Pandora for music, but...not really.
“I would also say, partner wisely, because you’re going to spend a lot of time together. You have to pick people you know you’re going to be able to go the distance with.”
“This is the difference between what we call divergent and convergent information,” Griffiths says. “People say, ‘So, this is like Pandora, right?’ Yeah, it is like Pandora in a way, but the difference is Pandora is in a convergent field. Music, as broad as it is, is actually very finite, right? You can count the number of bands, you can count the number of styles of music. It is a finite number. If we all like Bob Dylan, there’s a fair chance, a better than even chance, we’re probably going to like Bruce Springsteen, too.
And be ready to tackle the less pleasant matters, Griffiths says. “You’ve got to sense where the issues are and if you can’t fix it, assess something that can be adjusted. You’ve just got to fix it right away. Because it’s the disharmony and dysfunction that kills the company and, mind you, it’s leadership that won’t face up to the hard task of making those hard decisions.”
“And so that’s not that hard. Now, the fact that we all like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen is not going to count for the fact that you may like table tennis and I might like lacrosse, because that’s totally divergent, right? And that’s where machines can’t figure that out.”
trap.it twitter: @trapit facebook: gotrapit instagram: @trapit
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THE FUTURE
MUSIC OF COLLABORATION
IS HERE Written by Heather M. David Photography by Daniel Garcia
As global internet conditions continue to improve, one can envision a world of musicians united by technology—an exciting prospect and a likely reality David Willyard has never been one to follow a conventional path. His story reads much like an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, followed by a showing of the Robert Redford film, The Natural. Two years into a degree program at Carnegie Mellon University, Willyard left college (to his mother’s sheer horror) in order to pursue a career as a professional rock drummer. Following the implosion of his band and job stints with MCA/Universal and Polygram, he ended up moving to California and working for Apple.
able him to collaborate online with musicians in different geographic locations. His search had led him to Professor Chris Chafe, Director of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. Chafe’s academic research had demonstrated that online music collaboration was possible, yet no viable tool existed for the mass market. Recognizing the need for such a tool, Willyard and Chafe joined forces to move the technology from the lab into the mainstream. In 2008, MusicianLink was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for a cooperative research project with Stanford University. Following numerous prototypes, versions of firmware, and rounds of testing, the jamLink was born.
After a decade of moving up the high tech corporate ladder, Willyard left a lucrative position to return to his first love—music. A collection of seemingly incongruous life experiences would merge to form the foundation of a Silicon Valley startup that blends music with cutting edge technology and social media.
The jamLink , first introduced publicly in 2010, is an ultra low latency audio device that enables musicians to play in real-time over the Internet. Designed to be “plug and play,” the jamLink simply requires a high speed Internet connection, a web browser, and headphones.
Enter MusicianLink—a San Jose-based company with a twofold offering: a product enabling online music collaboration in real-time, and a social network for connecting potential jam partners. MusicianLink was formed in January 2007, following Willyard’s unsuccessful quest for a product that would en-
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how it works In the words of Garvey: “Like promised, the jamLink system does create ‘in the room’ feel with almost no discernible latency.”
Willyard explains: “None of the audio goes through the computer. It all goes through the device. That way, we can control the amount of delay that gets introduced at each end point. Minimizing the latency to just a few milliseconds at each location increases the physical distance that people can play and still feel like they are in the same room. An ‘in the room’ experience can be achieved up to 500 miles, and sometimes more, depending on network conditions.”
And on the other side of the globe An experiment takes place at the Universiteit Twente in the Netherlands. The experiment, part of an initiative called Music:Linked, features the European pop singer Stefany June performing with her four piece band, in FOUR different locations. As the musicians perform using jamLink, concertgoers dance to the music, and university students look on, in surprise. The experience can be best summed up in the words of an enthusiastic June (no translation required): “That was cool!”
One of the earliest adopters of the jamLink was the Bay Area-based professional cover band, Pop Fiction. The highly sought-after 8-piece ensemble, consisting of members from Novato, San Jose, Walnut Creek, and Sacramento, had been meeting weekly for practice in Oakland. With the encouragement of the band’s leader, Dan Meblin, the jamLink became the preferred conduit for regular rehearsals.
Having faced the traditional barriers to new product introduction (anyone remember the first cellphones?), and the challenge of a company launch in the midst of a prolonged recession, the future of MusicianLink appears to be bright. The jamLink is currently used in fifteen countries around the world, and counting. As global internet conditions continue to improve, one can envision a world of musicians united by technology—an exciting prospect and a likely reality.
According to Meblin: “The jamLink is the perfect solution for a working band like ours. The band has never been tighter and it literally pays for itself.” In another part of the country Dr. Christa Garvey, Associate Professor of Oboe at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and Principal Oboist of the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra, had been looking for a way to rehearse with Dr. Karen Atria, Bassoon and Music Faculty, Otterbein, Denison and Ohio Wesleyan Universities. The Virtualosity Duo regularly perform classical chamber music but reside 650 miles apart. Garvey and Atria found the jamLink to be the solution to their rehearsal challenges.
musicianlink.com
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THE USUALS
OPEN FOR OPPORTUNITIES Mari Millares Talks (t-shirt) shop Written by FLORA MORENO DE THOMPSON Photography by Max THOMPSON
In 2009, Mari Millares and her brother Mike had moved back into their parents’ home
while they tried their luck at finding jobs. When that didn’t work, the siblings made their own: Mike and Mari opened up the The Usuals in April of 2010. They opened strictly as a t-shirt shop, selling the iconic “I ❤SJ” shirts as well as shirts designed by other local designers. Mari used her retail buying experience to add more merchandise to the sales floor, and eventually began selling other locally made items as well.
My brother and I said “ Let’s just try it. What can you lose?”
Pinon, came to the show. She said she’d curate random art shows for us—we struck up a bond. I told her if she wanted to do it, the space was hers. She already had ten artists she wanted to show. Pinon has been our curator ever since. I trust her. I think it’s important to bring people in that you can trust, with ideals you can get behind.
Using the vendor connections she had made while running The Usuals, Mari went on to organize SJMADE, a vendor fair showcasing handmade and locally made products. The event now takes place 4-5 times a year. “We market ourselves as a group that comes into these unleased or abandoned places and run vendor fairs to encourage interest in the area,” Mari says.
What has been the best thing about opening up The Usuals?
The Usuals has partnered with other entities like Veggielution, San Jose Museum of Art, and the San Jose Taco Festival to bring SJMADE to local events. SJMADE generates a lot of traffic to its vendors and to surrounding businesses. “It’s nice because it throws a lot of traffic to our store, too,” Mari says.
Realizing that it’s possible to do it. We came into it as skeptics, and very naive. I think it was good that we came into it naively. As hard as it’s been, as difficult and frustrating, it’s doable. As long as you bring in the right people and know there are certain things you can let go of.
How did the idea to open The Usuals come up?
What do you get out of running a business?
In 2009 I was living in San Francisco, working for another small retail shop. They were a mom and pop shop and I loved it. It was a lot of work, but it was my first taste of small business retail. But working retail in SF, you can’t really afford to live there. Eventually, I decided it was time to go back to San Jose where I’m from. I moved back in with my parents.
The financial gain isn’t that great, but for The Usuals, SJMADE exposes us to more products we can bring into the shop. As a retailer, we can support these new businesses regularly. They need steady purchasing, and a retail store can do that. We’ve picked up so many products from SJMADE events and we support these small businesses as well. The Usuals becomes a test case for a lot of them.
My brother Mike ended up moving back home at the same time. It’s weird how the path just paved itself. My brother bought a screen printing press. I was looking for work, but doing some web and graphic design work on the side for extra income. I put together the design for this “I ‘heart’ SJ” shirt. My brother started printing it and selling it out of his backpack. It was a fun operation and we started making some money off of it. I wasn’t finding any work, so my brother said “Why don’t we open up a shop?”
For me personally, I love vendor fairs. As for the overall scope of San Jose, I’m about to have a kid. And this kid is going to live here. I want it to find interesting things here. If there’s anything I can do to build a culture...it’s here, we just need to nurture it. It’s exciting to insert ourselves in that and see what other people around us are doing. A nice city center would be fantastic.
How did you settle on a store on The Alameda? At the time, the owner of the property wanted anyone to take the space. They said “take it as is, do the best you can with it.” And we did. Because I had done some retail in the past, I knew a bit about buying. My brother and I said “Let’s just try it. What can you lose?” We were still living at home at the time. If it didn’t work out it didn’t work out, but if it did we’d keep going.
