Six, Day One

First things first! You should be able to see the Tournament of Roses Parade right here. We'll chat after the parade.

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I hope you enjoyed the parade! I'll add links later as I find them.
Here's one already! Dive is watching the Parade in Norwich, England.

The first of the year is traditionally a theme day for City Daily Photo. In the past we've shared our "best photo of the year." We're skipping that today and will do a different theme later in the month. I'll do a little "best of" retrospective tomorrow.

For now, here's a favorite picture I haven't posted before. I took it in December of 2008, while Boz and I were gallivanting about in the Lower Arroyo near the Colorado Street Bridge. I began this blog on January 1, 2008, which means today marks five years of daily blogging.

I am nuts.

You get it down to a system, but it's still nuts.

Rewarding, but nuts.

Thank you for visiting and commenting, for your support and encouragement. I wish you the happiest new year. Make every day better than the last.

The Bridge Endures

It can't hurt to post a photo of the Colorado Street Bridge, can it? This one's not perfectly framed, but I wanted a shot of that climbing, clinging vine. I don't know if the vine's still there; I took this shot quite a while ago. But we've had cloudy days of late, so it's a fitting picture.

There will be a Bridge party this year, on July 14th. Watch the Pasadena Heritage website for information. If you haven't attended one of these parties, give it a try. Though it gets crowded there's something magical about being able to hang out on a major thoroughfare while you drink a locally-brewed beer and listen to music. They close the road to vehicles and you can walk across, gaze out over the Arroyo and enjoy one of Pasadena's loveliest landmarks.

If I'm not mistaken, one of the reasons for the founding of Pasadena Heritage was to preserve this very bridge. Thanks to them, the bridge will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2013. This year, we're going to party like it's 99.

La Casita del Arroyo

That's the far west end of the historic Colorado Street Bridge out across the way. Between us and it lies Lower Arroyo Park. The Arroyo Seco runs deep here, with the trees you see growing tall from its depths and water, hikers, runners, dogs and horses you don't see coursing through it.

We're looking out of a window from La Casita Del Arroyo, a Pasadena Cultural Heritage Landmark "designed in 1932 by Architect Myron Hunt and built by unemployed workers during the depression," according to Pasadena Public Works.

You can rent La Casita, did you know that? I don't know this stuff until I want to post a picture. I have to do the research. I'm not a fountain of knowledge (there, now I've said it). I could guess about it, but then we'd be calling the blog Pasadena Daily Whatever (which has a nice ring to it on my lazy days).

If you have your event at La Casita you'll have some spectacular views, not least of which is the bridge at night. If you have your event during the day, you may have a hiker or two stopping by the buffet. But whenever you have it, you'll have it with a helping of history.

Theme Day: The color green

I admit this one had me stumped.

Pasadena just doesn't have much green. We have other things, like hiking trails...

...famous bridges...

...and the occasional spot to sit and enjoy it all.

But there's not a whole lot of green.

We have other colors, of course.

Orange, for example...

...red...

...pink...

...and even bleu.

But I don't see a lot of green around here. 

Wait.

There is one thing. One Pasadena thing that's green.

Our street signs. 

Whew.


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Parker-Mayberry Bridge

The Parker-Mayberry Bridge is a small, graceful bridge under the colossal, graceful and more famous Colorado Street Bridge. The Parker-Mayberry doesn't have a Wikipedia page, nor do many links point in its direction. Scroll down to the second photo in this post by Pasadena Public Information Officer Ann Erdman to see how the two bridges compare in size.

The Parker-Mayberry Bridge was built in 1916, three years after the Colorado Street Bridge. I had thought it was the older of the two, but no. The earlier structures on this spot in the Arroyo Seco were the Scoville Dam and Bridge. "Remnants of the early construction can still be found there," according to the Arroyo Seco Foundation.

