Around Fremont » Clarissa

Feeding the Bibliophile

Clarissa — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:51:17 +0000

Now that both Barnes & Noble and Borders are gone, a lot of us are wondering two things: 1) What next? 2) Where do I buy books?

I contacted city officials when B&N closed. I was pleased that both the mayor and the economic development director responded immediately. (Not one of the city councilmembers I contacted bothered to answer me.) Both said they were concerned and were paying attention, but that Fremont (unlike some other cities, for better or worse) doesn’t have control over what businesses landowners rent to or how much they charge. The economic development director said they’re also trying to get stores interested in Fremont…but of course, it’s difficult now.

As for where to buy books, if you like to browse in person (like I do, despite my love for the internet), there are still options. Here are a few:

Half Price Books (43473 Boscell Rd., Fremont). A small but good bookstore with mostly used and some new books, as well as movies, music, books on CD, videogames, manga, comic books, magazines, etc. Almost everything is at least half off the cover price (books published overseas are noticeably more). Bargain books ($1-3) are both up front and in the back by the restrooms. Newish books are in the front–go to the right as soon as you go through the door. The employees are friendly, but the chain has a reputation for not paying much for your used stuff. Very convenient–close to 880, just over Auto Mall from 680), in strolling distance of Any Mountain, Spicy Town, Prolific Oven, Asia Pearl (dim sum), a health food store, and a froyo shop, and just a parking lot or two away from Nordstrom Rack, In-n-Out, DSW, etc. HPB won’t order books, but will put them on a watch list for you.
The Book End (5678 Thornton Avenue, Newark). This little shop, tucked in a shopping center near an Afghan restaurant and a bar, specializes in paperbacks. I remember it as being mostly romances, mysteries, and westerns, but Yelp reviewers say they have science fiction, too–so I should go back and see. (And let me take a moment to say: LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS, GET A WEBSITE. Google will help you do it for free! It’s not easy to survive these days, so why make it harder for people to find and find out abut your business? Sigh.)
Rumi Bookstore (4050 Peralta Blvd, Fremont, CA). I’ve driven past this interesting-looking Islamic bookstore on Peralta many times, but have never been in it. Their own description on Yelp (more informative than their website, which is e-commerce-oriented) says that they have perfumes and music as well as books.
Fry’s (43800 Osgood Road, Fremont). Fry’s, the electronics store, has a small but surprisingly diverse collection of books–a few graphic novels, the random cookbook, a little fiction. Of course, it’s mostly science-oriented nonfiction, computer how-tos, and so on, but you may be surprised at what you can find. The books are up front and to the left as you come in. Fry’s also has videogames and movies (Target and Wal-Mart also carry a few books, of course, but their selection is far more boring than Fry’s). They have a cafe, but it scares me a little. Plus, Fry’s is most of the way to Ajisen anyway.
The Book Shop (1007 B St., Hayward, CA). Friends of mine love this place, but I haven’t had any luck here yet. I suspect it depends on your particular reading interests, so give it a try! (I’m sure I’ll be heading back now that our options have narrowed.) An old-school, mostly-used-but-some-new independent bookshop in downtown Hayward. Unlike HPB, I believe The Book Shop will order books for you. Right next to Buon Appetito, a pretty good Italian restaurant (or worth combining with a trip to Pot Pie Paradise, also in Hayward though not nearby).

If you decide to leave the area, you have lots of options. For sheer convenience, my choice for a book-shopping trip is Mountain View. Just take 880 to 237-W. Follow 237 until it runs out. Turn right (that’s El Camino Real) and then right a few blocks later on Castro. There are two great bookstores literally right next door to each other, with free parking on the block behind. In addition, just on the other side of 237 on El Camino, there’s Nijiya, a Japanese grocery store with a little restaurant, good prices, and a nice selection of organic items. On your way to or from Mountain View, you can stop in the McCarthy Ranch area of Milpitas for ramen at Maru Ichi, meat overload at Pepper Lunch, vegetarian options at Loving Hut, dim sum at Mayflower, butternut squash ravioli at Pasta Pomodoro, etc.

