It wasn’t your usual book party.

For one thing, Monday night’s book launching event for civil rights lawyer Connie Rice’s new memoir, Power Concedes Nothing, was held at the LAPD’s headquarters, in the over-lit Compstat room, no less—i.e. the room where the cops go to hear a rundown on the latest crime statistics and ‘crime mapping.”

Moreover, the party was hosted by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck—who seemed mildly surprised to find himself in the book party hosting business. (Can you think of another instance where LA’s Chief of Police threw a book party? I can’t either. Go, Chief Charlie! Perhaps this could be the start of a new LA event trend: Law enforcement and literature.)

And then, of course, there’s the fact that the book details, among other things, the years that Rice spent suing the Los Angeles Police Department on a regular basis—and usually winning.

Still, Connie’s suing-the-LAPD days are now mostly in the past, and the mood in the Compstat room on Monday night was so upbeat it sometimes bordered on love fest-y. (As you’ll see from the rough snippets of iPhone videos above.)

Those in attendance were a mix of law enforcement and city government types, plus a smattering of criminal justice-leaning authors and journalists—nearly all of whom passed up the red and white wine for glasses of fizzy water. (Helpful party tip: Always drink less than the cops in the room.) U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte, showed up, as did City Controller Wendy Greuel, and LAPD command staff types like Deputy Chief Pat Gannon of South Bureau, and department spokesperson, Commander Andrew Smith (who was the LAPD guy you saw most often on TV throughout the whole LAPD/Occupy thingy.)

Journalist/authors Joe Domanick, Jesse Katz, and Jon Weiner, made appearances, as did Christine Pelisek from the Daily Beast, KPCC’s Frank Stoltz, KCET’s Judy Muller, the LA Times’ Pat Morrison, Sue Horton, Susan Brenneman and Deborah Vankin.

Among the others who stood around book-buying, appetizer-munching and gossiping were Police Commission head, John Mack, LA Gang Czar Guillermo Cespedes, Gerry Chaleff, who used to administer the federal consent decree for the LAPD but now has been appointed by Chief Beck as the Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing—meaning he’s supposed to be the guy tasked with making sure that LAPD officers don’t go around violating anybody’s Constitutional rights, and community activists, like Alfred Lomas, of LA Gang Tours.

City Councilman Tom LaBonge offered the night’s weirdest compliment to Rice, when in a moment of unchecked effusiveness after presenting her with an honorific city proclamation, he leaned into a microphone and told her, “You remind me of William Mulholland!”

(In case you’ve forgotten, Mulholland was the ultra powerful 1920’s era head of the Department of Water and Power on whom the John Huston-played villain of the movie Chinatown, Noah Cross Hollis Mulwray, was supposed to have been, in part, based.*) After Police Commission head John Mack began looking meaningfully at the City Councilman, and making subtle “cut it” motions, LaBonge tried to clarify things by shouting, “Forget Chinatown! Everybody drinks water.” Or something to that effect. Then he wisely divested himself of the microphone.

Still, everyone seemed to take LaBonge’s outburst as a quirky representation of the pleasant ebullience that characterized the night.

The cheery mood may have, in some ways, had to do with the fact that, unlike many book parties, where the point is to support (or meet) the writer, on Monday night, in addition to coming to support Connie, most everyone seemed to be really anxious to read Rice’s book—if they hadn’t already.

It is, as the subtitle says, “one woman’s quest for social justice in America….”—meaning it is a personal account, told through the lens of Rice’s specific experience and perceptions. Yet, much of it is also a book about certain events in Los Angeles in the last few years that many of those in the room felt they had, in some way had a part, or at the very least lived through and cared very much about—things like the battle to transform the LAPD and the struggle to get a handle on the gang violence that was corroding the emotional health of many LA neighborhoods.

In other words, they—we—think and hope that Connie’s book will add a new valuable puzzle piece to the communal puzzle that is the unfolding history of Los Angeles—a history that all of us get to claim.

PS: I’ve not yet read Connie’s book (as I just got it Monday night) but, like the rest, I’m looking forward to doing so. I’ll report back to you here when I do.

NOTE: I’LL HAVE MUCH NEWSIER NEWS TOMORROW, AND THEN A NEW JAILS/LASD STORY LATE IN THE WEEK.