The Parker-Mayberry is closed to automobile traffic, but you can approach it on foot. While walking in the Lower Arroyo Park, continue north on the west side of the the wash past the footbridge and cross under the Parker-Mayberry and Colorado Street Bridges. Soon you'll be above the water where I took this picture early in my blogging career. From here you can walk onto the Parker-Mayberry Bridge. Behind you there's stonework; likely the remnants the Arroyo Seco Foundation refers to.

Dogs on leash. Look out for poison oak. Let me know what you find.

Impasse

I walked out onto the Colorado Street Bridge yesterday to see a memorial. I had driven by earlier and seen flowers and balloons, so I went back on foot. Knowing someone had jumped from the bridge on April 12th, I thought it might be a tribute for him.

But now I don't know. Near where the balloons had become stuck in the cement columns, someone had taped a piece of paper. On the paper were photos of a young man who jumped a year ago, and a poem, and words of love and sorrow.

I took pictures of the memorial, or memorials. Then I sat for a while looking out over the Arroyo.

I decided not to post the pictures. But you could go and spend a few moments with this small tribute.

Traffic

It's bad enough to have a long day. But when your long day is topped with a bumper-to-bumper commute on what's laughingly called a "freeway," it feels like the world has it in for you.

I had one of those days yesterday. It wore me out. When I got to the Colorado Street Bridge I was glad to be home (and no, I didn't take this picture during a Friday rush hour).

I used to be a radio traffic reporter. People would call in to ask about accidents, rules of the road, the back-up on the 605. Often they aired their traffic frustrations to me and I reminded them, as I reminded myself yesterday, that if you're not involved in the accident that created the backup you're sitting in, then someone out there is having a much worse day than you are.

Plus how often do you get to just sit and listen to the news? Yesterday was a fine day for that.

Theme Day: Public Transportation

(Tomorrow will be Zen Tuesday)

 

 

photo courtesy of Pasadena Adjacent

If you live in Pasadena you've seen this artfully decorated bus. Take a look at all the Pasadena icons: starting at left, you see the Thinker (one of Rodin's at the Norton Simon Museum), then the Colorado Street Bridge and the LA River. Next, City Hall in a bed of roses (we're the Rose City), the bell tower at St. Andrew, Pacific Asia Museum, a bunch of brands and...a bull.

Okay.

We are blessed at Pasadena Daily Photo today because, thanks to Pasadena Adjacent, we have scans of the original artwork that led to this design. How did she get hold of this work, you ask? Easy. Pasadena Adjacent, aka PA, created the art on this bus. Cool, huh? She was kind enough to take me through a little bit of the process.

Here's a scan of an early proposed design:

Left to right: PA started with the tile from the Royal Laundry on South Raymond. Next, parakeets. I didn't know this, but PA says there used to be parakeets (wholly different from our famous parrots) in the Arroyo Seco near where Busch Gardens used to be. (PA should know, she grew up here.) Then you have the bridge and the river.

The portrait of the two women refers to one of the more interesting stories from the Colorado Street Bridge's dark side, aka "Suicide Bridge." "...a despondent mother threw her baby girl over the railing on May 1, 1937. She then followed her into the depths of the canyon. Though the mother died, her child miraculously survived."

I was going to say "one of the more tragic stories," but they're all tragic.

Then we have the brands and the...bull.

You may be aware that some folks in Pasadena don't like calling our bridge "Suicide Bridge." The idea of commemorating a suicide attempt on the side of a bus didn't sit well with the bus art people. But they liked PA's work so they sent her back to the (literal) drawing board. I don't know why the tile and the parakeets were dropped--not iconic enough?

PA returned with this:

Now we're getting there! You see our Thinker on the left, and the bridge, City Hall in its bed of roses, St. Andrew's Tower and the Pacific Asia Museum. On the right we have a cut-out of a Rose Bowl Queen. Totally iconic Pasadena.

PA's idea was to include under the queen's crown a picture of Dr. Kate Hutton, aka "the earthquake lady." See the seismograph running along the length of the San Gabriel Mountains in the background? Dr. Hutton, a Caltech seismologist, is a local fixture on the news whenever there's earthquake activity. Queen Kate's scepter is a parking meter. PA says parking meters were new in town (it was 1994) and folks weren't too happy about them. I guess before then you could park pretty much anywhere in Pasadena for free.

The bus art people didn't want earthquakes or suicide or parking meter jokes.

Fine. PA threw the bull back in.

What's up with the brands and the bull?

PA had done her research. The brands are not about the bull, as I had assumed. They're the brands of of the different California missions. The bull represents the Indiana Colony, the first Anglos to settle Pasadena, some of whom were cattle ranchers.

And PA did manage to inject a bit of humor into the design: the Thinker is soaking his toes in the Los Angeles River.

This has been a fun post to put together, thanks to Pasadena Adjacent. Let's give her a big hand! She's an immensely talented artist and Pasadena is lucky to have her. Thank you, PA!

Update: I'm now at liberty to tell you that Pasadena Adjacent's name is Elizabeth Garrison. She and her partner Victor Henderson have created numerous works of public art around southern California. Tash did a great post about their work at Fire Station #5 in Westchester.

City Daily Photo is now 1299 blogs strong! Blogs all over the world are participating in today's theme day. Check them out.

The Bridge is Back

Do I recall we didn't have the Colorado Street Bridge party last year? Sure enough. The 2009 event was canceled due to budget cuts. Well, hallelujah! It's back.

Food, music, food, people, fun for kids and more food all begin at 6pm on Saturday night--that's tomorrow, July 10th. Discounted advance tickets are available until 5pm today. Sponsored by Pasadena Heritage, the party is a unique opportunity to hang out on the bridge without traffic--auto traffic, that is. There will be plenty of people traffic, I guarantee. And the extra information link at the bottom of the event page warns of other traffic as well: there's a soccer game at the Rose Bowl tomorrow night (what a great place for a soccer game!), so be forewarned.

Have a good time and take pictures!

Bridge Benefits

Every year--except this year--Pasadena Heritage holds a fund-raising party on the Colorado Street Bridge. But due to the "challenging economic times," this year's party had to be canceled.

That doesn't mean you can't celebrate the bridge, and raise funds for Pasadena Heritage as well.

Today is Bridge Benefit Day at these local eateries who support Pasadena Heritage:
Big Mama's Rib Shack
Los Tacos
Cha Da Thai
Robin's Restaurant
Chandra Thai

Can't spare the bucks to eat out tonight? A walk in Lower Arroyo Park is free.

Eric Merrell

What could be more bucolic, more artsy, more Seurat than coming across a painter in the Arroyo Seco, practically in the shadow of the Colorado Street Bridge?

John and I were walking with Boz when we saw Eric Merrell's umbrella. I just had to go find out what he was painting. But we'd caught him between paintings, and he was peering at a blank canvas. Thinking. Looking around. Checking out the light.

He was nice enough to let me take photos, but an artist has a process and I didn't want to bother him for long. We exchanged urls, as gentlefolk do in polite society.

Here's Eric's outstanding website. Here's Eric's thoughtful blog.

On the website, you'll see he's currently part of a show at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, and he opens at the Addison Art Gallery in Orleans, MA on Valentine's Day (break a leg, Eric!). Right here in Pasadena we can get a look at his works from April 26th to May 17th at the California Art Club's 98th Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

I think I'll just go to that.

Below, the painter contemplates his next masterwork.

First Cut Contest: The Winners

We have 'em! Three triumphant winners in The First Cut Contest. It's historical!

Contest entrants read The First Cut by Pasadena author Dianne Emley, and correctly answered five questions about the novel. Their prize, which is on its way to them, is a copy of the second book in Emley's Nan Vining Thrillogy, courtesy of Dianne Emley. The book's title is Cut to the Quick and it's in stores now. The third book, The Deepest Cut, goes on sale February 24th. Dianne will be signing copies of The Deepest Cut at Vroman's on Colorado Blvd. at 7PM February 25th, so come pick up a signed copy! I'll be there taking pictures. (Or check out her tour schedule, she might be coming to your town.)

And now the winners (drum roll)! In order of receipt of entry, they are:
Katie of Katiefornia in Berkeley, California!
Keith of Gem City Images in Monrovia, California!
and Barbara who doesn't blog (oh, the sanity!) in Pasadena, California!

Here are the questions with the correct answers:
1. What word is written on the refrigerator magnet Nan receives from T.B. Mann?
"pearl"
2. What's the name of the nightclub owned by John Lesley?
Reign
3. What song is played at Frankie Lynde's funeral?
The Beach Boys' "California Girls"
4. What does Frankie's voice say to Nan on the CD that Emily records?
"Wear the pearls. He gave them to you. Wear the pearls."
And the bonus question, which no one had to answer but all three winners did:
5. How many times has Nan's mother been married?
four

Thank you to all the participants!

The only loser was Frankie Lynde, whose body was found above the stone wall beneath the west end of the Colorado Street Bridge. Good thing Frankie's fictional.

For my first such venture there was no better choice than The First Cut. What could be more perfect for Pasadena Daily Photo than a novel starring a Pasadena Police detective, set in Pasadena, by a Pasadena author? I'm extremely grateful to Dianne Emley for her participation. She's been gracious, generous and fun all along.

They would soon put Frankie's casket into the ground. Her case files would go into storage, eventually buried beneath files and more files until the case of Frances Ann Lynde was forgotten. Vining and Frankie had made the same journey. They were sisters, bound by their calling, by violence and their own spilled blood. Vining had made it back.

The First Cut Contest: The Fun Begins

In Dianne Emley's thriller The First Cut, the body of LAPD Officer Frankie Lynde is found beneath the Colorado Street Bridge. And no, she didn't jump.

A job for the LAPD? Nope. The bridge is Pasadena territory.

It's the first day back on the job for Emley's heroine, PPD Detective Nan Vining. Vining's had some time off after a close call of her own and her attacker is still out there, waiting. In tracking down Frankie's killer Nan feels more than sympathy for the dead officer. She can almost hear Frankie's voice. Or maybe what she hears is real.

Today The First Cut is released in paperback. So I'm trying something new: A CONTEST! And you don't have to be in Pasadena to play.

Here are the rules:
1. Read The First Cut (available at Vroman's or your favorite book store). You can read a description of the book on Dianne's website.
2. Answer four easy questions about the book, which I'll post January 6th.
3. Email your answers to me (link at upper left of blog) by the January 27th deadline.
4. Feel free to email me any questions you have about the contest, or post them in the comments section.

Three winners will be drawn from the correct entries. Each will win a copy of the second book in the Nan Vining Thrillogy! It's called Cut to the Quick, and it'll be released as a paperback original on January 27th.

Just for fun, throughout the month of January I'll post photos from Pasadena locations mentioned in the book. I'll even take requests (or make the attempt) as long as you send me the page number. (Enlarge the photo above to see where the body was found in The First Cut.)

I plan to do more features with other local writers in 2009. If you're a Pasadena author who'd like to try an interactive something on the blog, let's talk.

I love writers, writing, books and Pasadena, so what could be better than a Pasadena writer who set her story in Pasadena? Many thanks to Dianne for her participation and support!

Winter Bird

Okay, my horticulturalites, what are these berries? Should I eat them? Should Boz?

They put me in mind of grade school. I liked school all right, especially drama, art, reading and French. But in other subjects my mind often wandered and I watched Cedar Waxwings outside the classroom window. There must have been berries like these growing there. Otherwise why would berries in the Arroyo Seco make me think of Cedar Waxwings and grade school in Illinois?

The holidays tend to make me nostalgic. Maybe that's all it is.

I looked up Cedar Waxwings online. I thought I remembered them snatching those red berries from snowy branches. But that's unlikely. Cedar Waxwings are rarely spotted in northern Illinois in winter, except perhaps in memory.

Theme Day: Books

Dianne Emley is not a book. You can probably tell from the picture.

Emley writes books, though, and I was honored when she agreed to be my theme day photo. Despite her decidedly ungritty appearance, she's the author of "gritty, intense and hard-edged" detective novels: the best-selling The First Cut, first published in 2006 and due out in paperback December 30th; Cut to the Quick, a paperback original on sale January 27th, and The Deepest Cut, the hardcover conclusion to "the Nan Vining trilogy," in stores February 24th. Together they're a thrillogy centered on detective Nan Vining of the Pasadena Police Department.

Like her heroine, Emley lives in Pasadena. I wanted to meet her because of that and because it's inspiring to meet a fellow writer who's achieved success. Plus I read the first chapter of The First Cut on Dianne's website, and it wowed me. Without a single wasted syllable, she makes every word move the story forward. The ability to do that is something many writers envy. Warning: this is not namby-pamby stuff. (Can we still say "namby-pamby" in the 21st Century?)

As Dianne and I walked in the Arroyo she told me she likens the work of a writer to that of an Olympic athlete. You have good days and bad, but you have to work every day. When you're defeated you get back to it. When you win, you know it's the work you've put in that gives you your power. "Writing is an obsession," she says, "and you have to bring a level of obsession to it to make the stories come alive."

Dianne gave me a copy of The First Cut (yay!). I'm not finished with it yet but I will be soon - I can't put it down, and I won't have to wait long for the next two. I've already marked my calendar for the launch of The Deepest Cut at Vroman's on February 25th.

Pasadena boasts many published authors. Nonfiction writer Weston Dewalt recently made headlines when he helped LAPD detectives crack a child serial murder case. Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen creates wonderful books for kids. Katherine Shirek Doughtie writes about men, midlife and motherhood in her essay collection Aphrodite in Jeans. There are more. I hope to meet them all.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants in the City Daily Photo Blogs theme day!

Form

It doesn't cross a river. It's not a train trestle. Its main purpose is to carry automobile traffic across a deep arroyo, the Arroyo Seco, from Pasadena to Los Angeles and vice versa. I believe its secondary purpose is to be beautiful.

Yet I never tire of the Colorado Street Bridge. I don't get tired of photographing it, crossing it or gazing at it. In fact when it's in my view I can't take my eyes off it. It's one of the prettiest bridges I've ever seen.

Some have said that form must follow function, but to follow it exclusively is to be deprived of opportunity for beauty. I'm a fan of the odd superfluous detail, myself.

Bridge, Night

It is rare to be alone on the Colorado Street Bridge.
To be on it alone at night is temptation
to leave your shoes
to leave the car
to walk.
Where would you go?
Would you slip tiptoe through neighborhoods west or east, spy on the wealthy, risk dobermans and insecurity guards?
Or would you slink down damp embankment moss into the dark underneath?
Trolls might be real.

A car comes. So. Temptation's moment passes. You exhale and accelerate.

Colorado Street Bridge At Night

Maybe not my definitive shot, but I do like this one. Taken at the east end of the bridge, July 19th 2008.

Zen Monday: Crime Scene

East end of the Colorado Street Bridge, just off the walkway.

Zen Monday is the day you tell me what the photo's about, rather than me telling you. While on vacation I may not be willing or able to respond quickly to comments.

Chambers' Nighttime Chambers

I took this photo of the Richard H. Chambers U.S. Court of Appeals Building the same day as yesterday's, an hour or two later, while at the annual Colorado Street Bridge party.

I couldn't find much on the web about Richard H. Chambers himself, except that he was the judge whose idea it was to bring a Federal courthouse to Pasadena. There's plenty of information about the building, however. Here's a nice gloss on the place, with photos and information. Even a map.

I'm currently on vacation, so responding to comments may happen in an untimely fashion, which means I may not be quick about it and I'll probably be wearing something that's way out of date.