Mystery

TAMPA, Fla. - Though Tuesday was a day filled with frustrations - filled with clueless guards and curt hall monitors - I solved the photo floor pass mystery Wednesday. It didn't start looking like that was going to happen. I called the Republican National Convention media office Wednesday afternoon, and was immediately referred to the operations number. In turn, the operations people gave me the local numbers for Joe Keenan, the director of the U.S. Senate Press Gallery, the institution that vetted our press-level credentials.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials on Friday ordered additional tests for the autopsy of an 11-month-old baby who died Wednesday after experiencing breathing problems at a Burbank day care center. The cause of death and other details were still unknown pending the autopsy report, but police said they do not suspect foul play. At about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, police and paramedics responded to a call about a baby not breathing at a licensed daycare facility in the 200 block of West Santa Anita Avenue, Sgt. Darin Ryburn said.

Of the many indignities visited upon Fern Dell, the garden oasis in Griffith Park, one remains a mystery: Who turned off the water? Starlets and health-seekers lined up in the 1920s to fill jugs from the spring that fed this 20-acre fantasia of ferns, footpaths and picturesque bridges. They thought it was a fountain of youth. Now, only the lower stream beds run, and the pools lie motionless and gummy. You might think the city would do something. But instead, Friends of Griffith Park - the nonprofit group that stepped in three years ago to try to reverse the 95-year-old garden's long, sad decline - is on the case.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- Local mystery writer Jerrilyn Farmer will speak on how to get published at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the La Canada Flintridge library, 4545 Oakwood Ave., La Canada Flintridge. Farmer is the author of the best-selling Madeline Bean mysteries, which include "Dim Sum Dead," and "Sympathy for the Devil." She has earned many mystery honors, including the Macavity Award and nominations for three Agatha Awards. Farmer will talk about her mystery series, how to get published and will give tips on writing the strongest possible opening scene.

Anshika Niraj, 9, uses her literary skills to win third annual national Cyberchase Online Contest.GLENDALE -- Anshika Niraj, 9, read every Nancy Drew mystery. It seems to have paid off. Anshika combined her interest in mysteries with some self-taught detective skills to become one of 10 children nationwide to solve a KCET/PBS-sponsored online mystery in the third annual Cyberchase Online Contest. Anshika, a student in Pat Ashley's Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School fourth-grade class, determined that Baskerville was the evil Hacker's accomplice in stealing the key to the Castleblanca power station.

Tim Willert GLENDALE -- For almost a month since she was found at a bus stop in La Canada Flintridge, she was a mystery to all who met her. The woman, referred to as Jane Doe in a bulletin released by the Crescenta Valley Sheriff's Department, was unable to provide authorities with any useful information about her identity. "You can have a conversation with her," Det. Cynthia Gonzales said. "But if you ask her questions about her life she just doesn't remember."

From Maripat Donovan, the creator and producer who brought you 'Late Nite Catechism' and the sequel, 'Late Nite Catechism 2' comes the all-new, all ho-ho--ho holiday special 'Sister's Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi's Gold' at the Brentwood Theatre from Dec. 5 through Dec. 17. It's CSI: Bethlehem in Sister's Christmas Catechism. Sister tackles the question that has been puzzling historians throughout the ages: What ever happened to the Magi's gold? Sister engages her audience, and together they solve the mystery of what happened to the Magi's gold through a forensic examination of the nativity scene as Sister hunts under the manger and over camel humps.

Movies need not venture off to a galaxy far, far away in order to take the audience into a world of wonder and mystery. Sometimes, a step back into the past reveals thrills long lost in the bombast of 21st-century Hollywood moviemaking. As the tumult of this summer's blockbusters fade, "The Illusionist" materializes with a cunning sleight-of-hand to reveal the truly magical. "The Illusionist," written and directed by Neil Burger, is set in Vienna during the early 1900s. There, Eisenheim (Edward Norton)

The Glendale News-Press visited R.D. White Elementary School and asked students, ?What have you learned about solving a mystery?? ? ?It takes a while to solve a mystery. It?s kind of hard to solve it. You have to have clues, and you have to look everywhere. You have to look around.? JOSEPH JAYOMA, 9 Glendale ? ? ?It takes very long. If you want to solve a mystery in a book, you need to read the whole book. You have to look for clues and ask people who you think did it.?

Montrose resident Pete Goodman seems to keep himself quite busy. A former journalist for the U.S. Air Force, he has also worked as an executive show director for a Japanese theme park and theater arts professor, but has settled down into the refined art of writing a good mystery. ?Smoking Frog Lives!? is Goodman?s first mystery novel, and the series kicks off with a bang! Set in modern-day southern Mexico, surrounding the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque. Nick Michaels, former military man and private investigator, has given up his former profession for a life of archaeology, on site with USC archaeologist and professor Dr. Max Herrmann.

