Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2006 (18. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)
2006-05-12 / 20. szám
I visited a panel discussion, “Writers: Born or Bred?” with AMY TAN, Greg lies and Scott Turow (each had a doctor for a father, who had other plans for them). Turow ended up studying law and found his writer’s career there. But, as he pointed out, it is not enough to have a way with words, for even lawyers LOS ANGELES TIMES 11th Annual Festival of Books at the UCLA Campus ARTICLE AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUSAN JANCSO Actor John Lithgow autographing... For more than a decade now, here in Los Angeles the last weekend of April has been dedicated to the fabulous Festival of Books at the UCLA Campus. I was there for all but the very first one, and once I discovered this cultural event of incredible magnitude, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. (I almost did once, the year after the September 11 attacks, because they followed stricter rules for advance registration, but thanks to the tireless Communications Director Mike Lange, I have had no problems ever since.) The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was created in 1996 to promote literacy, celebrate the written word, and bring together those who create books with the people -and a little girl reading his book who love to read them. Some 130,000 people attend the event annually. General event information is available online at www.latimes.com/festivalofbookswww.latimes.com/festivalofbooks or by calling 1-800-LA TIMES, ext. 7B00K. Detailed speaker and event information is provided in the official festival program, usually published in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times the week preceding the event. The Festival offers a great variety of literary, visual and auditory experiences. Hundreds of authors, representing just about every literary genre, discuss their life and work with interviewers who are famous in their own right, or participate in panels organized by categories such as fiction, non-fiction, biography, history, current events, mystery. They also share their thoughts on writing, reading and publishing, for the benefit of many aspiring writers participating in order to gather ideas to start their own careers, or for the enjoyment of people who just love to read. The festivities started Friday night with the 26th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, in a ceremony at UCLA. Awards Were given in nine categories, and the winners were: Gabriel Garcia Marquez (fiction), Hilary Spurting (biography), Joan Didion (the Robert Kirsch Award to for her memoir, “The Year of Magical Thinking,”), Anthony Shadid (current interest - Iraq), Uzodinma Iweala (the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction), Adam Hochschild (history, Robert Littell (mystery and thriller), Jack Gilbert (poetry), Per Nilsson (young adult fiction). What each person takes home from the two-day festival depends on the kind of events they choose to attend. There are certain authors I always visit, such as the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury whose novel “Fahrenheit 451” is probably the strongest plea ever written for the survival of literature, but this year his presentation was cancelled. Others I choose for the novelty of their subject matter, and this time the first one I knew I had to hear was the panel on writing obituaries. As a journalist, I am often faced with the problem of what to write and what not to write and where to get the information when a sudden death occurs in the community. It seemed I was destined to be a part of this one, for as I was driving to the UCLA Campus, listening as always to KABC, I caught a few minutes of conversation of the Satellite Sisters with Marilyn Johnson, one of the obituary panelists. One of the sisters, Liz, said she would be at the campus, and I visited her at the KABC booth. At the KABC Booth: Satellite Sister Liz, one of five real-life sisters living in three different cities putting on a radio show. The premise of the show is that the sisters “get together ” via satellite to talk as if they were going to meet in person or talk on the phone. The Satellite Sisters: Julie, Liz, Sheila, Monica and Lian Dolan are savvy, sweet, funny, lovable and very cute. The fountain by Royce Hall, enjoyed by many, was our class present Május 12,2006 There is a pull-out schedule in the Sunday L. A. Times where one can check what and where to see. One-hour events start every hour or half past the hour, and there were at least three good ones for every hour that I marked. Tough choices, and a good exercise, trotting up and down the large UCLA campus, up the hill to Royce Hall and down to Ackerman, and back up to Young on the other side. I felt like the student I was little more than a decade ago... Several times each day I stopped by and watched the children play at the fountain by