People

First, it’s very easy for me to tell you my opinion of Maeley Tom’s new book, “I’m Not Who You Think I Am—An Asian-American Woman’s Journey,” because it’s right there in the book’s opening pages of rave reviews.

After reading and making a few suggestions on the manuscript months before the book was published, I called it “a clear-eyed but touching memoir, a guide book on how the inner workings of government in the country’s most progressive state grind along” and “an awesome, very human achievement.”

I was sorry to hear of the passing of the artist Christo three weeks ago, and it took until now for me to realize the role one of his California works played in my life.

As you know, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff—whom you could characterize as an environmental artist, a sculptor, a Dadaist and a supremely effective, charming conman, yet not be wrong on any count—created and executed truly monumental projects…

The May 4 edition of The Goldman State featured reactions to the pandemic lockdown from our (gratifyingly) far-flung readership—from off the coast of Washington, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from San Diego and from the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region of Italy.

Saint John’s Program for Real Change went on a hiring binge a few weeks ago. The Sacramento residential shelter and training facility for homeless women and their children hired:

As you know, some people in some parts of the planet, country, state, county, city and perhaps your own home, are on the verge of de-isolating and/or losing their collective minds.

While I prefer to think of it as going on a closely guarded parole, I asked some faithful readers of The Goldman State—all of whom happen to be dear friends of some duration and all of whom happen to be women (some male responses are coming in)—to share their views on what they’ve missed most during their house arrests and what they hope to plunge back into. Mindfully, natch.

If you’ve heard that jazz is a vanished art form, you haven’t heard, “IntimateLee,” the new CD from singer Valerie V and her one-man/multi-piece band Chet Chwalik.

Recorded live at the Midtown Vanguard Jazz series in Sacramento, the album—available at her website, valsvocals.com—features 11 songs from the Great American Songbook (a never-disputed descriptor, by the way), interpreted syllable by syllable in V’s singular, surprisingly versatile voice. That voice can be sultry, childlike, husky and teasing, sometimes within a few bars of the same song.