The Usuals 1020 The Alameda San Jose, CA 95126 408.294.4500
What made you turn your store into a gallery and art space as well?
shoptheusuals.com twitter: @shoptheusuals instagram: @shoptheusuals facebook: shoptheusuals
We had a lot of white space in the shop. We started selling t-shirts by Dion Bello. He said “I have all these art pieces in the garage...” So we had a reception for those pieces. One of his friends, Anabella
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“Once a person’s here they recognize the value of TechShop. The physicality of the shop inspires people.”
Raffie Colet
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TechShop San Jose revamps DIY Written by Anton Haugen Photography by Gregory Cortez
T
The San Jose location opened in September 2011, on the border of the SoFa district. In the past two years, Colet says thousands have already “graduated,” which is how the TechShop staff refers to members who get funding.
he press and public called Thomas Edison the “Wizard of Menlo Park” due to his laboratory’s location in Menlo Park, New Jersey. This image required Edison to have the imagination and creativity of which a single person can not possess. So Edison hired a team of young inventors who wanted to get a foot in the door, didn’t mind making minimum wage, and would let Edison own the patents to their inventions. These young inventors would work 55 hours a week, six days a week, with a strong chance of working through the night on Edison’s whim—just for an opportunity to invent.
One team of TechShop graduates are the inventors of Boosted Boards, an electric longboard which can reach a top speed of 20 miles per hour. Their KickStarter campaign had a goal of $100,000; they received nearly half a million in funding. Their first 150 boards were built at the San Jose TechShop. “If you have a product in mind, you just need to take the classes you need to get it done,” Colet says. “One of the great things I’ve learned is the environment motivates people to get things done according to schedule.”
It is a kind of bizarre pun that a radically different vision of invention started in Menlo Park. However, this Menlo Park is further in time and just as many miles from Edison’s laboratory. The first TechShop opened in Menlo Park, California in October of 2006. The membershipbased workshop would have industrial manufacturing equipment, accessible to the public.
These classes range from the basics of metalworking, laser-cutting, and 3D-printing to building a bicycle and silkscreen printing. The motto of TechShop, “Build Your Dreams Here,” is the first thing one sees when coming through the doors. The walls are decorated with photographs of members alongside their projects. Some of these members are professional engineers, some are future entrepreneurs wait-
“Just imagine going into a factory and talking to the manager,” says Raffie Colet, manager of TechShop San Jose. “And saying, ‘Hey, I got this idea. Do you mind if I use your high-pressure water jet for a few minutes?’”
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“When I was a kid, I had access to everything that’s here,” Colet says. He has been building and designing military-grade vehicles since he was six years old. “But it’s a one in a billion case, to have the drive to create as well as the access. Every person we give access to is changing that one in a billion statistic. We truly feel we’re going to revolutionize the world.”
ing for financial backing, and some are artists.“When Burning Man comes up, it’s packed,” Colet says, laughing. Colet sees TechShop as leveling the playing field and creating opportunity for people who want to create. TechShop has also changed how people think about manufacturing.
Colet stops and laughs at himself. “That’s the crazy cult talk,” he says.
“One engineering team from San Jose State University was trying to raise money through KickStarter to use our shop to build a quadcopter,” Colet says. “I found out about it and discounted the membership for them.”
In his office, points out pictures of the military transports he had built over the years during his time as a military contractor. He began designing the COLET Jaguar, a helicopter-transport, when he was just a teenager. It goes 0 to 70 mph in eleven seconds with a top speed of 170 mph. He has been retired for eight years from his military work, but has few gray hairs.
Within the first month of building their invention, all of the dealers for the quadcopter’s parts fell through. “You never really think about building a gear; that’s something you always buy. The majority of the parts [for the quadcopter] are being built from scratch here: the gears, the drive shaft, the retainers,” Colet says. “Even woodshop has come into play to build the crate to carry things.”
“Once a person’s here, they recognize the value of TechShop. The physicality of the shop inspires people.” Colet says many members, including himself, have their own workshops at home but prefer working at TechShop. “People here just want to talk and share.”
TechShop San Jose also worked with five high school robotics teams this past year, and is currently working to outfit South Bay libraries with 3D-printers and laser cutters. Later this year, TechShop will be working with Intel to sponsor a year-long after-school program at the YWCA called TechGirls.
techshop.ws
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“People tend to work better when they’re happier,” Baisa says. “You work better when you’re at a place that’s designed to be productive.”
S K C U S E N O L A WORKING
NextSpace is revolutionizing the way we work Written by FLORA MORENO DE THOMPSON Photography by Daniel Garcia
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For many freelancers or people who work for a business without a quiet office, NextSpace also provides a solution to the loneliness of working alone. Besides providing a well-appointed space for its coworkers—fast internet, comfy office furniture, conference rooms, business services, and coffee— NextSpace also provides its members with a collaborative culture that they are encouraged to become a part of.
t’s 9:05 am on a weekday at NextSpace’s San Jose office, located on the corner of South Second and San Fernando Streets. The smell of freshly brewed coffee makes its way through the room. A phone conversation takes place in a distant corner of the office. Outside, a light rail trolley rumbles by. Over the next hour, people begin to roll in and the office begins to buzz with energy. This could be any office in downtown San Jose, but as the day goes on, it quickly becomes clear that NextSpace is not your average working environment. It’s something much different: it’s coworking.
“If you ever hit a wall with your business, people here know how to go around that wall, or under the wall,” Baisa says. “Or maybe someone can show you how to walk so you don’t hit that wall in the first place. Within our members, there is a lot of institutional knowledge.”
NextSpace seeks to change the way people work by providing a comfortable workspace with a great community. As NextSpace San Jose’s community curator Gretchen Baisa puts it, “We take away all the negatives of an office and present you with the best way to work.”
It’s Baisa’s job to know what everyone at NextSpace is working on. “I might not be able to tell everything about your business, but I can be a good secondary spokesperson for you,” she says. It is not uncommon for Baisa to suggest that one member seek the assistance or advice of another, often to tap into a different skill set. “There are friendly people around you that are usually willing to help if you have a problem.”
A startup that began in Santa Cruz in 2008, NextSpace sells memberships to their offices for people to come and “cowork.” It is a workspace designed for people who are looking to be productive, but might be lacking an office or the self-discipline to do so.
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“Serious work happens here.”
Members are an eclectic bunch. Graphic designers, lawyers, publicists, software engineers, writers, and IT administrators all work alongside each other. About 2030 members come to the office on a given day, but it’s not always the same group and membership fluctuates month to month. As the smallest of the seven NextSpace locations, they have about a hundred registered members at a time.
Second-in-command at NextSpace San Jose is Julie Kodama, the community builder. “I do things for people so they’re as productive as they can be,” she says. “I make them coffee, I read legal briefs, I do proofreading. I’m also the administrative arm of this team.” Kodama could add social chair and cheerleader to her job description. She warmly welcomes everyone to the office and is always eager to introduce new coworkers to veteran ones. Kodama knows what it’s like to need a supportive work environment like NextSpace—prior to working here, she was a member, too. “I was a total failure at working at home,” Kodama says. “NextSpace makes people so productive because it has such an awesome community.”
NextSpace offers three tiers of monthly membership. There’s the cafe, which is kind of like working at a coffee shop, with communal seating in a first come, first served way. Alternatively, there’s the option to rent your own workstation, allowing you to keep your computer (and desktop knick knacks or photographs of your children) at your own desk. There are also offices which can be rented out, usually by smaller companies or to serve as satellite offices.
Like Baisa, Kodama also knows what everyone is working on in the office. She often checks in with people to make sure they’re on track and not distracted by Facebook. It’s easy to get sidetracked when you’re working on your own. “Sometimes, we just need to be saved from ourselves.”
NextSpace San Jose 97 South Second St. Suite 100 San Jose, CA 95113 408.351.1575
“We have a vision laid out of who our coworkers are,” Baisa says. “They are smart, innovative, curious, friendly, and forward thinking. There are definitely lots of different work styles and working types in our space, but it wouldn’t function without the aggregate total of them all.”
nextspace.us twitter: @nextspacesj facebook: nextspace
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Cafe Pomegranate
Plants a Garden Written by Gillian Claus Photography by scott macdonald
Cafe Pomegranate is an institution sandwiched firmly between City Hall and San Jose State. Students and city employees alike know that they will get a healthy meal there. “Everybody’s gonna get a veggie skewer on their plate, whether they like it or not,” says owner Affie Mahini, who admits to mothering many of her regular customers.
