Digital Nomad

Anastasia Ashman Writer, Producer, Author
(Tales of the Expat Harem), Co-Creator of
Global Niche (photo: Steven Fromtling)

Website gremlins prevented me from posting this link to a profile I wrote in the April 2012 edition of Marina Times. It's a look at Anastasia Ashman, an old friend and former colleague from my Internet World magazine days. She has turned her interests into a successful "global niche" of creative souls:

Digital Nomad
Anastasia Ashman merges social media and global citizenship
By John Zipperer 

Some people lose themselves in the world. Anastasia Ashman turned herself into a tour guide to help people find themselves. A Berkeley native, Ashman’s life has taken her around the world, from the development hell of Hollywood to the ruling circles of Malaysia to the ancient streets of Istanbul. Now she’s back in the Bay Area, recently taken up residence with her husband in Russian Hill, and she’s able to say, “We didn’t come here knowing that much about what’s going on in San Francisco. We came here with the intention of finding out and treating it like a foreign country.”  

Foreign country? To a woman who grew up across the Bay?  

It’s a disconnect between location and identity that is intentional on her part ...

Read the entire article

Start Making Sense

The first panelists for Week to Week (from left):
Larry Gerston, Debra J. Saunders and Michael Fox
Photo: Steven Fromtling

Some website problems prevented me from posting this column last month, but you can now read my Marina Times Zippy column from the April 2012 issue:

ZIPPY
Start making sense
By John Zipperer 

Blame or credit Dorothy Crain. 

I was a teenage political junkie and Dorothy Crain – a longtime family friend – fed my habit by directing me out of the schoolyard-level discussions and arguments toward adult discussions of current events. While I was still in junior high school, she gave me a subscription to The New Republic, which became my political bible throughout the 1980s. When I visited the magazine’s offices in 1991, it was a tiny bit like touring Rome or Jerusalem. 

Nerd, I know.

Read the entire article

The Living Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge from the south side. Photo: Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.

A feature events guide article of mine from the current edition of Marina Times:

The Living Bridge
Anniversary Events
May is full of things to do, see, and hear to celebrate the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary By John Zipperer

Three quarters of a century can change a lot, but they can also hide a lot, adding a gloss of fame and affection for what was a very controversial project. That’s the case for the Golden Gate Bridge, the iconic link between Marin and San Francisco that is the most famous visual shorthand for illustrating the city by the bay. Today, it ranks with the Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument, Sears Tower, and the St. Louis Arch as beloved symbols of specific cities and even representatives of the spirit of the country at large.  

Considering its modern fame, how many people know that the 1920s saw a vigorous debate within the Bay Area over whether the bridge should be built at all?

Read the entire article 

Blond Roots

My latest column in the Marina Times:

ZIPPY  

Blond roots

The Marina doesn’t deserve its rep

By John Zipperer 

Can you judge a neighborhood by its enemies? If you read what some people are saying online about the Marina, you can be forgiven for expecting the Marina to be a Beverly Hills-wannabe neighborhood filled with Stepford Wives. The mildest might be SFGate, which says that the Marina District’s “apartment buildings, shops and restaurants seem to be bursting at their seams with beautiful, young and fit 20- and 30-somethings.” Hardly sounds like hell on earth. But apparently it does sound like that to other reviewers ...

Read the entire article

My Latest in Northside: You Gotta Have Science

My latest Common Knowledge column in Northside San Francisco:

COMMON KNOWLEDGE  

Turns Out, It Is Rocket Science

By John Zipperer 

It was inevitable that American politics would spoil that most pristine, beloved and genuine part of American culture: the annual blitz of Super Bowl commercials. Instead of being able to enjoy debating whether Volkswagen could outdo its Darth Vader commercial from last year (it didn’t), we were left with the news outlets arguing for many days about whether Chrysler’s “It’s halftime in America” commercial was intended to help President Obama’s reelection prospects. 

Such pointless debates always miss the bigger controversy. No it’s not why Clint Eastwood’s voice in the Chrysler ad sounds like Christian Bale’s Batman. The big controversy was around a commercial for U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra.

Read the entire column...