One Special Evening

When writers sit and talk about writing it can be so boring! Blah blah structure blah blah grammar blah blah Strunk & White blah blah blah.

But when you've got me, Margaret and Désirée you've got Ideas! Subtext! Conflict, baby!

And you don't just sit there and listen. You participate.

Come on down, over and/or up to San Marino's Crowell Public Library this coming Monday, January 13th and let's have ourselves a blast.

I don't have a photo of the library so here's one of San Marino's Lacy Park. You can tell what a nice place San Marino is. And it's just the other side of the Huntington!



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Home Shopping: Folklore

Because I don't have a Guest Author for you today, I thought I'd tell you about a local author. Well, I'm reaching. He was born in San Marino, but he didn't exactly stick around.

His name was Tristram P. Coffin. He was a professor who studied and wrote about folklore. He died a couple of weeks ago in Rhode Island at the age of 89. (John says this makes him a Ghost Author.) The New York Times' obituary is detailed and interesting.

You can still easily find most of his books. Vroman's will even order one for you. He wrote about folklore in baseball, in holidays and even in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

Speaking of reaching, since Mr. Coffin was born in 1922 I plugged "1922 San Marino" into my search engine and found this house at 1922 California Blvd. in San Marino. It was listed for sale only a couple of days ago at $1,850,000. Do look at the slide show, there's a lot to be seen beyond the hedge.

Let me know if you buy it.

Guest Author: Irene McDermott and The Internet Book of Life

Today's guest author is all about computers--and libraries. Made for each other! Please welcome guest author Irene McDermott.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, the “Book of Life” contains the name of righteous souls. The Internet Book of Life: Use the Web to Grow Richer, Smarter, Healthier, and Happier, is my new book. This book of life lists the names of righteous web resources: reliable, useful sites on a variety of subjects designed to help families in all aspects of daily life.

I am a librarian at the Crowell Public Library in San Marino. People often ask me if the internet will put libraries out of business. When people think of libraries, they think of books. Yet, since the web came on the scene in about 1995, library use has increased by 50%. Many come for the computers and then pick up a best seller on the way out.

So, the internet has been nothing but good for libraries. I know that I owe my career to it. I studied for my master’s degree just as the graphical web emerged, from 1993 to 1995. At an internship at the Getty Institute for the Arts I learned about the web and taught it to the librarians there. The skills that I learned that summer, playing with the baby web, landed me a “cybrarian” gig at the USC, and later, my current job where I not only staff the reference desk but take care of the computers, too.

When my husband became ill with colon cancer in 1998, I used the web to find an experimental treatment that saved his life. Unfortunately, even the latest medical research could not save him from the glioma that took him from us in 2008. Still, we were active partners in the treatments that prolonged and enhanced the quality of his life thanks to timely information that I found on the internet.

A couple of years later, after I felt sufficiently recovered, I turned to an online dating site to find new love, a divorced dad who healed my broken heart.

As a mom, I find the web essential for managing my household. I use it for shopping, recipes, making travel plans, online banking, and even learning how to make repairs around the house. My son has become a search master, using it for school.

In 2002, I spoke to the Library of Congress about reference resources available to librarians on the web. My sister, who accompanied me, insisted that I share these helpful sites with the world. The Internet Book of Life is the result. I hope that the sites and the stories in my book will help families everywhere to save money and live happily.

Keep current with websites from the book on my blog: http://imcdermott.wordpress.com.

Theme Day: Fountains

The first of the month is theme day, and we've got a good one: fountains.

There are many interesting fountains in the Pasadena area. This one's at El Molino Viejo in San Marino. El Molino Viejo was built and operated by Native Americans who lived at Mission San Gabriel in the early nineteenth century.

I was taking pictures for an article for South Pasadena Patch without a thought for the blog. But when the boy ran by (and I just barely caught him) he turned the picture into a theme day photo.

