Pinky's Paperhaus

Joan Didion at the LAT FOB

Joan Didion with LA Times Book Review editor David Ulin at UCLA's Royce Hall on Saturday, April 29.

The thing that struck me the most about Joan Didion was how small her presence is. Her language has always been so strong, so lean and powerful. She's tall. She was model-thin, model-beautiful in her younger days. In her stories of living in California in the late 1960s, I thought she'd been a center-of-the-whirlwing den mother to the artsy types who fluttered in and out of her home. But seeing her in person I think she was maybe more of the silent one in the corner with the mousy brown hair, the one hoping no one would notice her. The one people forgot -- until her essays started being published and her inner voice thundered out.

Once she started speaking my impression of the mousy, invisible Didion waned -- she's entirely confident and fairly candid -- but I couldn't help reshaping my impression of her.

More notes about what she said will be on LAist.com tonight or tomorrow. Until then, I have to say I was really happy that David Ulin asked about Slouching Towards Bethlehem, returning to the essay "Goodbye to All That" more than once; it's one ofmy all-time favorites.

On tonight: Scott O'Connor

Tonight! Tune your radio dial to Theory Radio to hear author Scott O'Connor talk about his novella, Among Wolves, and explain what it's like to wear tights in summer. That's 7-9pm Pacific. Podcast will be here, later.

Tomorrow: the LA Times Festival of Books! Vermin on the Mount! Then Sunday, more LA Times Festival of Books! Woo hoo!

The rat returns

Podcast: Jonathan Ames part 2

Aha! It's the Jonathan Ames podcast Part II; Jonathan is the author of, most recently, I Love You More Than You Know, a book of hilarious, overexposed personal essays. In person Mr. Ames is softspoken, at least in front of my microphone; he's less comfortable saying "her ass was round and firm and white" than he is typing it. In this, the second (and final) part of our interview, Mr. Ames talks about what he's been reading and more. Why give it all away?

Coming up: Samantha Dunn

Tune in tonight at 7pm pacific to hear the personable and accident-prone Samantha Dunn talk about her latest book, Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Sex, Salsa and Salvation. What kind of music can you expect? That's right: salsa! Hear me say names like Tito Puente and Celia Cruz with the hammiest accent ever. Even better, hear Sam tell what it's like to take a writing class from Kate Braverman.

Sunday LATBR

I used to subscribe to the Sunday NY Times, but after my employment status changed -- so I finally had time to read it -- I decided it was a luxury I could no longer afford. So no more NY Times Book Review for me, except that I can certainly read it online.

Online is not so easy with the LA Times Book Review. It has incredibly awful UI, aka User Interface design, aka It Looks Terrible and The Headlines Don't Seem to Connect With the Subheads And What's More There Appear to Be Only 8 Reviews Which Seems a Little Thin, Don't You Think? Nevertheless, I've dug in this week to give it a shot.

And the first review makes me run for cover. The opening of the Jonathan Kirsch review of A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 and five other earthquake books:

EARTHQUAKES are an unremarkable fact of life in California. The point is made in "L.A. Story," Steve Martin's affectionate parody of life in Los Angeles, when we see the diners in a chic restaurant go on chatting, sipping and nibbling as the glassware begins to rattle ominously.

As far as I'm concerned, the worst way to open a book review is with an anecdote of the reviewer meeting the author. The second worst way is to reference a film in a review of books that have nothing to do with movies. I know we're in LA, but could we talk about books here? Not to mention this is an incredibly shallow take on Angelenos and earthquakes compared to The Myth of Solid Ground, an interesting and thoughtful earthquake book that just happens to be written by David Ulin, editor of the LA Times Book Review.

Radio day!

I'm scrambling to get everything together for tonight's Theory Radio show - 7pm Pacific with Jonathan Ames - tune in earlier if you want to hear whatever music I queue up, because I think I'm getting an hour extra pre-show show time. Fun!

Coincidentally, today my first public radio piece goes on the air. It's on Marketplace Money, which airs over the weekend on NPR stations across the country. One station somewhere broadcasts it Fridays, so it's now conveniently up on the web. They're calling it Math in the Real World; I called it Algebra, 25 Years Later. In it I try to answer the adolescent question, "Do we really have to know this stuff?"

book marketing, humor-style, bloggy-style

Writer Paul Davidson has a book coming out on May 4. Paul is one of those people who is so funny when you talk to them, you wonder if you could just nod through the conversation and let him go. If he graces Pinky's Paperhaus, I'll try this tactic, even though nodding doesn't work well on radio.

So Paul's book is called The Lost Blogs: from Jesus to Jim Morrison; it's the imagined blogs of personages who were famous and/or mythical before the advent of blogging (poor bastards). Included are Abe Lincoln, Alexander the Great, and, of course, Jesus:

on his latest project via his Carpentry Weblog:
"With my water or wine rack you can store both satisfying thirst quenchers in one place and never find yourself deficient of either. For what one would do if they only had water but wanted wine? Nothing! You'd be stuck without a solution! This is just why this project is so useful.

Any thoughts on this project would be fully appreciated, as it's just a little something I've started to work on, and am currently not sure how many people will find such an item useful...

Anyway, Fans of Paul (who have advisedly not taken the moniker FoP) are doing a little grassroots promoting. At Kevin Apgar's suggestion, 40+ people are faux-blogging as historical figures this week. The fun parts: nobody will reveal who they're blogging as until Friday (although they're dropping hints), none of these characters appear in the book, and some may be fictional close-to-famous characters who blog about their memorable buddy.

So far I can't really tell who anyone is writing as, but it's probably better that way.

Returning to internet radio

Starting this Friday, Pinky's Paperhaus will be heard on the internets (all of 'em) Fridays from 7-9pm on Theory Radio. The inaugural show will be the complete interview with Jonathan Ames. It's true, I've been holding the second half hostage....until now.

Listening should be easy with just a click on "listen now," which will launch the station in your iTunes. As for my end, well, the technology is a little more complicated, but I think I can manage it. I'm excited. Fun! Neat!

Upcoming Ellroy

The American Cinematheque launches its 8th annual noir festival this Friday and James Ellroy is going to be there. He'll be talking right after Crime Wave, the first half of a double feature. I read someplace that it's one of Ellroy's favorites, and since he borrowed the title for a short story collection, maybe that's true. I can't wait. I've never seen him speak before and I can't think of a better spot than a restored historic theater on seedy old Hollywood Boulevard.

Oh, some design changes around here. Some other news on the horizon, too.