A secret pleasure during my college years in Pasadena was getting lost in the nearby Huntington Botanical Gardens.  Not your typical college hangout, but a great study spot, it turned out.  Earlier this year on a college visit with my son, with an hour of free time we raced to the Huntington Library and Gardens.  While my son disappeared into the library to see old manuscripts, I headed to the desert garden.  It is as exotic and alluring as ever.  (If desert plants aren’t your thing, the Huntington’s rose garden, Japanese garden, Shakespeare garden, and other ten gardens are not to miss.)  In the heart of Pasadena, the Huntington Botanical Gardens occupy 207 acres surrounding the majestic Huntington Library (which houses a collection of rare manuscripts, prints, maps, and other materials).  The gardens are divided into 14 areas.  Janet Hall  See many pictures at https://www.gardenista.com/posts/escape-to-a-desert-garden-in-pasadena-huntington-library-garden/ 



The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970 film)  *  Sir Christopher Lee comes the role of Mycroft with considerable experience in the Sherlock Holmes universe.  It's been said that Lee is the only, or at least one of few actors, to portray on-screen both Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock Holmes.  *  At the request of Writer and Director Billy Wilder, composer Miklós Rózsa adapted music from his own 1956 Violin Concerto as the basis for the film score, supplementing this with further original music  *  The BBC News, in an article by BBC Scotland Highlands and Islands reporter Steven McKenzie, reported on April 13, 2016 with the headline:  "Film's lost Nessie monster prop found in Loch Ness".  The article stated a "thirty foot (nine meter) model of the Loch Ness Monster built in 1969 for a Sherlock Holmes movie has been found almost fifty years after it sank in the loch.  It has been seen for the first time in images captured by an underwater robot.  Loch Ness expert Adrian Shine said the shape, measurements and location pointed to the object being the prop."  He continued:  "We have found a monster, but not the one many people might have expected.  The model was built with a neck and two humps and taken alongside a pier for filming of portions of the film in 1969.  The director (Billy Wilder) did not want the humps and asked that they be removed, despite warnings I suspect from the rest of the production that this would affect its buoyancy.  And the inevitable happened.  The model sank.  We can confidently say that this is the model because of where it was found, the shape, there is the neck and no humps, and from the measurements."  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066249/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv



Mystery of the Loch Ness monster as solved by Sherlock Holmes:  It turns out that Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee) is involved in building a pre-World War I submarine for the British Navy.  When taken out for testing, it was disguised as a sea monster.  The dwarfs were recruited as crewmen because they took up less space and needed less air.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Private_Life_of_Sherlock_Holmes  Trivia:  Fictional character Jack Reacher is referred to as "Sherlock Homeless" in Lee Child's novel Personal.



Laurence Goldstein (born 1943) is a poet, editor, and professor in the University of Michigan Department of English Language and Literature.  Born in Los Angeles, California in 1943, he received a B.A. from UCLA in 1965 and a PhD from Brown University in 1970.  Beginning in 1977, Goldstein was the chief editor of Michigan Quarterly Review, an academic journal featuring new writing by prominent critics, essayists, poets, and fiction writers.  Goldstein stepped down as editor of Michigan Quarterly Review after its Spring 2009 issue.  Goldstein has written and/or edited several books of literary criticism (including work on romantic poetry, technology and literature, and film and literature), and published four volumes of poetry:  Altamira, in 1978; The Three Gardens, in 1987; Cold Reading, in 1995; and A Room in California, in 2005.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Goldstein



SNAPPY RHYMES  aces and spaces (a hand with Aces, low cards and few good cards in between); aces and faces (a hand with Aces and many face cards); bricks to clicks (business going from a physical location to online)  The Rockies may tumble, Gibraltar may tumble (words from Love is Here to Stay by George and Ira Gershwin)