Through Garden to Table, other partners have been recruited. Team Tierra provided reclaimed wood and the expertise to construct mobile raised beds for the project. Under the auspices of CommUniverCity, a collaboration of the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace communities, SJSU and the City of San Jose, Fallon’s students were able to come in and help build the planters. Garden to Table and Veggielution are both providing organic seeds. Plants are being donated to the project as part of the Million Tomato Compost Campaign, in which the US Composting Council will try to grow one million tomatoes in community gardens with certified compost and chefs will help gardeners to teach people about sustainably locally grown food. Reena Brilliot, from the City Environmental Services department, brought in seven varieties of tomato plants donated by ZBest Composting facility, the Gilroy company which turns San Jose yard trimmings into compost. “We are just the little helpers distributing them. We are hosting the tomato campaign locally,” says Brilliot. She stresses that the City often gets all the credit. “But we aren’t doing it unless all these people are contributing to make it happen.”
One of those regulars is Dr. Michael Fallon, SJSU professor and longtime patron. Late last summer, he was sitting in Cafe Pomegranate comparing notes on growing tomatoes. Mahini was growing a couple of little plants in the parking lot behind her cafe “as a stress reliever” while Fallon was inspired to grow a garden by one of his students, Veggielution cofounder Mark Anthony Medeiros. As they talked about how much they enjoyed growing things, “a vision opened up in front of our eyes,” says Fallon. That vision included increasing the size of Mahini’s little garden patch and bringing in a local school to tend the soil. And so the seed of Pomegarden took root. Very soon after that first conversation, San Jose nonprofit Garden to Table adopted the project. It aligned perfectly with their mission to turn vacant lots into urban farms in central San Jose.
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adhere to these principles, even planting bales of hay with pumpkins along the edge of the garden.
There are obviously quite a few components to manage, and so Ivan Robertson handles the business side of the nonprofit. Originally trained as a chef in his native Sweden, Ivan is the man who knocked on doors at Horace Mann school—over and over again—until he made a connection. Because the school is only five minutes walk away from the garden lot, the students were ideally located to partner in the program. The school also has a very broad demographic, which makes it a good representation of the Bay Area as a whole.
“We don’t want to take on too much in the first year,” says Robertson, so the project has begun as a weekly club at Horace Mann. Fifteen children have joined the free club, and weekly lessons are either in the garden or at school, depending on the curriculum. Garden to Table bought a curriculum plan and streamlined it in accordance with Horace Mann requirements—and it is not all about gardening. “We can do science problems, math problems, social problems out there,” says Robertson.
“The reason we did this garden is we both strongly believe in giving children the tools to expand their own world,” says Robertson. Since so many children no longer know where their food comes from, the goal of Pomegarden is to teach children about food. “Everything the children grow, they are actually going to take home or cook here, so they know what a fresh tomato off the vine tastes like,” says Mahini. She even hopes to bring in the parents, offering them classes about saving money by cooking at home with low-cost, natural ingredients.
And when school is out, Robertson hopes to share the work throughout the summer, alternating days with the parents, Garden to Table, and Cafe Pomegranate staff. They have no fears of vandalism. “If the garden looks nice, then people are not going to want to ruin it,” says Robertson. Mahini feels that children are less likely to grow up to be
taggers when a sense of pride in their community has been fostered. She imagines kids bursting in the door at home saying, “Look Mom, I grew this!”
Both Mahini and Robertson have gardens in their backgrounds. Robertson’s family had a farm in Sweden, so each year they would leave Stockholm for three months and raise food. Mahini remembers helping her mother grow radishes in the high-rise city of Tehran. Both have witnessed first-hand slaughter of livestock and learned to respect food without wasting anything. Pomegarden will
cafepomegranate.com 221 E San Fernando St. San Jose, CA 95112
twitter: @cafepom
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Coffee in the Nude Barefoot Coffee Roasters take their love of good coffee seriously, one cup at a time.
“For us, community isn’t just word bandied about, but a genuine part of our mission.”
Written by Geoffrey Nguyen
Photography by Chris Lovos
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or ten years, Barefoot Coffee has served as a cultural hub in the South Bay, spreading coffee love to all those who drink it. The original Santa Clara location was in a nondescript strip mall and the coffee was prepared in a way that looked to be using a chemistry set. The specialty coffee roasters were one of the first in the Bay Area to source and roast their own beans. It served as an introduction for many people to appreciate coffee for what it is, stripping away everything else. Since embarking on that mission, the business has gone through numerous changes. Head roaster David Johnson has been there through it all.
Can you explain how Barefoot got to where it is now? In 2003, Andy Newbom bought the Santa Clara location from the owners of Javari, who had pretty much abandoned the spot. He called it Barefoot and over time, he learned to roast and become a skilled barista. He created a coffee culture in Santa Clara that embraced the intrinsic value of quality coffee product by stripping away the perception of needing to add milk and sugar to it. His background as a former chef empowered his baristas to create culinary delights via the medium of espresso and brewed coffee. The roasting philosophy was built on sourcing unique tasting coffees and sharing the stories that each one possessed. Barefoot was the first of its kind in the South Bay, as well one of the early specialty roasters in the Bay Area.
In December of 2010, Andy and his wife, Nanelle, sold the company to Steve Cohan. Steve streamlined costs and lowered overhead, but that also stripped away much of what was vital to our existence, the coffee love. Steve’s ownership was quite difficult, especially since I had just become the head roaster just two months prior. But I was determined to use this as a learning experience and I did. After owning the ‘Foot for only a year or so, Steve sold it and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief. Then Jon and Jillian Dolin stepped in and it was like a ray of heavenly light. Their plan is to bring Barefoot back to its roots of treating coffee like a culinary product, and elevating the coffee drinking experience through roasting, education, and superior customer service. We still pride ourselves in the model of direct trade sourcing and the development of relationships with quality producers at origin. We enjoy sharing the wonderfully hard and under-appreciated work they do, by roasting for origin character and not roast character.
You’ve maintained a great team. What do you think is the common thread? Barefoot has been the progenitor of quite a few coffee careers. I think that’s the ultimate desire for someone who is deeply in love with specialty coffee and all its intricacies. I am incredibly fortunate to have the staff we have now. Talk about smart, kind, creative, hard-working people. Humble.
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We are a democracy in that all voices can be heard. And in turn, all have a stake in how well Barefoot does and is received by the coffee-consuming public.
impacts. We believe working with local chefs and farmers who practice sustainable agriculture is another way to strengthen our local communities. Whether it’s Veggielution or Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Barefoot has strived to do our part in sharing and promoting these values in the Bay Area.
How do you plan on continuing the legacy that has been built?
What I’m gathering is that coffee is the most important aspect of Barefoot, but not the ONLY part.
First, by putting together a staff of energetic, forward-thinking people who are proud about what they do, as well as being consummate team players. Returning to the roots that helped us carve a name for ourselves almost ten years ago. Educating the public on the stories that each of these coffees carry. We don’t like to generalize when speaking about the coffees we offer, because that doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s not just Guatemalan—it’s Palo Blanco from Finca El Socorro in Palencia, Guatemala. A celebration of terroir, pristine processing and stringent quality control.
Exactly. Coffee is at the core of everything, but it’s really more the catalyst. How well do your employees engage the client and convey the message of what you are trying to do? How comfortable and inviting are they to those just delving into the specialty coffee scene? We are all ambassadors of culture when we roast, brew and prepare our coffee for the world. It’s important that we send the right message. Education is part of that and we are strong proponents of this. I always talk about pulling back the curtain and removing the mystique while avoiding the pretentious pitfalls. If you come off as a know-it-all, you are hurting the cause.
We have tended to be Central American-heavy, but we believe there is too much good coffee from all around the world to focus on one set of countries. We are doing a ton of locally sponsored events that are centered around the culinary community. For us, community isn’t just word bandied about, but a genuine part of our mission. The same way the coffee we source from Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia has a direct impact on those coffee-growing communities by helping to create infrastructures, clean water capabilities, and other positive
Why do you think specialty coffee has become increasingly popular? People want authentic, high quality ingredients in the food and drink they put in their bodies and are willing to pay a little extra for it. More and more
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experimentation we are learning how certain types of processing can trump our earlier perceptions.
people are moving away from the mass produced beverage industry and are clamoring for authenticity and originality. For some, it’s a desire for a healthier lifestyle, while others have fallen in love with the variety of intricate flavors, aromatics and subtle nuances we can find in well sourced, roasted and prepared coffee.
I’m a pretty laid back guy, but I have a real competitive spirit and there are too many good coffee roasters in the Bay Area for Barefoot to become complacent and not continue to push ourselves. When it comes to who are the best roasters, we plan to always be in that conversation.
