The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla is like a friendly palace filled with endless treasure. Step through its front door and you’re surrounded by jewels.
Shelves filled with knowledge and beauty. Works of art on the walls, around corners, in nooks and crannies. Comfy places to sit, read, listen, write and fill oneself with wonder.
I headed to La Jolla and stepped through the Athenaeum’s front door yesterday.
In addition to works of art that I hadn’t previously seen, I enjoyed looking at the newest exhibitions in the library’s galleries.
Here are a few of the jewels that I discovered…
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What would the world be like without teachers? Very poor and very dull.
You probably remember some of your teachers fondly, how they inspired you to learn, grow, expand your horizons, become confident.
Today would be a great day to convey your gratitude!
To help pay for my own indebtedness, I’d like to pass along some information that teachers in San Diego might find very useful.
Write Out Loud offers a variety of inspirational programs that encourage reading and writing. Teachers can make free use of them.
Here they are:
Let Your Voice Be Heard is a poetry contest open to San Diego County students in grades K – 12. Learn about it here.
READ-IMAGINE-CREATE is a contest where Middle and High School Students will READ either the full book, or selections from CIRCE by Madeline Miller or MYTHOLOGY by Edith Hamilton.. Students will RE-IMAGINE the images, themes, or characters and then CREATE a project in a medium important to them. Learn about it here.
Poetry Out Loudis a FREE program for High School students. Students select poems from the National Poetry Foundation Anthology, and memorize, interpret, and recite their poems in a competition at the entry level. Two winners from each competition advance to the Regional Competition and one Regional winner advances to the State Competition. Learn about it here.
“Ripples from Walden Pond”is a 55-minute one-person play written by Richard Platt appropriate for Middle and High School Literature and History Students.Performances are followed by a talk-back with the actor, Steve Smith. Study Guide is provided. This program is provided without cost, through the generosity of passionate private donors. Learn about it here.
Do you know a teacher in San Diego? Let them know these great programs are available!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
How does one combine short outdoor walks with story time at a San Diego public library? Story Strolls!
During my visit to the San Ysidro Library last month, I observed one of these Story Strolls along walkways near the building entrance. Words and illustrations from children’s books are printed on signs, to be viewed by walkers in sequence, as if pages are being turned. It’s such a cool concept that I took these photos.
According to the City of San Diego website, eight branch libraries have featured such strolls. Most are in English. This one in San Ysidro is in Spanish. By scanning QR codes with your phone, you can also hear the story read aloud.
All of the library Story Strolls have a nature theme and debuted in June.
(If these signs appear a little dirty, we’d recently had some rain.)
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
Do you love the look, feel, and smell of words on paper, bound handsomely together for your own bookshelf?
I love to stumble upon dusty old books at a swap meet or rummage sale. Turn the pages and the author still speaks. The cover and interior artwork can be fantastic. One might find interesting notes or thoughts scribbled by past readers. And, if you’re lucky, there will be a beautiful bookplate inside.
What’s a bookplate? It’s a label readers affix inside their books to indicate ownership. They can also be used for book signings by authors.
The Mission Hills-Hillcrest/Harley & Bessie Knox Library currently has a display case full of handsome bookplates near its front entrance. They come from the San Diego Public Library’s Special Collections.
Here are a few examples:
The Mission Hills-Hillcrest Branch Library opened in 2019. Its grand opening was preceeded by one of the most wonderful events I’ve experienced in San Diego: the epic Book Pass!
Hundreds of neighbors transported hundreds of books from the old branch library to the newly built library. Every book passed from hand to hand about a mile down Washington Street. I took photographs of that incredible event, which you can see here!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
One of the display cases features books that were published in San Diego a century ago–in the 1920s and 1930s.
When I think of publishing in San Diego, the name Harcourt Brace Jovanovich immediately comes to mind. One of the world’s most important publishers made downtown San Diego their home for many years.
But have you heard of Torrey Pines Press, Hillcrest Publishing Company and the San Diego Printing Company? They and others were producing books in our city a century ago. Even Arrowhead Spring Water Distributors was part of the action!
The San Diego Library maintains a collection of books published or printed in San Diego. It’s called the Wilmer B. Shields Collection. It’s located inside the Marilyn and Gene Marx Special Collections Center on the Central Library’s 9th floor.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
A positively amazing mural was painted a year ago in North Park on the side of Verbatim Books. You have to see it to believe it!
The subject matter of this huge mural is books, of course. And famous authors, and classic characters, and timeless stories! (Not to mention dinosaurs, Balboa Park, and the North Park water tower!)
The artist who painted this fantastic 90-foot mural is Armando Hernandez (@elizarraras_art). I met him very briefly last year at the North Park Book Fair. I posted a photo of his Edgar Allan Poe with The Tell-Tale Heart here!
The mural at Verbatim Books is so brilliant and surprising and so alive with colorful detail, it’s like a colossal outdoor bookshelf demanding to be explored!
After filling your eyes, you’ll yearn to enter the secondhand and antiquarian bookstore!
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I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
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You can fit a whole lot of tiny books, each less than two inches tall, in a display case! That what you’ll notice when you visit the Hervey Family Rare Book Room at San Diego’s Central Library.
One handy thing about a tiny book is you can easily carry it in your pocket.
On the other hand, a tiny book’s content must be very slight, or with print so small you’ll need superhuman eyesight. In fact, some of these very tiny books have been sold with a magnifying glass!
Looking at these amazing little creations, I wonder if a microscope would actually be necessary. According to one sign, a record set for the smallest book is the 3/16 inch by 7/32 inch The Rose Garden of Omar Khayyam.
Many of these unique books are created by bibliophiles and printing enthusiasts. Tiny books are also in demand as collectibles.
I must admit, before the advent of smartphones, The Midget Webster Dictionary (with 18,000 words) in my upcoming photo might have been useful. And tiny Tom Thumb might enjoy that book concerning his history!
The Central Library in downtown San Diego is home to more than 500 miniature books, all part of the Wangenheim Rare Book Collection.
Many of these books must be witty. Because, you know, brevity is the soul of…
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
We all have deep-seated desires that can never be fulfilled. It’s an essential part of being human.
There are horizons that cannot be reached, dreams that cannot be realized. But we keep moving forward through life, in that place where we find ourselves, and we never stop hoping.
A wall inside the Coronado Historical Association’s fascinating museum features the stories of many Island Icons. Natives and long-time residents of Coronado have been interviewed by volunteers of the historical association, to preserve important oral histories for posterity.
I discovered this wall during my recent visit to the Coronado Historical Association’s museum on Orange Avenue. If you’d like to see it, too, venture into their auditorium, where an hour-long documentary film regarding the history of Coronado is shown on a continuous loop. (The film is outstanding and well worth viewing.)
The Island Icons archival project began in 2020. Every month, a new addition to these recorded memories is featured in the Coronado Eagle & Journal’s Coronado Magazine, and added to this wall in the museum.
Reading these words, you’ll be magically transported back in time. You’ll visit the Hotel Del Coronado and ride the ferry many decades ago, when the town was smaller and more intimate.
You’ll ride the old Coronado Beach Railroad streetcars, have fun at one of the two long-vanished bowling alleys, or perhaps at the long-vanished miniature golf course. You’ll walk and ride bikes and play on streets with no traffic lights, before the bridge to San Diego opened in 1969, changing everything.
You’ll read stories about life during the Great Depression and World War II.
If you know someone who has interesting stories about their life in Coronado, you can nominate them for an interview here!
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Thank you for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often, so you might want to bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and check back from time to time.
You can explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
