Monthly Archives: June 2009

After reading the online comments to my Sunday column about the public schools, Pasadena Unified board member Renatta Cooper responded with concern. A number of posters said that while they were happy enough with some aspects of the schools in … Continue reading →

The wording of signs is a language like any other. To we cereal-box readers who find anything in print interesting, even the way a menu over a take-out window is put speaks volumes — about the culture, about our expectations, … Continue reading →

The above swinging jazz combo, featuring Aleks Peck on guitar and Patrick O’Connor singing fine old standards — I’ll get the solid drummer and the bass player’s names sometime soon — set the stage for a Thursday-night get-together in Brenda … Continue reading →

The first day of summer, we go surfing, naturally, and what does it do but rain, and blow hard onshore? James, on the left, pulled out his brolly, to keep Rick’s wetsuit dry. Weather kept the crowds down was the … Continue reading →

So the monument in the picture below in a previous posting has something to do with Route 66, which that part of Colorado Boulevard surely is a part of, according to city PIO Ann Erdman and my Blair High classmate … Continue reading →

For years a gentleman has been calling asking me if I’ve had a chance to look at the stone monument in front of the McDonald’s at 1320 E. Colorado Blvd., in the first block to the west of PCC. He … Continue reading →

Artists come and artists go. Philanthropists: same. College presidents: same. Galleries: same. But Art Center College of Design Vice President Stephen Nowlin, an Art Center grad in painting himself, has been the rock of the Pasadena and Southern California art … Continue reading →

The arts consortium NewTown Pasadena — maybe it’s just NewTown now — always comes up with the best outdoor performance/situational installation opportunities for artists, and last weekend’s “On the Trail Of …” in Hahamongna just above Devil’s Gate Dam was … Continue reading →

Oh, sure, before shooting from the hip Friday afternoon and announcing that LA Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold had been hired by The New York Times, which happens to need a restaurant writer just now, I could have done the … Continue reading →

I’d feared it, soon as the brilliant editor-in-chief of LA Weekly, Laurie Ochoa, was fired for doing such a beautiful job for so many years. The reason I’d feared it is that the NYT is looking for a restaurant critic … Continue reading →