Ultimately, what keeps inspiring you? What keeps me inspired is the desire for us to create and share the best product possible. I truly believe that we have yet to roast our best coffee, we have yet to create the best experience for our customer. My team and I keep striving for perfection every day, by tweaking and updating roast profiles. I have been roasting for six years, but I’m still learning and it’s that desire to know all that there is to know that keeps me up at night. It’s not from the caffeine, but the constant re-examining and questioning that I torture myself with and the struggle within that it produces. Also, the beauty and mystery of the unknown. We are still unearthing the science of everything that is coffee, be it the chemistry of brewing or the agronomy of coffee trees and trying to grow new varietals. I could go on about the experiments with different types of processing methods and how they become key contributors to the final way green coffee can taste. Much like wine, we used to believe that terroir and the varietal had the greatest impact on the taste of coffee, but through
barefoot coffee 76 Sunol St. San Jose, CA 95126
barefoot coffee.com
twitter: @BarefootCoffee facebook: Barefootcoffee
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A Stone’s Throw Away Bay Area curler Gabrielle Coleman stands out in a sport that doesn’t Written by Ryan Brown Photograhy by scott macdonald
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Most Tuesday nights, you can find Gabrielle Coleman inside Stanley’s Sports Bar at Sharks Ice in downtown San Jose. She doesn’t drink, she’s not an employee, and she says she’s never been a great skater either. She’s not there for the hockey. She’s there for curling.
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nce a week from 9:30 to 11:30 pm, Coleman and 40 or so other curlers join up at Sharks Ice for a curling league and a good time. Coleman, however, has aspirations that many of her co-competitors do not. The 33-year-old is such a good curler that she’s competed at the national level, even reaching the US Olympic trials in 2009.
away from her work at NBC, which she credits as being not only accepting and understanding of her love for curling, but “enormously supportive.” She doesn’t mind the commitment though, and finds the bright side to her travels. “It’s like a mini-vacation every week.” Other curlers live nearer to facilities dedicated to curling, and those among the highest ranked teams receive funding from the US Olympic Committee. Coleman and her teammates do not. As Ivy puts it, “People who play at a dedicated facility can go down and throw rocks at lunchtime for an hour.” The lack of practice time Coleman can get during the week presents a real challenge that other curlers, even in Seattle, don’t always face.
Yes, her sport is curling, that shuffleboard-like ice sport that draws a lot of attention every four years when the Winter Olympics come around. But most of the time, it is forgotten here in the United States. There are a little more than 16,000 curlers across the country on record. Canada, regularly the favorite to win gold at the Olympics, has approximately 1.3 million by comparison, despite a population that is little more than a 10th of the size of the United States.
But while they have their advantages, Coach Ivy believes Coleman has some of her own. “If the rest of the United States curling world at the elite level was as committed as Gabrielle, we would be winning Olympics,” Ivy says.
Coleman and her coach Barry Ivy are part of one of the largest clubs in California, the San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club. Established in 1958, their mission, along with the rest of the United States’ curling community, is to help the sport grow. Recently, it’s worked. Participation has grown by more than 50% since 2002, with an even more impressive 16% jump from 2010 to 2011.
The competition hasn’t always been that strong. Just seven years ago, Coleman attended her first curling event, just hoping to have a fun experience. Challenged by her brother that she couldn’t make nationals, she decided it was on. Within a year, she was competing at the women’s club nationals, who had trouble fielding enough teams for their ten-team tournament. That year, only seven teams had signed up to compete. This year, there are 18 teams vying for those ten spots.
For Coleman, it isn’t just the country’s reputation she’s trying to improve, but her specific region’s. Ivy calls the West coast “the boonies of the curling world,” and while this statement is in jest, it’s not far from the truth. There are very few competitive curlers from the country’s Pacific coast. In fact, just one of the ten teams at the US Olympic trials in 2009 was based west of Bismarck, North Dakota. Most are located in the country’s longtime curling hubs like Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The US Olympic trials have also grown more competitive in recent years. The field of ten from 2009 has been trimmed to just four for the upcoming 2013 trials. For Coleman, this means getting back will be harder than ever. In 2009, her team finished eighth, which wouldn’t be good enough to qualify this time around. Coleman knows her team has to win at Nationals to qualify, since two teams have already qualified and the national governing body chooses the fourth.
Coleman, a Mountain View native, was a part of that sole western team, based in Seattle, Washington. She was also the lone competitor—of 42 total—who resides in California. It’s that obstacle that makes her curling commitment so much more demanding.
She gives her team an outside chance at coming out with the win if they “have a good week.” Ivy is especially high on their chances. “Don’t let her fool you,” he says. “This is definitely doable for Gabrielle.”
Paying out of her own pocket, she flies to Seattle or Vancouver most every weekend from August to March for training. During competitions, she has to take time
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“It’s like any other team sport. We can’t win unless we’re all on the same page.” While the increase in the sport’s popularity has made her goals more difficult, the NBC Bay Area morning show director is ecstatic to see so many new curlers, not only at her own club, but around the country. As a member of the board for SFBACC, growing the curling community is important to her. She’s trying to help the club secure ice that’s dedicated to curling for the first time in 20 years, rather than having to share ice time with hockey players and recreational skaters.
the sport, relies on it. If they’re timing on when to speed up or slow down the stone is off just a little bit, the shot could end very differently.
Just like the sport as a whole, the Princeton grad has come a long way since 2006. She recalls her first national competition as something of a nightmare for Ivy, who tried to lead four curlers with about three years of combined experience. “I was so lost,” Coleman says. “In my first game I had to ask my opponent when to start.”
“For me to win, for us to win, it would be a big deal,” she says. Both Coleman and Ivy believe that kind of statement at nationals could lead to big improvements in not only her own curling environment, but the West coast overall. It would go a long way to help finding the dedicated curling ice SFBACC is still looking for.
Since then, she’s gone on to write an e-book on her experiences, directed at helping other beginning curlers. Break Through Beginner Curling details everything from curling basics to the confusing nature of large national competitions.
From experience, Ivy knows that a lot of clubs don’t go to the lengths that SFBACC does. They require lessons for those wanting to join any of the club’s leagues, and Ivy knows they lose some curlers because of it. But he and Coleman both have a strong interest in passing the culture of curling on, and they want to do it the right way. “A lot of clubs will say ‘wing it’ and send you out on your own,” Ivy says. “We want to teach.”
Whether her team wins or not, Coleman hopes she and her teammates can be good examples of the increasing geographical diversity of the game in the United States. She also recognizes that her personal success can help grow the sport on the West coast, especially in California.
At Sharks Ice, it’s clear how much interest Coleman has in teaching others, taking time out to encourage a teenage girl who was just watching to give it a try. But while there is an inclination to teach, she also hopes to curl competitively for a long time.
Coleman remembers going to those training sessions and finding much more help than she thought she would. Though it was swarmed with close to 200 people, she said important members came up to her encouraging her to stay on because of the lack of women’s curlers. Ivy was one of those early tutors that kept her confidence and interest high, even if it was her brother’s challenge that made it stick.
The sport keeps drawing her back because no matter how good she gets, she feels there will always be a new challenge. “Everybody who’s any good can throw the stone accurately,” she says. “It’s the complexity and the strategy of the shots at the higher levels that keep getting tougher.”
With some of the founders of the club having moved on, Coleman calls Ivy the “resident expert,” and lists him as her greatest inspiration on her USCA profile. She wants to give back, just like he has to her. “Even though it is about trying to be the best curler you can be and winning medals, it’s not really about that,” she says. “It’s about what you give back and how you change and help other people to become their best selves. I just want to give to others what they have to me.”
The unity and bond of a team is another aspect she loves. For casual observers, the team aspect might not be as obvious on TV as it is to those who know the game. “From the instant I release the shot, me and my teammates are communicating,” Coleman emphasizes. “It’s like any other team sport. We can’t win unless we’re all on the same page.” On the ice, that communication is unmistakable. The sweeping of the ice, one of the most unusual aspects of
bayareacurling.com twitter: @sfbacc
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from Local Waters
Shark Matt Tennyson From Jr. Shark to San Jose Shark, Matt Tennyson proves hard work and dedication really do pay off.
Two teenaged boys enter through the sliding glass doors at Sharks Ice at San Jose, their bulky hockey bags slung over their shoulders and hockey sticks in hand. They’re here on a school night to practice with the San Jose Jr. Sharks, a club hockey program with 20 teams known for being one of the top competitive clubs in the country. Not long ago, Matt Tennyson was making the sojourn from Pleasanton to San Jose to play as a Junior Shark, too. Much like the teenagers that just arrived at the rink, Tennyson would carpool with a friend or get rides from his parents to practice at Sharks Ice. He still practices regularly at the rinks on Alma and 10th Streets—except now, he’s there with the San Jose Sharks. His first NHL game against the Vancouver Canucks last year was all a blur for Tennyson. “I wasn’t really nervous going into it, I was mostly anxious and excited,” he says. “It happened really fast and I don’t really remember the game much other than what I saw on TV. I got goosebumps going through both national anthems.”
Written by FLora Moreno de Thompson Photography by Daniel Garcia
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“I didn’t want to leave school for a team other than San Jose.”
