WILL I SEE YOU AT THE LA TIMES BOOK FAIR AT USC?

Seems I make it to the LA TIMES Book Fair every other year and at this very moment I am either at the book fair or staying home.  If I don't go it'll probably be because it was an ordeal the last time.  Too much travel and not getting the tickets for the little discussions that are staged about various important subjects to readers and writers.  If I do go, I may or may not write another review.

I DO APPRECIATE THE BOOK FAIR, the literary aspect for the common person.  I especially appreciate it because the poor LA TIMES is one more NEWSPAPER THAT IS SUFFERING FOR IT'S EXISTANCE! 

I LOAD UP ON MICHAEL CONNELLY BOOKS : READING FOR HIS WRITING

I recently got two Michael Connelly books, The Fifth Witness - a Lincoln Lawyer Novel, 

which manages to involve the sell of a criminal murder case for movie making, and The Drop - a Harry Bosch Novel, about the hunt for and arrest of a child molester. 

I wrote about discovering Michael Connelly as a writer of local (Los Angeles) crime fiction a while back and am only sorry that I didn't hear about his work sooner because I love to read about events - fiction or nonfiction - that take place in a topography and cityscape I'm familiar with.  Now, I think that some day, far in the future I'm going to have to read one or both series from the first book forward.  Of course each book stands alone but still, there are the subtle nuances of character building from the start, and I feel maybe I've missed out. 

SO I DON'T KNOW IF PERHAPS Connelly has revealed this bit of information before or if I caught it, on page 132 of the hardback of The Fifth Witness, as the first of the revelation but it turns out that The Lincoln Lawyer has a half brother who is...  Harry Bosch.   Interestingly both men have teenage daughters and are divorced.  And Connelly has set it up that at least one of these daughters may follow her father into police work so... does that mean that in a few years there will be crime fiction based in LA from a FEMALE POINT OF VIEW!  I kind of hope so and I can't wait to see what he does, if so, with the sex scenes!

As I was reading I felt my self with the literary training turn on.  This is not the self that usually reads for enjoyment nor the self that writes in long deep sessions of uninterruptable concentration.  It's the self that says "Now exactly how did he pull this story off?"  How much is in flow and how much is calculation?  Does he have the plot charted before hand?

FREE SPEECH AND CENSORSHIP : EXHIBIT AT THE SKIRBALL

SKIRBALL CULTURAL CENTER

 

Hello Mudda, Hello Fudda...  The Skirball presents songwriter Allen Sherman in two days... and for some reason right now I want to eat a massive amount of jelly beans! 

 

Seems I head out for an afternoon to Skirball almost as often as I head out for the Getty for an afternoon.  Seriously though, a couple months ago I went to an exhibit there, the title of which I'm ashamed to not remember, and they had copies of books that had been banned including Little House on the Prarie, as well as a row of T-shirts hanging on wire hangers.

Each T-Shirt had gotten a kid who wore it to school thrown out of school, or at least sent home to change.

It really got me thinking about the Ist Amendment and Free Speech and whatever it was that our Founding Fathers intended.  (At the same time there was a Founding Fathers exhibit with original documents, some which had never been let out of the National Archives.)

I once, as a teenage, got thrown out of a candy store because I was wearing a T shirt that was for a Democratic candidate.  The owners were Republicans.  Not only did they refuse me a sale, but they wanted to know WHO MY PARENTS WERE!

What a load of shit!

Dates me, doesn't it!

 

C 2013-2026 Christine Trzyna

THINKING OF JOHN

A decade ago -give or take a few years - a friend from my writing program, John , left central California for Oregon. He moved a few times and once left a message that was so badly recorded that I couldn't make out his new phone number. Letters I send were not forwarded. So we lost touch. John kept moving further into the mountains. I have no hope of making contact with him again. Thinking of John today.

ANAIS NIN Quotation

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anaïs Nin

YOU'VE GOT A LOVER : SHAKE RUSSEL with MICHAEL HEARNE (OR VISA VERSA)

  I heard a live performance of Shake Russell years ago in Houston at a place called Steamboat Springs. All the songs he played that night stayed with me.  Years later I finally met someone else who knew his music at a coffee house in Studio City.  (Shake is the guy on the right.)

HENRY DARGER : IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL :CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW

This is a peculiar film because the subject, Henry Darger, was a peculiar person and a complete unknown in his lifetime.  He died in 1977 as an old man and then his landlady (who must have really known how to mind her own business) find his art - a treasure!

If Henry had been a child in our times rather than his (he died in 1977 as an old man), he would probably have never been a child slave as an orphan on a farm where he was institutionalized.  He probably would have been diagnosed with some disorder or psychological problem, which there is far too much of going on these days, and medicated, maybe out of his creativity.

Fortunately none of these things happened.  Instead he lead a simple and isolated life and became a secret writer and artist.

