6:00 - 7:30
The documentation and presentation of skateboarding through photography, videography and the written word is a type of storytelling that builds the unique lingo and architectural lens that connects skaters to each other and, in the case of San Francisco, the cities they call home.
Skateboarding's increased urbanization throughout the 1990s overlapped with like-minded cultural explosions, creating an urbanized Venn diagram of creatives coexisting in the City, together. Skateboarding in 1990s San Francisco elicits memories of Bay Area hip hop, unique fashion, local diners, bars, raves and more that intersected with its culture.
Inspired by the multidisciplinary culture skateboarding houses and creates, we've asked local poets and storytellers to speak on the ways cities—from built environments, community third-spaces, and the dynamic changes cities embody—have impacted their lives and shaped their storytelling. Featuring Josiah Luis Alderate, soledad con carne, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Pendarvis Harshaw, Kar Johnson and Sophie Yanow.
Bios:
Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Spanglish speaking Pocho y left handed callejero de Aztlán who has been part of the Bay Area’s spoken word scene for over twenty years. He is the curator and host of the long running monthly Latine reading series Speaking Axolotl and is the author of two books of poetry “Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos (Black Freighter Press 2021) and the chapbook “Fuchi Faces de los Estados Jodidos” (For The Pueblo 2023). In 2023 he was the Poetry Center’s Mazza Writer in Residence at San Francisco State. Along with his bookstore sister Tân Khanh Cao, Josiah tends the portal known as Medicina Para Pesadillas Bookstore y Galeria on 24th Street in San Pancho, Califas.
soledad con carne is a casually queer, intergalactic chicanx punk poet, working/poor multiple high school drop-out, co-founder of Cucatlicue Press, poet laureate of the San Fernando Valley and blatant smoker sharing-trauma-with-their-mother. Their debut chapbook was published with Lilac Press.
Pendarvis Harshaw is an award-winning journalist from Oakland who writes about prisons, politics, hip-hop and all things impacting his Northern Californian community. He currently works at KQED, where he's an Arts & Culture columnist. Pendarvis is the co-creator and writer for the award-winning digital multimedia project Facing Life (facing.life), which chronicles the journeys of formerly incarcerated people after they leave prison. He has taught journalism to high school students, as well as incarcerated men. His first book, OG Told Me, is a self published memoir-style collection of essays about his coming-of-age experience as a Black man in the U.S. Prior to becoming a journalist, Pendarvis worked as an educator in the Oakland Unified School District. He is a graduate of Howard University's School of Communications and the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. You can reach Pendarvis at @ogpenn on all platforms.
Kar Johnson is a writer, performer, and bookseller living in Oakland, CA. Their work has appeared in The Los Angeles Press, Foglifter and the Red Light Lit anthology Love is the Drug and Other Dark Poems, among other publications. They hold an MFA from San Francisco State University and serve as the events coordinator for Green Apple Books. You can find them at @karjohnsonwrites on social media.
PC Muñoz is a percussionist, composer, producer and writer based in San Francisco. His body of work as an artist and producer includes GRAMMY®-nominated contemporary classical music with composer/cellist Joan Jeanrenaud as well as recordings with rock legend Jackson Browne, Chicana poet/chanteuse Ingrid Chavez, Oakland hip-hop heavyweight Kev Choice, visionary jazz musician David Boyce and more. He is a current Mosaic America Fellow, a featured writer in the new collection from University of Hawai’i Press, New CHamoru Literature and was the 2022 Quinteto Latino Composer-in-Residence. His latest release is “Cascade”. Visit: pcmunoz.com, redfastluck.com, rightstarterproject.com
José Vadi is an award-winning essayist, poet, playwright and film producer. He is the author of Inter State: Essays from California and Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder’s Lens. His work has been featured by the Paris Review, The Atlantic, the PBS NewsHour, KQED, Free Skate Magazine, Quartersnacks, Alta Journal and the Yale Review.
Sophie Yanow is an award-winning artist and writer whose work has been published by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Paris Review, The Nib, Drawn & Quarterly and more. Yanow’s work has been nominated for, among others, a Lambda Literary Award, a Publishing Triangle Award, an Ignatz Award and was longlisted for a Believer Book Award. Her comic The Contradictions won an Eisner Award, and her translation of Dominique Goblet’s Pretending is Lying won the Scott Moncrieff Prize for Translation from the French. She is a MacDowell Fellow, and she currently teaches at the California College of the Arts in their MFA and BFA in Comics programs.
Connect:
José Vadi - Website | José Vadi Social
Sophie Yanow - Website
Pendarvis Harshaw - LinkedIn| Pendarvis Harshaw - Social
Josiah Luis Alderete - Social with PC Muñoz - Website