The Map of Lost Memories

It's been a great week here on the blog. I hope you'll vote for your favorite photo in the Camelot Where You Are contest from this week's entries. The ballot is over there at the top left and you can vote until midnight Sunday. Easy to vote and easy to enter! Each week's winner gets a free copy of Camelot & Vine when it comes out this fall!

I haven't been idle this week, oh no, I've been taking pictures and pursuing my bookish ways, sometimes at the same time. Last weekend I attended a book signing at Curve Line Space in Eagle Rock for The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay. It sounds like a wonderful book, literally! That's Kim on the left, and on the right is Karyn O'Bryant, the actor who voiced the audiobook.

I've mentioned Karyn before, a couple of times. She and I have acted in plays together and we're old friends. Kim and I are new friends. She's going to be a guest author here on PDP soon, so we can all look forward to that. I already like her, and I have to say it was especially lovely of her to invite Karyn to her signing and share the spotlight with her on her big day. Surrounded by the works of Edward Flynn, both Kim and Karyn read from The Map of Lost Memories.

I can't wait to read this book! And uh, hear it. Either way. (Although I admit I'm holding out for the audiobook.) The plot sounds exciting: set in early 20th century Cambodia, two mismatched women set out on a dangerous quest. The author has lived in southeast Asia and knows the land of which she writes.

Take a look at praise and description from Kim's website.

Have you read The Map of Lost Memories? Tell us what you think.

Zen Monday: #43

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what the photo's about.

As I post each new Zen photo, I'll add a label to last week's to identify it if necessary (and if I know what it is).

Update 4/13/09: This was taken in an office building on Colorado Blvd. in Eagle Rock.

The Eagle Rock

I freely admit that the first time I saw the Eagle Rock I thought it got its name because it's shaped like the head of an eagle.

It doesn't take long to find out that the Eagle Rock is named for the shadow cast by the formation in the upper center of the rock, which looks like an eagle with outspread wings. (I still think the rock looks like an eagle head but that either makes me crazy or makes the name doubly appropriate.)

Eagle Rock is also the name of the Los Angeles neighborhood that shares part of Pasadena's western border. To get there, all we have to do is drive or bike west on Colorado Blvd. for a few minutes. Eagle Rock was once its own municipality, incorporated into LA in 1923. The pre-incorporation City Hall and Library still stand on Colorado Blvd.

It's a funky area, with mostly independent businesses—coffee shops, clothing stores, restaurants, and the president's Alma Mater. I'll head over for a new installment in the Coffee Shop Quest one of these days.

Wikipedia's article about Eagle Rock has a photo taken from almost the same spot where I took this one. Their pic shows a deer in the bushes (it'll give you some scale) and a lot of dirt in the foreground, where now there's a lot of asphalt.

Power

These power poles line up alongside the 134 Freeway as you head into (or out of) Eagle Rock. It's a bad idea to stop on the freeway, so I pulled off to take this photo. The poles are actually a creamy color, but the shadows were just right, or just wrong, when I took this.

More on Eagle Rock one of these days. It's Pasadena's neighbor to the immediate west, and it's got a lot goin' on.