Henry Darger worked as a hospital janitor but when he was at home he was writing and painting.  When he died in Chicago his landlady discovered 300 paintings, some over 10 feet long, and 15,000 page illustrated novel called THE REALMS of the UNREAL. 

Clearly his childhood experience of being in an asylum for the "feeble - minded" had deeply effected him, as the story is about slave children.  Seven angelic sisters lead a rebellion against child-enslaving godless men. 

Henry went to church every Sunday of his life, though he struggled with religion.  Interestingly his paintings illustrate this world which we could argue, he lived in, and invented.

Linking to more information from PBS  DARGER - FILM - PBS

C 2013  Christine Trzyna  All Rights Reserved

TRIED TO GIVE A TIP TO THE LOCAL NEWS : I ADMIRE ACTIVISTS

(This will be my last post until after the Easter/ Passover Season!)

Have you ever called a newspaper or tabloid to give them a Tip on a Hot News story?

Last week I encountered what I considered to be a very newsworthy local story with national and international interest. 

I met someone who was a few days into a HUNGER STRIKE for a social justice cause.  He had written a book too - about human trafficking - though his hunger strike was to protest the President of the United States, President Obama, from recognizing the newly (corruptly) elected Armenian who has some human rights violations on his resume.

The HUNGER STRIKER was my kind of human being. 

I realized this: I have been the FAN of so very many MUSIC MAKERS and WRITERS.  I've co-author a blog about music of a certain era with Wes Bryan since 2007 !, and I'm the first to read the latest bios/memoirs books and about music makers. 

But what I really admire - my heroes and heroines - are always people who STAND FOR SOMETHING.  I actually admire people who STAND FOR SOMETHING even when the something is not something I agree with than people who DON"T STAND FOR ANYTHING.  (Example. As a kid I was a total Beatles FAN but my HEROINES were Leaders of the Feminist Movement.) 

(To meander here amoment, I recall a College class I took about poetry during which the question of separating a human being from the work came up.  It seemed to be that Literature expected the work and the person to stand alone.  Thus you could get a Doctorate in Literature Deconstructing someone else's work without ever Interviewing them.  I had enough Journalist in me to be very bothered by that.)

So, I decided this man needed some press as he weakened.  I sent two e-mails to local television news programs, one of which got an automated "Thanks!" message.  Then I called three local news providers.  The only live person I encountered was at a community college news paper where a man was said they would "Look into it."

The absolute worst was when I called Fox News.  The man I spoke to was condescending, impatient (even though I had written out what I wanted to report in one small paragraph).

I said "How many people actually sit inside an RV and HUNGER STRIKE to make a point to a U.S. President?"  This Fox news guy didn't even fake he cared.  He answered a few other calls coming in, and if he wasn't the tip line, he sure wasn't transferring me to one.  He said, "It doesn't matter because I have no one to send out to cover that."

On my way home I was hungry. On my way home I was concerned about my fat gut rather than HAVING MORE GUTS! 

As I pondered what I might cook for dinner, I wondered what it must be like to go several days without food.  Lately it seems I've been so afraid to feel hunger pangs that I eat before I can feel them.

I hoped this man had done his research and taken medical science on how to HUNGER STRIKE into as much consideration as inspiration by others who have done so.  I started thinking that I WANTED HIM ON NATIONAL NEWS if only so HE COULD EAT AGAIN!

And I was glad I had left the Journalism program I was in years ago to Major in Creative Writing instead.

JO DEURBROUCK Quotation

“Writing nonfiction means I tell people's stories for them, not because they're special but because we all are.”


― Jo Deurbrouck

THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE OHIO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW

This film staring Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson was really SWEET! 

I loved the historical value of it, the 1950's, the days when women used their literary talents and musical talents to write jingles.  These women entered contests to win prizes small and large and a group of them, including a woman in an iron lung, formed a sort of support/writer's group too!

Evelyn Ryan, was a real live Defiance, Ohio housewife and mother of ten, who managed to win the down payment of their house and years later save it from foreclosure, due to her winning spirit.  Rarely sorry for herself or their poverty, Evelyn was the kind of woman that isn't around much anymore.  Her strongest talent may be an ability to forgive and move on.



Another strong positive on this film is the unsentimental but revealing way Evelyn Ryan's plight as a housewife and mother of ten in the 1950's is determined by what we would identify as prevailing sexism in American culture. 



That wasn't so long ago.

C 2013 Christine Trzyna  All Rights Reserved

reposted April 2021

CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND - BASED ON CHUCK BARRIS'S AUTOBIO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM and BOOK REVIEW

CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND - BASED ON CHUCK BARRIS'S AUTOBIO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA DVD and BOOK  REVIEW

Was Chuck Barris, game show host, game show INVENTOR, songwriter ("Palisades Park") a CIA Assassin for hire? 