With plans of adding more rinks to the facility, Sharks Ice and hockey’s presence in San Jose will continue to flourish.
Tennyson was born in Minnesota, and lived in Michigan and Wisconsin as a kid. He grew up ice skating and playing hockey on frozen ponds. Tennyson was about 14 years old when his family moved to Pleasanton for his dad’s work. He began playing for the Jr. Sharks soon after.
Sharks Ice at San Jose is currently the largest ice skating facility west of the Mississippi. The adult hockey program at Sharks Ice is the largest in the country, with approximately 4,500 participants. Sharks Ice is one of the top sources for booking hotel nights in San Jose, bringing in millions of dollars in revenue each year to the local economy. The large facility hosts about a dozen large events and tournaments each year.
With a youth hockey organization ranked as one of the top ten in the country, having a Jr. Shark climb the ranks to join San Jose’s professional NHL team was bound to happen eventually. Several players who began at Sharks Ice are now playing with other NHL organizations, but Tennyson happens to be the first to get drafted by the San Jose Sharks.
“Being back at that rink, and playing for the big club, it’s pretty cool,” Tennyson says. “I don’t think it’s sunk in quite yet.” He grew up watching players like Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau on TV, and now they’re his teammates.
As a kid, Tennyson didn’t really think about becoming a professional hockey player as a career. “Obviously, when you’re a kid you dream about wanting to go to the NHL,” Tennyson says. “But when I was playing juniors and going into college I guess it was more of a possibility. Everything happens fast and you don’t really have time to think about those things.”
“It was weird the first time I played with them at training camp, but they’re just regular guys like me,” Tennyson says. “I don’t get starstruck anymore.” Tennyson has advice to anyone with dreams of playing pro hockey someday. “Have fun and try your hardest,” he says. “If you have the skills and the work ethic, go have fun and don’t worry about it.” He also understands his status as a local role model to many aspiring young hockey players at Sharks Ice and elsewhere. “I think it’s going to help kids see that if I can do it, they can do it.”
From California, Tennyson played junior hockey in Texas and Iowa before studying at the Western Michigan University. After finishing his junior year in college, Tennyson was signed to a two year agreement with the San Jose Sharks organization. “I didn’t want to leave school for a team other than San Jose,” he says. Tennyson says growing up and playing in California as a kid helped him adapt to life and work here as a professional hockey player. The sales and business marketing major plans on finishing up his final year of school this summer. San Jose has always been considered a nontraditional hockey market. But to thousands of hockey players in the Bay Area and thousands more fans of the San Jose Sharks, San Jose is just as much of a hockeytown as Detroit. “It’s only grown since I’ve been here,” Tennyson says.
sharks.nhl.com sharksiceatsanjose.com
twitter: @tenner_7 instagram: @tenner_7
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“One of the things that we accomplished that has probably been impactful on society is, besides the beer, the fact that I created the garlic fry.�
Brewers are Doers Written by FLora Moreno de Thompson Photography by Daniel Garcia
When Dan Gordon talks about his early years, it’s as though the universe planned on him becoming a brewer from the very start. As a teenager, Gordon traveled to Germany with his parents and drank beer “because no one cared, and you were allowed to go out,” he says. When he was in high school, Gordon spent a summer as an exchange student in Austria. Both neighbors of the family he lived with had breweries, giving him the chance to be immersed in brewing in a big way. As an undergrad at UC Berkeley Gordon spent a year abroad in Germany, experiencing German culture firsthand while playing trombone in jazz clubs. From Berkeley Gordon went on to attend Technical University of Munich, the most renowned brewing school in the world. “I went there specifically so I could get everything I needed to know to build my own brewery,” Gordon says.
You don’t actually then own the restaurant breweries? No, it’s illegal for me to have any restaurant or bar ownership because of the tied house laws in the state of California, which pushed us out of the restaurant business in 1999. It’s very frustrating. Archaic laws. The law changed in ’84. We opened up in ’88. Dean and I met in ’87 when I was still in grad school, just finishing up. We actually were signing a lease and getting under construction while I was still in school, so there was a time frame there when I was commuting back and forth from Munich. I’m amazed I passed my final exams, to be honest.
In 1987, Gordon partnered up with Dean Biersch to form the first Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant in Palo Alto. Since then, several more restaurants have opened across the US and including a location in Taipei. The company has been making and distributing beer out of the Gordon Biersch brewing and bottling facility just outside of Japantown since 1999, distributing their beers across the US. “I probably would’ve been a chef if I hadn’t been a brewer,” Gordon says.
Having the business for 25 years, if you were starting over today, what would you do different? I don’t think I’d do anything different. I like the way it is.
Why do you think that most brewers are good chefs?
What’s surprised you throughout the process?
I don’t know, it’s just something that, if you look at one commonality, almost every brewer likes to cook, and most brewers are pretty good cooks, too. It’s probably part of a palate mentality.
I guess the only major surprise is how dynamic the legal aspect is in the state of California. Where one day in 1984, they changed the law to allow brewery restaurants to form, and
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the breweries are already legal. Then basically, fifteen years later, you have the law change again that says you can’t own this, but you can own this. That kind of stuff, I didn’t really plan on. That was painful.
that are opening up, so it’s something like, 300 or 400 this year. Let’s face it. It’s kind of getting more like a reality TV show as opposed to a well-orchestrated movie.
One of the things that we accomplished that has probably been impactful on society is, besides the beer, the fact that I created the garlic fry.
So your philosophy is sticking with the timetested, traditional quality?
That was grad school, a midnight snack, because I’d been translating for the garlic professors all day, going back and making garlic fries at night. The inspiration came from that one day out in the field with this professor from the University of Minnesota who was visiting a professor at the Technical University of Munich. I did the translation for them all day long. Do you have a patent on the garlic fries or something? Yes, we have a trademark. You brew your beers according to the Reinsheitsgebot*, So you’re not throwing chocolate in there or anything. No, nothing that can go into a muffin or cough syrup. Do you feel that craft brew “revolution” is tapping into your market? Do you feel threatened? I think there’s a lot of cultural confusion going on in the brewing sector where it’s trying to be cutesy-wootsy and not necessarily...It’s the flavor-of-the-month-type thing, or the brewery of the day. There’s almost that many breweries
I think everyone has their niche, and there’s a lot of us that are really quality focused and will never compromise. When I find out the way some of these other beer brands are actually producing their beer, it’s shocking to me. The length of time they’re spending on fermentation, aging, the way they hop it, a lot of elements going on in the production process that are just bad. You don’t do it that way, there’s a reason. When I played jazz in Germany, it was really interesting to me that the two styles that seemed to be popping up the most, where I got paid to play the most, were either free jazz, or almost like ragtime crap: things that didn’t require a lot of talent to do. You didn’t have a lot of bebop, hard-bopping jazz, a lot of jazz, a lot of precision or anything like that. The two extremes that really anybody could do, because you didn’t know if it was right or wrong. That’s what I see going on a lot in the brewing industry right now is, you have a lot of newcomers that are home brewers that someone told them “Oh man, your beer’s the best.” They think that they can just scale it up and do it the right way, and they have no science background, no manufacturing background, no hardcore, solid, fundamental brewing background whatsoever. They just wing it. They go to the You Brew on the corner, rent some time, submit a label to the California
* Reinsheitsgebot: the German Beer Purity Law which states only four ingredients can go into making beer: hops, barley malt, yeast, and water.
Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and then they’re up and running. People buy off of that because they think it’s the only beer...“You can’t get this beer.” It’s like a wine that comes from one acre.
What advice would you give entrepreneurs? Get hands-on experience before you try to do anything on your own. Don’t expect yourself to come out with an MBA and be God. You have to work from the ground up and know every aspect of the business before you start entertaining any kind of idea about doing it yourself. Because there are so many generalists, is what I call them, that have no experience whatsoever in starting up businesses. It’s absurd, they’re going to fail.
A one-acre vineyard. Wow, that’s special. What if it’s not good? Does the emperor have any clothes on? That’s my concern. I paid my dues, and there’s no easy fix for doing that. You have to get experience, and you have to do it the right way. What about San Jose? This is your hometown, you came back here.
You play trombone?
Not really hometown, birth town.
The most popular instrument, right there with banjo and accordion.
I chose it because of this particular building. It was very difficult finding anything that screamed brewery anywhere around here. Most likely, locations were going to be outside of the South Bay, or even the peninsula. It was where I wanted to be.
You said if you weren’t doing brewing, you’d probably be a chef? You don’t think you would’ve pursued music? Music? I don’t like to starve. Chefs don’t starve, musicians do.
What advice would you give to home brewers? Do it as a hobby, it’s a great hobby. But if they do want to get into brewing, they should work for a real brewery and get some great hands-on experience.
