Bookworm Press

Michel Simonet, a citizen of the town of Fribourg in the French part of Switzerland, went to college, studied theology … and became a street sweeper–yes a street sweeper or street cleaner–in his hometown. Today, he is the most famous street sweeper in Fribourg as well as in whole Switzerland and beyond. Michel Simonet loves his job and wouldn’t want any other kind of work. And this, in spite of the fact, that he published a book, which became a bestseller.

You see, the book is about his thirty years sweeping the streets of Fribourg, meeting and getting to know all kinds of people, from CEOs, CFOs to blue collar workers, mothers and fathers with their children, everyday people with their struggles and joys. All these experiences he collected and wrote about in his book, Une rose et un ballai, in English With a Broom and a Rose.

The book is a lyrical tribute to his profession, a profession he is proud of. The title of the book shows his “trademark”–a rose he gets every morning before starting his work from a flower store and attaches to his wheelbarrow. It symbolizes his work: beauty within ugliness.

And anybody who ever looked down on blue collar worker or minimum wage earners, should take note. Every job, when done well and with pride, deserves our respect.

I’m proud of you, Michel Simonet, not just because you wrote a book but because you contribute to society by making part of our cities more beautiful.

Here is a short article in English and a picture of him: Musings of a Street Cleaner.

Here is a video in French about Michel Simonet: YouTube Video

Article in German: Freiburgs berühmtester Straßenwischer hat ein Buch geschrieben.

The city of  Los Angeles has many faces. Some people see it as a cancerous urban sprawl, with awful

rush hour traffic, bad air, and crime. For others it’s the glitz of Hollywood, the metropolis of business. It is all these things, but the city, including its neighboring areas, is also one of the most important cultural centers of the world. What?! I hear some people call. Yes, and I repeat it: Los Angeles is one of the most important centers of art, architecture, music, and literature. It has some of the most interesting and amazing museums, theaters, and art galleries. If you do just a little of research, you’ll find out that many of the world’s most famous writers, musicians, singers, sculptors, painters, and other artists have at one time or the other called Los Angeles their home. So, move aside San Francisco and New York! Just kidding.

Of course, the negative sides of Los Angeles do exist. It is a sometimes ugly urban sprawl and anybody who is forced to drive on the freeways during rush hours knows the challenge. And let me tell you, when I first came to Los Angeles over thirty years ago, I told myself that the one city I never wanted to live in was Los Angeles. Well, famous last words. I changed my mind and here I am.

There is a secret about Los Angeles. Well, it’s actually no longer a secret. In the midst of cars, gasoline fumes, skyscrapers (some of the world’s most beautiful, by the way), and clogged freeways, you find amazing treasures. In two of my last posts, I wrote about the beautiful Huntington Library and gardens in Pasadena.

Today, I want to show you another treasure–the Los Angeles Central Library downtown with one of the most extensive collections of books, maps, and works of art. It’s not only a repository of literature, art, and culture, but an architectural landmark. It has been designated a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. And I have to admit (and hang my head in shame) that after living here for over two decades, this is the first time I have visited the main library. I’ve never been without a library card but I have always frequented my local library in Santa Monica. The main reason was that driving downtown and parking there can be such a hassle. But now, that we have a new train line that connects Santa Monica with downtown L.A., the journey is a breeze. And the last station of the newly opened Expo line is just a couple of blocks away from the library.

So yesterday, I embarked on the adventure and here are some pictures.

The new train! Expo Line Santa Monica to Downtown Los Angeles

Left: View from the train

Most of the descriptions below are from the walk-in tours you can either to take on your own or with a docent.

And here it is: Main Entrance from Hope Street

The main lobby with the rotunda, wall paintings, and chandelier

There are three sculptures by artist Lee Lawrie. This marble figure symbolizes what the Library represents. In her right hand is a book with quotations in five languages. In her left hand is a torch which represents civilization’s power over land and sea. The crown contains a miniature model of the Library–two angels for the City of Los Angeles and the bear and star for the State of California.

How many of you remember this? I do! When I did research in my early college years, that’s how we found the books, by going through the card catalog, often very tedious and painstaking work. Nowadays, this is merely a nice memory as we breeze through the search engine on our computers!

I hope you enjoyed the short tour through one of the pearls of Los Angeles. If you want to know more about the library and its history: https://www.lapl.org/branches/central-library

Poets are not academics (though some are) or highly educated men and women (though they may be), but most of them are ordinary everyday people with the desire to express something fun or meaningful or turbulent or painful or joyful and so on and so on (you choose).

Many are computer nerds, taxi drivers, hamburger flippers at McDonald’s, cleaning men and women, students, drug addicts, police officers, shoe sales people, firemen, some doctors (yes it happens), teachers (okay, that may be obvious), presidents (you never know). Anyway, my point is–is there a point? Not sure. There is no rule or regulation as to who can and should write poetry–or anything else for that matter.

That brings me to a poem of my own. Nothing serious, just a fun play with words. So, please don’t take it seriously. It really isn’t meant to be taken seriously.

Here we go, a silly poem that rhymes–well somewhat:

A Poem that Rhymes 

One of my favorite types of research for my novels is traveling to different places where my characters live and work. This time, I spent a few days in one of my favorite spots in California, namely in Cambria at the Cambria Pines Lodge. Since the fictitious Segantino family lives in the wine region of the Central Coast in California, the Paso Robles area was on my itinerary as well. And last but not least, I checked out the California Polytechnic State University or Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. This is the place where Julietta Santucci, a major character in The Wine Lover’s Daughter series, studies architecture and environmental design.

Here are a few pictures of my vacation/research in beautiful San Luis Obispo county.

Cambria Pines Lodge, Cambria

Cambria Pines Lodge is situated on a hill above the town of Cambria and is a charming lodge with beautiful gardens, the perfect place to dream and write.

