San Diego Book Project promotes literacy both locally and worldwide. They were present at TwainFest in Old Town.
The San Diego Book Project promotes literacy both locally and worldwide. It’s an effort I strongly support. So when I happened to see these folks with a table full of books at TwainFest this weekend, I instantly decided to provide a hand with my blog.
The San Diego Book Project has given away nearly a million donated books! They’re sent to teachers, schools, classrooms and students who might not have the resources to buy their own material. Beyond San Diego’s more disadvantaged neighborhoods, schools in South Africa, India, Peru and the Philippines have also received free books. Life-changing books are also sent to hospitals and prisons, and any not-for-profit organization that actively encourages literacy.
Do you need some free books? Would you like to donate or volunteer? Check out their website.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a work of classic literature sure to interest new readers.Good books open minds, promote education. An exciting journey with the written word makes life richer and more meaningful.
Mark Twain uses cane to point out his classic novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Many 19th century authors and fictional characters were seen walking around during TwainFest.
TwainFest last summer was awesome. So today I had to go again!
A uniquely wonderful cultural event, TwainFest celebrates Mark Twain and other famous 19th century authors. Held every year in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, the event includes games and activities for the entire family, including Costume and Liar’s contests (the latter as a tribute to Twain’s tall tales), vintage dancing, and all sorts of historical performances and reenactments. TwainFest is presented by Fiesta de Reyes and created by the literature-loving folks at Write Out Loud.
I walked about randomly for about an hour just aiming my camera at familiar old classics that I love come to life. I saw lots of San Diegans in period costume, many portraying well known characters from literature.
I hope you enjoy these photos…
A random writer helps to pen one of three endless stories at the family friendly event. …And, lo, from out of the mist stepped a phantom: it was the ghost of Mark Twain!Mr. Samuel Clemens, American author of many timeless books and stories, relaxes under a tree in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park during 2015 TwainFest.Mark Twain’s beloved character Aunt Polly is looking around for Tom Sawyer and Huck, who are probably running about engaged in mischief once again.Some lively Irish music dating from the Old West is played during TwainFest on the Fiesta de Reyes stage. Laughter. Levity. Literature.A storyteller making the rounds at TwainFest challenges the audience between musical performances to solve humorous riddles.This elegantly-dressed gentleman informed me he would be reading classic fiction to the crowd later today.Not to miss this history and literature-inspired event, a couple of fun-loving pirates come shuffling along through Old Town’s central plaza.Oh, goodness! It’s one of the most famous fictional, rascally pirates of all! Long John Silver! What’s that in the bottle?Al Sorkin, aka Captain Swordfish, represents the Maritime Museum of San Diego. That’s a really big harpoon! Perhaps it was once used to hunt Moby Dick.Two friendly people in period costume were greeting visitors at the entrance to the Casa de Estudillo.This funny guy said he was a sort-of Mad Hatter with a Bowie knife! He looked more like a 19th century Willy Wonka to me!Uh oh. While no one was looking Henry David Thoreau got out of his jail cell! That was awfully disobedient!These two snake oil salespeople were selling Ether of Muse. One whiff of the potent elixir and writing literature is a snap.This mild, ordinary lady in a bonnet demonstrated what happens when one sniffs essence of Emily Dickinson. She recited breathless poetry for minutes on end.Girl greets large puppet Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson at 2015 TwainFest in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park!
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Birds take flight above palm trees in downtown San Diego.
The astonishing success of this modest blog is hard to believe. Thank you.
This blog’s purpose is simple. It is to enjoy San Diego, to spread a little sunshine, and to help people who are doing good deeds or undertaking worthy causes.
Here are a few charities and positive organizations that would be grateful for your assistance.
Walking on the beach north of the Imperial Beach pier.
Nothing feels more perfect than a long walk. A long, easy walk to anywhere.
No matter which path feet follow, which direction your head turns, to walk is to feel refreshingly alive.
With every step, the world’s infinite complexity is revealed page by page. When eyes are open and the mind is keen, the strides are through endless wonder.
That first step. That deep, expansive breath of new air. The stretching out of limbs. A touch of warmth or chill on your face. Eyes lifted to the horizon, expectant.
Joy mounting with every stride as senses register a million familiar proofs of the world’s essential beauty.
