Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of John Fante’s birth, and I wrote an article for the LA Times about how his work — particularly “Ask the Dust”– has survived. I talked to Dan Fante, who, like his dad, is an author, and who is at work on a memoir, and who told me lots of good stuff that makes it into the article.
Zocalo holds a panel on Fante tonight at the Hammer Museum, moderated by tall guy David Kipen. Oh, he’s also NEA guy David Kipen. I can’t be there, but I am going to try to make it to the unofficiall Happy Birthday Drinks for John Fante at a Skid Row bar on Wednesday.
I am not a devoted fan of John Fante — some of Bandini’s struggles are just too juvenile for me — but I do love how he sees Los Angeles, and how it is where his true feelings lie. Like this:
Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
The pretty town of Los Angeles gave me another recent article, too. Last week, I met up with Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. We shot a photo of him in a casket showroom and then he talked to me for an article that appeared in Saturday’s LA Times. The book has been #10 on Amazon — in all books, including nonfiction — since its release Wednesday.
Now: coffee.