Book Buyers (317 Castro St., Mountain View): This is a large used book shop (music, software, and movies too). They have foreign-language books (spread across several sections, so look carefully), textbooks (although they say they don’t–check in the relevant section, especially for language classes), and a good selection of manga and graphic novels (also confusingly spread around) and RPGs. They reputedly pay more than HPB if you want to sell your books, but their buying hours are restricted and may require two trips. Their prices on books are also higher, but they occasionally send out coupons to members of their mailing list.
Books, Inc. (301 Castro St., Mountain View): An “indie chain,” this was the first independent non-used bookstore where I was regularly able to find things I wanted and could afford. They have great recommendations, good coupons, in-store events, and deeply discounted sale books that are things you’d actually want to buy (including multiple things from my Amazon wishlist). They sell ebooks as well…which I don’t really understand, but you can snap QR codes right in the store. They also carry games, a few toys, and some really nice handmade cards, many of which are both locally made and less than the ones at Papyrus. There’s even a cafe upstairs.

Not listed: Several mostly Chinese bookstores, such as Tara Books & Gifts (inside the Lion complex near Newpark Mall). Several of these stores carry English manga or other English books, plus interesting or cute stationery and other items, so they may be worth checking out. If you are hesitant to go in because you don’t speak Chinese, don’t worry about it. Just go in, be polite, and enjoy.

Let me know if I missed any, or if any new ones open up soon!

(P. S. Did you know that Fremont has a used record shop? As in vinyl? We sure do. Needle to the Groove will even fix up your old damaged records for you.)

EDIT: I forgot to add Treasure Island Comics, now on Mowry near Coco Chicken, Le Moose Crepes, Lucky, and the Bicycle Garage. I have no intention of ever going there again, which is probably why I forgot about it. But it’s popular with many of its customers. (I’ve been meaning to check out Illusive Comics and Games in Santa Clara, which also carries role-playing game books.)

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Ever Seen a Grown Man Flounce?

Clarissa — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:47:07 +0000

I have–about one out of five times that I go to the Irvington post office. Somebody, often a fully grown man, will flounce out, huffing “This is ridiculous!”

Unfortunately, that’s a better reaction than the one where the person takes it out on the postal worker at the desk. (Most of the workers I’ve dealt with there are really nice, until customers become obnoxious.)

It’s true that the office is understaffed and undersupplied, but the customers seem to make it worse for themselves. About a third or so of the people in line and many of the flouncers are people with simple domestic envelopes and packages that could be mailed at the machine outside. I used it today and only had to pop in to the counter to snag a couple of Priority Mail stickers. I think my total time was about 5 minutes. It’s actually very easy to use.

I realize that many older people (and a few younger ones) are scared of ATM-like gadgets, and some people have language/vision/literacy issues, and some people don’t have a credit card. But that still leaves a lot of people who are just waiting in line for no good reason. Just use the @#$ machine! And if you must do it in person for one reason or another and you didn’t budget enough time to wait in line, don’t take it out on the employees or force the other people near you to listen to your complaints.

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Smart Voter, Dumb Candidates

Clarissa — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:33:43 +0000

It’s the time of year to get informed about the huge pile of propositions on California’s ballot, as well as attempt to make sense of all of the local candidates. Luckily, there’s a good starting place: smartvoter.org. Put in your street address and zip code, and everything on your ballot will be served up.

Even better, candidates can create a Smart Vote page for free, so that users can just click on each candidate’s name to learn about them. (Candidates have to pay to get information in the printed booklet that’s mailed out.) It’s painless, and since the site is very well known, it’s a potentially huge amount of exposure in these highly-contested local races, where a handful of votes can make the difference.

Here’s what’s baffling to me: 6 out of 10 Fremont city council candidates did not bother to submit their information to smartvoter.org. Several school and community college board members, legislature candidates, and others couldn’t be bothered to. I guess they’re relying on their campaign literature, but I recycle nearly all of that garbage nearly immediately–at least smartvoter.org’s format forces candidates into a plain format and does away with the glossy photos and overproduced nonsense. And phone calls just make me irritated and less likely to vote for a candidate. I know I’m not alone, so what’s with the anemic participation?

I don’t know what’s behind it, and maybe there are even legitimate reasons. Still, when I look at the candidates who didn’t bother, I can’t help theorizing that just maybe…

They’re lazy.
They’re not good at time management or delegation.
They do not possess even a minimal level of computer literacy.
They have extraordinarily poor judgment.
They believe we already know who they are. (Slightly arrogant in the case of Newsom, Fiorina, and Boxer, because not everyone’s lived here for 10 years; ridiculous in the case of local and dark-horse candidates.)

Hmmm. These don’t seem like qualities that I’d like to see in my elected officials.

