Big Book Bash: L.A. Times Festival of Books

Hi, it's Anne Stockwell, just back from Sunday at the FOB, one of the biggest events on the L.A. cultural calendar and a swift kick in the pants to anybody who thinks Angelenos don't got culture.  The weekend always involves hot sun, massive crowds, a lot of marching back and forth across UCLA's campus, and the reward of hearing dozens of A-list authors swap yarns.

This Sunday I split the assignment with my partner Rita, an author who also professors over at UCLA's big rival, USC.  (She got just one catcall from a passerby for showing up in her SC baseball cap, which tells you what a mellow crowd this was.)

So here's our scene, if you multiply these booths and that far-off UCLA building by three or four hundred— and then imagine the whole campus flooded with people carrying armloads of books.  Like a literary Mardi Gras.

This is like the Interstate of staircases.  20 can trudge abreast....

And some even make the climb in stilettos.  Go, girl.

PANELS: ELECTION 2008

I hit the first half of this A-list political slugfest moderated by L.A. Times National Editor Scott Kraft and featuring Robert Scheer (lion of the left, long of the L.A. Times, now of truthdig.org), Garrett Graff (original online wiz for Howard Dean, before the "Hyaaaaahhhrrrggg" moment), David Frum (Bush speechwriter and faux-reasonable GOP pundit), and Hugh Hewitt (conservative radio host).

This got hot fast, with the applause denoting lots of Obamaniacs, a smattering of Hillaryheads, and NOT ONE conservative.  Had anybody applauded the Republicans, I think it would have been like that scene from "The Producers" where one guy starts clapping after "Springtime for Hitler" and the women in the audience around him whack him with their purses.

My one contraband photo is blurred, but you get the idea.  On the big blue screen is Scheer. Alone in his shirtsleeves, he had the hometown crowd at his back as he battled the suits on Obama, Clinton, Ayers, the Rev. Wright, and that interestingly named voting bloc, the Millennials.  Unfortunately the Right suits had telling things to say. [Quotes are not word for word, but close.]

HEWITT:  Hillary can beat McCain, but I do not think Obama can. [cites various "Chicago" dealings now coming to light in Obama's resume]. Will the Democrats throw this election so Barack Obama can have a chance to run?

GRAFF:  But do we say to the Millennials, We know better than you do, so we're going to step in and nominate Hillary Clinton?  Three of the last four elections, the candidate who won the most votes did not wind up in office.

SCHEER:  Obama is the strongest candidate to come along in a long time. I thought politics had become so mindless, so frivolous, that it was impossible that a Barack Obama could emerge.

FRUM:  Hillary Clinton's vast right-wing conspiracy is otherwise known as the United States of America. And to most Americans, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright clips are horrifying.

SCHEER:  You guys just don't want to talk about the commander you backed—the experienced, totally vetted George W. Bush!

Scheer brought down the house.  Frum responded with something chilling [I'm paraphrasing], Go ahead, cheer, but you're not doing Obama any favors.  He's not hearing how the rest of this electorate feels about Wright etc.

I wish I could just shake off Frum's words.  I can't, though.  If we want to win this seemingly unlosable election, we'd better know how to counter every single punch the Reps can throw.  And you know we ain't seen nothing yet.

FICTION:  ALTERNATIVE VISIONS

LA Times Book Review editor David Ulin narrated this cool interchange among four writers who set their novels against larger-than-life cultural eras—real myths, if you like.  Star of this panel for our LGBT readers was Nina Revoyr, thoughtful and elegant author of much-lauded "Southland" and "The Necessary Hunger" (lesbian teen basketball yearning, hyphens optional).  Revoyr's latest, "The Age of Dreaming," just landed her a ginormous profile in today's LA Times and earned a new round of bragging rights for her publishers, my pals at Akashic Books.

Here's a Revoyrism for you, on the subject of writing against a period backdrop: "If you don't watch out, history will bite you in the ass, and often does. But that doesn't mean you don't have to deal with it." 

MYSTERY: ABOVE THE LAW

Since Rita's the crime fan in the family, she headed over to hear the bestselling big-gun crime writers Catherine Coulter, John Lescroart, and James Sheehan.

A lot of how-to in this panel, but no revelations.  Apparently San Francisco makes a great location.  You don't say!  But I liked the description of the city:  "Beautiful and balkanized."

Coulter (above, with Lescroart) also said that since 9/11 she can't get into FBI facilities to do research. Five million square feet of FBI real estate have been repurposed for antiterrorism.  She also said all Hoover's fiefdoms have been demolished. I can't help wondering if that means they did a sweep for any of Edgar's evening gowns that might still be stuffed in the back of a file cabinet.

AND NOW, JULIE ANDREWS

You know you're at a broad-based entertainment when Robert Scheer and Julie Andrews pack the same theater just a couple of hours apart.  For this final event of the fest, crowds poured into Royce Hall.  And why not?  The star's new memoir, "Home," just hit #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. 

What can I tell you?  Andrews walked on, flanked by interviewer Patt Morrison.  Major waves of love in the house.

We got an hour of great war stories, starting with London during the Blitz and going right up through "Mary Poppins."  Best dish:  Andrews's tattled tale about "My Fair Lady" costar Rex Harrison. 

"Rex could be a very…WINDY gentleman," Andrews intoned.  Apparently Harrison did his worst one night just as Andrews was trying to get through her toughest acting task of the play.  It's the scene in which Eliza (if you don't know "My Fair Lady," you are not gay. Go at once and remedy this) is blurting out to Henry Higgins's mother that a lady is defined not by how she speaks but how she's treated.  Henry himself is upstage, furiously pacing back and forth. 

"Rex let fly with a machine-gun fart," Andrews said.  "In the orchestra pit they turned their heads to listen. In the boxes, they were startled. And this happened just as his mother had to say her next line: 'Henry, dear, please don't grind your teeth."

And what could top that?   Andrews proving she could still say SUPERCALFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS— backward.