Royce, that was our class present to UCLA. can write lousy books if they lack the thousands of hours spent reading good books which is the foundation of the writer’s craft. Another panel, “Reading: the Pleasures of the Text”, caught my interest also because one of the panelists was Gregory Rabassa, the king of literary translators who transferred many great works of literature from Spanish into English, including novels of Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Julio Cortázar. I listened to Joan Didion talk about her tragic losses described in her prize-winning “The Year of Magical Thinking”. I missed Michael Connelly and Robert Crais who were on at the same time. I heard Dr. Laura Schlessinger talk about her nonexistent relationships with her parents, and I thought maybe she needed some help to help others. There was one piece of good advice I want to pass on here. A gentleman asked what to do if your wife asks you, “Am I fat?” Should he tell her or not? Dr. Laura answered with a question: “Well, it depends, whether you want to have sex with her ever again!” Dr. LAURA is a radio personality and author of several NY Times best-sellers such as: Bad Childhood, Good Life, Woman Power, and The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands. Her TV talk show, criticized by homosexual rights groups and snubbed by advertisers, was canceled after one season. What set off the rage of the gay and lesbian community was that she labeled homosexuality “deviant” and “a biological error”. On Day 2, the Obituary Panel did not start until 10:30, so on the spur of the moment I went to see actress TERI GARR, interviewed by film critic Leonard Maltin. I had only seen her in one thing, a Star Trek episode entitled “Assignment Earth”, but she earned a permanent place in my memory with that. It never ceases to amaze me how anyone who ever had anything to do with Star Trek walked straight into immortality on that count alone. Garr has been fighting Multiple Sclerosis since 1983, with great courage and stamina, and she became a leading advocate in raising awareness about MS. The Obituary discussion turned out to be much less sinister and much more fun than it may sound. The members on that panel were Miles Corwin (police reports), MARILYN JOHNSON (obituaries), Porter Shreve (book entitled “The Obituary Writer”), and moderator Mary Rourke of the L.A. Times. It seems that obituary writing has taken off, reinvented itself in the past 5-10 years. Marilyn actually called our time “the golden age of obituary writing”, and not only of the rich and famous but of ordinary people whom the skilled reporter could “conjure up” from the information he or she was able to dig up. Marylin Johnson (pictured) wrote obituaries for Princess Diana, Jacqueline Kennedy, Katharine Hepburn, Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Marion Brando. A lot of laughter could be heard as panelists shared their favorite stories such as Porter Shreve’s “Hiccup wictim” - a guy who started to hiccup at age 22 and never stopped. The irony is that he lived to be 80, at which time he got a disease which cured his hiccups but took his life. It was said that we live in a culture of death, which may explain the current interest in obits. On the other hand, the obit writer can attend funerals and hear famous people’s reminiscences, and the deceased’s families are very thankful for a good summing up of their loved ones’ lives. They also quoted someone (Stalin?) saying that “One death is a tragedy - a million deaths are just a statistic.” Mention was made of the practice of keeping obituaries of the not yet deceased - collecting data on celebrities in advance of their passing. I as a journalist, know of personal experience how useful that practice can be. I contributed a story about a celebrity who wrote her own obituary - we had it on file tor about three years before her passing. Her reason: “I’m not going to let my silly husband botch it up!” I ended up buying Marilyn Johnson’s book, “The Deadbeat”, and I’m looking forward to reading it as soon as there are not so many events - and dead people - to write about. I spent some time strolling along the hundreds of book tents, talking to authors who were autographing their new books. I saw actor John Lithgow promoting his children's books. I ran into A1 Martinez, the white-haired and mustachioed gentleman whose column I always read in the L.A. Times. This time his wife Joanne was there as well, and we became instant friends, having laughs and taking pictures together. Miscalculating the time, I ended up in a discussion on Iran instead of the session with Larry Flint, but it was just as well, by this time I was so tired ft almost didn’t make a difference. The Festival is over, but I have food for thought and material to research for weeks and months to come. Thank you, UCLA, for training me to be a scholar, and thank you, L.A. Times, for this great event at UCLA. AMERICAN Hungarian Jaurnal