To see what other City Daily Photo bloggers are doing with the theme, check them out here. We're 1340 blogs strong now. That's a lot of international camaraderie.

P.S. If you'll be visiting the Pasadena area, you might want to read my latest article on Patch about the Arroyo Vista Inn.

Literary Lane

It would be tempting to move in at this corner just for cachet. One pictures thatched roofs and stone garden walls overgrown with vining roses. Alas, although this San Marino corner is mere blocks from the Huntington Library and Gardens (a stroll through which evokes images of 19th century Europe), this corner is built with 20th century ranch-style homes, and expensive ones at that. The cachet here is San Marino itself, where the median list price of a home, as of July of this year of all years, was just under two million dollars.

I wonder what Geoffrey Chaucer, the 14th century poet/diplomat, would think of this corner. The guy was no slouch--even Shakespeare studied him. He was accustomed to wealth, not of the ranch-style home kind but of the castles and kings kind. If Chaucer came to town I suppose we could take him to the Huntington, but where else would we go?

Here's a Google map for you.

Parc San Marino

Virginia Jones has two (count 'em, two) daily photo blogs: Birmingham, Alabama Daily Photo, where she posts explorations of her home town, and Paris Through My Lens, where she posts her photographic visions of Paris, a town she and I have both dreamed of living in.

I think Virginia and I both love our home towns or we wouldn't blog about them every day. But we like to dream about Paris. I've never met anyone who's been there who didn't yearn to go back, even if they've been there many times.

Virginia's been there many more times than I have, and she's taken lots of pictures. Her photo of the gate at Paris' Parc Monceau inspired me to post a picture of this often-overlooked gate at the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino. Karin Bugge also posted a photo of this gate in one of my favorite Altadena Hiker posts. All three of us managed to photograph our gates under moody skies. Maybe we're all daydreamers.

My vision of living in Paris involves exploring the ancient streets, gardens and history until I've discovered every inch of the city. This fantasy includes having unlimited funds despite not having a job. I imagine one reason Paris seems so dreamy to those of us who've visited as tourists is precisely because we're on vacation and we're allowing ourselves the leisure to explore.

I'm lucky: blogging about Pasadena gives me not only the opportunity but the motivation to explore Pasadena, and to find hidden treasures like this gate. Next time you're at the Huntington, seek it out.

Eternal Love

The final resting place of Henry Edwards Huntington and his beloved wife Arabella Duval Huntington is one of the most romantic spots in the Pasadena area. Yes, I'm speaking of a grave.

The mausoleum, designed by architect John Russell Pope, is called "a Greek temple dedicated to eternal love." Pope used a similar design later for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Arriving here at the end of a long alley of trees, I am stricken not with sadness but with the beauty of love. How lucky the Huntingtons were to have found each other and to have lived out their lives together. Karin Bugge, the Altadena Hiker, is a docent at the Huntington Library and Gardens. She tells the Huntington love story best. It is a must-read.

If I must die someday then John must, too. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love him every bit as much as Henry loved Arabella. We're as lucky to have found each other as they were, and as happy to live out our lives together. I would like to be buried with my beloved (that would be John) in a spot like this. By that I mean a spot of our own choosing--a private one that has meaning for us, and will commemorate our love for all eternity with a big, honking monument.

Opportunity

Recently I went to a weekend seminar at the Crowell Public Library in San Marino and the seminar leader didn't show up. I had scheduled time on a Saturday, driven all the way down (my god, it must be five whole miles!) and even brought along pen and paper. Guess I should have called first.

In such situations there's always a choice: get angry about my time being wasted or look for the hidden opportunity.

Either choice can make sense depending on the circumstances and I'd be lying if I said I'd never chosen the former. But this situation was loaded with possibilities: a library, pen and paper for starters. And I always have at least one camera with me.

I ended up going for the hidden opportunity. The Crowell Library has its share of photo ops but since it was Saturday I chose to skulk around nearby Henry Huntington Middle School. Something about an empty school takes me back to my own school years. I wandered and dreamed. It was time well spent.

