Long-time Berkeley residents can tell you, in a flash, the name of the prolific local street poet known as "The Bubble Lady of Telegraph Avenue." Back in the Sixties (and beyond), Julia Vinograd was a living icon of our tumultuous Free Speech City—a wielder of words, an irrepressible social protagonist, and an activist sprite who left both ballads and bubbles in her wake. 

"Bubbles"? Indeed! 

Vinograd, who walked with a limp owing to a disabling childhood bout with polio, was among the crowd of nonviolent Free Speech Movement protesters who occupied Sproul Hall in 1964 and were removed in a historic mass arrest. But it wasn't until the spring of 1969 that Vinograd became a sensation when she began appearing at political rallies, protest marches, and street demonstrations armed with nothing more than small bottles of soapy water and a determined grin. When other activists were in the habit of throwing an occasional brick, Julia could be seen beaming as she set about blowing bouncing banners of bubbles through the air. 

Now, years after her death in 2018, Julia's unique presence is being celebrated in a lyrical and vital documentary called "Julia Vinograd: Between Spirit and Stone"—an intense and vital documentary currently in the works. The film's award-winning East Bay producer-director-cinematographer Ken Paul Rosenthal is currently editing a "rough cut" for KQED and intends to finish the entire film by summer of 2025. 

During her decades of social activism, Vinograd remained a prolific poet who churned out more than 70 volumes of poetry. Her prodigious literary output has been honored with an American Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, and Berkeley's Lifetime Achievement Award. Back in 2004, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates honored the poet by declaring June 5 "Julia Vinograd Day." In his announcement, Bates praised Vinograd, stating: "She gives us a face to see ourselves anew. She gives us a voice when ours vanishes." 

As Rosenthal explained, during a lunchtime interview at Nina's Café in West Berkeley, getting to know Vinograd was illuminating and life-affirming. He sees the film as an opportunity to give voice to "historically-silenced communities." Vinograd rose above her infirmities and spoke from "the rare perspective of a poet surviving on the same economic and cultural margins as the itinerant and disenfranchised subjects of her verse." 

Rosenthal explained that the film's subtitle, Between Spirit and Stone, refers to "the diverse thematic range of Julia's poetry as well as the emotional arc of the film. Both stretch from the secular (her observational street poetry) to the ineffable (her sublime Book of Jerusalem poems)." 

Julia’s Jerusalem poems are dialogues between God and the city of Jerusalem, who are personified as antagonistic lovers. Zeitgeist Press has recently published an extended edition of the Jerusalem poems that triples the number of poems in the original 1984 publication. 

Rosenthal recounted how it was Vinograd's expressed belief that "her street poetry would make her famous while, after her death, the Jerusalem poems would make her immortal." 

Julia’s voracious appetite is well-documented in the film. Rosenthal recalled a meal-time conversation with Vinograd, and noted with a laugh how she spat food in his face, continuing to speak non-stop as she tore into a sandwich. 

Flipping open his laptop on the café table, Rosenthal shared the film's trailer, along with a few sections from the rough cut, including an historical overview of the 1969 People's Park struggle and Vinograd's role in promoting the park and its legacy. 

"The park was ours. We made it," Vinograd explained. And, when UC Berkeley fenced off the beloved community gathering spot, she had to take a stand. As a disabled pacifist, however, physically contesting the park's future with lines of armed police and National Guard troops wasn't an option she could pursue. Instead, she purchased 20 bottles of soap bubbles and set out to spread some nonviolent levity in the midst of chaos. 

Waving a bubble-making wand worked its magic—and not just on the park's defenders. To Vinograd's surprise (as recounted in a cover story in the June 2022 issue of Street Spirit), when the bubbles began to fly, two patrolling police officers put down their batons and asked to try their hands at making bubbles. "Mine's bigger than yours," one cop boasted, prompting his partner to reply: "But look at mine go. It's the motion that counts! 

The team behind the documentary (which includes interview cinematographer Kesten Migdal, story consultant Catherine Hollander, motion-graphics artist Harley Scroggins, and impact producer Steve Ladd) has created a unique visual palette that balances raw historical footage with patches of cinematic magic that shows images of animated bubbles emerging from Julia’s typewriter and, in another scene, conjures boot-prints of readable type that appear crossing the surface of a deserted, rain-swept Telegraph Avenue. 

There are also stunning sequences of superimposition and time-lapse artistry, such as a scene where lines of Julia's poetry leap to the screen and spin around a towering street pole. Or when a day's worth of sunshine pours through the windows of Julia's vacant former apartment in seconds—as her treasured manual typewriter rests motionless on the empty floor. 

It's been years in the making but this is a deft and spirited documentary that is well worth the wait. 

You can watch the trailer here. 

You can visit the film website here. 

You can support the film’s completion by making a tax-deductible donation here. 

People's Park 20^th Anniversary
Julia Vinograd  

The wizards in old tales
used to bury their hearts in secret places.
And unless you dug up the heart and destroyed it,
they were invulnerable and heartless.
Part of my heart is buried in People’s Park.
Not all of it, not even the largest part.
Other places, people and I’m no wizard
so I keep some of it myself.
Part of my heart is buried in People’s Park.
Leave it alone.
It’s the part that will never be reasonable,
never grow up and know better
and do worse.
It’s young;
breathing is sweet to it, and wild and scary.
It remembers meeting soldiers’ bayonets with daffodils.
It remembers tear-gas drifting over swing sets.
It will always be young.
Leave it alone.
I go to the park sometimes to talk to it.
Not often. Time passes
and it doesn’t always recognize me.
But it tells me there are many hearts
buried with it.
All young, all proud of what they made
and fought for. Do not disturb them.
Do not build on them.
Do not explain that times have changed.
Do not tell them it’s for their own good.
They’ve heard that before. They will not believe you.
There are many hearts buried in People’s Park
and a small part of my own as well.
Oh, leave them alone.
Julia Vinograd, All rights reserved 

Julia Vinograd Reading at Moe's Books, Berkeley 2008