‘World War Z’ and Claremont

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Careful readers of the book “World War Z” have noted one incident in the war against zombies takes place at the Claremont Colleges. In full:

“Just outside of Greater Los Angeles, in a town called Claremont, are five colleges – Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps, Harvey Mudd and Claremont McKenna College. At the start of the Great Panic, when everyone else was literally running for the hills, three hundred college students chose to make a stand. They turned the Women’s College at Scripps into something resembling a medieval city. They got their supplies from the other campuses; their weapons were a mix of gardening tools and ROTC rifles. They planted gardens, dug wells, fortified an already existing wall. While the mountains burned behind them, and the surrounding suburbs descended into violence, those 300 kids held off 10,000 zombies! Ten thousand over the course of four months, until the Inland Empire could finally be purified. We were lucky to get there just at the tail end, just in time to see the last of the undead fall, as cheering students and soldiers linked up under the oversized, homemade Old Glory fluttering from the Pomona bell tower.”

Max Brooks, author of the 2006 novel, is a 1994 Pitzer graduate, and he gave the college’s 2011 commencement. A Claremont McKenna College writeup tells the whole story and links to a video of his speech.

The movie version, starring Brad Pitt (presumably not as a zombie) and probably not featuring the Claremont Colleges, is due in theaters Friday.

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Don’t forget to TAP

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Been on Metrolink recently? The trains have glitzy new tickets, and starting today, you’ll need to tap them on most subway turnstiles to continue your trip in L.A. Turnstiles at Union Station will finally be locked, 13 years after they were installed. (I worry they’re rushing into things.)

This is a good time to remind riders, or would-be riders, that your Metrolink ticket is good for unlimited transfers on rail and most bus lines in L.A. County. In other words, your trip doesn’t have to stop at Union Station.

Pretty amazing to me that a tiny chip embedded in a paper ticket can activate a sensor on a subway turnstile, but it does, because I’ve tried it a few times recently even when I didn’t have to tap. This story has more details.

Metro, which is a separate agency from Metrolink, sells plastic TAP cards (that stands for Transit Access Pass), which replace paper tickets on non-Metrolink travel, i.e., subway, light rail or bus-only trips. For instance, if you drove to Pasadena and took the Gold Line, you’d use a TAP card. Metrolink had been the primary holdout from Metro’s TAP system, but no longer.

In other transit news, Metrolink fares are going up 5 percent on July 1. Here’s the press release. The Weekend Pass, instituted in 2011, will also see a change: It’s still $10, but it will be good for one day only, not all weekend. Well, you knew that was too good a deal to last. Evidently only 15 percent of riders used the pass more than one day, so it won’t crimp too many people, but it will crimp me.

Any reactions to any of the above?

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Despite retirement, the music won’t stop for Jack Mercer

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Above, Jack Mercer reads a farewell during Monday’s Ontario Show Band concert, seen below.

On Monday I attended a concert by the Ontario Show Band, the city’s community band, the last for founding director Jack Mercer, who is retiring (although he swears he’ll still be involved). You can read about it in Wednesday’s column. Feel free to comment here about Jack or the band.

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Where’s the visitors bureau?

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Some scenes defy easy explanation. Stopped at a red light at Central and Foothill in Upland on Monday morning, I couldn’t help but notice a woman in yellow, pink and lavender, a hat and an umbrella, waiting to cross Central eastward with a rolling piece of luggage and a cutesy Pikachu (from “Pokemon”) backpack.

Perhaps she came from the homeless encampment a few blocks to the southwest. Or maybe she was visiting from Claremont. She certainly was in an unusual location to be rolling luggage, as if she just got off a plane. Does Cable now have passenger service?

I snapped a picture out my car window and, when the light changed, moved along. So did she.

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‘Politics of Love’ movie trailer features downtown Pomona

“Politics of Love” is an independent romantic comedy about two people on opposite sides of the McCain-Obama presidential campaign in 2008. Much of the movie was filmed in Pomona. It had a very short theatrical release but I believe it can be purchased online. You can watch the trailer above.

The Masonic Lodge is featured prominently (with a “McCain-Palin” banner), Trinity Methodist Church shows up, as do one or more homes in Lincoln Park, and is that the Western University campus at one point?

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Reading ‘Ulysses’ requires a heroic effort

In honor of Bloomsday, today’s column is about James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” which I recently read.

To update the column, a handful of us are either meeting at my friend Dustin’s house, or taking in the Bloomsday event at Westwood’s Hammer Museum. If you’re curious to know more, the “Ulysses” Wikipedia entry is a good introduction, and this piece from The Economist on why the book matters, and why you really do have time to read it, is short and entertaining.

Incidentally, I have to point out that the book has references to Leopold and Molly Bloom’s previous apartment on “Ontario terrace,” and there’s also a reference to “upland hay.” Nothing about the goddess Pomona, though.

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No column (sigh)

Our newspaper chain’s “content management system” was offline Thursday, and virtually offline Wednesday, which made producing the last two issues a challenge. It doesn’t seem to be back up today.

I had an items column more than half-written prior to all that, but I couldn’t access it, nor did I think I could recreate it from memory and scattered notes. Thus, no column today. It was all the editors could do to get a newspaper out, so my column’s absence wasn’t an issue. An editor managed to infiltrate the system and retrieve that column yesterday afternoon, after my deadline, as well as my draft of Sunday’s column, and emailed them to me.

It’s enough to make you wonder if we wouldn’t be better off returning to the typewriter era, when all reporters had to worry about was typewriter ribbons and correction fluid. (And their livers and lungs.)

I busied myself Wednesday writing blog posts ahead, and on Thursday by writing items on my desktop and replying to emails. In a way, I’m now a little ahead for a change, even though in another way I feel behind.

So, sorry for missing a day, and cross your fingers for Sunday’s column.

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Restaurant of the Week: Tony’s French Dips

Tony’s Famous French Dips, 986 E. 2nd St. (at San Antonio), Pomona

It’s called Tony’s Famous French Dips, but chances are you’ve never heard of it. Located in an unassuming building in an industrial zone, Tony’s is 10 long blocks east of Garey, and thus on the far edge of anything that could be considered downtown Pomona (although the skyline is visible in the distance, like Oz).

That said, Tony’s has been dipping roast beef into au jus since 1958 (55 years in 2013!), and somehow hangs in there, the Inland Valley’s counterpart to Philippe’s or Cole’s (both in L.A. since 1908). I’ve eaten at Tony’s maybe a half-dozen times over the years and returned recently, a few years since my last visit, for a fresh look.

Comfortingly, nothing seems to have changed, including the staff, the cane chairs and vintage Pomona photos on the walls, although presumably the sawdust on the floor has been swept out a few times. OK, one change, which is that due to the Health Department, you now have to ask for a small refrigerated container of horseradish sauce instead of using a shared dispenser on the counter. Hey, even Philippe’s had to put its mustard in squirt bottles after inspectors frowned on the open mustard and tiny spoons.

Tony’s has beef, pastrami, turkey, ham and corned beef dipped sandwiches ($5.75), grinders ($5.75), and liverwurst, egg salad, tuna salad and salami cold sandwiches ($5.50).

I went for lunch with a Tony’s veteran, who hadn’t been there in a long while, and two newcomers. We all got beef dips. “That was really good!” one of the first-timers exclaimed, pronouncing himself stuffed. More critically, the weak spot is the soft rolls, no match for Philippe’s crunchy, fresh-baked rolls. On the other hand, Tony’s is a lot closer, and you won’t have to wait in line.

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