Gordon Biersch Brewery
You’re teaching and lecturing at Davis and Stanford. What’s the subject matter? Is it beer? At Davis, it’s beer. entrepreneurial ventures.
At
Stanford,
357 East Taylor Str. San Jose, CA 95112 408.278.1008
it’s
gordonbiersch.com facebook: gordonbierschbrewingco twitter: @GBBrewingCo instagram: @gordon_biersch
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Kim Walesh
Lisa Ellsworth
Kim Walesh & Lisa Ellsworth: The Makings of Mentors
Written and Photography by Daniel Garcia Styled by Jennifer Giles Make-up by Gizelle Morales, GM Artistry Hair by Jan-Michael Macutay, umbrella Salon
T
It is no wonder these two local influencers have become friends and have developed a relationship of “mutual encouragement.”
here are few people in the world who, even before you meet them, have a reputation that has filled you with the expectation that they are extraordinary, talented individuals. And when you finally meet them, what you have heard is validated. Others, when you meet them, make you immediately aware that they possess a quality of rare distinctiveness that shines brilliantly. Kim Walesh and Lisa Ellsworth represent these two categories.
You both are women in leadership. How has it been, coming into positions of leadership in your different areas? Walesh: Maybe I’m lucky, but before I got into city government I’d worked in a field that was very male, as an economics major and an economics consultant. I’ve never felt any barriers or confronted any significant challenges by being a woman. If anything, I’ve felt like I had sort of a special contribution to make and that I was collaborative and approachable and could connect with people in different ways than some of my male colleagues.
Before I had met Kim Walesh, Director of Economic Development and Chief Strategist for the City of San Jose, her name had come up in several conversations, every time with a qualifying statement: “You have to meet Kim, she is great.” Walesh has a joyfulness in her soft voice that is always teetering on a laugh and a smile. She has the elusive trait of carrying herself peacefully, and beautifully balances an authoritative presence with concern and encouragement.
I’m really into the whole concept of androgyny [laughs]. The whole notion of being an androgynous leader or manager — or even a person — in the sense of being able to draw on the best of the traditional masculine and the traditional feminine in a way that, just by being your own authentic self, both sides of you come out.
I first met Lisa Ellsworth, the Curator of exhibitions at the Palo Alto Art Center and Co-Chair of genArts, when she was the Art Educator at the Children Discovery Museum. It was apparent, even with our brief introduction, that Ellsworth possessed that certain “it” factor. It could be her vocabulary and phrasing that this Eastside boy would describe as “money” or an “educated” tone. But that would be me just searching for the precise term to communicate how she emanates a standard of professionalism and thoughtful articulation typical of an earlier era.
In San Jose, and especially once I got into city government, it’s tremendously packed full of high-level managerial and executive women. And it’s inspiring to be in rooms inside city government with women as well as men who are leaders and professionals. I can’t imagine a better place in the world, really, to be a woman than in San Jose. There’s definitely an openness here.
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Ellsworth: We first met in the context of genARTS Silicon Valley’s Mentorship Program, officially.
Ellsworth: For me, having come up in primarily the nonprofit arts sector, it’s female-rich, and good in that sense, and I’ve enjoyed that as a workplace environment in different places where I’ve worked over the years. I enjoy working with both men and women. I don’t discriminate that way. [laughs]
Walesh: Did I even know you before that? We may have known of each other. Ellsworth: I knew of you. I sought you out. I identified three mentors. Kim was one of them. In particular, I thought your expertise and experience, while very different than mine, would complement my own and support me in ways that made sense professionally for me. So I contacted Kim.
Have you ever felt any negatives because you’re a woman in your field? Walesh: No, if anything, when I came here, I was exposed to a rich history of women’s leadership in the community. I mean, we stand on the shoulders of the first female mayor of a large city [Janet Gray Hayes].
What did you think when you got this phone call from Lisa?
In the early 70s, the Board of Supervisors was majority female, the City Council was majority female. My first real impression of San Jose was Mayor Susan Hammer, and I remember when I thought about going into public service and joining the City, she and I had breakfast, and I asked her what it was like, and she was a tremendous mentor and source of inspiration to me. I watched how she treated people and how she got things done, how disciplined she was, by seeing her through Joint Venture Silicon Valley. I was really impressed.
Walesh: It’s flattering, but it’s really strange. You go through the first phase of life, especially professional life, seeking out mentors and feeling like you’re the one who needs the mentoring, right? And then, you reach this stage of life when you start thinking of yourself differently, because people look to you for different things. So, in my mind, I’m still the hotshot, 20-something, 30-something coming up, and then all of a sudden, in the last four or five years, people are coming to me formally or informally for advice.
Ellsworth: You’d need your hands and feet to count the powerful women in the city of San Jose — in all of the arts organizations that are led by and supported by creatives who are female.
But I think anybody can be a mentor and anybody can be a mentee. It’s really not about age or station in life or somebody having wisdom of experience and somebody who doesn’t. A lot of it is just about helping that person ask questions, and tapping into what’s going on with them, and I think that’s a gift anybody can give anybody else. So I was happy to give it a go.
Kim, you have a really integrated philosophy or view of the world — a synchronized or holistic philosophy. How does that work in your position with the Office of Economic Development?
What were some the things that you saw from Kim’s life or work that made you call her?
Walesh: Well, I think that’s true. I’m a natural synthesizer and I see interconnectivity. I have a personal mission statement, which came to me on an airplane like, ten years ago. Very few things come to me suddenly, but I realized … I’m a connector. I like to connect ideas and people for the common good.
Ellsworth: Well, Kim’s reputation preceded her. Others who had worked directly with Kim spoke of her, and that was obviously attractive. But also I had heard Kim speak, and she struck me as somebody who asked a lot of questions — good ones at that — and was thoughtful in the way she weighed situations and supported and effected change. That was compelling for me.
I happened to come up through the economics field and economic development. But as my life has progressed, I like that interdisciplinary work, so when I think about if I am a community builder of sorts, what I really like is integrating the soft stuff, right? Like the economics and arts, or getting companies into office space and the brand of the city and arts and culture with the physical design of the city — like the built environments — and bringing that all together. I value — and the world needs more — people who are comfortable as boundary crossers, working across disciplines and across fields and are comfortable not knowing everything but able to ask good questions or craft division with the group and figure out what needs to be worked on and move people toward that.
Did she live up to the expectations? Ellsworth: [laughs] Yes.
In the mentor and the mentee relationship, what has changed you, in your personal life and your professional life? Ellsworth: What was interesting for me is because I have a history professionally of working with middle schoolers and high schoolers, I’ve been a mentor to many of them for years. Yet I had never sought out, in a formal way, a mentor. I have people who I turn to. I have peers who work in other sectors from whom I seek support, advice and feedback. People I trust to test my ideas and throw things out to for constructive feedback. But I’d never sought out a mentor whom I intended to meet over a
I like doing that work, that interdisciplinary work. The most important problems and opportunities we face, they all cross boundaries and disciplines. How did you two meet?
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It reaffirmed my sense that we’re all very much whole people as we compose our lives. We have our personal lives, and our aspirations for our relationships, and the place we want to live, and the contribution we want to make outside of work.
consistent period of time and who I admired specifically because of their work within the community that I was working in. As a result of that relationship, it strengthened my capacity to mentor. Kim provided me with some really great tools that I could implement and test and practice in my own professional life but also that I could turn and use with others who I was mentoring at the time.
I also saw a little bit of my earlier self in Lisa, which was sweet. Some of the same things that I grappled with, as a young woman. I think Lisa’s got a big heart and a big intellect.
It instilled me with a certain amount of confidence that I have done some things particularly well, whether they were effective or not, and there were other tools that I could use and other techniques and other ways that I might improve myself professionally … learn, grow, in ways that I did not, prior to having engaged with her.
I was able to help her see the things that are special in herself, because we all get to those points in our life sometimes where we feel that little spark starting to go out. You start getting kind of frustrated with your situation, or bored, or however you want to describe it. I think it was helpful to be able to help her see her spark and her unique value, so that she could then envision where she wanted to take that next that would bring her happiness.
I was starting to explore other professional opportunities for myself. It was a long process and at that time, I was ready to start having those conversations and looking further down the timeline for myself … you know, we’re all on this long timeline! It was well timed, to engage with her then.
I see her drawn to quality and distinctiveness and challenge, the future and great people. Great places, great friends and human connections … and adventure! She’s got this adventure, travel-girl, I’mgoingtopushsomeboundaries side that I love.
Kim, what was something that surprised you about the mentor relationship?
Ellsworth: I’m not risk averse. [laughs] Walesh: Risk embracing.
