LA TIMES BOOK FAIR - UCLA - WHY I DIDN'T GO

The LA Times - UCLA book fair is an annual spring event that I have attended more often than not for the last 8 years, usually spending one full day there visiting booths and attending panel discussions. Whenever possible I have gotten tickets the day they are available, free tickets to readings and panel discussions. This year I made a mental note that I ought to go, but in the end I found something better to do.

No doubt the UCLA - LA Times bookfair is a literary event, one that embraces reading, books, authors, and the publishing industry. However, for the massive number of unpaid workers involved in a monumental effort - hoping some literary prestige will rub off on them - I had a very "been there - done that," attitude about the fair this year.

Last night when it was already too late to go I wondered why...

#1) It seems to me that over the years the opportunities to hear one author read and speak and take questions has dwindled. Instead sound bytes from too many authors jammed into a panel discussion is substituted. I have always enjoyed quality over quantity.

#2) Standing in line to get free tickets well in advance in order to get into the most coveted events I am willing to do but NOT to get there and find out that despite my ticket I have been displaced by press and assorted other people who showed up that day more officially. (Yes, I was early or on time for the wait line. So were lots of other people. What again is the point of tickets? When my time is wasted I am not grateful for free tickets.)

#3) I know that the vast children's offerings are meant to foster not only book buying parents but early reading programs in a city where many 9th grade high school students are actually reading at a 3rd grade level. However, the children's events and entertainment seem to dominate the space and maybe that's because of the booming kiddy music and the dancing Barney. I know it's down a treacherous hillside but I would rather all that be placed where the vanity presses and cooking book booths are because sometimes I feel mowed over by the stroller brigades...
#4) I feel sad that the LA TIMES itself has over the last 15 years or so allowed itself to be increasingly decimated. Seasoned journalists were canned, subscriptions are down and desperate, some nutcase patron at LAPL sent the entire ON-LINE LA TIMES to the printer and it was jammed up for days and the one dollar Sunday edition sold at the book festival seems like a vauge reminder of a bygone journalistic age.
WHY ARE THERE NO LA TIMES REPORTERS AT BOOTHS AT THE LA TIMES BOOK FESTIVAL? Why does the LA Times honor BOOK AUTHORS and NOT THEIR OWN JOURNALISTS?


C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - READ HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON LINE HERE FOR FREE!

As you may remember (or want to check by using the search feature of this blog) I listed Ben Franklin as the historical character I most admire in the Vanity Fair like interview I gave myself in the January 2008 article on this blogspot.
The link to his autobiography on line is hidden under his name above! (Click Click!)
"A year after Benjamin Franklin's death, his autobiography, entitled "Memoires De La Vie Privee," was published in Paris in March of 1791. The first English translation, "The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D. Originally Written By Himself, And Now Translated From The French," was published in London in 1793."


Which historical figure do you most identify with?

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN quote

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”

-Benjamin Franklin

MARK TWAIN quote

“A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”
- Mark Twain

DANIEL PINCHBECK - 2012 -THE RETURN OF QUETZALCOATL

2012
The Return of Quetzalcoatl
by Daniel Pinchbeck
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin

Page 26, hardback.

"Like some embittered Dostoyevskian renegade I stopped caring about respectability, normalcy, or the literary and journalistic worlds in which I had tried to make my name. I lost interest in the stories that my culture was willing to tell me about the world - far more dangerously, I lost interest in my own story, which desperately needed a new plot."


Click on the title above to hear a 2006 reading of the book in San Francisco, by the author. (Close your eyes to hear him read though, this is a really crummy video!)

KAREN KELLY - THE SECRET OF "THE SECRET"

The Secret of "The Secret" by Karen Kelly C 2007 by the author
Unlocking the Mysteries of the Runaway Bestseller
Thomas Dunne Books/Saint Martins Press

pages 107-108 hardback

MIT media professor Henry Jenkins says it's not surprising that people watch, read, or listen to The Secret multiple times as part of their law of attraction devotion or practice. "There are a handful of media genres that people watch over and over again: exercise, porn, children's material, and Christian or religious programs, " he says. "The kind of work you watch fifteen times is structured differently from those that you watch once, such as a narrative film. There is a sense in these other categories that you haven't gotten it all and you have to keep watching to find what you missed. Watching again and again may yield emotional insights, and enable the reader (or viewer) to grasp and pass along the important meaning embedded in the worlds (or images.)"

Jenkins has studied the way the religious communities, particularily Christians, have adapted themselves to fan culture, and embraced what he calls "transmedia narratives." - stories that spread across multiple media platforms - and fan activities that help build a fellowship."

COMMENTARY ON TOM JONES IT'S NOT UNUSUAL

Playing DJ today...
Looking at his Bond, James Bond best, this old Tom Jones video of the song "It's Not Unusual" reminds me of Clyde. So it's Clyde's song.

SENECA quote

"We should give as we would receive; cheerfully, quickly, without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers." - Seneca

CHRISTINE COMAFORD-LYNCH / RULES FOR RENEGADES

Page 215-216

It's taken me decades to learn what I'm good at and what I'm lousy at. I'm a builder, not a long-term maintainer. I'm a marketer, not a manager, a salesperson, not a bean counter. I no longer regard it as a character flaw that I love to start businesses but want out after three to five years. I even tell everyone that up front..."

Christine Comaford-Lynch

MARLISE ELIZABETH KAST from TABLOID PRODIGY

Tabloid Prodigy
Dishing the Dirt, Getting the Gossip, and Selling My Soul in the Cutthroat World of Hollywood Reporting.
C 2007 Marlise Elizabeth Kast
Running Press Book Publishers - Philadelphia

Pages 68-69 hardback

The magnitude of willingness I displayed on the Jodie Foster stories labeled me a reporter of compliance. The editors milked my optimism, pushing me on to other assignments that seemed virtually impossible to complete. Inwardly, I thanked them. I thanked them for setting the bar so high. I thanked them for assigning unreachable goals. I thanked them for the adrenaline that kept me going.

With time, I longed to become indispensable to the tabloids. I wanted the editors to feel that the magazine could not survive without me. I was notorious for pushing people away and for giving the impression that I needed no one. But now, I need Globe and Globe needed me.

Ironically, this warped desire was birthed out of my religious background. I come from a "yes" family, one of service that habitually over-commits until there is nothing left. We give more than one hundred percent. We demonstrate the martyr syndrome, willingly suffering for the sake of others' survival.

Now I was willing to suffer for the Globe. This job was the ultimate lure for an adrenaline junkie. I thrived on deadlines and bylines. I liked the idea of being in Hollywood but not of it. No other profession could provide this combination of thrills for someone my age. For Globe, I was prepared to jeopardize my morals, abandon the voice of ethics, embrace perilous risks, and somehow justify it all through the use of my pen."

- Marlise Elizabeth Kast

MICHAEL VENTURA quote

"Walk, ride a bike, roller skate, swim. All other exercize is ego and/or fear driven. If you listen to your ego or fear you will drown out the voices you need most."

-Michael Ventura

MISS MANNERS (Judith Martin) quote

"What the world needs is more false cheer and less honest crabbiness."
-Miss Manners