"The first step towards getting somewhere, is to decide you are not going to stay where you are."  ~ John Pierpont Morgan ~  Wow!  We are definitely somewhere!  Our new library is open and already a vibrant part of our community.  People spend the day working, reading, crafting, playing and just relaxing by the fireplace with a hot beverage.  Kids love the new grocery cart and all the toys that reappeared from storage.  We have issued hundreds of new library cards.  We are definitely not where we were but in a whole new world of exciting possibilities.  We want to thank you for your patience with us the months we were closed, offering up free storage space for all our stuff and the volunteer help with the move.  We are an amazing community!  We are here because YOU made it happen!  A newsletter is in the works with a bit of a new look.  Story Stew will be offered on the first and third Thursday at 10 a.m.   Bring your preschoolers for stories, crafts, song and fun!   Kay Epple offers Preschool Mindfulness and Yoga for little ones at 10 a.m. on 2nd Wednesday of the month.  Our adult reading group, Pageturners meets on the third Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m.  Threads meets every Monday by the fireplace at 10 a.m.  Bring along your latest knitting, needlepoint, cross stitch project, etc. and work among friends!  Chapter Chicks, our mother daughter book club for 3rd-5th graders, starts up again November 9 at 9:30 a.m.  Munson Healthcare Hospice invites you to join a friendly environment where grief and loss are understood.  The program is co-sponsored by PCL on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday at 2 p.m.  Share your story and learn from others.  So much more is planned for our new gathering center.  The future is ours as a community to write!  On this day in 1806, Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis from their over two year long journey to the lands of the Louisiana Purchase, today the U.S.Northwest.   The public excitement over their journey was huge.  Our journey down the road was not as far, took a little-- just a little longer--and has also drawn huge public excitement.  We invite you to come home to the new Peninsula Community Library!  You are going to love it here!  Victoria M. Shurly, Director  Peninsula Community Library  2893 Island View Road  Traverse City, MI 49686  231.223.7700  September 23, 2019  vshurly@tadl.org  "It is good to have an end to journey, but it is the journey that matters in the end."  Ursula Le Guin  Thank you, Muse reader!



Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; Lithuanian:  Karolis Dionyzas Bučinskis; (1921– 2003) was an American actor.  He was often cast in the role of a police officer, gunfighter, or vigilante in revenge-oriented plot lines, had long-term collaborations with film directors Michael Winner and J. Lee Thompson, and appeared in fifteen films with his second wife Jill Ireland.  Bronson was born Charles Dennis Buchinsky, the 11th of 15 children, in a Roman Catholic family of Lithuanian descent in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, in the coal region of the Allegheny Mountains north of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  His father, Valteris P. Bučinskis, who later adjusted his name to Walter Buchinsky to sound more "American",was from Druskininkai in southern Lithuania. Bronson's mother, Mary (née Valinsky), whose parents were from Lithuania, was born in the coal mining town of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania.  The family had Lipka Tatar roots.  Bronson learned to speak English when he was a teenager; before that, he spoke Lithuanian and Russian.  Bronson was the first member of his family to graduate from high school.  When Bronson was 10 years old, his father died and he went to work in the coal mines, first in the mining office and then in the mine.  He later said he earned one dollar for each ton of coal that he mined.  He worked in the mine until he entered military service during World War II.  His family was so poor that, at one time, he had to wear his sister's dress to school for lack of clothing.  Bronson made a serious name for himself in European films.  He was making Villa Rides when approached by the producers of a French film Adieu l'ami looking for an American co-star for Alain Delon.  Bronson's agent Paul Kohner later recalled the producer pitched the actor "on the fact that in the American film industry all the money, all the publicity, goes to the pretty boy hero types.  In Europe . . .  the public is attracted by character, not face."  The film was a big success in Europe.  Even more popular was Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) where Bronson played harmonica.  The director, Sergio Leone, once called him "the greatest actor I ever worked with", and had wanted to cast Bronson for the lead in 1964's A Fistful of Dollars.  Bronson turned him down and the role launched Clint Eastwood to film stardom.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bronson



http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2161  September 27, 2019