Saturday, June 7, 2014, 2:00 PM, San Leandro Main Library

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

Set in "Brokeland," the area where Oakland merges into Berkeley, Telegraph Avenue is the story of two families. The men, Nat and Archy, are partners in a used record store in Oakland, while the women, Aviva and Gwen, are partners in a midwife clinic in Berkeley. Below is a video of a Los Angeles Times interview with the author. The interview was carried out via Skype, so the quality isn't the greatest, and it is more than 30 minutes long, so you need to carve yourself out some listening time if you are interested. However, it was more informative than the other author interviews available on YouTube.

Echos of the 70s

Although Telegraph Avenue is set in 2004, there is much in the way of references to the 1970s, including a crime carried out in 1973 that has significance for the present and a whole cast of characters who in some way or another are stuck in the 70s. Some of the cultural references include:

 

Leisure Suits

A pattern so you can create your own.

Archy's surrogate father, musician Cochise Jones, has a cherished collection of leisure suits. If I remember correctly from my own impressions of the 70s, the actual length of time that leisure suits were in fashion was fairly short, but that particular garment is still used as shorthand to define the style of the era.

Azetec pattern fabric

Muscle Cars

Olds Toronado

When the book referred to Luther Stallings' Toronado (Oldsmobile), I had a mental picture of the car from "Starsky and Hutch," but that was a Torino (Ford). See the difference?

Ford Gran Torino

Soul/Funk/Jazz Fusion Music

Archy and Nat's store, Brokeland Records, specializes in vintage vinyl from the 70'.



Grover Washington, Jr., was one of the patron saints of Brokeland Records.




Minnie Riperton reminded Archy of his dead mother and was also the name of Gibson Goode's zeppelin.

Blaxploitation Movies

Due to the rising awareness in the 1970s of the entertainment industry's lack of opportunities for African American actors, Hollywood was quick to cash in. Starting with "Shaft," audiences were treated to a number of movies, mostly action movies, with a black primary star. In Telegraph Avenue, Valletta Moore, the long-time girlfriend and former co-star of Luther Stallings (Archy's mostly absentee father), had posed for an iconic poster, which I believe was probably based on this poster for the Pam Grier vehicle, "Coffy."

Kung-Fu Movies and "Black-Fu" Movies

As mentioned in the book, Bruce Lee had his first kung-fu studio in Oakland. Here is an advertising poster for the school.

Here is a short clip of Bruce Lee's widow telling an interesting anecdote about his Oakland school.


Film nerds review their favorite scenes from Bruce Lee's martial arts movies.


This is the intro from "Black Belt Jones," starring Jim Kelly, the first African American martial arts movie star. Kelly had made his first acting appearance in Bruce Lee's best known film, "Enter the Dragon," and appeared later in a series of martial arts movies and other movies. Kelly died a little over a year ago. In Telegraph Avenue, Luther Stallings was said to have been better than Jim Kelly.

 

Echos of Echos of the 70s

The sons of the two families, Julie Jaffe, Nat and Aviva's son, and Titus Joyner, Archy Stallings' only recently acknowledged son, are big fans of the movies of Quentin Tarantino.  Tarantino grew up in the 70s, and his movies are full of 1970s pop cultural references, particularly the crime drama "Pulp Fiction," and the martial arts revenge movie "Kill Bill." One of my favorite Tarantino movies is "Jackie Brown," a 1997 movie based on an Elmore Leonard novel and starring Pam Grier of iconic poster fame. In the clip below, Grier and her co-star, Robert Forster, have a discussion about the merits of LPs versus CDs.