Journal of Alta California Summer 2018

“When in Doubt, Go Higher” — Mountain Gazette motto Our masthead lists people whose work and life inspired us. Among them we honor Mike Moore, the founding editor of the Mountain Gazette. Mike was a true creature of words. He was an avid reader with wide-ranging interests, but especially fiction, as well as non-fiction reporting and essays. As an editor, he discovered new writers and was often the first to recognize original talents long before they became much better known. His conversation was laced with self-deprecating irony. He tended to tell you he liked a story by talking about when it would run. He’d let you know he didn’t like it via sideways remarks, a general lack of enthusiasm, a proposal to make a few small changes. Or “Let’s go…

All but forgotten today, Kate Crane Gartz (1865-1949) was an epitome of a famous American type: the wealthy progressive firebrand. Heiress to a Chicago plumbing-supply fortune, she railed against injustice in eloquent, impassioned letters to Jazz Age government officials and newspapers — written from her mansion in Altadena. Gartz often was described as a “millionaire socialist” or a “parlor Bolshevik,” and a 1923 collection of her letters was titled “Parlor Provocateur, Or, From Salon to Soap-box.” Gartz’s preferred title was “Letters of Protest.” TO LOS ANGELES JUDGE FRANK WILLIS, APRIL 22, 1920 Your Honor: I entered the sanctuary, and gazed upward to the stained glass dome, upon which were inscribed four words: Peace, Justice, Truth, Law — and I felt hopeful. … I listened to the prosecutors; the law in…

David L. Ulin is the author or editor of 10 books, including “Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles.” A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at the University of Southern California. Terry McDonell was Editor of Esquire and Sports Illustrated and co-founder of LitHub. His memoir is “The Accidental Life: An Editor’s Notes on Writing and Writers.” Laurie J. Flynn is a writer and book editor who has covered Silicon Valley for The New York Times and was an editor at the San Jose Mercury News. Penni Gladstone documents the social and political issues that define our times. She is an award-winning photojournalist, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice.…

The upper reaches of California politics have been an old folks’ home for the past couple of decades, frustrating the ambitions of younger politicians. But as Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “Time and tide wait for no man,” and the clog in California’s political pipeline is beginning to clear, with this year’s elections potentially a major turning point. Last year, 77-year-old U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer stepped down and 53-year-old Kamala Harris took her seat in the Senate and almost immediately was touted in political circles as a presidential possibility — a hint of the potential stakes in generational change in the nation’s most populous state. Also last year, 85-year-old John Burton ceded the chairmanship of the state Democratic Party to a decades-younger labor leader, Eric Bauman. Jerry Brown, who was just 36…

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom remains the frontrunner in the field for the 2018 gubernatorial election, and it’s looking more and more like he and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be facing each other in a Democratic runoff in November. That likelihood increased after billionaire Tom Steyer opted out and former Republican Congressman Doug Ose jumped in, further dividing the already small GOP voter pool. — Dan Walters GAVIN NEWSOM Odds: 3-2 (Previously 3-2) ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA Odds: 3-1 (Previously 4-1) JOHN CHIANG Odds: 5-1 (Previously 5-2) DELAINE EASTIN Odds: 11-1 (Previously 9-1) DOUG OSE Odds: 900-1 (New entry) JOHN COX Odds: 1,000-1 (Previously 1,000-1) TRAVIS ALLEN Odds: 1,000-1 (Previously 1,000-1) TOM STEYER Scratched…

Imagine playing human-sized video games by manipulating a giant trackball. Imagine joining five of your friends in a real-world sci-fi story in which you have to safely pilot a spaceship to save the day. What if audience members could become the co-creators and performers of their own entertainment? That’s the vision of Two Bit Circus, a technology-powered playground and funhouse opening this spring in the heart of Los Angeles’ Arts District. The brainstorm of CEO Brent Bushnell (son of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell) and CTO Eric Gradman, Two Bit Circus uses Silicon Valley techniques to create a sort of next-generation Disneyland. The indoor amusement park brings together steampunk Cirque du Soleil style, human-sized video games and immersive theater, with several surprising twists. Unlike a traditional videogame, in which players use…