The smells from near and far. Mown grass, the salty ocean, rain-wet asphalt, piney hills, a jasmine bush on a corner, sun-baked dirt, perfume from a cafe.
Kaleidoscope visions through which you simply, happily flow. The infinite detail of reflected light, dazzling your eyes. Patterns of leaves. Patterns of shadow. Patterns of neighbors and bustle and streets. The patterns of humanity.
And every gradation of daylight. Every blue and every green that nature supplies. A complete riot of color on painted things. Rainbows on buildings, signs, cars, jackets, socks. The whole spectrum of color, if only you see it. A trillion, trillion buzzing atoms encompass you, if only you see them. The awesome visual geometry of angles, form and depth. It’s all before and around you.
The smallest object encountered during a thoughtful walk is a self-contained universe. Even a lone bit of windblown trash is beautiful, in perhaps a thousand different ways. With a microscope you couldn’t unravel its potent mysteries. Who made it? How was it made? Where did it come from, and where’s it headed? For a moment the walker shares the world closely with surprising and mysterious companions: a bird, a grasshopper, a motorist, another walker. We all travel alone but together, encountering our own unique wonders, creating through sheer muscle and chance our historic voyages of discovery.
I want to go exploring today. I suppose I’ll just start out my door.
Got to put on my shoes… Bye!
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The Spock Block celebration is taking place near Encinitas City Hall on Vulcan Avenue.
The City of Encinitas, a coastal beach city in San Diego’s North County, has a week-long celebration underway honoring the late Leonard Nimoy. If the immensely popular actor, author, director, poet, songwriter and photographer had not passed away in February this year, he would have celebrated his 84th birthday last Thursday. Nimoy’s rich life and artistry is being remembered, as well as his iconic role as Mr. Spock on Star Trek. Encinitas City Hall is located on Vulcan Avenue, and as every Trekker knows, Vulcan was the name of Spock’s home planet. So by official decree, a short stretch of Vulcan Avenue has been temporarily renamed Spock Block.
Today I took a long stroll around Encinitas, hoping to spot a few cool sights in and around Spock Block. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much going on. I guess there wasn’t enough time for preparation and publicity. Maybe next year the festival (or Enterprise!) can grow into a much more interesting phenomenon. How about some cool displays? A science fiction film fest? A cosplay contest? Get creative!
Fortunately, I did get lots of other awesome pics around Encinitas, so I suppose more blog posts will be forthcoming!
A fun-loving restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway had a special Live Long and Lobster deal! Seems entirely logical to me!Encinitas surfers arrive from Vulcan Avenue–or perhaps an avenue located somewhere on Spock’s distant home planet…
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Today is the International Day of Happiness! Happy thoughts and deeds were underway in downtown San Diego this morning, just outside Horton Plaza. I swung on by to check things out!
International Day of Happiness in San Diego at Horton Plaza.Early morning vows of how people will make the world a more happy place.Smiling at my kids more.Smiling and saying hi to everyone I pass by today.Sharing my lunch with someone less fortunate.Being a good father and role model.Help make the world a happier place!
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Sailboats moored near Shelter Island, downtown San Diego in the background.
Anyone who tries to write soon realizes a daunting truth. There are countless possible stories to tell, and numberless ways to tell each one. Infinity multiplied by infinity amounts to a whole lot of indecision!
Last weekend I stood on a patch of beach on Shelter Island. A sailboat moored nearby fascinated my eye, and I puzzled over its profound complexity for several minutes. How could I accurately paint that sailboat with words? How could I phrase the most perfect description? Is it even possible? With a million words is it possible?
As I watched the bobbing boat and struggled to sequence potent adjectives, a sudden thought shook me: Writing’s purpose, like art’s purpose, isn’t to replicate the world. It’s to stretch our minds. That is all.
Words are limitless. As limitless as the universe. They allow us to travel anywhere, in any direction.
A few well-directed words can focus our minds (for a moment) on overlooked things; they can help us see vague things more vividly. Words can seek and memorialize those things that seem important. Words tossed about can provoke hidden feeling and allow us to draw nearer to others. Words, when magical, can help us to discern whispers of meaning in the echoing vastness around us.
Our lives are finite. But the infinity that is contained in words can expand our lives. That is their purpose.