Gold on Lombardy Road

I shot this on Lombardy Road in San Marino before the rain hit. It's probably all mushy now.

I hadn't meant to go that way but I was doubling back to go somewhere else, and figured I'd try a different route than my usual.

Note to self: unusual route = better chance of striking gold.

Magical

The Huntington closes at 4:30 p.m., so usually you leave during daylight. But when John and I took the curator tour of the new exhibit, Beautiful Science, at the Dibner Hall of the History of Science at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (mouthful! breathe!) we got to stay late. The Huntington is magical anytime, but especially after dark.

Collis P. Huntington was tireless at making things and money. He's also said to have been a jerk. When Collis died he left his railroad fortune to his nephew. Henry soon began amassing a collection of irreplaceable books and art. Then he married Arabella Huntington, his uncle's widow, who was quite the collector herself.

Arabella had a son and she left him well off. But the Huntingtons left the bulk of their fortune to the rest of us. We inherited four art galleries, fourteen gardens, a place of world-reknowned scholarly study and - well, this part is mine - a collection of early Shakespeare editions including one of the few extant First Folios. The first time I saw it I cried.

When I studied one summer at the British/American Drama Academy at Oxford, some of my teachers were members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Our teachers asked the Bodleian Library to show us their First Folio and the library officials refused. Not even a peek. Snobs.

The Folio at the Huntington is under special glass so even though it's mine I can't touch it. But I can see it. So can you.

This is what Henry and Arabella did for us. It's what the current caretakers of the Huntington do for us every day. And the legacy grows.

Magical.

Beautiful Science 2

I have to show you one more book from the Beautiful Science exhibit at the Huntington.

I took other pictures. The light bulb shot didn't turn out so well (sorry, d53, I guess you'll have to go see them in person). And the red room - well, it's red. It's not orange. I know, excuses. But the book pics are fine, plus I love this one. Isn't it - what's the word - quaint?

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Dan Lewis, the Huntington's Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science and Technology, put together this exhibit called Beautiful Science. John and I went to the curator's tour the other night. Mr. Lewis is the guy who wrote the cards perched next to the various books and items in the exhibit, so he's the guy who wrote this:

"The first illustrated medical text ever printed, this collection of treatises covers a broad spectrum of medieval European knowledge and practice. This scene shows anatomist Mondino dei Liuzzi giving a lesson while a cadaver is dissected. The legality of dissection in medieval Europe varied from time to time and place to place. When this work was written, dissection was still illegal in much of Europe, so illustrations showing anatomical structure were especially valuable to the many medical practitioners who could not study it firsthand."

I managed to cut off the top of the card so I don't know if this book is Andreas Vesalius’ treatise on human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (1543), described on the Huntington's website. But it could be, and if not, okay, well that's in the exhibit, too.

Beautiful Science

John and I splurged on an evening out the other night. We planned ahead, made reservations and bought tickets for a special event: the curator tour of a new permanent exhibit at the Huntington Library. It's called Beautiful Science: Ideas that Changed the World.

Dan Lewis, the Huntington's Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science and Technology, somehow got this wacky idea that science is beautiful. He went about putting together an exhibit of books and objects significant to the history of science as well as beautiful in and of themselves. Lewis gave an introductory talk to the 20 of us who were lucky enough to have made reservations early. Then he let us loose.

The Huntington Library already owned a vast collection of books relating to the history of science when, in 2006, it received the donation of the 67,000-volume Burndy Library from the Dibner family of Connecticut. This new exhibit features some of the most significant books and manuscripts of the now-combined collection (think Edwin Hubble's copy of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus), augmented by other fun stuff - like a prism experiment, antique medical models and the coolest collection of light bulbs I've ever seen.

Not that I've seen a lot of light bulb collections. But!

