Inna Vityaz

In a bright, sunny café in Poway, a cartoon goose peers impishly at you over a mirror. The speech bubble above the goose says, “We are so alike.” It’s instantly delightful. “We were looking for something with a subtle Ukrainian touch, but not something that would feel too themed or unfamiliar to local guests,” says Anton Ocheretin, who co-owns the café with his wife, Mariia, and friends Taras and Natalie Alipin, who are also married.

The Black Gold: Stories Untold exhibit at National Historic Site in San Francisco is haunted. Really. But that’s not an excuse to avoid the place—it’s all the more reason to go and get up close to history. “Black Californians have been central, not marginal, to our collective narrative,” says Cheryl Haines, the curator behind the exhibit, which features 17 contemporary artists and groups and runs through November 2.

California summer, the windows rolled down, the back of my thighs sticking to the car seat as my friend’s car rattles over potholes. The AC is broken. It could be any year; I could be 10 or 15 or 28. The radio is on; the beat is thick and sweet. Oh, let me, let me tell you why I feel like that… We hear Bradley Nowell singing new lyrics for the first time in almost three decades, recorded before his death in 1996.