OUR LAGUNA: A gathering of friends of the Friends

The Friends of the Laguna Beach Library welcomed Orange County Public Library Director of Construction and Maintenance Bob Genzel Bob Genzel to the annual Membership Dinner, held recently at Tivoli Terrace.

“He is our new best friend,” said Martha Lydick, perennial president of the local group.

Genzel was the man who produced a new air conditioner within a week when the unit at the Friends Bookstore went on the fritz.

“That’s really fast for the county,” Lydick said. “He listens and he works with you.” Genzel also listened when the Friends told him that a proposed new air conditioning system for the entire library that was 2 1/2 times the size of the old one would infuriate the neighbors.

“He went to them and looked out their windows and their patios and agreed the system had to be reduced in size,” Lydick said. “So we are getting a system specially designed for our library.”

Genzel said after reviewing the revised proposal that the roof-top installation will be more energy efficient, quieter and will reduce the carbon footprint.

The Laguna Branch of the county-wide library system was built in the 1970s, replacing a 2,200 square foot building that the city had outgrown.

The 10,000-square-foot facility on the corner of Laguna Avenue and Glenneyre Street also houses the Laguna Chamber of Commerce and the Friends’ Bookstore.

Volunteers staff the store and they were honored at the annual dinner.

Among the regulars: board members Sandy Hovanesian, Angela Irish, Magda Herlicska, Terry Smith, Dee and Karl Koski, Nancy and Howard Pink, Diane Connell, Diane Gonzales, and Randy Ray; Marv Johnson, Judie Lomax, Dorothy Gaither, Nancy Pearlman, Juliet Brebner and Sherwood Kiraly — novelist, columnist and dramatist for stage and screen.

Kiraly was the guest speaker — and every bit as off-beat funny and as undeservedly self-deprecating as he is in his Coastline Pilot column.

“I have recently learned the definition of eternity — it is how to make a movie of your book,” Kiraly said. “Diminished Capacity,” for those who don’t know, is Kiraly’s humorous but sensitive book about a young man suffering short-term memory loss due to a head injury and his aged uncle, who is in the early stages of Alzheimers, and how they coped.

The book has been praised by the national Alzheimers Assn. and is being shown as a fundraiser for chapters as well as at film festivals. It is due out on DVD soon.

Shortly after it was published, the book was optioned by a movie maker, who waxed enthusiastic about the screen treatment — except he wanted to forget the young man’s memory loss.

Uh, no.

Kiraly wrote more books and a stage play based on “California Rush” that was directed by Andrew Barnicle at the Laguna Playhouse. Ten years had gone by before another movie maker showed interest in “Diminished Capacity.”

Kiraly wrote the screenplay, fighting every step of the way for his vision, which didn’t always make him popular.

One of the key elements in the book was the uncle’s attempt to create poetry by sinking fishing lines attached to the keys of an old manual typewriter and luring fish to nibble. The tug on the line types strings of letters — which the uncle edits.

It was the hardest scene from the book to shoot, Kiraly said. The weather was miserably cold. Every one, including the tough crew, “really tough guys,” was tired and cranky.

“I was trying to stay out of everyone’s way when a grip [crew member] walked by and said, ‘I’d like to get my hands on the son of bitch who thought up this typewriter thing’.” Kiraly said.

The movie starred Alan Alda as the uncle and Matthew Broderick as the nephew — Kiraly’s first experience appearing in public with a “really famous person.”

“We went to Chicago to film a scene in front of Wrigley Field,” Kiraly said. “We were standing there and the crowd gradually realized that Matthew Broderick was there.”

Kiraly, who might have been an actor, if he hadn’t been a writer, mimed the gawkers.

“Then some of them came up and asked to take their pictures with him and talked to him very familiarly,” Kiraly said. “When they left, he said, ‘I don’t like that. Do you?’”

Again with the mime. Kiraly gave a modest shrug.

Once the film was finished, Kiraly began to fret about getting it accepted into the Sundance Film Festival.

He doesn’t recommend obsession.

Kiraly credited his wife, Patti Jo, a local jewelry designer, for keeping him on track.

“Patti Jo was with me all the way,” Kiraly said. “She made me finish the book because she liked the beginning. She made me go to New York and fight for it. When it was accepted at Sundance, she was the one with tears in her eyes.

“Then, just a month ago, she said: “Stop talking about the book.”

“Dimcap,” as the film is known, is presently showing as an in-flight movie on Delta, United and possibly Continental flights.

“I recently heard it was the only choice on a United flight. This is what I’ve always wanted, for people to be forced to see my movie,” Kiraly quips.

Time to move on — and he is.

Kiraly has written a screenplay from his book, “Big Babies.” Former actor and director Richard Benjamin is involved.

“We are back to raising money,” Kiraly said.

The Friends know all about that.

Their bookstore provides the revenue stream that the Friends tap annually to buy books, materials and programs for the library and contribute to such projects as refurbishing the exterior of the building, for which the group helped organize broad community participation.

“We have more than 400 members,” Lydick said. “Everyone should belong. So remember, ask a friend to be a Friend.”

Among the library supporters at the dinner: Friends board member Glenna Matthews, whose father was editor of the Laguna Beach News in the 1940s and the Laguna Beach Post in the 1950s before the two papers merged under the ownership of Vern Spitaleri; former Arts Commissioner Ken Anderson and his wife, Bette, an author and past president of Village Laguna; Nancy Joseph and Zola, the fifth seeing eye dog trained by the Josephs; Andy and City Clerk Martha Anderson; City Treasurer Laura Parisi, the city’s liaison with the Friends’ former branch librarian, Marianna Hof and her successor, Jenny Gasset; Children’s Librarian Rebecca Porter and Barbara Ring.

For more information about the Friends of the Laguna Beach Library, to join or to make a donation, call (949) 497-7053.

OUR LAGUNA is a regular feature of the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot. Contributions are welcomed. Write to Barbara Diamond, P.O. Box 248, Laguna Beach, 92652; hand-deliver to Suite 22 in the Lumberyard, 384 Forest Ave.; call (949) 494-4321, fax (949) 494-8979 or e-mail coastlinepilot@latimes.com