Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 01:43:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Alyosha Efros Subject: Cities and Memory (after Calvino) There exists two Berkeleys (actually there are infinitely many of them -- one for each of its departed residents). The two Berkeleys share almost nothing except their geographical coordinates. One Berkeley is a slow leisurely town with gentle morning fog that clears up around noon, and it is then that the sleepy residents start emerging from their cozy homes and into the neighboring cafes. The rest of the day is spent in quiet serenity, sipping coffee or freshly-squeezed juice, reading the Times, browsing through the half-empty bookstores chatting with their owners about this and that and nothing in particular. This town is never too hot or too cold but always "just right", and plums, pears, and blackberries grow right on the street corners, begging to be picked in a not so subtle reference to that very first Garden. At sunset, the hills are illuminated in that special sort of yellow that emits a soft, warm glow, lasting long after the sun has majestically sunk into the Pacific. Life is free and light and almost timeless. But time is still there, in the background, and each year in late August a pagan festival arrives and in a single instant sweeps this Berkeley away, and on its ashes a new Berkeley is born. This is an extrovert sort of town -- loud, impulsive, in-your-face, bursting with energy yet charming in it naive youthful optimism. Here, the people are everywhere, they completely overshadow the rest of the city -- the buildings, the pavement, the hills, everything disappears behind this mass of happy, yelling, giggling humanity. This new Berkeley is now king, and it will hold court for nine months, and then history will repeat itself, as it always does, except that I won't be there to see it. Today, for the last time, I witnessed the burial of one Berkeley and the rebirth of the other. I saw the river of people slowly flowing down Telegraph, I saw a fleet of blue I-House carts on the sidewalk, I saw herds of freshmen on Bancroft Avenue looking so young as I have never remembered myself to be. And yes, the girls look really much too young. Their skimpy shirts are even skimpier than last year and their low-riding pants are riding even lower and have to be held up gracefully with one hand, while the other is busy yackety-yaking on the little purple cell phone. But for me, a simple walk though the Sproul Plaza at noon is a sadly aging experience: people are everywhere, yelling, shouting, handing out flyers to everyone, it seems, except me. I am like a ghost, completely invisible and transparent. "Would you like to join the GSI union?" a young, very earnest girl asks, but, as I automatically extend my hand for the inevitable flyer, I realize that she is actually talking to the guy right behind me. Feeling humbled and old, with my hand still stupidly extended into the air, I quickly rush off, thinking that maybe it is indeed a good time to leave this wonderful, crazy, constant yet ever-changing city, which, in my memory, is already starting to become slightly unreal, blurred, invisible.