Come on, local candidates: If you can spend so much money and time littering every possible street corner, tree, and fence in Fremont, Newark, Union City, and Milpitas with your plastic signs, (not to mention bombarding my house with mail and annoying phone calls), you could have spent the time to get your information out to more people and avoid looking lazy, disorganized, technologically illiterate, dumb, and arrogant.

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Make Us Visible

Clarissa — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:42:58 +0000

Our cities are often overshadowed by larger ones like San Francisco and San Jose, or towns that are smaller yet richer or more “newsworthy,” like Berkeley and Palo Alto. The national census, which happens every 10 years, is a chance to not only update the numbers on our “Welcome To…” signs, but to make ourselves visible–as a state, as a region, as cities, and as age, gender, and ethnic communities.

In order to find out how much money the state, county, and city should get (for schools and other services), and how many representatives our state should have in Congress, we have to know how many people live in each city. Census results are also used look for inequalities such as civil rights violations, education disparities, and so on (and hopefully to help address these problems). So you and I really need to take a few minutes and fill out the census this year and send it in. It’s much shorter than usual, so it shouldn’t take much effort.

You can get information for it in lots of languages, so please encourage any friends or family who don’t read English well to fill it out, too. The details of the census are private for 72 years. According to US law, the INS, the FBI, Homeland Security, the IRS, the police, your landlord, etc., cannot get to the information you fill out. (And yes, non-citizens can and should fill it out. Anyone who is living at the address should be counted, regardless of their status.) So please fill it out honestly and fully, and remember to write down both adults and children in your household. New residents of the US, non-native English speakers, and younger people tend not to get represented, and that’s not good.

In 2000, although our area’s response rate was above average, a lot of people still didn’t get counted. Let’s change that!

Previously, Newark was the winner with a rate of 78%–well, that’s still only a grade of C, isn’t it?–followed by Union City 77%. Milpitas tied Fremont at 76% (my “tract” was at only 66%! Ouch, you guys! Especially with some other areas coming in at 84%!). I’m pretty sure we can do better than that.

It’s easiest if you mail it back right after you get it, (postage is paid for you), but if you don’t, you’ll probably get an in-person visit from a census taker. That worker will ask you the questions in person, so please be nice to them–they’re probably terrified of anti-government folks screaming at them. It’s just their job–and yes, technically, you are required to participate in the census and answer honestly, so it’s better to just get it done by mail.

About 3 million people will also receive the longer American Community Survey, which is a longer survey with socioeconomic questions that’s like the old long-form census. This is sent out every year to this relatively small segment of the population, so you probably won’t get it.

There’s a lot of information at the state census website, California Complete Count, and the national census website. You can see what’s on the questionnaire and why. You can read about some of the ways in which your community benefits from responses. There’s also a nice site for teachers and students. Queer the Census, an effort to get an outright question about sexual orientation placed on the census or American Community Survey, has a FAQ with advice about answering the census/ACS if you are LGBTQ and/or in a multiracial relationship (the latter because apparently the “ethnicity of a family” is determined by the ethnicity of whoever is listed as respondent #1, so if you were going to pick at random, you might want to consider that, since many groups are historically under-counted in the census).

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Community Garden coming to Fremont?

Clarissa — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:06:41 +0000

Want to garden? Live in a little townhouse with no sun on the patio (uh, like me)? Longing for a community garden like progressive communities have?

A group called LEAF is trying to make it happen! Local Ecology and Agriculture Fremont has set up a Ning that you can join to help them get this exciting effort underway. Traditionally, community gardens are shared spaces where residents get personal garden plots to grow their own fruits and vegetables, while sharing overall maintenance. You get exercise, you get to be outside, you get to grow things that may not be at the farmers’ markets, and you get to control how they’re grown. (Honestly, it’s so bizarre that in the US we “exercise” and spend energy to accomplish nothing, when ideally we should spend that energy gardening, volunteering, enjoying nature, or something–it’s unnatural for humans to work so unproductively and miserably. Community gardens are one way to correct this weird imbalance…OK, tangent over, I promise!)

Anyway, I’m really excited about this! There’s been coverage from the Argus and the Tri-City Voice, if you’d like to read more. Of course, there’s also information at www.leafcenter.org. You might see some familiar names and faces, such as that of Bill Merill, who’s the former manager of the late, lamented Navlet’s garden center.