A very special kind of flower bed

 A garden with organically grown herbs and vegetables they use for cooking is also part of the landscape.

View from my room

A couple of miles north of Cambria is a famous elephant seal spot. These amazing animals come here year after year to breed, raise their young, and relax between their long and arduous migrations in the Pacific Ocean. Every season has its own kind of spectacle. In September, the young males are jousting playfully, preparing for the serious and often bloody fights for dominance and their chosen females.

Of course, a visit to the famous wine region around Paso Robles, the imaginary home of the Segantino family, is mandatory!

Next stop is San Luis Obispo, where I took a brief walk through the Cal Poly campus, a well-known technical and agricultural university.

Another important spot that plays a role in my next novel is the Benedictine monastery in San Luis Obispo, but time ran out and I had to postpone this for another visit. There is always a reason to come back to this beautiful area of California.

I was browsing through my Writing directory and came across a folder I totally forgot about, called Poems 2000. These are poems I wrote around the year 2000 and after reading a few, I decided to review them and perhaps use them in a new poetry volume.

Here is one of them. Not sure what made me write it–perhaps an old man sitting on a park bench or memories of my father? 

I hope you’ll enjoy it!

The Old Man and his Memories

looking lonely and somewhat bored

Dear Loyal Readers,

I have great news for those of you who still like to hold a “real” book–made of reap paper and ink and with a beautiful glossy cover–in their hands. The paperback version of Finding Angelo is now available on Amazon.

Link: Paperback Finding Angelo

As a reminder, here is the blurb again:
 
A hidden diary and a crumpled envelope, postmarked in Italy, are the only clues Martin Segantino has to what happened to his younger brother Angelo, the black sheep of the family, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances twenty years ago. When the police find the skeleton of Angelo’s close friend buried in one of the fields on the Segantino vineyards, the hunt for Angelo begins. Is he the killer or is he himself a victim? Sofia Segantino, great-niece of Angelo by marriage, embarks on her own search for the missing man. On her trip through the Piedmont region of Italy, she uncovers clues of Angelo’s whereabouts, which puts her in grave danger. The local gangsters are equally interested in the elusive Angelo and are ready to do whatever it takes to find him. Will Sofia be able to outsmart them?

Part family drama, part suspense, Finding Angelo takes the reader on a thrilling journey from California via Chicago and New York to Italy.

Happy Reading, my Fellow Bookworms!

My second visit to the Huntington Library was in company with my friend Jackie Ingerson. This time around, I got to see one of the great treasures I didn’t have enough time for during my first visit: original manuscripts and the Gutenberg Bible!

But first a few more shots of the beautiful gardens. In one of them, the rose bushes were named after famous actors and artists. Here is one dedicated to Henry Fonda.

The Japanese Garden and Pavilion belong to the most serene sceneries.

The next series of pictures are of original manuscripts and of the famous Gutenberg Bible.

On the right and below is the original manuscript of Jack London’s White Fang

The next manuscripts are from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Milton’s Paradise Lost

This photo below doesn’t do the Gutenberg Bible justice. You really have to see it in person to appreciate the beauty of it. The old-fashioned script makes it look like it was produced by the hand of a perfect scrivener. The print and the decorations are gorgeous.

I could spend whole days in this place. I hope you enjoyed the “walk” through one of southern California’s precious heritages.

One of my favorite places in the southern California area is the Huntington Library. “Library” is almost a misnomer, if you think of a regular public library. The Huntington Library is a vast landscape with gardens, museums, coffee shops, pavilions and more. It’s almost impossible to see everything in one visit and once you are there, you will want to come back for more. The first time I visited this amazing place was with my good friend Shawn Gadberry and we focused on the valuable paintings, some of the gorgeous gardens, such as the one devoted to Shakespeare.

The Picture Gallery

Pinkie by Sir Thomas Lawrence

The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough (the painting, of course)

One of the many gorgeous gardens

The Bard

After all this food for the soul and spirit in this exciting environment, we also needed food for the body. The Rose Cafe serves the most delicious and very extensive English Afternoon Tea.

I’m glad we saw the art and the gardens before indulging in this spread. We may not have made it afterwards!

Photos courtesy Shawn Gadberry.
More to follow!

Dear Friends and Bookworms,

For those of you who are not on my mailing list, here is an exciting announcement. By the way, getting on my mailing list and being informed about new books and important events in my writing career is easy. I promise, I won’t fill up your inbox. Just click on Mailing List below and fill out the short form:

Hello Fellow Scriveners and Lovers of Words.

Here are a few more terms, which intrigued me, so I checked out their meaning and origin.
Enjoy!

Curmudgeon: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man (Merriam-Webster)

Etymology: 1570s, of unknown origin; the suggestion, based on a misreading of a garbled note from Johnson, that it is from French coeur mechant “evil heart” is not taken seriously; the first syllable may be cur “dog.” Liberman says the word “must have been borrowed from Gaelic (and references muigean “disagreeable person”), with variant spelling of intensive prefix ker. Related: Curmudgeonly.

Why just an old man? I’m a woman and perfectly capable of being very curmudgeonly!

Evanescence: the process or fact of evanescing, disappearing, vanishing. (Merriam-Webster)

Etymology: comes from the Latin evanescere meaning “disappear, vanish.”
“the evanescence of a rainbow detracts not a whit from its beauty” – (said who? couldn’t find the source)

Obsequious: “obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree.”–I don’t need to worry about this one. I’ve never been very obedient!

Etymology:  late 15th century (not depreciatory in early use): from Latin obsequiosus, from obsequium ‘compliance,’ from obsequi ‘follow, comply with.’

Any words that intrigue, puzzle, excite you?

Have a wonderful weekend!