Brooke’s workplace, the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, unveiled a website redesign and new t-shirts at their 7th anniversary dinner last night. I designed the t-shirts, and will therefore shamelessly promote them.

The photo on the left is my friend Zach modeling the front of the shirt (no, the name tag does not come free with purchase). On the right is the design featured on the back - this is the part I created. Click on the thumbnails for larger images:

The girl holding the picket sign is Leah, my friend Debra’s daughter. You can see the photo the image originated from in this post, along with a fun story about a picket at a fancy UC Berkeley Gala. Here’s Leah modeling the image of herself on the t-shirt:

If you want a t-shirt (YES YOU DO), leave a comment or email me at “janna at the name of this site dot com” and I’ll hook you up. They’re $15, light blue, union printed, and come in either a traditional cut or a girly one. If you opt for the latter, buy two sizes larger than usual, unless you, um, like a certain type of attention.

Here’s what you’re supporting with your t-shirt $$, according to EBASE’s website:

the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy brings together labor, community, and faith-based organizations and leaders to end low-wage poverty and create economic equity in the San Francisco East Bay region. EBASE supports research, policy development, coalition building, and leadership development around issues impacting the low-wage workforce.

See? You want a shirt now, right? YES YOU DO. If you’re very lucky, I might even get Leah to autograph yours:

Be sure to check out EBASE’s new website, too. It was done by the awesome Design Action, an Oakland-based collective focusing on social justice-related design.

The image on the left is me circa 1993, looking all teen angsty. My sister shot it outside our parents’ house after we had a huge fight about something that escapes me now. Probably the angst level had reached some sort of intolerable high.

My friend Kate (who was Katie back in 1993) dug a copy of the picture out of her stash of retrostuff, added a line from a letter I sent her back in high school, and emailed it to me. I, in turn, found a photo of her looking pensive. The setting is Oxford, Ohio, summer 1998, during a cross-country road trip with my brother and sister.

With luck, you will soon be able to view another Kate/Janna collaboration on YouTube. At some point in college, Kate directed a short film called Orville’s Friend, in which I play the girlfriend of a guy with a swamp creature living in his bathtub. My boyfriend and the creature are, um, suspiciously close, but I get the upper hand in the end. Stay tuned!

Alan, Beth and I went to a reception at the Book Club of California yesterday, at the invitation of our former Typography instructor, Alastair Johnston:

We were the youngest people there by a factor of at least a third, and definitely the most slovenly. However, there was plenty of free champagne, and we were strongly encouraged to come back when they replenish the high-end scotch supply after the new year. More importantly, we saw a number of beautiful, limited edition hand-illustrated and typeset books. I didn’t get a decent photo of either of Alastair’s books, but the photo above should give you a taste of what we saw.

There was also an iron printing press there, circa god knows when - the type you have to manually operate à la Gutenberg. It reminded me of an excellent Alastair quote from one of our class lectures:

This is the kind of printing press you could lose a limb in, or a small child.

Fortunately, this one was simply used to support a pyramid of champagne glasses.

Tile from the Firestorm Community Mural at the Rockridge BART station:

The mural is dedicated to survivors, firefighters and those who lost their lives in the Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991. It’s very sad - the image above, multiplied by 2,000. According to the Wiki:

The 1991 Oakland firestorm occurred on Sunday October 20, 1991, almost exactly two years after the Loma Prieta earthquake. The fire has also been called the Oakland hills firestorm, the East Bay hills fire, or the Tunnel fire (because it began above the west portal of the Caldecott Tunnel). The fire killed 25 people and injured 150. On the 1,520 acres destroyed were 2,449 single-family dwellings and 437 apartment and condominium units. The economic loss has been estimated at $1.5 billion.

Click here to read more.

The Oakland and Berkeley Hills are incredibly beautiful, with world-class views of the bay and amazing multimillion dollar homes. However, they are prone to horrific natural disasters. Fire and mudslides are a threat, and the hills sit directly on top of the most volatile fault line in California. It’s like Mother Nature’s way of saying, “look, don’t touch.”

If you find yourself in Rockridge, check out the mural. It’s easy to dismiss as just a pretty way to dress up a BART station, but many of the tiles are truly heartwrenching.

Scene of the illicit encounter:

I know this is very, very, very bad. Olive, my regular stylist, is excellent, and we have a good relationship. However, she abandoned me for Budapest and my hair was driving me crazy, so I had to do something. I found a place with a good online and word-of-mouth reputation that could give me an appointment with a few hours’ notice, and the rave reviews proved to be right on.

If anyone is looking for a good East Bay haircut, go to Peter Thomas Hair Design in Berkeley. It doesn’t have nearly as cool a name as my usual place, Glamarama, or Brooke’s salon, Blow, but they know what they’re doing and have been around for something like thirty years. I had my hair cut by Alison, who is not only a great stylist, but also an artist. You can see examples of her work here.

Yes, it is perhaps inappropriate to advertise what was meant to be a clandestine liaison. My defense is that it was born of desperation, and was so satisfying that I want others to partake.

The creator of the beloved Quimby Family went to UC Berkeley:

They named a residence hall after her.

My current temp gig is located on the 16th floor of a building in downtown Oakland. The photo above, taken in one of the common areas, serves as a nice complement to the view of Mt. Tam you see from the hallway.

This almost cancels out my 8:30 arrival time.