Numbers

It's the first of the month, and that means Theme Day for participating City Daily Photo bloggers. This month's theme is Numbers.

If you walk around the grounds of South Pasadena High School, you'll see these tiles embedded all over the place. For years I tried to figure out what they meant. Was the architect an obsessive compulsive who really needed to count? Were the numbers a reminder of South Pasadena students' reputation for great math skills? Did the entire sidewalk design come out of a big Tile By Numbers box? Was it a horrific reminder of the relentless, unending passage of time?!

Eventually, Mister Earl told me the numbers represented graduating classes of the high school, and that every year was (or would be) represented.

I like my obsessive compulsive story better. (All together now: one, two, three, four... ahhh. I feel better already.)

City Daily Photo is in the process of changing servers, so this month's collection of worldwide Theme Day posts can be found here. (Many thanks go to Julie of Sydney Eye for setting up the alternate blog for Theme Day posts.)

Deco Unexpected

The next time you see a play at the South Pasadena High School Auditorium, make sure to check out the water fountain in the women's bathroom.

Who knew?!

School, Sky and Tree

Does everyone love the art deco lines of South Pas High as much as I do? Maybe it's because I attended high school in a windowless cement block of a building that would would make your average prison feel downright elegant by comparison.

That depressing sky zapped what was left of my holiday spirit. I needed something lovely to pose in front of all those clouds, or else you guys would have ended up with a post today featuring a depressing poem and a black and white shot of a broken Christmas tree ornament.

Thanks, South Pas High! Nothing like a little architecture to lift a mood.

If you'll allow me a small detour...

Do me a favor, and head on over to South Pasadena Patch sometime this morning, before lunch. No, I'm not going to ask you to read another column of mine there, I just never expected to be in the news. If it's not evident what I'm (obnoxiously, mysteriously) talking about when you click, try again later...

And thank you, South Pasadena.

Update 1:00PM -- I'm not sure when the story I wanted you to read will post, so, like, well ... talk amongst yourselves? Here's a topic: colored lights or clear for holiday decorating? Your thoughts?

Another Shameless Birthday Post

One of these days I'll sleuth around and find out why South Pasadena High School has these numbers in the sidewalk. But for today I'll just use this one to mark my 46th birthday!

I'm hopelessly obnoxious when it comes to birthdays. Everyone's birthdays. Even birthdays of people I don't know. (Yes, I'll sing along in a restaurant when someone is getting serenaded by harried waiters and well-meaning friends. I'll join in from across the room even if I don't know the person. I might even get a little misty-eyed.) That's right, I'm a full-fledged (birthday) card carrying sentimental fool and proud of it.

Birthdays don't always yield the best presents, and sometimes they roll around in the middle of one of those chapters in your life that, if written, might begin with lines like "the primroses were over" or "midway in our life's journey, I went stray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood." or even "as Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."

Life is funny like that.

But birthdays offer a great chance to celebrate, ponder and plan your next big plot line. One with a brand new number on your jersey. So, dear readers, on this day of my birth you are ALL instructed to party hardy and eat cake! I'll be the one in the corner of the restaurant with a silly hat, a "46 is the new 30" T-shirt and an inferno of birthday candles just waiting for a really good wish. (By all means, sing along.)

Stepping it Up

You'll find these lovely stairs on the west side of South Pasadena High School. The building is so art deco chic it reminds me of an old Busby Berkeley musical. In fact, these steps really need to be the backdrop of something musical. Can't you imagine a scrappy young couple marching down arm in arm, belting a number like this? Or maybe a few friends celebrating the start of summer? Or perhaps the football team heading over to the field for practice and warming up with something inspirational?

I have high school envy. My fellow classmates never could agree on whether our cement block of a school looked more like a convalescent home or a correction facility. But South Pas High? It's too cool for school.

