Four years ago, 86-year-old Michael Herz and his wife Kate Josephs were living in Maine when, in the clear-eyed aftermath of a powerful psychedelic mushroom trip, they decided to upend their lives, move aboard a boat in the East Bay, and start producing a podcast on the history of the San Francisco Bay. Neither of them had any journalistic experience. “Suddenly moving across the country and living on a boat half the year sounded like a totally reasonable thing to do,” says Josephs, motioning around The Office, their boat, which gently bobs.
The idea, Herz says, had been encouraged by Malcolm Margolin, founder of Heyday Books and co-founder of Bay Nature. Margolin had sent a letter to Herz, an old friend and fellow environmentalist, detailing the concept for an expansive book he wanted to write about the San Francisco Bay. “There are so many ways of seeing the Bay, so many stories to tell: stories of natural history, human history, built environments, industry, recreation transportation, diverse cultures, the arts,” Margolin wrote. “I see views of the Bay that range from satellite photos to microscopic close-ups of the 40,000 living organisms that can be found in one cubic inch of the tidal mud.”
Source: Bay Nature