NOTE 2: I hopelessly bollixed up the Chinatown characters when I first posted this. According to the zillion essays analyzing Robert Towne’s amazing script, Huston’s character Noah Cross plus Cross’s business partner in the film, Hollis Mulwray, collectively represented William Mulholland. (And many of us have eyed the DWP with suspicion ever since.)

This weekend the glorious LA Times Festival of Books will be held at its new location on the USC campus, after 15 years at UCLA.

The line up of authors and other intriguing panelists is, as usual, excellent. (You can find the Saturday and Sunday schedules here.)

Both days are filled with more great events than you can possibly fit in.

So to help you with this pesky dilemma, I’ve devised 7 TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THE LATFOB

In no particular order they are:

TIP #1: GO TO SEE MY PANEL (Yes, this is a self-serving pitch, but it’s also a really good panel). Specifically, I am moderating a panel on Sunday, at 2 pm at Taper Hall 101. It’s called History: Democracy and Its Discontents, and the LATFOB folks gave me a GREAT threesome to interview: Barry Siegel, Scott Martelle, and Thaddeus Russell—all of whom have written books that tell of crucial yet unreported times in American history that have deep resonances for the health of our democracy now.

For instance, I’ll be asking my brilliant pal Barry (Siegel) about his book, Claim of Privilege: A Mysterious Plane Crash, a Landmark Supreme Court Case, and the Rise of State Secrets, which reads with the depth and pacing of a novel as it relates how the American government began its obsession with state secrets—starting with the Supreme Court case that jump started the now, it seems, ever-expanding habit of hiding away any paperwork that might prove inconvenient to those in power.

And then there is Scott Martelle and his book, The Fear Within: Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial, which just came out this month and tells the story of the 1949 trial of 11 of the mouthpieces of the then minuscule American Communist Party.

The third panel member is Thaddeus Russell, who I’ll ask about his outrageously original A Renegade History of the United States, a book that tells of many of the unlikely people who affected the course of American cultural and political development, but whose tales of influence rarely seem to turn up in most history books.

It’ll be a dynamic exchange, I promise. So y’all come on down.

Okay, now that the personal pitch is out of the way, here are the other six tips:

TIP # 2: GO TO SEE ANY AND ALL PANELS THAT INVOLVE TOD GOLDBERG. Tod is moderating two on Sunday, and he’s on a third one on Saturday. I don’t think anybody except for LAT book reviewer David Ulin is on that many panels. There’s a reason for this. Tod is fantastically entertaining. By “entertaining” I mean, eye-leakingly funny. Plus he’s really, really smart and…really, really….you know…. literary.

TIP #3: GO TO SEE FATHER GREG BOYLE on Sunday at 11 am at Bovard Auditorium being interviewed by LA Times columnist Steve Lopez. Father Greg is really as good as it gets as speaker. Last year at the FOB, Warren Olney interviewed him and, during one of Greg’s stories, Warren started to tear up, with a quiver in the voice, and all. Most of those in the audience were teary too. But Warren Olney’s a pro’s pro, so you’ve got to really have something unusually moving to say to get Warren to cry.

TIP# 4: GO TO SEE EGGARS AND SMITH—TOGETHER AT LAST. On Saturday, David Ulin will interview musician Patti Smith and writer/novelist/publisher Dave Eggars. at 12:30 at Bovard. No, I have no idea why in the world those two are being interviewed together, but it’s a weirdly inspired idea. I’m betting the combo will alchemize something that you will miss at your own peril. (Yes, I know alchemize isn’t a verb.)

TIP #5: IF YOU’RE A DAVID FOSTER WALLACE FAN (or even if you’re not), GO TO SEE Ulin again at 4 pm on Saturday, this time moderating a panel on DFW and The Pale King with Bonnie Nadell, Wallace’s longtime agent, DT Max, the guy who is writing a book about Wallace (and who wrote that heartbreaking New Yorker piece), and Michael Pietsch, DFW’s editor and the guy who had to knit together the piles of incomplete and fragmented manuscript pages that Wallace left after his suicide, into a….book. (This will be sold out, so get a ticket now, or show up on Wednesday and just camp out for three days. I really don’t think this is too extreme a plan.)

TIP #6: GO TO ANY PANEL FEATURING SOMEONE NAMED AMY. It’s a good basic rule. The Amy strategy will, for example, get you to a couple of panels with the fabulous Advice Goddess and author, Amy Alkon, or with witty Texas grrrll novelist, Amy Wallen, or with the soulful and gifted nonfiction writer, Amy Wilentz, or with the incandescently talented poet, Amy Gerstler.

