Justin’s Newsletter: October 2024
Vol. 4, Issue 10
CONGRATS TO THE DODGERS WHO WON THE WORLD SERIES JUST MOMENTS AGO!
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What’s Up With Me
My new book, Paradise Springs, has been nominated as a finalist in the Non-Fiction Book category of the LA Press Club's National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards! Winners will be announced at the award ceremony on December 1.
This month, I traveled with a Pasadena Delegation to Guanajuato, Mexico, to explore whether we should establish a Sister Cities relationship between Pasadena and Guanajuato. A Pasadena Sister City relationship with any city in Mexico is long overdue. Guanajuato is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen (and I’ve traveled to 30 countries). Each year, Guanajuato hosts the Festival Internacional Cervantino, a major arts and culture festival featuring artists and performers from all over the world. We immersed ourselves in Guanajuato’s culture and established strong relationships with some of Guanajuato’s top officials in government, academia, non-profit sector, and the arts. One of the greatest honors of the trip was when we were invited to the exclusive midnight inauguration and swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected Presidenta Municipal (Mayor) Samantha Smith and City Council members. This was a major, solemn, and historical event that took place at exactly 12:01 a.m. on October 10 in the historic and iconic Teatro Juárez. Seats were highly coveted and the 902-capacity theater was completely filled with the government, business, financial, and social elite of the city and state of Guanajuato. The Pasadena Delegation was placed in the third row of this enormous theater alongside dignitaries, such as the 2024-2025 Reina (Queen) de la Ciudad de Guanajuato Lizeth Alejandra Ayala Valtierra (similar to the Rose Queen in Pasadena). The similarities between Pasadena and Guanajuato are many. Both cities are similar in size. Guanajuato is a popular tourist destination with historical significance, as is Pasadena. Both cities are important and noteworthy hubs of arts, music, culture, science, technology, education, architecture, historic preservation, sports, and more. Therefore, we submitted a report to the Pasadena Sister Cities Committee recommending that they move forward with formalizing a Sister Cities relationship between Pasadena and Guanajuato. Guanajuato officials are currently planning their own exploratory visit to Pasadena in the near future. See a photo gallery below.
Watch the latest episode of Pasadena Media's award-winning TV show "Pasadena Monthly with Justin Chapman," featuring a review of the month's top stories, a history segment, and an interview with Pasadena Librarian Tim McDonald about Measure PL and 21st century libraries. Read more here.
Around Town
Great Reads
Here are some recommendations for interesting books I’ve read recently:
Cellophane Bricks—Jonathan Lethem
An unusual, out-of-the-box book from one of the best living writers. Lethem collects his writings about and reflects on visual art throughout his life, including painting, graffiti, comics, sculpture, and the like. The physical book itself is unusual aesthetically, with fold-out pages showing larger works and inverse indentation and paragraph structure. Highly recommended for any art lover, but also anyone who appreciates how one artist in one art form can inspire another artist in a seemingly different form.
The Wind and Beyond: Theodore von Kármán, Pioneer in Aviation and Pathfinder in Space—Theodore von Kármán with Lee Edson
Dr. Theodore von Kármán was one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century. The edge of space—62.8 miles—is named after him, the Kármán Line. He was an incredible mathematician, an innovative aerospace engineer, and a brilliant physicist whose work led to leaps and bounds in aeronautics and astronautics. He was born in Hungary, educated and taught in Germany, moved to Pasadena in 1930 to teach at Caltech and serve as director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT). Through that group, he eventually oversaw Frank Malina, Jack Parsons, and others who helped develop rocket science, found JPL, and make groundbreaking advances in rocket fuel that are still used today in launching rockets and exploring space. After World War II, von Kármán went back to Germany to interrogate Nazi scientists, many of whom came to the United States to continue their research, such as Wernher von Braun and others who had committed war crimes or allowed them to happen. Von Kármán was part of a group that produced a report calling for what soon thereafter became the military-industrial complex. President John F. Kennedy bestowed the first National Medal of Science on von Kármán in 1963, shortly before both of them died, at ages 46 and 81, respectively. This memoir outlines a fascinating and remarkable life, of which he spent many years right here in Pasadena.
Great Listens & Watches
If you missed it when it played at the Academy Theater, check out my friend André Coleman’s film “Milestone” on Amazon Prime.
Some friends and I went to the very last show ever of the trailblazing punk band NOFX, who have called it quits after 40+ years. You can watch the final show, which was just amazing, pitch perfect, and so much fun, right here and here. Thank you for 40 years of good tunes.
Spotlight on My Past Stories
In light of the LA Press Club journalism award nomination for my book, check out the two original stories I wrote about Paradise Springs in LAist and Pasadena Now, both of which won awards of their own.
And read all of my journalism here.