A Light Extinguished

When I drove down Fremont yesterday morning, I saw the satellite news vans parked in front of South Pasadena High School. Sure, they might have been there because a science whiz figured out unified field theory or a student fan fiction blogger got a three book deal. But, more likely, when news vans are in front of a high school they are there because someone died. As I drove closer, I saw the lurking photogs with telescopic lenses aimed at groups of ashen-faced teens. Some kids were weeping. Some were clutching one another. Some were staring with a blankness that comes after being sucker-punched by the hands of fate.

Grief never fits anybody right. But it is especially too big to be worn by young people.

This past Saturday night, South Pasadena High School senior Aydin Salek passed away at a party in Altadena. Yesterday would have been his 18th birthday. He was the student Commissioner of Internal Affairs, a writer for the school paper, a student liaison to the South Pasadena School Board, the president of the campus American Cancer Society Club and a swim team member.

I spent about an hour reading the messages posted on a Facebook tribute page and kept seeing many of the same words used to describe him. Passionate. Generous. Inspirational. Influential. Kind. Brilliant. Funny. I learned that he donated money to charity. I learned that he helped feed the homeless in Pasadena. I learned that he surprised the swim team one morning last year with four huge boxes of donuts. I learned that he tutored some kids on the side, and irritated more than one of them with speeches about being more motivated. I learned that he danced to Usher in a car with a girl after buying her chicken McNuggets. I learned that he liked a good argument but loved a good joke. I learned that he wanted -- like so many beautiful young shooting stars -- to illuminate the world. To make things brighter.

Like any tragedy, this one has been spackled with big globs of rumor and innuendo, with lazy reporting and speculation. Local news stories have all but proclaimed his death a result of binge drinking. But we don't have any information yet on what, exactly, caused this tragedy. All we know is that a promising young man died and that he left behind a family whose despair can't possibly be expressed in words.

He also left behind a lot of shattered young people who really loved him -- friends who need space to grieve and who don't need insensitive questions from reporters hanging around school grounds or fingerwagging lectures from highhanded adults who seek to turn a young man's death into a talking point. David Bowie said it well:

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through.

Family and friends have organized a candlelight Walk for Aydin Salek on Wednesday, December 14, at 7:00PM, starting in front of the South Pasadena High School Gymnasium.

The South Pasadena High School website will post pertinent information about this tragedy as it becomes available.

Update January 9, 2010: The Los Angeles Times published a touching story about Aydin Salek's parents, including a link to a charitable foundation in his name.

Too Cool for School

I've already demonstrated why South Pasadena High School looks less like an average institution of learning and more like a think tank for otherworldly cold fusion supergeniuses who also happen to have impeccable design sense.

Or maybe it's just me.

Here's the school from another angle ... providing the inspiration for all those nuclear physics whizkids to minor in noir filmmaking. I know there was some controversy when the city chose this (ultra cool, so much cooler than any school I've ever seen) streamlined art deco design, but I'm thankful they did.

South Pasadena High School

Forgive me, but my inner sci-fi geek just can’t resist: this looks for all the world like it should be part of the Superfriends Hall of Justice. No, that’s not quite right. It might be an intergalactic embassy for planet Krypton! Or maybe, when ET phoned home, this is where the call came in…

Actually, it’s one side of South Pasadena High School – an art deco treasure and undoubtedly the coolest school in Southern California. I didn’t know they had schools like this anymore. (My old alma mater in Austin, Texas looks like a minimum security prison. Seriously.) This is more like something from a Bauhaus drawing board or a 1930s film with Greta Garbo. And after dark, the glass-brick cylindrical sections look like they might just be warming up to transport the entire structure to another dimension.

At the very least, it harkens back to another, highly stylized era -- which is probably why our home of the fighting Tigers has been the location for so many movies. Halloween, Back to the Future, Mr. Deeds, Old School, American Pie and Legally Blonde are just a few of the films that have included scenes here.

In 2006, SPHS celebrated it's 100th anniversary at this spot -- though this building has only hosted about half those years. Famous alumni include William Holden (class of '36) and Bronson Pinchot (class of '77.) If you drive behind the school, past the football field, you’ll see the school’s motto inscribed on one of the buildings: Scholarship, Leadership, Strength, and Fair Play. Inspired words. Inspiring architecture.