Archive for May, 2009

Ah, Los Angeles Culture

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

You go to the Festival of Books wearing your, “Life is short.  Opera is long” t-shirt.  No foresight in the choice of shirt.  You woke up in it and forgot to change.  Ah, the life of a writer.  At any rate, the Festival is a big deal and well attended.  One hundred thousand plus which works out to less than one percent of the population but, heck, it’s books not celebrity sightings.

When you come out of the parking structure, the first thing you encounter is the children’s part of the festival and a sign that reads, “Don’t eat Bugs”  Seems like good advice.  After a bit of walking, you wonder if you’ll ever get out of the children’s area.  A feeling, that adults don’t like to read but want their children to read because it impresses their  friends, descends on you before you make it to the rest of the Festival.

Round a corner.  It lays or lies (a little help here) before you.  Booths filled with books as far as the eye can see.  Seductive.  Nirvana.  Need one say, cultured?

The first booth you go to is a free chance for season tickets at the Geffen Playhouse.   See!  Culture!  It shares a booth with the Los Angeles Opera.  Culture!  In line, one of the Opera booth workers challenges your t-shirt’s statement.   You smile and say, “Truth hurts.”  The gods take a dim view of your cold reply and you lose not only your turn to spin but then get bupkis when you do spin for the season tickets.

The booths range from every genre of writing along with bookstores and commercial concerns that try to appeal to your intelligent side by telling you how intelligent you are.  The gamut of political, cultural and entertainment expression is covered.  Crazies of every sort mix with people whom you would call sane and reasonable.

Famous authors get their own booths manned by assistants.  You give them wide berth because some of their success might rub off on you.

At most of the book booths, there is an author or two looking forlorn.  You want to cuddle them.  Tell them that you understand the hellish solitude and second guessing of writing.  You want to buy their books just to coax a smile from them.  But really, you want to see if there are any freebies.

The sun beats down on you and you realize that you forgot your sunscreen.  You head into the nearest covered stage which, at that moment,  is packed to the rafters with people listening to an interview with Tori Spelling.  Culture?

You go to the Los Angeles Modernism 09 show in Santa Monica.  This is a show of all the furniture and objet d’arts from Art Deco to the Sixties.  From Erte to ergonomics.  You wander from display to display and start to salivate acquisitively.

Soon, you have come to what seems like a rational decision that you must possess about thirty items.  No thought of where you might put them or any other objection or complication crosses your mind.  You are resolute.  You’re short a couple of hundred thousand dollars .  The world is cruel.  The world is unjust.  They don’t even give freebies like the booksellers.

Culture.  Who needs it?