Of the many indignities visited upon Fern Dell, the garden oasis in Griffith Park, one remains a mystery: Who turned off the water? Starlets and health-seekers lined up in the 1920s to fill jugs from the spring that fed this 20-acre fantasia of ferns, footpaths and picturesque bridges. They thought it was a fountain of youth. Now, only the lower stream beds run, and the pools lie motionless and gummy. You might think the city would do something. But instead, Friends of Griffith Park - the nonprofit group that stepped in three years ago to try to reverse the 95-year-old garden's long, sad decline - is on the case.

Shane Carruth made an impressive debut in 2004 with "Primer," which cost $7,000 and is surely the most complexly structured time-travel film ever made. For that matter, it may be one of the most complexly structured films ever made, period. Carruth seemed to have fallen off the map shortly thereafter. Now, after nine years, his second feature, "Upstream Color," opens this week. There is no real protagonist here. Carruth opts for multiple points of view; sometimes the transitions are so sudden and the durations so short that the movie suggests an "objective" point of view.

Entering the Glendale Centre Theatre feels like a cozy step back in time. Visitors are greeted by memorabilia from the theater's 65-year history, furnishings from the past and a casual familial warmth later underscored by Executive Producer Tim Dietlein's pre-show banter with the audience. The family ambience of this 430-seat theater-in-the-round, with its cheery red upholstered seats and warm wood paneling, isn't anything new. Dietlein's grandparents founded the theater in 1947 and Dietlein, who runs the operation with his wife Brenda, grew up in it. It isn't surprising, then, that comfortable, familiar entertainment is a specialty of the house.

Re: “Mystery Sierra hiker found,” Oct. 9. What a great story. A story with mystery and a happy ending. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Sierra peak was named Taylor Peak? Benla Bennet Glendale

TAMPA, Fla. - Though Tuesday was a day filled with frustrations - filled with clueless guards and curt hall monitors - I solved the photo floor pass mystery Wednesday. It didn't start looking like that was going to happen. I called the Republican National Convention media office Wednesday afternoon, and was immediately referred to the operations number. In turn, the operations people gave me the local numbers for Joe Keenan, the director of the U.S. Senate Press Gallery, the institution that vetted our press-level credentials.

TAMPA, Fla. -- After trekking up and down yet another stairwell at the Tampa Bay Times Forum with my photo gear, I prayed I had finally reached my goal: a floor photo pass. "Oh no, honey, I'm sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about," said an older, blue-eyed woman in a blue shirt whose cop-like demeanor and cold expression belied her words. I doubt I'm being uncharitable if I doubted her concern. Credentials are color-coded at the RNC: Red is the most restrictive pass - level four and above only - while gray is an all-access pass.

My top-10 films from last year are slowly making their way to home video, the latest being this mysterious relationship drama from Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami (“Taste of Cherry,” “Crimson Gold”) - certainly his most accessible film for Westerners. First of all, it's primarily in English, with a few English-subtitled scenes in French and Italian. Secondly, it is much closer in tone and technique to European cinema than to the Iranian films that make it to the U.S. Juliette Binoche plays a nameless character who seeks a meeting with author James Miller (William Shimmel, an opera singer making his film debut)

Can you say someone is taller or smarter or wealthier “than me”? Or must you write it “than I”? In the last few weeks I've gotten a lot of emails from readers about a sentence in my column that said a friend of mine is better educated “than me.” Their responses ranged from simple curiosity to absolute certainty I was wrong. “You erred,'” one reader told me. “You should have written, technically, than 'I.'” Was I wrong? To find the answer, you have to know several other things first, most notably the difference between conjunctions and prepositions.

In 2010, two women cleaning the basement of a MacArthur Park area apartment building found a 1930s steamer trunk. In it, two leather doctor's bags were discovered, each containing the mummified remains of an infant wrapped in newspaper. A police investigation was launched and soon the trunk along with its human remains were identified as belonging to Janet M. Barrie, a Scottish-born nurse who cared for Mary Knapp, the wife of dentist George Knapp. After Mary died from breast cancer, Barrie married him. Four years later, George passed away, too. And so Barrie lived in the apartment for decades, ultimately leaving L.A and the trunk behind for Canada.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials on Friday ordered additional tests for the autopsy of an 11-month-old baby who died Wednesday after experiencing breathing problems at a Burbank day care center. The cause of death and other details were still unknown pending the autopsy report, but police said they do not suspect foul play. At about 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, police and paramedics responded to a call about a baby not breathing at a licensed daycare facility in the 200 block of West Santa Anita Avenue, Sgt. Darin Ryburn said.