After seeing this film, which I enjoyed, I ordered the very confessional book. I wanted to read the words Chuck Barris wrote and also see how much of his autobio /memoir was in or out of the film.  Turned out that the film followed the book rather closely, especially the dialogue!

I wanted to read C.B. about his involvement into CIA operations that resulted in his killing 33 people. 

Although I almost never rely on Wikis for my encyclopedia because I have found so much opinion, or so much druck quoted from lies in books referenced in Wikis about celebrities, I checked the Wiki on Barris.  It said the CIA denied that Barris ever worked for them.

Yea, well why would the CIA ever admit that anyone ever killed for them? 

The film leaves me with the notion that maybe, just maybe, Chuck was recruited by someone who worked for the CIA or had a side business, and that he was under a very incorrect impression that he was working directly for the CIA.  The book sure didn't give that notion.  The film blurred the possibility that he had killed his superior while the book said someone else killed the man and Chuck killed a mole to revenge that death.  The mole (acted by Julia Roberts) is killed by switching poison in the movie.  In the book he kills her with a gun.

What makes anyone able to kill people who they have no personal issue with?  In this case money and patriotism and the game of the hunt.
 Inventor of now very vintage television shows such as the Dating Game, the Gong Show, Barris wanted more in life, and was perhaps a bored genius.  Was killing people for money what kept him interested in life?  No, but perhaps what was challenged by a lifestyle that was at once comedic and tragic was his notions of life itself.  It's value.  If any.

Chuck Barris wrote without apology.  He didn't excuse his womanizing or sexism, or anything else he did.

That is a lesson for me.

C 2012 Christine Trzyna  All Rights Reserved

BEFORE THERE WAS DAN BROWN THERE WAS MALACHY MARTIN

I'm closely following the news about the resignation of Pope Benedict and the election of a new Pope as are millions of others in the world. Personally, having known people who could not come to terms with their limitations and proceeded to their incompetance in this life, I think his admission of weakness and inability to carry on, at an age when many people have been retired for 20 years, to be honorable.

The story is full of real world conflict.

Over the last several years I have met too many anti-Catholics who desperately wanted to believe that Dan Brown's fiction books were real. 

If you are presently in the mood to read fiction or non-fiction about the world of the Vatican, I strongly suggest that you read MALACHY MARTIN.

Here's the link to his official site which has been held on the net by a devout fan of Malachy's since his death, where you can read about a man who was a true Vatican insider, a holy man, once an exorcist, who retired into private life and became a writer of well-selling books.  Paging through WINDSWEPT HOUSE now.

Malachy Martin Official

NIRVANA : COME AS YOU ARE

SCARY BIG BROTHER USE OF CELL PHONE! TEXT: THIS IS THE EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM!

I was with a friend at a library the other day and as you know most libraries require that you do not answer or make calls in the library. 

It's distracting to other people and a Library Rule that I wish the librarians would enforce at all times, meaning that I notice there are some people they seem to be afraid to approach who take and make calls loudly all the time and others who try to comply (me) who seem to be held to a higher standard.

That said, there is no such thing as Silence in Libraries any more.  I no longer expect it. Overall, the world has become a noisier place, although much of the wordly noise is drowned out by self selected noise transmitted to the ear through earphones.

My friend had her Smart Phone, an android, in Silence mode and on.  As we browsed the shelves for movies, we thought we heard, but she did not feel, a vibratory sound. 

We asked a man also browsing if maybe his phone was ringing.  He said, no he didn't even have a phone.

A little later my friend took her Smart Phone out and on the screen appeared a exclaimation mark on a red background.  This was an alert.  She looked and of all things, it said....

"THIS IS A TEST OF THE

EMERGENCY CELL PHONE SYSTEM!"

(i.e. I think linked to the EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM YOU SEE ON TV or HEAR ON RADIO.)

So, now the government or the radio or television stations or the cell phone provider, some organization, is able to send these emergency alerts to people's cell phones even when they are in silence mode.  They buzz on through the options you selected!

I have more questions.  What if the phone was off?  What if there was a real emergency (nuclear warhead or tornado headed our way, or maybe a meteor like the one that whooshed over Russia recently about to hit the roof of the library or The End Times, which I find fascinating but don't believe in) and we didn't answer the phone?

Will her phone be buzzing and alerting every time there is an earthquake; earthquakes happen all over the world all the time, most harmless. 

Can the 911 people call us and say that our very own house is on fire?

As is, when we go to the library the phone wants to automatically use WIFI (the Internet) to make and take calls instead of what was paid for - the cell phone network.

Take my advice.  What this world needs is more restaurants with heavily curtained and sound proofed table alcoves for conversations, not more privacy invasion and human tracking via phones.

C 2013 Christine Trzyna  All Rights Reserved Including Internet and International Rights