I love books, especially rare and ancient ones. I marvelled at 13th century astronomy books. I gaped at the sight of at least a hundred volumes of Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species in different languages and editions, lined up in a special case in a red room. I liked the optics room with its twinkly lights and I think kids will especially love it. But my favorite was the section on medicine and childbirth, with its gruesomely beautiful texts and drawings from the days when medicine was first breaking taboos to learn the workings of the human body.

The 16th century astronomy book above has colorful moving dials for measuring the heavens. Behind it is a mural created specifically for the exhibit, depicting the view you'd see if no wall separated you from a San Gabriel Valley night without light pollution - something like what Hale and Einstein might have seen over 75 years ago.

More pics tomorrow.

Zen Monday: #22

On Zen Monday you experience the photo and tell me what it's about, rather than me telling you what to experience from viewing it.
There's no question or answer, no right or wrong. If the photo evokes something in you, that's all it is.

Fire in the Sky

With three wildfires burning in the vicinity, our air has had an odd feel to it lately. On the worst days we could smell it. Mostly though, the air just feels close and hot. Not as close and hot as it feels to the firefighters. By the way, they have all the local fires contained now, and the cause found for at least one.

We can't complain here in Pasadena - I mean, the fire's not burning here. We've been warned, though. Fire season has only begun, so people are clearing dry brush and being careful. It's when the Santa Ana winds kick up that folks have to be the most vigilant.

In my part of town we have plenty of asphalt, and I tend to think that's a decent firebreak. But we should probably clean our gutters just in case.

In San Marino the other night, particles in the sky produced a stunning sunset.

A Taste of San Marino

Yesterday I stopped to grab a sandwich at the Fresh Gourmet on Huntington Drive in San Marino. I couldn't resist a shot of these bicycles parked out front. I want the turquoise one.

I've recently begun rehearsals for The Mystery Plays at the Still Speaking Theatre in San Marino. The rehearsal period is a busy time, so I have a feeling we'll be seeing more San Marino shots here for a while.

The Real Thing

The Huntington. If you live around here you've probably been there—dragged through the galleries on a school trip as a kid or minding your manners in the tea room as an adult. If you're like me you go as often as you can to enjoy the gardens, galleries and exhibits. When blogger Katie of Katiefornia visited last week, our first stop was the Huntington. She and I both love to take photos, so I can promise you more to come.

We have Henry E. Huntington, Arabella Huntington and I suppose even Collis Huntington to thank for it all, as well as those who've come after them to manage the institution. It's only as far as San Marino, the community bordering Pasadena to the south. Yet the Huntington feels to me like a taste of Europe, Asia, the wide world. It's not the real thing, only a reproduction, but a day there feeds my wanderlust, if only briefly.

The Japanese Garden, pictured above, was used in a scene in Memoirs of a Geisha. You have to be as big as a movie studio to use the Huntington for your event. As perfect as it would be they don't hold weddings or private parties there. They'd be doing it all the time, wouldn't they? No, no, no. The Huntington is for the people.

Except the library. If you want to get an up-close look at a First Folio of Shakespeare or perhaps Benjamin Franklin's autograph autobiography, you must be a "qualified scholar." But there's always a library exhibit, so the unqualified scholars among us can occasionally view these treasures through glass. I've seen Galileo's handwriting only inches from my face. Not a reproduction. No, no, no. The real thing.

Wealth and Convenience

Pasadena's big on walking tours. Yesterday my friend and I strolled through one of the mansion districts in San Marino, our sunny neighbor to the south. Even a fierce look from a palace guard couldn't have soured our fun.

O! San Marino! Home of the Huntington Library and Gardens! Need I say more? Well, maybe a little.

When I have a mansion it'll be in San Marino, because there I'll have more room and more privacy than in Beverly Hills. I'll have access to the Old Mill, the new library and Lacy Park. And did I mention the Huntington?

And the height of all mansion conveniences: I'll have Pasadena right next door.