GELFAND’S WORLD-Rebecca Solnit is the author of the essay Men Explain Things to Me, a classic that inspired the term mansplaining (photo below right). In that essay, now available as part of a larger volume, Solnit told about attending a party where she was introduced to the host, a monied man who inquired as to her recent writings. When she mentioned one new book of hers on the 19th century inventor Eadweard Muybridge, he insisted on telling her all about the new, important book on the same subject, even as her friend tried to interject (several times) that Solnit was indeed the author of that book.
Who could resist a panel that paired Solnit with LA Times columnist Meghan Daum, author of Unspeakable and now, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to have Kids. Thus I found myself in the company of two or three hundred other people at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books for a session called Nonfiction: Women on Their Own Terms. One of the high points was Solnit's seemingly offhand remark that when it comes to certain kinds of advice, "not listening is an important part of being a writer."
Michael Shermer, famous in skeptic circles, hosted a panel on writing big science. The scope of the discussion ranged from the microbes in our guts (and why we need them) to astronomical photography to an attempt by 17th century Jesuits to ban discussion of an important part of mathematics. For those of you whose curiosity was inspired by that last remark, the concept in question is that a line can be defined as the sum of its points, right down to infinitesimal separations. Apparently the Jesuits found this to be a challenge to Euclidean geometry, and this had religious overtones, at least to them. They therefore banned discussion of this dangerous topic in their schools and colleges, even if it is the foundation of calculus, and therefore of much of our modern world.
One of the more pointed discussions was the interview of former mayor Richard Riordan by columnist Bill Boyarsky. Riordan, author of The Mayor, believed in doing things right now, even if you had to get forgiveness later. This was particularly true after the earthquake of 1994, since severe traffic problems were the aftermath of damage to freeways and intersections. One such problem involved the need to create a detour for a broken part of the I-10 freeway, even though the alternate route would have to go through part of Culver City. Rather than use the usual channels, which would have taken months, Riordan ordered one of his staff to take over the needed intersections immediately. The crowd applauded this story.
Riordan also talked about meeting with the governor and demanding that the freeway repairs be done asap, even if it involved bringing in private contractors and avoiding unionized public sector workers. Riordan doesn't seem to like public sector unions much. He got his way on the freeway repairs.
One of the more interesting moments occurred when Boyarsky changed the subject, and asked the audience whether they read the Times and subscribe to it. Almost every hand went up, indicating both that literacy is not dead, and that this was very much a self-selected audience.
Continuing in the political vein, there was Pushing the Needle: Decisions in Government, which starred John Dean and Erwin Chemerinsky among others. Chemerinsky, founder and Dean of the UC Irvine School of Law, argued that the U.S. Supreme Court has been a failure. Most of the audience seemed to think that he made a pretty good case. Dean recounted some very-inside stories about the Watergate scandal, particularly the legal wrangling among the guilty parties as words like Grand Jury and Senate subcommittee were coming to the fore.
There was lots more. One might view the Times Festival of Books as a celebration of literacy in an increasingly electronic world, since it featured authors of hard-copy books. But the Festival also gave the new electronic world its due.
As to the latter, one of the better discussions was the panel Publishing: The New Writers' Toolbox, hosted by Gina Frangello. The panel was young, and talked about recent successes in building online communities of readers and writers. The use of Tumblr.com to build an audience was a popular subject, and the representative of Goodreads.com told us about the development of a community of readers who share their own enthusiasms in a vast online gathering.
It would be impossible to exit these brief impressions without mentioning one of the final panels of the two day festival, titled Lincoln's Legacy. In this, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the weeks of April, 1865 take on special meaning because they include the surrender by Robert E. Lee at Appomatox Courthouse, followed almost immediately by Lincoln's assassination.
You might think that a panel held in the late afternoon of the last day would be undersubscribed, but it was a full house. In fact, I watched a live video feed from the overflow room, which itself became nearly full. The discussions began with a detailed account of the hours and days immediately after the assassination, and developed into a discussion of how we can be sure that assertions are actual facts.
We began to understand that the panel was as much about how history is done by historians as it was about the history itself.
Put all of these panels together over the two day period, and you get an immersion in politics, history, literature, crime writing, and the new electronic age we live in.
This account would not be complete without mention of the discussions about film. Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt talked about his onetime addiction to movie going, revealing that he damaged personal relationships and endangered his professional life by scheduling around movie showings. It was amusing because it was Patton Oswalt talking, but the acoustics up in the balcony were hit and miss. Not so with the panel Frame by Frame, which included film writers from the Times (Kenneth Turan) and from the LA Weekly. It was gratifying to hear a couple of the panelists mention the Cinefamily, which shows lesser known but meritorious features at the old Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax.
I've left out quite a bit, particularly the experience of walking the booths full of booksellers, educational groups, and political organizations. The LA city Department of Cultural Affairs was there, as were representatives of colleges and universities. There were poetry readings and ad hoc street performances. There was an intense discussion of water politics and the need for sustainability. And there was the USC Marching Band, or at least a horn-heavy contingent. They didn't lack for volume.
The take home lesson is that there is lots of culture in Los Angeles, and it covers a lot of different approaches, topics, and methods. There were painters and writers of children's books, just as there were dozens and dozens of published authors. Inviting them all to come together over one April weekend has become a tradition, and it promises to continue.
(Bob Gelfand writes on culture and politics for City Watch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
