Pasadena Public Library, Pasadena, California

Pasadena Public Library, You Gorgeous Thing. I knew you were somewhere.

If you meet a librarian, and they deign to talk to you about more than the Dewey Decimal system or the godforsaken Government Docs, you will likely find this person equipped with a surgically sharp sense of humor and perhaps even that wicked wit we've witnessed in movies like All About Eve but never truly experience in real life. Real life, by the way, can be downright oppressive when it comes to wit and the witless...some people do not like quick wit and will not stand for it. Go ahead and whip it out in the line for some purchase or another. You will get a look that would melt steel. I only intended to small talk with you MA'AM do you mind.

Librarians often get saddled with a bad rep as serious, humorless task masters, but I've found the majority to be quite the opposite. I mean, don't hurt their library or they'll brass knuckle your face, but otherwise they've got oceans of humor (and have to in order to deal with your crap, citizen).

Anyway, the Pasadena staff no doubt snickered a little to themselves as I gawped and oooo'd my way through their library yesterday. It was Transcendent. It was Luminous in its gloominess . . . Gloominous? It was Perfection in every dark wood nook and brass affixed cranny. OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. OMG.

Though it was built in 1927, there is probably a picture of Jack Nicholson smiling at the camera somewhere within it's walls because if this thing and the Overlook didn't come from the same alternate universe, then I don't know what. It's in the Spanish style those '20s folks loved so much, especially in California, but within is all Gothic, deep, dark wood and charm, with haunted, scarily lit, subterranean stacks (much like the Watson Library at KU) thrown in for good measure.

OH you pretty, pretty thing.

Go to California for whatever reason (Hollywood, Disney, beaches) but go go go to the Pasadena library at some point on your vacation. It is well worth the trip and Pasadena itself is a beautiful area with lots of shopping and eateries abound. Go if for nothing else than to experience an old building nearing its centennial...you can smell the years, that ancient library smell of text on paper, old bindings and the ghosts of card catalogs past.

I love a new library, but there is something consistently cheap and transitory about these places. They look like buildings made to be torn down. There is no way that any of them will withstand 90 years of patronage, use, and abuse the way that a lot of the older libraries have. Anschutz Science Library is a perfect example of this temporariness. It had only been up and running a couple of years by the time I started working there and already the wallpaper was peeling from the junctures near the ceilings in several places. We experienced a major water leak, as well, which wiped out two rows of periodicals and journals. Parts of the library were already looking beat to hell and it wasn't even five years old yet. It was sad and, frankly, infuriating. Why built the thing if you aren't going to build it to last?

This should be obvious, but: Enough with tearing old buildings down to replace them with steaming piles of mediocrity. We've all spent our lifetimes watching beautiful structures destroyed only to be replaced with unforgivable (and completely irredeemable) strip malls or Walgreens. While not everything can be to the highest standards (no one would be able to afford anything), shouldn't government institutions be held to a different level of expectation? Again, why bother if it isn't going to last? (We could go on and on about this, couldn't we? Short term solutions without long term considerations? Because that's the world we live in.)

Are you dying yet? Look at this place. It is unfreakingbelievable. Yes, that is a word. 

Someone should help me write an anthem to this library. It is simply too beautiful and important not to sing it to the rooftops. The working environment, by the way, was perfect--calibrated precisely to my desires. If I could have stayed longer, I would have, but hunger drove me out into the streets of Pasadena to find the delightful and delicious Pie-n-Burger, which is a very basic, diner-type place that has been around for an age and a half and knows exactly what it is doing. 

The burger was yummy, particularly because they butter-toast the bun beforehand so it has this decadent crunchiness that turns a basic burger into a must-have, growling and snapping, wolf attack situation. Also, it's served with thousand island dressing, so make sure to tell them to hold it if that's not your thing. I went through about 60 napkins eating the thing so use that as a measuring stick for just how good it is. The fries were great, too, but I put on the brakes because there was one thing on the menu I knew I could not leave without trying. 

If you go, get the pie. Holy God In Heaven, Get The PIE. I ordered the banana cream and experienced the rare, often-imitated-in-commercials eye-widening and involuntary MMMMMMing that would have embarrassed me when I was a young lady, but after 60 napkins who cares. It had sliced bananas in it and the crust was made from some demon graham cracker/regular pie crust that was so insanely good I cannot adequately describe it.

Pie-n-Burger had a steady stream of people coming and going to either eat there or pick up orders to go so I would expect this joint will still be standing after the US of A is a smoldering ash of replacement windows, vinyl siding, and linoleum.