Alternately, I recommend going to any panel with the word MYSTERY in its title. So Cal has produced some fine mystery writers from Raymond Chandler forward, a vein of literary genre gold that continues to get richer, and the array at this year’s LATFOB is a satisfyingly bright and shiny one—Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, T. Jefferson Parker, and more.

TIP # 7. WALK INTO ANY PANEL RANDOMLY. Seriously. I’ve done this many times over the years and never been disappointed. There are so many wonderful conversations that will take place in front of microphones over that two day period, it’s hard to go wrong.

On Saturday Janet Fitch talks to T.C. Boyle; Robin Abcarian interviews Andrew Breitbart; Garrett Graff of the Washingtonian, Eric Alterman of the Daily Beast and the Nation, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the Nation’s editor/publisher all talk about Obama; Jennifer Egan and other fictionistas talk about breaking boundaries in fiction—and I have only slightly dented the surface,

On Sunday, the LA Times’ Carolyn Kellogg moderates Publishing: the New Shape of the Book. featuring Tom Lutz, the editor/publisher of the about-to-launch Los Angeles Review of Books, along with Ethan Nosowsky, editor-at-large, Graywolf Press, …..and…. Oh, you get the picture.

Just plan to go, whatever you do.

We can talk about non-literary news tomorrow.

MEMORIES OF JAPAN, SOME INDELIBLE, SOME WASHED AWAY

The frightening news out of Japan cannot help but hold our attention, as heroic engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station continue to try to save the plant’s crippled nuclear reactors from meltdown.

But, in addition to the devastating TV news reports, please do yourself a favor and read Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s essay on her memories and reflections as the terrifying and heartbreaking news from Japan continues to unfold. It will be in Tuesday’s New York Times. Here is how it opens:

ON Aug. 9, 1945, my great-uncle was out fishing in the Pacific, far enough away from Nagasaki, Japan, that he missed the immediate impact of the atomic bomb dropped by the Americans that day. My great-aunt was in their new house outside Nagasaki; the entire family had only a few days earlier fled the city because my great-uncle feared a repeat of the bombing of Hiroshima.

I heard this story many times during my childhood. Back then, it made me feel that my great-uncle was a clever man. As an adult, I realized he was also very lucky, because cleverness alone cannot keep you safe.

For 36 hours after the earthquake and tsunami that eviscerated the east coast of Japan on Friday, I was unable to get any word from my relatives who oversee and live in our family’s Buddhist temple in Iwaki City, south of Sendai, the biggest city near the epicenter. I wondered if they too were lucky and smart.

I wanted to know, and I did not want to know. I dipped into the world of the Internet, with its videos of water raging over the farmland and crushed ferries, and then quickly backed out. Not looking at the videos kept reality at bay, because the images of the coastline do not match the Japan that I know….

JERRY NEEDS FOUR REPUBLICANS TO PASS THE BUDGET, BUT WILL THE CRP’S THREATS PREVENT IT

Madeleine Brand had Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters on her show Monday to talk about how bleak the chances are that any Republican legislators will vote for Brown’s proposed budget.

According to Cal Buzz, it is not so much that certain moderate Republicans wouldn’t cross over party lines, as it is the fact that the California Republican Party is out-and-out threatening any Repubs who vote with the governor. Specifically, if they do the California Republican Assembly has proposed a resolution that…..

“….censures these traitorous Republicans-in-Name-Only, ask(s) for their resignation(s) from their positions within the California Republican Party, pledges to endorse and support efforts to recall them from office, and directs the California Republican Party staff, agents and officers to refuse to provide them with funding or assistance in future elections.”

Nice. That’s really putting the good of the state first. Well done, guys.

THE ART OF THE POLICE REPORT & NONEXISTENT APOLOGIES

Both of these stories were linked by Kevin Roderick at LA Observed:

First there is LAPD crime analyst and fellow Bennington MFA graduate, Ellen Collett, who has written a delicious piece that appears in the Utne Reader about the art of writing a good crime report, and a South LA cop named Martinez who is her favorite practitioner.

Roderick also links to the “correction” run by the LA Weekly’s Simon Wilson pursuant to her creepy, insensitive and marginally assaultive coverage of the February Tahrir Square attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan, coverage that was criticized by a number of other women journalists, myself included.

