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Hard as it may be to shake images of Hugh Hefner looking geriatric as he makes the rounds with his posse of blond gal pals, a new biography of the founder of America's first mainstream lad mag, Playboy, serves as a reminder that Hefner was once a sexual revolutionary. Here's a bit of the review:
If Hugh Hefner hadn't existed, the 20th century would have had to
create him. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that the 20th century
would have wanted to create him either way. As the postwar era dawned,
so too did an array of cheap, limitless entertainments, and in 1953,
Hefner launched Playboy magazine. Based in Chicago (later Los Angeles),
it offered cosmopolitan pleasures even as America fell prey to a kind
of conformity that was, in its own gray way, as psychically crippling
as communism.
In Steven Watts' exhaustive, illuminating biography "Mr. Playboy,"
Hefner's ideal for living -- marked by his allegiances to Tarzan,
Freud, Pepsi-Cola and jazz -- proves to be a kind of gloss on the
Protestant work ethic. And yet "Mr. Playboy" reveals that Hefner
essentially inverted that ideal by creating his own ethos, in which
hard work also happens in the mind, and its rewards spring from the
pursuit of pleasure, not of virtue.
The rest of the review is here. And check out the blog post on Hefner (with videos) at our fab litblog, Jacket Copy.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Undated handout of Hugh Hefner, center, with Ringo Starr, left, and Barbi Benton, right, at the Playboy club in London.
 Today's the start of Banned Books Week, an event founded by the American Library Assn. back in 1982 and observed -- and argued about -- ever since. The Times' book editor David Ulin takes a look at the annual event:
I'm ambivalent about Banned Books Week, which runs through Saturday. On the one hand, we clearly still need such a public affirmation, as the recent tumult over Sarah Palin and her "rhetorical" inquiries to the Wasilla, Alaska, public library show.
On the other, Banned Books Week offers up the sort of toothless, feel-good spectacle that makes us less likely to consider the actual ramifications of free expression. The basic message here is one of astonishment: Why would anyone ban books when literature is such a positive and ennobling force? Yet, while I agree with that, I also believe that some books truly are dangerous, and to ignore that is simply disingenuous.
Lest this make me seem an apologist for the book banners, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I'm against restricting anything other than material that graphically portrays certain illegal acts.
Yet it's foolish, self-defeating even, to pretend that books are innocuous, that we don't need to concern ourselves with what they say. If that's the case, then it doesn't really matter if we ban them, because we have already stripped them of their power.
More in David's essay.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times
 Exile on Wall Street -- stocks are tumbling, companies are teetering and laid-off employees are boxing up their coffee mugs and Dilbert calendars. Experts say more bad news is on the way.
The Governator makes threats but legislators pass the state budget anyway.
Some of the commuters in Friday's deadly Metrolink crash were survivors of the crash in Glendale in 2005. Richard Myles survived both crashes. Gregory Lintner walked away from the first but died this week in the second.
A fatal crash on the eastbound 210 Freeway has all but one of the lanes closed in Arcadia.
Another day, another few hundred tomatoes in Bill Anderson's Winnetka garden.
Cab drivers in Burbank love their hybrid rides. (pictured at right.)
An agriculture instructor in Tulare was gored to death by a bull.
Monday was Day One of the O.J. Simpson trial, where he's facing more than a dozen charges, including kidnapping.
Today's "Politics of Culture" on KCRW looks at the life and work of David Foster Wallace, who took his own life Friday. Our book editor, David Ulin, has an appreciation of Wallace. Another lovely article about Wallace, from Laura Miller, in Salon.
How do the UCLA Bruins feel after losing 59-0 (ouch) to BYU on Saturday? About how you would imagine.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Nancy Pastor / Los Angeles Times
Love books? So does Edward Champion, the litblogger whose podcasts include a wide and sometimes wild array of authors. The sad news is he's having trouble keeping his show going, our own Carolyn Kellogg
reports:
Shuttering the show would be a shame. Champion -- who took the
character of Bat Segundo from the book "Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell
-- gives equal time to highbrow literature and popular culture. The
authors above are a representatively diverse sample: (clockwise from
left) hostess/actress Amy Sedaris (in sprinkles), seminal DJ
Grandmaster Flash, Whiting Award-winning Marianne Wiggins, professor/TV
interviewer James Lipton, debut novelist Garth Risk Hallberg and
Charles Baxter, a National book Award finalist who's considered a
writers' writer. He's also talked to the prolific, intense William T.
