SC Mall 10.17.89

Excerpted from "Earthquake Collage" the following is a collage of impressions, recollections, news items, poetry and facts regarding the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and its aftermath. Compiled shortly after the quake, this collage provides a series of images of what it was like to be there then. The photographs of downtown Santa Cruz after the quake are by the author. A portion of this material also appears in "Pathways to the Past, Adventures in Santa Cruz County History," Number 6. I am grateful to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) and also to my friend Doug Lawson for making this material available on the internet in 1989. [Excerpts from E-Quake Collage are included here to mark the upcoming 20th Anniversary].

Friday, October 20, 1989

Our friend Jeffrey Armstrong, AKA Saint Silicon, was in the shower when the quake hit. Running stark naked into the street, so he says, he heard a woman scream, 'It’s at least a 7!'

Later, Jeffrey is arrested at gun point for taking books and papers out of his office on the Mall. Buildings condemned.

Troops arrive from Fort Ord wearing camouflage to repair roads. A couple Vietnam Vets are arrested as they wander a mountain road with loaded rifles.

Day 4
Decide to keep my acupuncture appointment. At the California Institute of Health, bricks from the fallen chimney are neatly stacked by the front stairs. The clinic smells of plaster and dust... A few acupuncture needles bathe in sunlight under the treatment table. "What if I'm filled with a dozen needles and there's another massive quake?" I ask. The acupuncturist tries to reassure me. Later I hear of a woman who, at the time of the quake, had been left lying naked on the table while a trembling acupuncturist sought shelter below her.

Another acupuncturist had three patients on her tables at the time and learned only later that she had removed all their needles and helped them to leave.

G., seeing that I'm depressed, asks, "What can we do to cheer you up?"

"Let's invite some friends over," I say. "How about a professional comedian?" I don't expect G. to do anything but laugh. Instead, she reaches for the phone and calls the only comedian we know. Swami Beyondananda (Steve Baerman) and his wife Trudy Lite are in town and accept.
 
"Steve, if ananda means bliss or joy, what does Beyondananda mean?" I ask him. "First you go to bliss. It's 500 yards beyond it," he says.
 
As we sit down to eat I ask Swamiji to pronounce a blessing. "The beat goes on," he begins. "Yes, we're all Shakers, my friends... Let our only shaking now be from laughter."

"What a relief it is to feel free to talk about, or not talk about, it," says Trudy Lite, a dancer, "to be with others who experienced it and not have to reassure them... as we have to reassure our friends and relatives that, 'Yes, we're okay,' when we're not so sure we are."

G. and I would like Trudy and the Swami to stay in our "crumbling, toothpick city," but the quake has spooked them.

Swami Beyondananda once worked for the Michigan State Department of Forestry. While there, he says, a woman from Ann Arbor died and left all her money to a tree.

Steve and Trudy are planning an earthquake benefit performance. Among the dance numbers to be performed: "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet", "Shake Rattle and Roll," "There's a Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On," "Shake it Up Baby," and "Twist and Shout..."

"Families standing in the avalanches beside their houses... as if they're recorded in home movies. Their structures are collapsed in the middle, as are most of their neighbors'."
-News Item

"Cashing in on East Bay residents who are homebound because of the earthquake, hordes of San Francisco prostitutes have flocked to Oakland where business is booming."
 
"'The hookers in San Francisco can't get enough work, so a lot of them have taken BART to Oakland,' said Maggie, a 22-year-old prostitute who works regularly on San Pablo Avenue in the heart of Oakland's red light district. 'There's bumper-to-bumper traffic over here and they want some of the action. We wish they would go home.'"