Not only does Wilson fail to apologize (which was what was called for), but her correction, such as it is, also manages to be creepy and vaguely assaultive.

To wit:

The LA Weekly reported earlier in the day on February 15 that Logan had been raped, based on language in a press release from CBS. The CBS release said Logan had suffered a “brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating.”

But did the attack constitute rape? The legal definition of rape is penetration with any object, to any extent — the most extreme form of sexual assault. Experts on legal language have since informed us that CBS’ description of the incident implies repeated rape, but the Weekly has not been able to determine what occurred. CBS declines all further comment.

Therefore, we conclude that we erroneously interpreted CBS’ report of what happened to Logan on February 11, 2011.

Gee, thanks Simone, for the graphic “legal definition.” Very helpful.

Next time you have the desire to make things better, please don’t.

The photo of Sutter Brown, the state’s official First Dog, contemplating budgetary matters with the governor, was taken by Brown political adviser, Steve Glazer.

THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT WILL CONSIDER WHETHER TO RULE ON CRUCIAL PROP 8 ISSUE ON WEDNESDAY

The LA Times has the story.

The California Supreme Court will decide Wednesday whether to plunge back into the legal battle over same-sex marriage.

The state high court, meeting in closed session, will review a request by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to determine whether Proposition 8’s sponsors have legal authority to defend the ballot measure.

Depending on the court’s ruling, the 9th Circuit could either dismiss the Proposition 8 appeal on procedural grounds — limiting the case’s effect to California — or rule on federal constitutional questions that would affect same-sex marriage throughout the country.

UPDATE: THE SUPREMES SAID YES, THEY’RE GOING FOR IT.

LARA LOGAN IS BEATEN AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTED IN CAIRO & THE LA WEEKLY REPORTS BADLY

Could the LA Weekly’s reporting on Lara Logan’s beating and horrific sexual assault possibly be any more staggeringly insensitive?

This is not the time for a hip, snappy tone, people. Good lord. The post felt creepily assaultive itself.

@GOOD ASKS WHAT THE ROLE OF THE PRISON SYSTEM SHOULD BE

Go and quickly tweet your answer to @GOOD, aka Good Magazine, and they’ll post the best of the answers later today.

A FRIEND OF BRADLY MANNING, SUSPECTED WIKILEAKS SOURCE, ALLEGES TORTURE

Torture comes in many forms, some of it legal.

Democracy Now has the story.

AFTER CUIDAD JUAREZ POET IS HERSELF FOUND DEAD, POETS RESPOND

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez writes:

It took the death of a poet for me to sit up and wonder what the hell is going on in Ciudad Juarez. I’d talked to the L.A. painter Victoria Delgadillo at length over the years about the unsolved murders of women in Juarez. She’d told me about the local artist she’d taken to Juarez and the art they’d created to memorialize the women and to stop the killings.

About a month ago a friend from San Diego emailed me a Mexican newspaper article detailing that Susana Chavez – the 36 year old Ciudad Juarez poet and activist who’d coined the phrase “Not one more death!” in outrage at the unsolved murders – had been found dead, her hand severed and a plastic bag around her head. That’s one of the signatures left in drug killings.

….They’re killing poets in Juarez???!!! WTF! It reminded me of the maddening story in Murder City by Charles Bowden. The cartels begin dumping bodies in a neighborhood park. A resident puts up a sign urging the killers to stop dumping bodies in the park. That resident is killed. The drug dealers know fear works.

What can we do? I asked the writer Gloria Alvarez when I ran into her a few days after hearing of the poet’s killing. Let’s organize a reading, we agreed. Eastside Café, the 8-year old El Sereno storefront community center hosted it last Saturday night….

Click here to read the rest—including much of the poetry presented Saturday night.

Photo by Raquel Salinas

Monday night, Los Angeles Magazine held a gathering they called a Women’s Leadership Reception. it was co-hosted by Editor-in-Chief Mary Melton and Publisher Amy Saralegui along with City Controller Wendy Greuel.

