Wiggle room

After a photo appeared with my column of the platter of fried worms I had in Mexico City…

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…I took my car to my mechanic in Montclair for an oil change. He and his wife welcomed me back from Mexico with a surprise: a bowl of worms. Of the Gummi variety, on a bed of crushed Oreos. I have the weirdest — but nicest — readers.

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Liz Taylor in Upland, San Dimas

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My Sunday column is about the two movies that Elizabeth Taylor is known to have filmed in part in the Inland Valley: “The Sandpiper” in San Dimas in 1964 and “Sweet Bird of Youth” in Upland in 1989.

The photo at left of Taylor and Charles Bronson is taken from the Poly Post’s coverage of “The Sandpiper” filming, which took place at the Pomona college’s San Dimas campus.

For posterity’s sake, below you can find thumbnail views of 1964 articles from the Pomona Progress-Bulletin (Oct. 1) and the Poly Post (Oct. 2) about “The Sandpiper” and two 1989 articles (April 30 and May 12) from the Ontario Daily Report about “Sweet Bird of Youth.” Click on the thumbnails for a large, readable view.

And a shout-out to Bruce Guter and Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Public Library and Gena Sizoo of the Upland Public Library for finding and scanning the articles for me.

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Restaurant of the Week: Corner Deli

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Corner Deli, 980 N. Ontario Mills Drive (at Rochester), Ontario

I hadn’t heard of the Corner Deli until reader David Paniagua Jr. tipped me off. It’s in the strip center with Tokyo Tokyo and Rubio’s on the outskirts of Ontario Mills. Reviewers on Yelp gave the place high marks too. I had lunch there recently with a colleague.

Corner Deli opened in fall 2010 and was a bustling place on a weekday lunch. It has deli basics (pastrami, salami, ham, turkey) and many hot sandwiches, as well as soup and salads. It’s Korean-owned and offers a few unusual items.

I had the Korean BBQ sandwich ($6.59), featuring sliced, marinated ribeye grilled with cabbage and onions with Asian slaw on a roll. Excellent. My friend had the Seoul Bird ($5.99), with turkey, Asian slaw, tomato, provolone cheese on a wheat roll. He liked it.

Corner Deli may be one of the better sandwich shops in the valley. From now on, I’m eating where David Paniagua Jr. eats.

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‘The Freshman’

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Thursday night’s movie in my “College Daze” series at the Ontario library is Harold Lloyd’s 1925 gem, “The Freshman.” Lloyd plays a naive freshman, Harold Lamb, who is pranked by his entire college into thinking he’s popular. The part where he does a little dance when greeting people is a gas.

Join us for the 6:30 p.m. screening at the library, 215 E. C St. And yes, it’s free.

Here’s the Wikipedia page. Be careful not to read much of the plot description! Most of the YouTube clips are 10 minutes, but here’s a short, charming scene.

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Wedding/alarm bells

At a wedding on Saturday, five minutes past the time for it to start, the minister went to the microphone and began, “I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but…” — instantaneously alarming everyone.

The rest of the sentence: “…the shuttle from the hotel has been delayed and we’re waiting for a few more people.” Uh, okay.

Two friends and I rolled our eyes and whispered back and forth with more exciting endings for that sentence.

Want to give it a try? Minister at wedding: “I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but…”

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Eating Mexico

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Lesley Tellez, right, pauses by a sidewalk taco stand in Mexico City with Connie Walker of Minneapolis during one of Tellez’s Eat Mexico tours.

Today’s post ties in with my Friday column about Mexico City food blogger and tour guide Lesley Tellez, a former Rancho Cucamonga resident. (There’s a local angle no matter where you go.)

If you’d like to know more about her, you can find her blog The Mija Chronicles here and her Eat Mexico tour site here. TripAdvisor reviews are here.

Her tips about eating on the street are here and were summarized here by the LA Times. And you can read here about the Global Street Food event in Santa Monica in which she will participate.

OK, I”m all linked out. Let’s go to the photos.

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The first photo of my entire trip, this is a woman at a tianguis who makes tlacoyos as you watch.

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A stop on Tellez’s street-food tour, this is a woman on a streetcorner who makes atole (a warm, corn-based beverage, perfect for breakfast) and tamales. We had the chicken.

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From a second stand we got a strawberry tamale. “You won’t find pink tamales in the States,” Tellez said.

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Burritos aren’t a common Mexico City item, but here’s a stand that specializes in them. The cook puts on a show for customers in line. Ours had squash blossoms, onions and tomatoes.

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‘Horse Feathers’

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This 1932 Marx Brothers classic is the first of my four-movie “College Daze” series at the Ontario library, 215 E. C St. We’re screening it at 6:30 p.m. tonight. Learn more about the movie on its Wikipedia page.

More fun, though, is the clip below of Groucho, as Huxley College’s new president, singing his anthem of negativity, “I’m Against It.” (Don’t mind the Spanish Portuguese subtitles; this version has better sound than the clip without them.)

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Urge the Claremonter of your choice to head on in

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This sign has been stopping people in their tracks at Yale and Second in the Claremont Village in recent weeks. I saw a chuckling passerby take a photo of it on a recent afternoon and decided to take one myself. It’s outside the Diamond Center and the fine print refers to the store’s policy of a free evaluation of the head of any diamond ring.

* Owner Ray Lantz emailed to say: “It’s amazing how many people comment on, photograph or walk in because of the sign. We never thought bringing attention to jewelry maintenance would be so fun.”

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