Montclair Viewpoints

We Get The Money Views In Oakland

When living in the Oakland Hills, you get the “money views” of the Bay Area.  You may see local trees and hills, which seem like Europe.  You may glimpse the open waters of San Francisco Bay.  You may look at the Marin and Mt. Tam horizon.

However our favorite, endlessly changing view is due West.  Many of us can walk onto our decks and gaze from Oakland across to San Francisco.  It’s all about the changing light and fog, and is a local form of entertainment that beats what’s on air or online.

Typical Montclair View (Bennett Hall)

One of our Montclarion neighbors, Bennett Hall, recently stepped onto his deck and captured this extraordinary evening view.  When he shared the image today, I was simply amazed and had to pass it along – words don’t do justice to this surreal artwork.

Did we mention that we love Montclair?

Blue Political Views In Montclair

When you live in Montclair Village, you can’t avoid the running chatter and obvious influences of living in Oakland and playing next-door neighbor to Berkeley.

If an archeologist landed here, would he or she be able to understand the political zeitgeist by the evidence we leave in our wake?  The easy answer is yes, and he doesn’t have to dig very deep either.

Let’s look at some of the left-leaning signs around town.  This first photo is located at Montclair’s ground zero:  the Mountain and Antioch intersection.  You may have walked by the stop sign a thousand times, and it actually says “Stop Bush.”

Stop-Bush-Sign-Montclair

The next piece of evidence is a cryptic message scribbled outside McCalou’s Department Store.  There’s pretty much zero graffiti around town but this little message must mean something.  Does it say Joker?  Remember the outside world?  Is it meaningful or just a little tease?

A-Little-Graffiti-Montclair

The last evidence relates to our newspaper choices.  While the Oakland Tribune is probably nearby, there are other options here.  First, the Berkeley Daily Planet appears to be empty.  You can see the San Jose Mercury News peeking out and still available.  There’s also a broken door from the New York Times, which could mean the news isn’t getting delivered?  Not sure.

Newspaper-Choices-Montclair

With these three pieces of evidence, perhaps there might be something pretty funny to say about Montclarions.  We are obviously left-leaning on the political spectrum – and it’s entertaining to see this play out in the Village.  There are red and blue people here, but the bias is clear.