We took the long, scenic route to L.A., thinking it'd be a beautiful, leisurely stroll south from the Bay Area. And, it was -- except that, er, it took us about 13 hours to get there. At some point, the crashing waves and seagulls and death defying cliffs were, well, impossible to see anyway. Night time robbed us of all beauty and left us in an inky, ghostly fog. And, oh, yeah -- the Whale Watcher Cafe? Kill me now. Don't, whatever you do, order the calamari steak. Yeah, my idea. Don't do it.
The whole point of the exercise was the fabulous L.A. Book Fair. My alarmingly handsome publisher, Johnny Temple, was there, as was the beautiful and passionate Johanna Ingalls, his literary partner, with a massive sampling of the Akashic catalogue. Stuff was just flying off that table!
I had a hot date at a panel moderated by the newly minted editor of Granta, John Freeman, on memory. Place was packed (300+), conversation flowed like smoothest of wines, people stood in line forever to sign books. Joan Silber -- the amazing writer, my former teacher -- and I snuck in a five minute catch up in the Green Room. Wow, we we're exhausted by the end of it all!
But we still managed to get in some fun: Hung out with Lynda Gorov, an old pal from the newspaper wars, and her charming daughter, Rae; saw my old roomie, Terry; we had breakfast with M's pal, Lauren; and a fabu evening with performance artist Tim Miller and his partner, the writer Alistair McCartney.
We trudged back on the 405 -- six hours. Soooo relieved!
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