What would you like to grow if it happens? I know my husband is all about the heirloom tomatoes. Me, I don’t know–maybe some kind of berries, and perhaps some of the few Japanese things that I can’t always get at the farmers’ market already. Could I grow shiso/perilla in that kind of setting? I’m not sure!

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Best wishes for a happy Diwali

Clarissa — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:38:29 +0000

I know fairly little about Diwali other than what I’ve read in the newspapers and on Wikipedia, but I know it’s important to a lot of my neighbors in and around Fremont. I guess asking “Why are there Christmas lights up so early?” is a kind of ritual for clueless people who move into Fremont from other parts of the world or other parts of the US that don’t have a large South Asian population. :) I’ve answered this question many times myself since finding out about Diwali… But as it’s getting darker earlier and earlier and we’ve already had our first “Bay Area winter” storm, it’s not surprising at all that there is a “festival of lights”-type of holiday going on.

When I was looking up Diwali to see if there were any relevant videos, I saw the president’s video and assumed it wouldn’t be at all relevant, because politicians’ sound-bites about holidays they don’t observe are usually terribly generic. But this is actually specific to the holiday.

How did he do? (Not politically, I mean in terms of discussing Diwali!)

As this is a lunar holiday like Chinese New Year (and Easter, really), next year’s Diwali will fall on November 5. If you plan ahead, there are usually dances and other festivities that you may be able to attend.

diwali by Raven3k

Finally, glowing images of Diwali 2009 from around the world, posted to the Flickr blog just as I was about to publish this post. Maybe you can find our area in there later tonight or tomorrow morning!

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Breakfast at La Pinata

Clarissa — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:08:14 +0000

I had breakfast at La Piñata. I try not to eat breakfast out too often, but I wanted to start off the day with a little extra energy. I went to the one in Fremont and had the waffle breakfast with bacon and eggs. For some reason, most waffle places in Fremont make an oversized “Belgian” waffle that comes out cakey and dry, which I really don’t like. I can hardly get through a mouthful. La Piñata’s is more tender and enjoyable. The best part, though, is spooning their excellent salsa all over my eggs. Salt? Who needs it!

It’s also a good place to go if you or your dining companions are internationally jet-lagged or coming off a night shift or have an iron stomach and want a full Mexican lunch at 9:15 AM, because they’ll serve it to you. Something for everyone!

Most people haven’t discovered their breakfast service, so you usually have the place mostly to yourself if you drop in. You can order a variety of basic American and Mexican (well, Tex-Mex) breakfast items, although the latter are available all day. Most weekdays, they open at 9, but it’s 8 on Friday, Saturday, and (I think) Sunday, when they also offer their more well known brunch buffet.

At some point I might find a ratings plug-in here and start actual reviews, or connect this to my Yelp account, but today I just wanted to let you know about a breakfast option near BART in central Fremont that most people don’t know about. For some reason, maybe for BART commuters and hospital workers, there’s a little cluster of breakfast food here along Paseo Padre between Mowry and Walnut–PJ’s (my go-to bagel place, far better than any other Fremont option), Panera, Peet’s (well, sort of), and Burger King (if you just have to have it, I guess). And opening a little later in the day, Frodo Joe’s Petit Cafe also has a breakfast crepe. On Sundays, you can add Sweet Tomatoes’ brunch to the list.

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Trying something new

Clarissa — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:47:20 +0000

I run the Around Fremont community on Livejournal.com, and I wanted to try a Fremont-based blog as well. I really like living in the Fremont area and won’t apologize for being a big fan of its many cultures, excellent international cuisine, beautiful parks, thriving farmers’ markets, and interesting people. The surrounding communities, including Newark, Union City, Milpitas, Sunol, etc., have a lot to offer, as well. I know many Fremont oldtimers don’t like twenty-first-century Fremont, but I love it, and any criticism I may offer here comes from wanting to make it a better place to live for all of us. (Either that, or it’s been a bad day and I haven’t had my coffee yet.)

This blog is under development and may change design, focus, or policies at any moment. I can tell you right now, though, that although comments are currently open, I reserve the right to moderate them, particularly in case of racism, etc. I hope that won’t come up, though!

Today has been quite a day in Fremont–a rare mid-October storm (the remnants of a typhoon), which brought down a tree in my apartment complex, followed by an earthquake centered a couple miles from Sunol! (Don’t forget to fill out “Did You Feel It?”) What a day to get started on…

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