Camera FOUND! Pictures of Comic-Con opening night and Pasadena

The Camera has been found!

We went right from driving down to Comic-Con, entered the Exhibitor’s Hall as it opened (the rows are like streets starting at 0, 100, 200, up to 5000+: Section 400-1400 is books and publishers, while 3000-4000 was entertainment and major producers). The Exhibitors hall has a mix as everything from penguin and Little Brown are there having signings with free books to lines to get autographs of everyone from the directors and WW from the show Middleman, to Spike from Buffy and Booth from the series Bones. Plus there are games being exhibited and new series being advertised so a touch of E3 as well where games not available are shown as well as signed books not released for months.

I did not appreciate how empty the aisles the first night were as I browsed manga (the bad where the camera was found when packing to leave). I then wheeled over to various sections advertising things like Salt with Angelina Jolie and other films (with real movie or set props). I also didn’t realize that much of the items on the counters, like special artist drawn and stitched book bags were merely ‘give-aways’ for first night people. The SWAG was what everyone but me was grabbing, which included free DVD’s, books, postcards, bookbags, toys and more. The next morning the Director of Pan’s Labyrinth was there but only those in a lottery got to see him and get a signing. I didn’t win.

I did however wander by Square Enix which was advertising their new game in full wall widescreen, along with some Anime set releases. I was offered to play new PS3 and X360 games but turned them down (I didn’t know there would be a line later) and took a look at where people could ‘lift a car’ using a prop car for the new show ‘The Ordinary Family’ about a family of superhero’s (Big theme, also the new Zombie TV show coming out).

On the way down and back we stopped at Pasadena, my ‘home town’ though since my parents moved 18 times between moving from and then back to Victoria, I am not sure what is home. We bought what little furniture from my teen years is left from the parents. So I guess our table is ‘home’. But Pasadena is important to me, where I grew up for almost 10 years. Here is the ‘famous from film’ Pasadena city hall just down from the library. I had stopped to make sure the library had NOT changed over the years. Because THIS was my library, hardwood checkout desk, tapestries and all.
I found the children’s reading room (which I was encourage to leave after finishing the entire summer reading program in less than a week) the same, they only changed some shelving but kept it all the Walnut of the original from the 1920’s.

Here is one of the reference rooms where I used to drag out large books of the first 20 years of superman or batman to read at home. It is the essence of a reading room to me and influences not only how I think about books but about book spaces. My bookstore had hardwood bookshelves and open spaces, my home has dark wood bookshelves and open spaces. This library defined how I looked at books. It was odd rolling past where the Louis L’Amour westerns should be to find they had MOVED them.

We went by the Wrigley Mansion where Mr. Wrigley of Wrigley’s chewing gum lived and where I had jogged past on my way down to the Rose Bowl for training runs
(there is a VERY steep hill on the street by his house, great for training).

We also stopped by the NEW and upscale downtown to Chado’s Tea Room. It reminded me of a tea merchant I went to in Lisbon, Portugal who kept the tea from around the world, sold there for hundreds of years in wooden boxes. Chado’s has a book of 40 pages of teas plus special blends that are not in the book. The owners wrote ‘The Tea Encyclopedia’ and OWN a tea plantation themselves in India. Chado only uses the top tip and first and second leaf, the top three grades of tea possible. They also sell a very enticing collection of teapots.
We bought some tea, as what better gift than some top quality tea from the source, having smelled the 5 pounds of tin in the bin before buying, then ordering by the ounce. It was fun and addictive, and without the help of the tea seller it would have been hopeless as Earl Grey Blends (including dating back to 1814) have more than a page.
That was part of our stop in Pasadena on the way to Comi-Con and the ‘lost’ pictures including those of my library, a place of refuge from LA heat and of finding out how many books I could carry away – I would have them stacked so they were above my head when I carried them – oh, just 25+ books at a time.

We are off to Yosemite, just wanted, with some internet access to let you know what was going on and share a bit of Comi-Con, my past, a gorgeous library and specialty tea house with you.