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Here comes Mark Twain during Old Town San Diego’s literary TwainFest!
One of my favorite San Diego events of all time took place today in historic Old Town!
TwainFest is an amazing annual festival celebrating Mark Twain and other famous authors from the 19th century. While there seems to be an emphasis on American and English novelists, I saw homages to writers, poets and storytellers from around the world. Scenes from American and California history also appear in several of the exhibits. Which makes sense, because Old Town is a history-filled park recreating the earliest days of San Diego!
To get an idea of what TwainFest is about, enjoy a quick look at these fun pics! And be sure to attend next year, if you can!
Event is part of Stagecoach Days at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.And here comes a towering puppet of American author Edgar Allan Poe!Lots of entertainment included a stage with music and various contests.Music included those familiar old folk songs that had everyone clapping.Costumed participants roaming about the central plaza of historic Old Town.Families enjoyed many activities including games.Excited kids blast off across the grass in an old-fashioned sack race!Kids of all ages enjoyed many unique literature-themed games and activities.The TwainFest Wheel of Fiction featured many famous writers.Booth inspired by Lewis Carroll had me making up a silly word!Never-ending stories had visitors adding their imaginative sentences.The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County ready to soar from catapult!I wonder if Mark Twain imagined kids would replicate his famous short story!Children really enjoyed this cool guy’s amazing flea circus!A flea performer mounts the trapeze before the incredulous audience.Girl uses magnifying lenses to watch a flea take a swan dive from high platform.The Quotation Machine rumbled before producing a quote.Here come some horses around the Old Town San Diego square!The Marshall informed me that all was well.Small audience in one shady corner enjoyed music and stories.The big Liar’s Contest featured lots of tall tales and jaw-dropping whoppers.This slick salesman is demonstrating the eloquent effects of literary potions.Bottled Verne, Dickinson, Whitman, Bronte, Byron and more!Voters in presidential election of 1872 must pass a literacy test!Of course, TwainFest had a bookstore with many classics of literature!People could trade places with Henry David Thoreau.The obviously guilty author of civil disobedience!Thoreau locks himself in with a brave visitor.It’s the Daniel Webster Frog Toss!Carroll’s Red Queen challenges all comers to flamingo croquet!Old Town event included the historic Mason Street School.Actors read poetry from Alice in Wonderland in one room schoolhouse.Here come participants in the fancy literary costume contest!The spirit of Twain lives at this very wonderful annual festival.
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L. Frank Baum wrote many fantastic, very popular children’s books.
The Coronado Public Library is featuring a world-class exhibit of Oz art and artifacts this month! Two huge glass cases full of books and collectibles and a large wall display of original graphic art are alive with the beloved characters that populate author L. Frank Baum’s fantasy land of Oz. The artwork, toys, figures and other cool stuff have been assembled from several important Oz collections, and made available to the viewing public during Oz Con International.
I’d like to share a few photos that I took!
Eisner Award-winning Eric Shanower’s graphic novels.Oz collectibles and artifacts in many languages on display.First edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz used by a Dorothy actress.Oz books and cool stuff in an exhibit at the Coronado Public Library.Colorful panels of Oz art catch the eye of library visitors.Troll Queen original comic art from Shanower’s The Forgotten Forest of Oz.More artwork based on the fairy tale creations of L. Frank Baum.Scarecrow and Tin Woodman among many characters in the collection.This Wicked Witch is cooking up trouble!
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This escalator goes up one level, but there’s no immediate way back down!
Horton Plaza, San Diego’s colorful downtown shopping mall, was inspired by a concept put forth by famous science fiction and fantasy writer Ray Bradbury. The crazy, jumbled design was based on Ray Bradbury’s essay “The Aesthetics of Lostness” which took joy in the notion of becoming safely lost on the side streets of Paris, London or New York.
While walking about Horton Plaza, you’ll see ramps, escalators, bridges and stairs that go every which way–up, down, across–leading you to new unexpected vistas. One mysterious escalator will take you up one level, but there’s no immediate way to return from where you came. You must let your eyes rove to discover another route. It’s really a fun idea!
I believe I took these pics on a Sunday morning, and few people had yet arrived.
Random ramps and bridges all over the shopping mall.Crazy, colorful Horton Plaza.
Cool San Diego Sights! 