Vollman, bestselling chick-lit writer Jennifer Weiner and hundreds of
other authors...
Read the rest in our own lovely litblog, Jacket Copy.
--Veronique de Turenne
Garth Rish Hallberg photo by Timothy Briner; Charles Baxter photo by Keith E. Johnson
Just learned that Jill Leovy, founder of the Homicide Report, the ground-breaking LAT blog that tries to chronicle every single murder in Los Angeles, is writing a book. No title yet.
Though inspired by the blog, Leovy's book won't be a recap. Instead, she'll use the knowledge gleaned from her work to look at race and murder rates, and to formulate a theory of her own about of the causes of inner-city warfare. Our lit-blogger, Carolyn Kellogg, gets some details:
Jacket Copy: Does your book chronicle all 845 murders in Los Angeles last year?
Jill Leovy: No. The book is not related to the Homicide Report blog, nor to my efforts to cover all homicides in Los Angeles County last year. (In reality, there were more then 900.) The book will be about the syndrome of high homicide rates among blacks in America, their causes and consequences.
Jacket Copy: Will you focus on a specific area or region?
JL: The book will be mostly reported out of Los Angeles, but it seeks to explain a national phenomenon. High homicide rates among blacks are everywhere ...
The full Q&A, in Jacket Copy, is here. And check out the Homicide Report, now in the capable hands of Ruben Vives.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
 Wish your kids would read more? The L.A. Public Library is here to help you this summer, says Mary MacVean, the power behind our fine education blog, The Homeroom:
The L.A. Public Library hopes to entice young people of all ages to spend their summer reading with "Reading Magic" for children 4 to 12 and "Passport to Reading" for teenagers.
The clubs are free and at the Central Library downtown and 71 branch libraries.
"The library’s summer reading programs make reading fun and promote reading during the summer, which is more important than ever before,” city librarian Fontayne Holmes said.
Info about reading groups for teens and children in the full post here.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Los Angeles Times
Sex, evolution, Harry Potter and Hitler -- all in all a pretty good haul. But wait -- what connects "Best-Loved Mexican Cooking" to God? Could it have anything to do with the fact that our religion editor's last name is "Padilla"?
--Veronique de Turenne
All weekend, the publishing industry's largest conference has been buzzing at the L.A. Convention Center. Big-name writers -- Salman Rushdie, Michael Connelly -- showed up to speak on panels and sign books. And so have Hollywood celebrities: Alec Baldwin (above), George Hamilton and William Shatner are just a few of the actors-turned-authors that showed up on the floor.
Book Expo's activities have stretched out across the city. Parties were held where you might expect -- restaurants and clubs in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, an art gallery in Santa Monica -- and where you might not (Dodger Stadium). Larry King threw a book party at his house for Ted Turner; Prince threw one at his for ... well, not sure what, exactly.
Seems like almost everyone involved with the publishing industry from all over the country has been packed into the Convention Center all weekend. Bookstore staff members, including founders, book buyers and individual young salespeople, are the main focus of the publishers, who have massive, elaborate booths displaying their new books. And the convention is also full of publicists and media and agents and aspiring writers.
And today, the last day, every last one of them seems tired. There are free advance copies of books that won't be out until the fall, and folks who can summon the strength to carry them home are doing so with dazed smiles.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
We're here to tell you that BookExpo America is really about the parties. Sure, there's plenty of talk from bookish types about being "on the floor" — the acres of space inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, where publishers, authors and panelists are setting up shop. But the most animated conversations are about the social events, the dinner at Lucques or the party at the Chateau, or where, exactly, that "undisclosed location" for Prince's party actually is.
Here's the New York Observer on the topic: On Friday there's Random House Trade cocktails at Sona with folks
like Mr. Rushdie, Curtis Sittenfeld, David Ebershoff. Knopf cocktails
are happening concurrently at Comme Ça, with a dinner across the street
at Lucques to follow with Barbara Walters, Joseph O'Neil, Dexter
Filkins, Arianna Huffington, Anne Rice, Art Spiegelman, and others.