Walesh: Well, I would say the joy that it brought me, especially when I got Lisa’s e-mail that she got offered this job, which was just a culmination of my being a small part of her journey from one place to the next. That’s why I say anybody can be a mentor. You get a lot from being a mentor. You don’t just receive as the mentee. I got a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction out the conversations over food with Lisa!
Ellsworth:I was just honored and humbled that somebody as busy and as engaged as Kim took the time to meet with me … the biggest gift was really her time. Walesh: Oh, thanks, but it was fun. It was enjoyable! It was interesting. Ellsworth: Yes, it was a blast...I am grateful to have had that opportunity.
I think one of the secrets to my life has been managing transitions. That’s something that our relationship was about, for both of us. For me, it cemented the sense that I’ve now transitioned to the stage where I’m this middleaged leader with some formal authority that people look up to! There are transitions in your life that happen because you prompt them. You get the sense, “I need to make this transition,” which I think was what we both were feeling. We can help each other understand that and take the time to do it in a way that works for us and gets us to that other place so that it’s a good place. I think the mentor/mentee or just the friends’ relationship — we can actually help each other through these, make a series of healthy transitions. Life is going to be about transitions until it’s not here anymore, right? Ellsworth: Ultimately I knew the onus was on me to make a transition, but you’re absolutely right in that you can seek out those who can support you in that process as you’re grappling with it. That’s a gift, and I was grateful to have had that opportunity. Walesh: Part of it is the value that you can add to another person’s life by just … being with them, by trying to do that kind of deep listening to what they say about their life and their passion, their heart. How they describe their skills.
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“This project was an exercise in renewal. It taught me to see again.”
annie’s journey Written by jennifer elias Photography by Daniel Garcia
Iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz has found emotional resurgence through digital technology, seeing things through a child’s eyes, and revisiting the past—all of which is now on display for the world.
T
he point at which we find renewal may be after life events or sudden realization. For Annie Leibovitz, it was both.
Static subjects and vast landscapes aren’t necessarily the first two descriptions that come to mind for America’s most notable photographer. But it’s exactly the focus of her latest exhibit, Pilgrimage, in which she has created a visual diary that includes several of San Jose’s neighboring sites. The renewal process began on a trip with her children. In a deep depression, Leibovitz reluctantly went with her daughters to sightsee at Niagara Falls. “There is this moment, where you ask yourself, ‘Well, should I jump?’” she says jokingly. But, “I saw [my kids] staring at the falls, just mesmerized. I started thinking of places I wanted to go.” And so she began a journey through places significant to her—new and old. Moved by residences that once housed icons, Leibovitz discovered how these places reveal inner workings, untouched book collections and pastimes. Scenes like Elvis Presley’s living room or Sigmund Freud’s carpet-laden couch gives personal access into their lives without the use of Leibovitz’s signature portrait style or perfectly-lit studio. The photos are very telling about the individuals who lived there.
Pilgrimage delves into spectacular collections of history, from a pigeon skeleton studied by Charles Darwin to the lace detail of Emily Dickenson’s only surviving dress. One photo shows a gunshot by Annie Oakley into a heart target. Another, a gunshot through Presley’s television set. At the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, Leibovitz captured botanical leaves. “I love that it brought me out to the West Coast,” she says. “It just shows that nature is your greatest designer.” The Pilgrimage project also prompted Leibovitz to revisit an early subject, Ansel Adams. In one series, she captures what was then the high-tech darkroom of Adams, who spent his last twenty years in Carmel. Earlier in her career, Leibovitz had visited Adams’ Carmel residence while on assignment at Rolling Stone magazine. “The first time I rolled up to his house, he was a photographer working out of his car and in his darkroom. The more recent time I went in, I had to shuffle in there. It really is a shrine now.” Leibovitz recalls another time with Adams—from photography school in San Francisco. “Ansel Adams would talk to the institute, and his style was not exactly en vogue in the early 70s,” she says. “So here I am in my 60s, looking back and saying ‘My God, you did great, look what
“To see the pictures come up in the chemistry—it was just magic every single time.”
Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams’s darkroom, Carmel, California, 2010, © Annie Leibovitz. From “Pilgrimage” (Random House, 2011)
you did to leave us these pictures.’ These photos [of mine] were an homage to Adams.” The darkroom photo has another meaning for Annie, which dates back to her first days behind the lens. “I was totally seduced into photography by the darkroom,” she says. “To see the pictures come up in the chemistry—it was just magic every single time. It was powerful.” A long way from the darkroom days, Leibovitz welcomes Pilgrimage as her first all-digital series. “This project really showed me the latitude in digital,” she says. “In the beginning, we disliked images being so sharp. Now, we can see everything and it’s very exciting.” Though she welcomes new picture-developing technology, she admits it’s far different from the darkroom days that originally seduced her. “It’s scaring me a little bit having to sit so much at the computer,” she says. “But when it works, it works. I’m a student again.” One thing that hasn’t changed with this new exhibit: her storytelling. Famous for her photos, she’s equally known for publishing her behind-the-scenes fervor and inspiration in books. In Pilgrimage, the artist reveals tales of when she first started in the biz. “When I started [at Rolling Stone], I lied and said I could shoot color. But I just did black and white,” she says. “I learned and grew up at Rolling Stone.”
In earlier books such as A Photographer’s Life, Leibovitz talks in detail about specific shots with pop culture subjects. She admits it’s her favorite medium. “The books are my freedom high,” she says. “The books are the place where I can edit the work I’ve done from these magazines and bring forth my own ideas for what I did.” “One of the great things about getting older is you do know what you’re doing. There’s so much going on that you’re tripping over it all the time. I think if you survive a Rolling Stones tour in your 20s, then you go into some other kind of status,” she says jokingly. “Then you get to be in your late 60s and you just have to hang in there.” “From the beginning, when I was watching my children stand mesmerized over Niagara Falls, this project was an exercise in renewal. It taught me to see again,” Leibovitz says. “What’s great about doing this show in San Jose, is you can see everything.”
Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage is on exhibit June 6–September 8, 2013
San Jose Museum of Art 110 S. Market Street San Jose, CA 95113 408.271.6840
sanjosemuseumofart.org
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San Jose Shirts Models Sierra Lippert Sarah Cantergiani Kartya Santos Scout Model &T alent Agency scouttm.com Hair&Make-up Ivo Skilj Diana Cortez Scout Debartolo Veronica Montenegro Adrianna Miner Limon Salon limonsalon.com T-Shirt Brands Halloway wearehalloway.com Tea Shack Project teashackproject.com Mighty Thredz mightythredz.com 2twenty5 facebook page 2Twenty5 Jeans Madewell madewell.com Assisant Gregory Cortez gregorycortez.com Photographer Daniel Garcia danielgarciaphotography.com
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p.74 & 76 The Higher Culture 2TWENTY5 Model: Sierra Lippert p.77 The Higher Culture 2TWENTY5 Model: Sarah Cantergiani p.78 Tea Shack Project Model: Sierra Lippert p.79 HallOway Model: Sarah Cantergiani p.80 Tea Shack Project Hat: Halloway Model: Kartya Santos p.81 Tea Shack Project Jeans: Madewell Model: Kartya Santos p.8 3& 83 2TWENTY5 Jeans: Madewell Model: Kartya Santos
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Backward to the Future Written by Richard Faulk
Pedro Silva’s sonic experiments turn Slime Girls’ Vacation Wasteland into a musical island of Dr. Moreau.
I
Drawing on an 8-bit rainbow of inspiration, Silva’s songs are at once uncannily familiar yet fresh. “I love anime, comics, movies, TV, video games, and everything 80s—especially everything Japanese. I’m a huge nerd when it comes to all of this.”
nnovation is a fetish of our era. The Valley is so lousy with game-changing novelties that we’ve even had to create creative disruption just to clear shelf space for all the awesome things we’re about to invent. This was not always so. In the Renaissance, thought leaders were skeptical of our capacity to innovate anything from scratch: After all, it was God’s universe; we were just living in it. Though we have since muddled the distinction, these guys spoke enough Latin to know that inuentio means not “creation,” but “discovery.” Denied the divine power to make something out of nothing, the best we mortals could do was invent—to discover what already existed and remix and repurpose it to our will.
This style of genetically resequenced low-fi music has been around since the turn of the millennium. In 2007, it got a mainstream bump—and an NPR mention—with 8-Bit Operators: The Music of Kraftwerk, a tribute to the n grandfathers of electronic pop, reproduced on classic Nintendos, Ataris, and Commodore 64s. It is no accident that chiptune would confront its own foundation. With its cheeky exuberance and back-to-basics ethos, you could call it a primitivist reaction against electronica’s 40-year push for ever-sleeker technology. You might even call it electronica’s punk moment. Silva certainly thinks so.
