Festival of Books: Before Occupy, there was Port Huron Statement

The Port Huron Statement emerged 50 years ago as a manifesto from the Students for a Democratic Society and an "agenda for a generation." "We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit," part of the statement reads.

So it was natural that the question posed at Sunday afternoon's panel "The Port Huron Statement: 50 Years Later" at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was: What does it mean now?

"It's startling to me that this was 50 years ago," said panelist Tom Hayden, a former California state senator and author of "Writings for a Democratic Society." Though the Port Huron Statement was a collaborative effort, Hayden is often cited as one of its primary authors.

 "Participatory democracy may be the overall concept that could unify liberals on the left and even some libertarians, if you look at the other ideological alternatives before us," Hayden said. "Every human being's dignity requires their ability to participate and not be victims of all the decisions being made controlling their lives."

Festival of Books: History's dark corners make good crime, spy novels

Here’s a humdinger of a story from the Scottish crime novelist Philip Kerr about a research trip to Russia following some local cops with whom he thought he had built a good rapport.

“The cop was always joking – “So you are British spy, yes?’ I always told him, ‘Of course I am.’ One night we went and got very drunk together, it was the first time I’d ever finished a bottle of vodka by myself. Then the cop said, ‘Now we go someplace special.’ We got in the car and drove and I fell asleep for a bit, and when I woke up we were in a forest. I had a beautiful translator with me and she said, quietly, ‘I do not like this.’

“We got out the car and the cop made me walk to a frozen lake, and I had to tell him, ‘You know that I was kidding about being a spy, right?’ So he starts taking his clothes off and I think, ‘Oh no, he doesn’t think I’m a spy, he thinks I’m gay.’ Then he lifts this giant rock over his head and I’m thinking, ‘Oh well, at least this is a better way to go than if he shot me,” and he throws it onto the ice and cracks a big hole in it. He jumped in and just sank, then came up and said, ‘This is where I go when I have to sober up very quickly.”

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The rest of the “Crime Fiction: Listening In” panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday was almost an afterthought compared with that stranger-than-his-own-fiction anecdote from the author of the Bernie Gunther spy novels.

Festival of Books: Grahame-Smith explains why we need zombies

According to Seth Grahame-Smith, author of three insanely popular historical-fiction-meets-genre-thriller novels, zombies are good at two things: separating us from our delicious cranial tissue, and serving as a metaphor for whatever a culture fears.

“Zombies have represented everything from communism to consumerism,” he said of his first smash novel “Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.” “All I wanted to do was take Jane Austen’s themes and humor and put them in an even more absurd landscape. It’s the same thing in “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” The vampires are slavery. They steal your life force to enrich themselves. That’s what slavery is.”

At “Fiction: Bump in the Night” on Sunday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the four authors underscored the principle that when we talk about monsters, we’re talking about ourselves. They viewed the success of horror across the pop culture spectrum, from the “paranormal romance” subgenre that includes “Twilight” and its spawn to hit shows like “The Walking Dead,” as a confluence of two themes in modern life. One being that life isn’t as scary as it used to be.

Festival of Books: Documenting high-profile scandals and failures

The works of the authors at the Sunday afternoon Festival of Books session "American Breakdown" had little in common except for one thing: failure. Failure of institutions, failures of a family, failures of a society.

The session moderated by L.A. Times senior editor Scott Kraft included authors John Nichols ("Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, From Madison to Wall Street"), Laurie Sandell ("Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family"), David Willman ("The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America's Rush to War") and Tom Zoellner ("A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us about the Grand Canyon State and Life in Arizona").

Willman, an investigative reporter in the L.A. Times Washington bureau, covered the twists and turns of the investigation into the anthrax attacks that began in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He examined how mistakes by federal investigators and the media ruined the career of Steven Hatfill, a government scientist, originally accused as the man behind the attacks, and then how the investigation ultimately led to Bruce Ivins, who was set to be indicted before he killed himself.

Festival of Books: California as a novel backdrop

“California Dreamin’” was a dream panel, because as moderator and L.A. Times book reviewer David Ulin pointed out, Hari Kunzru, Dana Spiotta and Steve Erickson are three of the best novelists working today.

The L.A. Times Festival of Books panelists also have recent novels that take place in California:  Erickson’s "These Dreams of You," Kunzru’s "Gods Without Men" and Spiotta’s "Stone Arabia." So each writer is ideally situated to reflect on real and mythic representations of the Golden State.

Kunzru’s novel is mostly set in the Mojave Desert, a place he described as a hinterland where people “test bombs, cook meth, and bury bodies,” but also as Ulin added, “a power spot” that draws dreams and UFOs.

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What Kunzru found in his research for the book was that as a UFO culture arose in the Mojave, it represented a meeting of the aerospace industry and military testing with spiritualist and theosophical traditions. Yet now, “the angels had become spacemen.”

Festival of Books: Steve Lopez, healthcare panelists on end-of-life struggles

The panel, one of the last at this year’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, was about the uncomfortable subject of death –- and, even so, it drew a lively and clearly appreciative crowd of several hundred to a USC conference room Sunday.

The discussion was moderated by L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez, who in recent months has written a series of columns on death, illness and the struggles many families confront as loved ones age. Lopez’s interest in the subject grew out of his own father’s final illness and the tough choices his family faced in his father’s waning days. (Tony Lopez died in February at age 83.)

The panelists -- a gerontology professor, two physicians and the executive director of a California healthcare collaborative focused on end-of-life issues –- spoke of the urgency of the subject as the nation ages and as the cost of healthcare, especially of the advanced types of care that can prolong the lives of the gravely ill, skyrockets.

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 “Are we extending life or just prolonging the dying process?” Lopez asked at one point. He said he had turned for advice about his father’s care to several of the panelists, including Dr. Gene Dorio, a Santa Clarita physician and geriatric medicine specialist. Dorio, who makes house calls for seniors, said people’s choices for their final days must be part of an ongoing conversation for patients, their doctors and their families.

He and other panelists emphasized the importance of advance healthcare directives to help family members and doctors know one’s wishes in case of incapacitating illness or injury. And preparing a directive should not be just for the elderly.

Festival of Books: Don't try to find authentic anything, food writers say

What is “authenticity” as it relates to food, and what are we looking for when we search out “authentic cuisine”?

In the panel "Food Writing: American Potluck" on Sunday, moderator and L.A. Times columnist and restaurant critic Jonathan Gold explored issues of authenticity with writers Gustavo Arellano, Aaron Bobrow-Strain and Jennifer 8. Lee.

Gold noted “authenticity doesn’t stay still,” and what we may view as authentic today may not be considered so 20 years from now -- and almost certainly was regarded as such a century ago.

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Arellano argued that “while we should value our traditions,” we “should not put food in a box.” His latest book, "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America,” celebrates food from places we might not expect -– like the the Taco Bells and Margaritavilles –- as Mexican food.

While he started out as an “auténtico,” Arellano came to the conclusion that there is no authentic Mexican cuisine. “To talk about ‘authentic’ Mexican cuisine is a foolish endeavor.”

Festival of Books: Betty White on her love of animals and zoos

Betty White blew kisses to a cheering audience as she took the stage with Karen Grigsby Bates on Sunday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

“Well my goodness, nobody showed up!” White, once seated, joked to the audience that spilled out of the seats provided, packing into the lawns and any available space surrounding the Los Angeles Times Stage during the sunny afternoon. Yes, White is hot -- even in cities outside Cleveland.

The self-proclaimed “zoophile” discussed her book “Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo,” her love of animals and the zoo known as Hollywood in her conversation with Bates. The NPR correspondent opened by asking White how long she had been interested in animals. “In the womb is where the interest started,” White said.

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The longtime TV personality charmed the audience with numerous anecdotes about animals, starting with one from her childhood involving a white mouse she named Pluto that she bought for a nickel at school during lunch, a purchase her mother was none too happy about.

Festival of Books: Talking funny with Merrill Markoe, Jill Soloway

It's probably no surprise that a panel about writing comedy began with enough laughs that it could have included a two-drink minimum.

After a boisterous introduction by moderator Tod Goldberg that fairly outlined one potential working title for the discussion ("Let's put the frumpy Jewish guy with three funny ladies and watch him squirm"), the Festival of Books panel titled Does This Book Make Me Look Fat: Laughter on the Page gathered three very funny female writers -- Merrill Markoe, Jill Soloway and Dani Klein Modisett -- during would could be charitably called "interesting" times for women in politics and pop culture.

Goldberg opened the discussion with a question pointed to Markoe about what's been called a "war on women" this election year, the author and onetime head writer for "Late Night With David Letterman" responded with a bit of a shrug. "Has there ever been a time where they weren't under attack?" she asked. "I haven't got an easy answer that comes with a laugh, that's such a big topic."

Festival of Books: Robert Crais on his crime-fighting duo

It's no secret that Robert Crais has admired Raymond Chandler ever since picking up a copy of "The Little Sister" as a young teen. He shared that moment of discovery with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan during a Sunday afternoon session at the L.A. Times Festival of Books.

"Chandler was my gateway drug," he told a large crowd in USC's Bing Theater. "I was digging for stuff in a used bookstore, and I came upon 'Little Sister.' I fell in love with Chandler that night. I fell right down the rabbit hole of crime fiction."

Like Chandler, Crais has been after something more than chunking away money in an annuity account with a string of successful novels (18 to date) featuring Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. He also chronicles the neighborhoods and communities of L.A., and this adds a solid spine to all of his Cole/Pike stories, which started with "The Monkey's Raincoat" in 1987.