Later on, Grand Central is throwing a party in honor of Ted Turner
at Larry King's house in Beverly Hills, and Book Soup, a celebrated
indy retailer, is hosting a party for the Ecco Press at Palihouse.
Weinstein Books is hosting a big thing at Chateau Marmont that most
people we asked were planning on attending, and Atria is having a party
for Prince, whose multimedia book they are publishing, at "an
undisclosed location."
Then there's the annual New York Review of Books party at the Bel-Air (Mark Danner will be there, also the philanthropist Max Palevsky), and The New Yorker
party at Gordon Ramsay's London West Hollywood, which features David
Sedaris, John Hodgman, Simon & Schuster publisher David Rosenthal,
and Mr. Rushdie again. Also Henry Finder and Leo Carey, who oversee the
magazine's books coverage.
Whew, I'm exhausted. And wondering what it'll take to get invited to all the soirees next time.
—Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Bob Carey / Los Angeles Times
GOP senators say no to the $7-billion plan to improve healthcare in state prisons. Just one problem -- the feds might take that $7 billion from the state anyway. More on this latest impasse from Michael Rothfeld.
The biggest drop in home prices in 20 years, with L.A. County and the O.C. really taking it on the chin. Peter Y. Hong has the latest numbers.
There's a bounty on teen popster Miley Cyrus' first kiss. Rachel Abramowitz explains.
Done deal: The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the studios agree on a new three-year contract. AP via LAT.
The Lakers win! The best-of-seven series is now 3-1 and moves to Staples Center on Thursday night. Mike Bresnahan's game story, plus lots of pix and links to more Lakers stories here.
They like him, they really like him. David Beckham's critics sing a different tune.
A new James Bond novel is out and ... wait, isn't Ian Fleming dead? Yeah, and his impersonators don't exactly bring the Bond legacy back to life. Read along with Tim Rutten.
 Earle H. Hagen, the Emmy Award-winning TV composer who wrote -- and whistled -- the theme song for “The Andy Griffith Show” has died. Dennis McLellan writes about his life.
Remember the Olympic skater who was slipped a date-rape drug during dinner? An arrest in the case has been made, Kim Christensen reports.
A teensy bit of good news amid the housing debacle -- lower property tax bills for some of us. Garrett Therolf explains.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photos: Associated Press, BMI
 The California Supreme Court will rule on gay marriage tomorrow. LAT
A greyhound adoption diary is on Unleashed.
Check out the lovely redesign at California Authors.
L.A.'s coldest crime cases of the century. Mean Streets
Reaction to fabulist James Frey's shot at redemption. Jacket Copy
LOVE the jacaranda photo from Just Above Sunset. (It's the bottom photo on the page. And thanks to LAO for the link.)
San Bernardino County supes say no to letting sex offenders drive ice cream trucks. LAT
Fox TV report on L.A. Councilwoman Janice Hahn and gangs is flawed, says the Daily Breeze .
A developer proposes a huge housing project on the site of a former munitions plant. Daily News The Signal
Are they grains of sand or works of art? Both -- and we found them thanks to Funny Pages 2.0.
A new chancellor is to be named at UC Riverside. Press Enterprise
A stable place: Norco named as the No. 1 hometown for horses. Daily Bulletin
-- Veronique de Turenne & Jesus Sanchez
Illustration: Tribune Media Services
 Another win for nature lovers as the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council buys the 192 acres that complete the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve. Daily Breeze
Ryan Seacrest in talks to replace Larry King? Fishbowl LA says yes. No word yet on who gets custody of all those suspenders.
Campaign signs for a candidate for Superior Court judge are breaking city laws, says Will Campbell at LA Metblogs.
Former Pasadena City College prez (and current state senator) Jack Scott has been named chancellor of states community colleges. CoCoTimes
A book about a penguin family with two dads tops the American Library Assn.'s most challenged book list. Again. Details from Nick Owchar in our fab litblog, Jacket Copy
The head of Mexico's federal police, who had taken on the war against the nation's drug cartels, was gunned down today. Mean Streets
The Salvage Fashion show - getting creative with recyclables. LA Taco
You don't want to mess with moms who are this mad about the state's education budget. The Homeroom
Retreat to a simpler time with lawn bowling in Redlands. SB Sun
--Veronique de Turenne
Photos: AP, LA Times
 A big fight over the flag in the little town of Montrose. Scott Gold gets to the heart of things.