Which brings us to present-day San Juan Bautista, the tiny mission town on the southernmost edge of the Bay Area, and to 22-year-old Pedro Silva, who, for the past three years has been playing and recording as Slime Girls.
“As far as the technical limitations, they are inspiring, and it is a very digital punk rock idea to take these raw sounds and make music.”
One of a growing number of “chiptune” artists, Silva uses software hacks to transform his vintage Gameboy into a sequencer-synthesizer, on which he composes and plays original songs. It’s a 21st Century expression of seriously oldschool invention.
Think “Donkey Kong soundtrack” and the word “punk” might not immediately follow— but the connection is not in sound but intent. “During high school I would go up to San Francisco or San Jose and see punk bands,” Silva recalls. Captured by new takes on old forms— rockabilly, surf, new wave—he was also galvanized by the fe-
“You’re re-appropriating hardware that was never meant to do quite what I and other musicians are doing,” Silva explains, “and that is always exciting.”
“Think ‘Donkey Kong soundtrack’ and the word ‘punk’ might not immediately follow.”
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from a magic 2-D world where flowers dance and cartoon characters leap on clouds and shoot stars from their hands.
rociously independent spirit that endured in the underground music scene. “[These experiences] spearheaded my desire to create my own music with total energetic earnestness and no compromises. Everything I was inspired by during that period has carried over to Slime Girls.”
Undeniably, then, there’s a saccharine core to the Slime Girls’ EP, Vacation Wasteland. Guitars and drums give it edge and depth, as does ample genre bending. Several tracks have a goofy 90s energy that evokes Weezer, others border on anthemic rock or dancehall reggae, while “Time Travel Lament” somehow attains BadtzMaru levels of dysphoria. The standout is a riff on 80s synthpop, a terrific dance number called “Summer Is Gone.” “I find it really fun to come up with ways to combine my influences,” says Silva. “There’s not much chiptune ska or chiptune surf.”
Silva dabbled with guitar and synthesizer, but it was chiptune that resonated most with his DIY sensibility and his broader affection for digital culture. (He hasn’t given up on analog, though. Silva plays in a wedding cover band—for reals— and Thee Joan Wylder, a ska ensemble rooted more in 60s Jamaica than 90s Orange County.)
Unlike retro bands that try to clone long dead musical species, Slime Girls jumbles together eclectic parts to breed strange new beasts, chimeras unknown to zoology.
In chiptune mode, Silva sees himself less of a mad programmer than an alchemist of moods and textures. “While I’d certainly call myself tech savvy at the very least, Slime Girls is much more about the emotions and story behind the songs. The technology aspect comes much later.”
“It’s certainly a little like working towards the future, using elements of your past.”
There is another appeal, which goes back to when an eight-year-old Silva listened obsessively to the Legend of Zelda on his Walkman: “It’s the sound palette…Mostly the sound palette.”
That’s a type of invention even Petrarch could approve.
And a distinctive palette it is. Whether you were a preadolescent Pokémaniac or a high-era slacker—for anyone who spent quality time on a Gameboy, the telltale bleeps cannot be separated
slimegirls.bandcamp.com twitter: @slimegirls
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Picks by Local Mohammad Gorjestani PicksPicks by ben byBajarin Local Mohammad Gorjestani
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With a city as big as San Jose, even the most savvy insiders need a local’s advice every now and then. With a city as big as San Jose, even the most savvy insiders need a local’s advice every now and then.
local Ben Bajarin
Digital Life Technology Industry Analyst. Columnist for TIME. Public Speaker.
A. Sam’s Chowder Mobile
E. The Boiling Crab
I. Tech Shop
As close as a Lobster roll will get to an authentic one from Maine this side of the Mississippi. Often found at lunch time near the Ebay office in Campbell. Also at Moveable Feast in San Jose. samschowdermobile.com
There is nothing like a giant pot of crawfish. The Boiling Crab has plenty of it. Pull off the tails and don’t forget to suck the juice from the heads.
A place to learn to create, invent, and join a community of makers and do-it-yourselfers.
analog life Farming, fishing, 4.5 tennis
B. Liquid Bread
street cred
Go for the beer, stay for the food. Great beer selection and an aspiring menu that is creative and delicious.
I’m Ben. I predict the future. Sort of, but not for everything. Just for technology. I work in the magical realm of high-tech. I travel all over the world speaking and working and I love exploring local cuisine everywhere I go. I also own a hobby farm where I raise chickens, ducks, pigs, goats, sheep, and bees. I love food. So here are a few of my favorites. And, I added two “picks” to satisfy my technology side as well. techpinions.com twitter: @BenBajarin
379 E. Campbell Ave. Campbell, CA 95008 liquidbreadcampbell.com
1631 E Capitol Expy San Jose, CA 95128 theboilingcrab.com
F. Adelita’s Taqueria All the food is amazing but I love the carnitas tacos. They are huge and delicious. Get them with all the trimmings. 1896 Curtner Ave. San Jose, CA 95124 adelitastaqueria.com
c. Poor House Bistro A taste of New Orleans right in our own backyard. Gumbo, BBQ shrimp, beignets. All you need to know. 91 S Autumn St. San Jose, CA 95110 poorhousebistro.com
d. Smoking Pig BBQ How’s that for a name? Smoking Pig participates in my little town’s (Morgan Hill) annual BBQ cook off. Good BBQ is hard to find around here and this is one of my favorites. 1144 N 4th St. San Jose, CA 95512 smokingpigbbq.net
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G. Los Gatos Brewing Company LGBC has one of the best happy hours and delicious micro brews from their own brew master. Ask for beer from the cask and have them explain what it is. 163 W Santa Clara St. San Jose, CA 95113 lgbrewingco.com
h. Falafel’s Drive-In This little hole in the wall was featured in Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Awesome mix of ethnic food. Great for taking out. 2301 Stevens Creek Blvd San Jose, CA 95128 falafelsdrivein.com
300 S 2nd St. San Jose, CA 95113 techshop.ws
J. Google Glass No matter what your opinion of Google Glass is, the future of computing is a wearable one.
Contributors The production of Content Magazine would not be possible without the talented writers, editors, graphic artists, and photographers who contribute to each issue. We thank you and are proud to provide a publication to display your work. We are also thankful for the sponsors and readers who have supported this magazine through advertisements and subscriptions.
Daniel Valencia Daniel is a talented young photographer from San Jose, CA. Despite his age he has had a solo photography show at the Metro gallery, has participated in numerous group shows, and has been published both locally and internationally. Through experimentation he has developed his own style. He’s a multidisciplinary photographer and his work reflects it.
Susan Chmelir Susan recently moved to San Jose from Los Angeles, after years of visiting the Bay Area. She loves exploring her new surroundings and discovering amazing activities, sights, and restaurants. In her time off from her Silicon Valley tech job, she enjoys hiking with her dog, playing tennis, and crafting.
Ryan Brown Ryan is a San Jose State magazine journalism student with a passion for sports and graphic design. He also writes about the Golden State Warriors at letsgowarriors. com and has contributed to AOL’s Cupertino Patch and the Spartan Daily, San Jose State’s student newspaper. You can follow him on twitter @rgbrownie.
Gillian Claus Gillian is a freelance writer and editor, based in San Jose. Since joining Content in 2011, Gillian has enjoyed interviewing many colorful Bay Area personalities including Irene Dalis, Sal Pizarro and Barbara Goldstein. When not sticking microphones in people’s faces, she has been know to teach drama, kill plants, and read dictionaries. gclaus@me.com @gillianclaus
Steveyann Jensen Steveyann is an interior designer at Anderson Brulé Architects in downtown San Jose. When she isn’t at work, you can find her pouring over design and fashion blogs and magazines for inspiration. “I love how design can drastically alter how we interact with or respond to a space; it can affect our emotions and mood, and I love that we have the ability to create and shape that experience.
Lynn Peithman Stock Lynn is a Bay Area-based veteran writer and editor who is relatively new to San Jose. She relishes exploring the area and enjoys telling stories about new places and people. She is also editor of two magazines in South Florida and continues to work remotely thanks to email, Skype and her alarm clock. She loves quilting and the North Carolina Tar Heels. lynnpstock@mac.com
Anton Haugen Anton is a writer from Silicon Valley. He is a recent graduate of the University of California, San Diego. His writing shows a preoccupation with the technicality of language, the movement of history, and puzzles. He is currently at work on a novella. He reads, writes, and drinks coffee.
Scott MacDonald Scott left the world of daily photojournalism in 2011 to focus on shooting weddings, editorial and commercial work. In his spare time, he likes to ride his bike, play drums in his punk rock band, hike in the redwoods, enjoy a nice craft beer and spend time with his wife Amber. scottmacdonaldphotography.com
Want to be a part of the Content community? Contact us at: editor@content-magazine.com
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