The women present were an eclectic mix. They were from government (like Greuel, city planning director Gail Goldberg, and longtime California Democratic powerhouse, Roz Wyman) from journalism—(Director of the Annenberg School of Journalism, Geneva Overholser, columnist/radio host, Patt Morrison, KPPC’s Shirley Jahad, KCET exec Val Zavala) —from literature and the arts…from the nonprofit sector and, well, from a lot of varied fields– County Counsel Andrea Ordin, L.A. Conservancy chief Linda Dishman, author Gina Nahai. However, unlike most such gatherings, although all of us knew a few people, no one but perhaps the LA Mag editors who did the inviting, seemed to know a lot.

It took about fifteen minutes of collective shyness before everyone ventured out to talk to those whom they’d not met.

A lot of intriguing and decidedly non-small-talkish conversations seemed to emerge from the mingling (even though accessories were occasionally mentioned).

For instance, I heard from Emmy winning composer Laura Karpman that she was in the middle of writing an “multi-media opera called The One Ten—about…well… the 110 Freeway. It seems that the 110 turns 70 in December of this year. So to commemorate the anniversary, the LA Opera offered Karpman a quirky commission to create an opera about it. (Laura and librettists M.G. Lord and Shannon Halwes blog about their creative process here.)

Wendy Greuel veered easily between topics that included her newest audit (more on that another time) and and the fact she and Wyman were two of the three women ever to get pregnant and have a child while serving in LA public office. (The third was Gloria Molina, said Greuel.)

“I’m glad she took on the DWP,” I heard two different women whisper when they spied Greuel.

Stephanie Stone, the Vice Chair of LA County’s Veterans Advisory Commission, told me disturbingly that according to the most recent estimate, 25 percent—likely more—of the women soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan, have been sexually abused during their time in the service. One out of four.

(I’ll be following up on that story.)

I heard from Elena Stern of Para Los Ninos about the desperate need for psychological counseling among the children living on Skid Row whom her agency serves.

I talked with Literary agent Bonnie Nadell, who was the longtime agent of the late David Foster Wallace, about whether she thought that D.T. Max, who wrote the long, unutterably sad, but relievingly informative story about DFW in the New Yorker, was the right person to do the upcoming biography of Wallace. (She did. She thought he’d be good. And, since she’d known both men for over 20 years, I figured she was in likely the best position to judge the matter.)

Mary Melton also mentioned, when she gave her welcoming speech, that Roz Wyman was the youngest LA City Council person ever. (She was first elected in 1953 at the age of 22.) Mary also said that Roz was instrumental in bringing the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957, figuring that LA needed its own sports team.

And so it was that, as the longest night of the year unfolded—along with myriad conversations—everyone seemed to settle into the pleasant realization that it was nice (even if merely for a change) for just girls to get together with just girls…in LA. (And a kick-ass group of grrrllls it was.)

Thanks to LA Magazine for making it possible.

DAVE EGGERS’ PRIZES AND QUIRKS ON LAT BOOK PRIZE NIGHT

As most of you know, the LA Times Book Awards were this past Friday night, and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books took place on Saturday and Sunday at UCLA. 125,000 people were expected at the LATFOB and judging from the crowds I saw both days, it is likely that the book fest hit its mark or more.

But first the awards: the full list of the winners may be found here. (For those of you looking for a good reading list, the lists of winners and finalists are a great place to start. I’ve already downloaded on to my iPod the audible version of the First Fiction winner, Phillipp Meyer’s American Rust)

I was a judge for the category of Current Interest—along with my wonderful and wise colleagues Henry Weinstein and Bill Boyarsky, The three of us read a preposterous number of books, many of which were very deserving. (A few, not so much.)

We finally narrowed it down to the five below, all of which featured excellent writing and reporting and dealt topics of consequence.

“Columbine” by Dave Cullen
“Zeitoun” by Dave Eggers
“Strength in What Remains” by Tracy Kidder
“Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sharon WuDunn
“The Healing of America: The Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Healthcare” by T.R. Reid

The winner was Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun-–my personal favorite and a book I can recommend unhesitatingly to any of you. It’s a great story, meticulously reported, and possessed of the grace and velocity of a good novel.

Eggers also got a newly created Innovator’s Award–which “recognizes the people and institutions that are doing cutting edge work to bring books, publishing and storytelling into the future, whether in terms of new business models, new technologies or new applications of narrative art.”

(For the details go here.)

However, while assuredly very deserving of the latter honor, Eggers turned out not be be your average techno nerd/writer. In the course of accepting the two awards, Eggers blurted that the only way he got any reading done was to completely unplug the Internet at his house. “I only go online twice a day,” he said. Even then, in order to get a WiFi signal, he takes his laptop and drives to the parking lot of a local carpet store, and steals their WiFi.

When he and I spoke later on in the evening, we talked about the unplugging issue and I mentioned in passing that, unplugging aside, I thought that the iPhone app for his magazine “McSweeney’s was particularly good.

Eggers winced. “I’ve never seen it,” (said Mr. Innovation).

Me: “What?! You’re kidding.”

Eggers: (apologetically) I saw the drawing. I mean, I thought the drawing was good.

Me: No really, that’s bad.

Eggers: Probably.

[Here's a demo of the app.]

Yet as a writer, a publisher, and as an innovative promoter of the written word-–from basic literacy to literature— Eggers is very, very good. As LA Times Book Review editor David Ulin said to me after he interviewed Dave Eggers on Saturday at the Book Festival—he’s the real deal.

It ain’t going to save the newspaper biz, but it is going to change book publishing—in a good way, in my personal opinion. (Operative word “change” not “save.”) Who cares about paper. Bring on the literary downloads.

Okay, now onward to USC to teach. (Must stop obsessing.)

See you after that other, you know, presentation: the SOU.

PS: The iTampon jokes are really, really dumb. It’s like hearing people endlessly talk about shopping at Tar-jey.

PPS: Here what David Pogue says.

PPPS: Who cares that it doesn’t have Flash. It will, however, eventually need a camera and video—if only for Skype.

Saturday night, one of California’s best known small literary presses, Red Hen Press, had it’s annual Christmas party at the home of editor/poet Kate Gale and publisher Mark Cull (who also happen to be married to each other, which is handy).

It is a party that I always try to attend. For one thing, it features a lively array of literary types who, even after several glasses of Cabernet, are still able to gossip in nicely-formed sentences. Even the poets. (Okay, especially the poets.)

Plus Kate’s lasagna is terrific and Mark’s chili can be counted on to be spicy enough to be sinus clearing.

(Those forming nice sentences—with or without the Cab—included poet Eloise Klein Healy, queen of LA book PR and poet, Kim Dower (Kim from LA), novelist/memoirist, Aimee Liu, poet and Y.A. author, Ron Koertge, composer Morten Lauridsen and more.)

This year, a discernible current of unhappy bewilderment shot through many of the night’s more upbeat conversations whenever someone brought up the topic of the LA Times and, well, books. You see on Friday, we had all learned via Kevin Roderick at LA Observed that the Times had cut its already slashed and burned Book Review section staff exactly in half.

Last week there were four people working at LA Times Books. Today there are two. Editor David Ulin, and Deputy editor Nick Owchar. But Orli Low and Susan Salter Reynolds are gone.

(Okay, yes, thankfully, there is also Carolyn Kellogg, who writes the excellent book blog, Jacket Copy. ) *

That assistant book editor Orli Low has been laid off is unsettling enough. (I’ve worked with Orli and, like everyone who has, I know what a good editor she is.)

But to have staff writer Susan Salter Reynolds leave as well…. it is unutterably stupid. In addition to the other reviews and articles she writes, Susan puts out the weekly Discoveries section, which means she reviews at least three books a week, often more. And not only does she churn these puppies out, she does so with grace, insight and lovely prose of her own.

(Just speaking personally, there is no one writing for the LAT, on staff or off, whose reviews have more frequently gotten me to go out and buy the $%$@%$& book in question.)

And this is the person the LA Times editors, in their seemingly infinite unwisdom, have decided to shove out the door? How do they imagine they are going to get all those books reviewed once she’s gone?

Oh.

I get it.

They aren’t.

Right. Of course not.

Nevermind that, as Ulin pointed out in Sunday’s wonderful column Connected to Writing, in which he looks at what the past decade portends for the future of reading and writing, that—surprise—the interest in literature is actually on the rise, not waning.

(According to the NEA, more than 112 million people are literary readers—that is, readers of “novels and short stories, plays, or poems”— a number that only increases when you include nonfiction, graphic novels, genre literature and e-books.)

The numbers make clear it is the delivery systems that are changing. Not the desire to immerse oneself in great stories, fiction or nonfiction—on paper or digital tablet (or read aloud on one’s iPod).