An airline passengers rights measure gets the nod from the state assembly. As one legislator said, "This is a time when we need to spank the airlines." The line forms to the right. Nancy Vogel has the full story.
Another Cal State teacher gets the boot for refusing to sign the state's loyalty oath, which dates back to 1952, the era of the Red Scare. Today, the oath keeps some religious faiths, like Quakers (ooo, scary!) from working in the schools. Richard C. Paddock has the details.
So Bill Plaschke answers his phone and hears this: "Hello Bill? This is Vin Scully." OMG. It's about the retirement talk, of course, which seeped into a Scully speech this week. There is mulling, but there's also good news. Check out Plaschke's column, where he tells all. (And btw, Dodgers won their sixth in a row.)
May Day -- smaller and more peaceful than last year. Check our coverage -- pix and stories and one-the-street videos here and here.
Measles cases have doubled this year and health officials -- and parents -- are getting worried. Rong-Gong Lin II explains what's happening.
The hunt is on for the tiger shark that killed a California surfer in Mexico, and environmentalists say the long, long lines of baited hooks will end in indiscriminate slaughter. AP via LAT.
Bob Dylan's teenage flame tells all in a new book. Josh Getlin reviews it.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Los Angeles Times
 Even as sorrowful customers see Dutton's through its last hours of business today, another beloved neighborhood bookseller finds itself on life support. It's Libreria Martinez in Santa Ana, which started life as a small shelf of secondhand books in then-hair cutter (and now MacArthur grantee) Ruben Martinez's barber shop.
Today, Martinez owns two small bookstores, which — though they serve as neighborhood centers, with readings, discussion groups, community meetings and visits from world-renowned authors — are in serious financial trouble. Poor economy, too many people shopping the chains and Amazon.com — you know the drill.
Unless Libreria Martinez gets some customer love, pronto, the place is in real trouble, says Gustavo Arreleno, columnist for the OC Weekly. The store's already giving a 40% discount on some of the books, hoping to pull in more business. (And, in case you're wondering about where Martinez's grant money goes, it's paid out by the MacArthur Foundation in quarterly chunks. All of it goes to the store.)
Do bookstores matter? Where did the books on your nightstand come from?
—Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times
Wooden pallets acted like kindling as a fire raged in a South L.A. industrial complex. Francisco Vara-Orta has all the details. Meanwhile, the Sierra Madre fire still burns.
Lakers sweep. Bill Plaschke recaps.
A four-year delay faces the grand Grand Avenue development project slated for downtown. The double whammy of the credit crunch and the soft (that's putting it politely) real estate market have pushed the projected finish date to 2012. The first phase was supposed to be finished next year. So what'll happen now? Cara Mia DiMassa has the full story.
Another milestone pegged to 2012: a third of the state's voters will be immigrants. Teresa Watanabe runs the numbers.
Autopsy confirms the San Diego swimmer was killed by a great white shark. AP via LAT.
Two more molestation charges against that assistant principal who was transfered to Markham Middle School, despite accusations of sexual misconduct at his previous assignment. Richard Winton and Molly Hennessy-Fiske have the update.
The trial for the man who caused the worst crash in Metrolink history opened with statements he was faking a suicide to win back his wife's love. He's fine, but 11 people died. Ann M. Simmons tells what happened in court.
You mean things aren't tough enough for bookstores? Scammers posing as authors are trying (and sometimes managing) to squeeze some cash from the businesses. Scott Timberg has details.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photos: Los Angeles Times
 It's still weekend casual here at L.A. Now, but look for some guests weighing in on the L.A. Times Festival of Books, and our own Tony Pierce blogging the music scene at Coachella.
Want even more? Check for book fest updates at our terrific litblog, Jacket Copy.  (Winners of last night's Book Prizes are here.)
And for all things music fest, it's our sonic blog, Soundboard.
On Monday, L.A. Now will resume it's irreverent regular coverage of all things SoCal.
