Zen Monday: #223

If you're a Zen Monday regular, I don't need to say anything.

If you're not: Zen Monday is the day you tell us what the photo's about, rather than me telling you. The idea is (very loosely) based on the concept of Zen teaching, where a pupil learns through experience rather than through conventional methods like lectures. So please experience the photo and tell us what you've learned.

Some Definitions, Kinda

As long as we're on the subject of the Pasadena Public Library and its coffee shop, Central Grounds, I thought I'd post this shot I took while waiting in line for my coffee the other day. Central Grounds is located on the east patio of the library and as you can see, the patio's open to the sky.

Kinda the definition of a patio, really.

That black-shrouded, sad-looking corner of a building beyond the patio roof is just about the same spot at which I was gazing when I took this photo. I like the shot. But the Los Angeles County Superior Courthouse is not the most popular edifice in town. Perhaps its current face-lift will make it more attractive.

Kinda the definition of a face-lift, really.

I wasn't able to find out anything about the construction on the web. The current job might not actually be a face-lift. When I was there to snap this shot, a man on the construction crew said something about it having more to do with securing the facade to the building than making it pretty.

Like, keeping the facade from falling off? I guess that would keep the streets safe.

Which is kinda the definition of a courthouse, really.

Zen Monday: #55

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 Monday photo, I'll add a label to last week's to identify it if necessary (if I know what it is).

The First Cut Contest: Page 20

"The windows faced Garfield Street and the courthouse, an unadorned concrete rectangle lined with soulless windows."

Thus, with a touch of noir, Pasadena novelist Dianne Emley describes Pasadena's Superior Court building in her Pasadena-centric novel The First Cut. Pasadena Pasadena Pasadena!

Did you know we're having a contest? Read The First Cut, answer a few easy questions about it and win a copy of Cut to the Quick, the second book in Emley's Nan Vining Thrillogy.

Here are the rules, which I first posted last week:
1. Read The First Cut. (It's 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 are posted below.
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 your questions 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.

READY FOR YOUR QUESTIONS? Here we go:
1. What word is written on the refrigerator magnet Nan receives from T.B. Mann?
2. What's the name of the nightclub owned by John Lesley?
3. What song is played at Frankie Lynde's funeral?
4. What does Frankie's voice say to Nan on the CD that Emily records?

And the bonus question:

5. How many times has Nan's mother been married?

I don't know why it's a bonus question. You don't have to answer it to win. I couldn't. Dianne asked me that one and I had no idea. But you get brownie points if you know it. Maybe we'll use it as a tie-breaker.

We're on, people. Let me hear from you, and let's have fun!