Did I mention that LA is one of the nation’s book buying-est cities? It usually comes right after New York, on the lists. (And before San Francisco, which imagines itself to be the more literary of the two cities. Dream on, SF!)

No matter. The LA Times management, awash in a dark and relentless cynicism about their customers, appears to be ever more convinced that we in LA care only about movies and TV. (While Book review is down to two people, arts and entertainment has more than 50 on the staff—and may hire still more.)

NOTE TO LA TIMES MANAGEMENT: Do you really think that doing away with half of the people on your payroll who write or edit anything pertaining to books and/or reading is the smartest cost-cutting/revenue producing strategy if you want to retain or attract more readers? Really?

A FEW MORE ISSUES:

1. On the subject of writers, China’s most prominent dissident, literature professor, Liu Xiaobo will go on trial on Wednesday on subversion charges for his writings critical of the Chinese government. He has been detained for a year without charge. (The London Times has the rest of the story.)

The PEN American Center has a one-click email you can send to ask for Liu’s release.

2. As you likely know the Senate has nailed down its 60 votes. Heaven only knows what was handed over for payment.

3. Be sure to read the article in Sunday’s LA Times about the low bar often set teacher tenure at LAUSD, with no effort to see if the the instructor is actually proficient at teaching.

4. The LA Times has been digging into the issue of why there seemed not to be adequate air support during the first few days of the Station fire.

From the back door mutterings I’ve heard, what is reported today (Monday) is just the beginning.

(And, no, you’re not hallucinating, I did add new photos. )

(*I also fixed the line about Jacket Copy, which was clumsily worded earlier.)

The Best of the Decade lists are everywhere.

Newsweek has some interesting ones like 10 History Altering Decisions. and 10 Most Overblown Fears.

Paste Magazine has a pleasing list of the 50 best albums.

And at the flimsier end of the spectrum, Vogue magazine was suddenly overtaken by a giddy moment of populism and decided to let you and me choose the ten best dressed women of the decade.

However, for my money, when it comes to lists pertaining anything of an artistic nature—best books, best films, best music, best television dramas, et al—from a social justice perspective, one work stands out among all the others, and that is the five seasons of David Simon’s The Wire.

Yes the Sopranos was brilliant, Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 is a literary game changer, and Fernando Meirelles’ City of God was astonishing in its portrayal of Rio’s desperate favelas.

Yet, I can think of no other recent work of art—any kind of art— that so successfully gets to the multi-layered complexity of modern urban life and the interwoven nature of its strata. The Wire stands alone.

The truth is, I don’t think lawmakers should be allowed to vote on a single bill relating to issues of criminal justice without watching all five seasons. And, obviously, before they’re let near an education bill, Season 4, is an absolute requirement.

I could rattle on, but instead I recommend that you watch Bill Moyers’ interview with David Simon, recorded last April (Part 1 and Part 2). It’s clip filled and both men get right to the heart of the matter.

Enjoy.

“You come at the king, you best not miss.”

For the next few days I’m in the last stages of reading students’ final projects (which are inspiringly good, by the way) and giving final grades, which means I’ve not been doing much in the way of original reporting.

But, never fear, I have a couple of good stories lined up for next week before we plunge into the holidays.

In the middle of the panel called MEDIA: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE at Sunday’s LA Times Festival of Books, Marc Cooper made news—or at least mini-news—when he remarked in passing that the Sacramento Bee feels it does not have the staff to adequately cover the upcoming race for governor—at least the So Cal part of the race—so they are looking to partner with the Annenberg School of Journalism in the hope that they can use student reporters can fill in the gap.

Now keep in mind that the Bee has the largest number of reporters covering the state capitol of any California media outlet. So if they’re in trouble covering an issue of state government….even the So Cal part…. this is a sign that spoke loudly to the subject of the panel.

As yet, Marc said, no deals have been struck.

(NOTE TO SAC’TO BEE: as you are a (theoretically) a profit making enterprise, you have to pay any students whom you use. You know that, right?)

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THAT SAME FUTURE OF MEDIA PANEL was one of the festival’s big, sell-out events, with just as many people outside the auditorium, waiting in line in the hope of getting a seat, as those who were already seated.

The panel featured the aforementioned Marc Cooper, Arianna Huffington, Sharon Waxman (of the excellent new site covering entertainment news The Wrap), and Andrew Donohue, editor of the Voice of San Diego (the online newspaper that many see as one of the crucial new biz models). James Rainey, the LA Times media columnist was the moderator.

Before the panel started, the crowd was admonished that there could be “no recording” in the auditorium.

A bit later, Arianna remarked dryly that, at a panel about the future of media, “asking people not to record the session is absurd.” At this the crowd applauded vigorously.

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During the hour plus (the panel ran overtime), much was said on the subject of monitization—which is inevitably the BIG TOPIC for every one of these panels. Among some of the better remarks were the following:

Arianna said, in her deadpan Greek drawl, that the only sure fire content that people are willing to pay for is porn. “People are willing to pay for weird porn,” she said. The crowd laughed.

Cooper followed with, “This is the first time in history when the right to publish is not in the abstract. Anyone can do it.” But we’re not going to know the business model for a while…..The old system is dead. The new system has yet to be invented.” He likened the present cultural moment to three or four decades after Johannes Gutenberg introduced his little invention.

Huffington: It’s time that newspaper editors admit that we cannot go back to the old model when content is behind a wall. If that’s where they go, they are going to fail. Consumer habits have changed.

Rainey: “I kind of liked the old world when Walter Cronkite was involved…. and when we were behind that wall.” He was kidding. Sort of.

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Rainey also asked the other question that is always, always, always front and center during these FOM (Future of Media) discussions, namely: Where is all the great investigative work going to come from?

Cooper, Huffington and Waxman each leaned quickly toward their mics to say that great reporting isn’t going away, and that, in any case, it is produced by individuals not institutions, and that while great work came out of conventional media—there was also a lot of mediocre work too, and many many stories that were missed, and that new media has moved into that gap.

Waxman: “Only when you work for the New York Times, do you understand how much a part of the establishment that the New York Times is.” (Waxman used to work for the NY Times.)

Huffington: “Where were the mainstream journalists covering the whole Wall Street mess? They completely missed that story. And they’re still missing it.”

Cooper: Some of the reporting may come from non-journalists “who are not stupid, by the way. You don’t have to go to journalism school to be a journalist. I didn’t go to journalism school,” he added—which was another big applause line.

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When asked to list the publications she looked at each morning, Sharon Waxman listed all the electronic outlets and news feeds she peruses, then she said, “And I do look at…..” and she paused for thought. Rainey jumped in. “The LA Times?”

Right, said Waxman, as the audience laughed, “the LA Times.”

“Don’t make me beg here,” said Rainey.

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At some point a woman from the audience asked what would happen to longform journalism—what with everyone’s diminishing attention span and all. Was it as good as dead? The panel seemed stymied.

Then Andrew Donohue, who had said little during the hour, spoke up. Well, he said, actually, people will read long narrative or investigative pieces, particularly when they are run as a series. “We regularly run 10,000 word series….and our readership goes up when we do.” The key is, Donohue said, they have to be good, not boring.

(Yep. That’s the key alright—a point with which I repeatedly hector my Lit Journalism students.)
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In the “greenroom,” where all the authors, panelists, and miscellaneous LA literary types hang out during the two day festival, there was much talk and gossip about the same topics as those discussed by the panel—plus the other big subject: the future of publishing.

On that count, literary agent Betsy Amster said she’s a new convert to the Sony Reader, Sony’s answer to the Kindle. “I love it. It makes me feel like reading’s suddenly fun again, like it was when I was a kid,” she said.

Bonnie Nadell (agent to the late and still missed David Foster Wallace, among others) said, as she cruised through the buffet line to grab some fresh vegetables, that people still want to read as much as they ever did. “I don’t see the demand for books going away at all,” she said. I told her about Amster’s new Sony Reader infatuation. She nodded sagely and said that manuscripts are now sent to her and other agents for the Kindle and the Sony reader, and it’s actually pretty great.

The 130,000 plus people who swarmed happily around the UCLA campus all day Saturday and Sunday, purely for the love of reading, seemed to agree: Books are not going away. Not even a little bit.

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PS: THE TWO PANELS THAT EVERYONE BUZZED ABOUT—just because they were so damned funny—-were those that featured my pal Tod Goldberg—plus some other very witty people like, novelist Seth Greenland, cartoonist, Lalo Alcaraz, and the Daily Show’s Larry Wilmore.

And listen: I’m not saying this because Tod’s my friend, I’m telling you the unvarnished truth.

See you there next year.