Oh! And it's going to be really hot this weekend -- don't forget the sunscreen. (And make sure your pets have plenty of shade and water.)
--Veronique de Turenne
 Nothing less than an extravaganza, it's the L.A. Times Festival of Books on UCLA's green and tree-lined campus. There'll be authors, exhibits, music, interviews, outdoor stages, storytelling, kids activities -- we've been at it 13 years and we've pretty much got this thing figured out.
The shindig kicks off with an awards ceremony tonight. (Ticket info at UCLA’s Central Ticket Office: 310-825-2101.)
A list of authors here, and a bunch of great interviews in Jacket Copy, our lit blog.
Want to hear the authors in action? We've got panels Saturday and Sunday.
How do you get there? Driving directions here. Don't want to fight the traffic? Try taking the bus.
There's food and drink for sale, ATMs in case you run short of cash, plenty of places for home-style picnics, and Westwood Village nearby for those who don't mind a little stroll.
Events are free, but you do need a ticket to get in. Space in popular panels goes fast, so plan ahead. Ticket info here.
See you there!
-- Veronique de Turenne
Don't look for the California housing market to recover any time soon -- foreclosures quadrupled in the last three months -- as home values keep falling and all those dicey mortgages take their toll. Peter Y. Hong runs the alarming numbers.
Is this smart? A contaminated field in East Hollywood gets the nod for a new elementary school. Evelyn Larrubia explains how and why and how much it will cost.
 In defense of the taco truck -- an impassioned essay in our fab Food section.
A stealthy end for the still top-secret F-117A Night Hawk fighter jets as they made their final flight in the skies above Palmdale before heading to retirement in the Nevada desert. Peter Pae joined a few hundred fans to watch the historic event.
A "green" building law gets the green light from the L.A. City Council. (Hint: plant drought-tolerant landscaping; use recycled materials.) Details from Margot Roosevelt.
LAPD's top brass say they want civilians to take over clerical jobs but some, like running the front desk at local police stations, are really no different than riding in a police car. Jill Leovy explains why.
Literary fiction works blue. Kinky details from Swati Pandey.
L.A. may not have an NFL team, but that doesn't stop Sam Farmer from running a mock NFL draft.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Bandini / LA Taco
 Remember that scheme to nickel and dime our way out of the city's $405 million budget shortfall by charging a buck for each book that arrives via L.A. Public Library's intra-library loan system? Turns out our mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, isn't on board, David Zahniser reports.
"I didn't make that proposal. The library commission did," the mayor told reporters on Monday morning. "They didn't confer with my office when they did that. It may be that now that they see the proposals I have made, they may reconsider that."
Just hours later came the news that the head of the library, who got 800 e-mails from truly peeved book lovers, wants the Library Commission to drop the buck-a-book proposal. Which makes it almost a done deal. Now go borrow a book.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Los Angeles Times
When the last person who spoke fluent Samala died 43 years ago, it seemed the language of the Chumash people was doomed. Now, a new dictionary with 4,000 entries gives the ancient language new life, Steve Chawkins reports:
"This is awesome," said Nakia Zavalla, the 33-year-old cultural
director for the Santa Ynez band of the Chumash, handling the volume as
gingerly as a sacred text. "We won't have to constantly go searching
for our culture -- now it's right here."
The dictionary's 4,000 entries sound as foreign to most of the tribe
members as they were familiar to their ancestors. It's a tough language
for English speakers, filled with sharp interruptions called glottal
stops. Some words don't quite roll off the tongue -- qalpsik is to braid the hair tight -- and more than 100 prefixes can dramatically change the meaning of verbs.
"There are so many rules," moaned Zavalla. "Just a glottal stop -- it sounds like uh-oh -- can change the meaning of ma from 'the' to 'rabbit.'
Details about the unlikely author of the new text, and how it almost didn't see the light of day in Steve's full story.
--Veronique de Turenne
Photo: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
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Hard as it may be to shake images of Hugh Hefner looking geriatric as he makes the rounds with his posse of blond gal pals, a new biography of the founder of America's first mainstream lad mag, Playboy, serves as a reminder that Hefner was once a sexual revolutionary. Here's a bit of the review:
