July 7, 1908

e have a bounty of news today. Above, Mexican troops put down an insurrection in the state of Coahuila. And turmoil in the Mideast. At left, Mayor Harper urges Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan to accept Capt. Eugene Merrick of Los Angeles as his running mate. Merrick says he is a war veteran, having fought with the Union Army at the age of 12. He is also a temperance supporter. An inquest is scheduled in the crash of a wagon and a streetcar that killed six people ... C.M. Pierre hopes to extend his Balloon Route trips ... View Larger Map Mrs. Marie Heider returns to her home at 1623 Court St. and bumps into the body of her husband, Herman, who had driven a spike into the casing above a door and hanged himself. His box factory had been failing and he had been drinking heavily, The Times says.  His suicide note is in German. And perhaps the most interesting little item: a one-inch ad for the newly published book "The Bridal Night of Ronald and Thusnelda," by Hulda von Liebetraut.  I might need a copy of that. Above left, safety tips on the streetcar system's electric cables, which carry 500 or 1,000 volts.  Email me

June 24, 1938

uestro Pueblo is a new discovery for me, and a very happy one. The Times began the feature by writer Joe Seewerker and artist Charles Owens in June 1938, publishing installments Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The series ended in October 1939 after Seewerker and his young son, Joe Jr., were badly injured in a car accident. The last installment bids farewell with a jaunty "hasta la vista." The series was published as a book with an introduction by The Times' Lee Shippey. And never mind the fallout from the Harry Raymond bombing, here's really important news: The two leads of "Gone With the Wind" have finally been cast, The Times says. The movie will star Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Norma Shearer as Scarlett O'Hara. The Times says three supporting roles have been cast: Walter Connolly as Scarlett's father, Gerald; Maurice Murphy as Charles Hamilton, Scarlett's first husband; and Margaret Tallichet as Scarlett's sister Carreen. Of course, we know GWTW didn't quite turn out this way. Email me

George Carlin, RIP

	aybe you remember him as Al Sleet, the "Hippy, Dippy Weatherman with the hippy, dippy weather ... man" or as Rufus in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" or the author of an incredible number of jokes that are  eternally circulating on the Internet. Or perhaps you have heard of his bit on the "Seven Dirty Words." Here's a transcript of the skit that got him in trouble. Below, an interview with Carlin last year. Email me
Oct. 4, 2007 By Mike Flaherty Special to The Times he acerbic stand-up comedian and social commentator is celebrating 50 years in show biz -- and last week's release of "George Carlin: All My Stuff," a 14-DVD collection of his HBO specials spanning 1977 to 2005. Although he shows no sign of slowing down, he did take some time to chat about his career, his healthy pessimism and our commander in chief. -- So, 50 years in show biz, huh? Does that number date from a specific gig? It dates from the day I took the air at a radio station in Shreveport, La., in 1956. You know what? It's really 51 years; we're fudging it a year just for convenience's sake. I was 18, and they had me do newscasts first, then I became a DJ two or three months later. Do you have a favorite among the 12 HBO specials on "All My Stuff"? Yeah, "Jammin' in New York," 1992. Prior to that period, I'd refer to myself in interviews as a comedian who wrote his own material. But that was the point where I probably became more of a writer who performed his own material. The material became more like essays, they became more socially conscious, and it was just a major jump from being what I think of as only an entertainer to being an artist-entertainer. I'm looking at the titles of your last few -- "You Are All Diseased," "Complaints and Grievances," "Life Is Worth Losing." If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a pessimist. ell, I am a pessimist as far as the world is concerned. I have absolutely low prospects for the human race; I have very low prospects for this country. For myself, though, very high prospects. I'm a personal optimist. How does one keep pessimism from making them miserable, souring their outlook, preventing them from embracing life? You can't care. You see, I don't care about the outcome in this country [or] on this planet because I know this is all temporal b.s. It's not a religious point of view, it's just realism. I like living somewhere detached from all of this emotionally. I don't really have a stake in the outcome anymore. bout 30 years ago, I became a person who said, "You know something? People aren't worth worrying about and caring about." One by one, yes; any time I'm with one person, I'm fine. There's all sorts of compassion and empathy in my heart. But when you consider them as a group, from a distance, I don't give a . . . about them. How about George Bush? Just a product of the American system. People always blame the politicians, and I say, "Well, where do you think they come from?" They are products of American culture, American society, schools, churches, communities, businesses, families, homes. So what are you complaining about? This is you, the government of the people, by the people and for the people. So, I don't let them off the hook by attacking the people they put out front. But clearly George Bush is an electrifyingly incurious man. I'm guessing the notion of retirement doesn't appeal to you. No, no. I get a great deal of joy out of this. An artist is never really satisfied; you just keep scratching underneath the surface trying for more. When is the next HBO special, and what's it called? The next one is March 1, called "It's Bad for Ya."

Voices--James Ellroy

 

Aug. 30, 1995 By Amy Wallace Times Staff Writer n his 1987 crime novel, "The Black Dahlia," James Ellroy had the audacity--what he would call the "righteous authorial authority"--to cook up a solution to Los Angeles' most famous unsolved homicide. Leading his readers on a tour of the City of Angels' seediest streets, Ellroy wrote of a young homicide dick who became obsessed with the Dahlia--a would-be actress named Elizabeth Short who in 1947 was found slain and severed in two. In fiction, Ellroy did what no real detective has ever done: He made the Dahlia's killer pay. Now, Ellroy has set out to solve another decades-old Los Angeles-area killing. Fresh from a promotional tour for his acclaimed 11th novel, "American Tabloid" (Knopf, 1995), he has begun researching a book about the mysterious 1958 murder of Geneva Hilliker Ellroy, his own mother. Crime literature may never be the same. After all, this is the murder that Ellroy says made him the man he is today. The 47-year-old author traces his fascination with all things criminal back to the day his mother was found, strangled and half-nude, near Arroyo High School in El Monte. And he admits that over the years he has used her death to stir up interest in his novels. "I've exploited it," he says flatly, recalling how a previous publisher, eager to promote "The Black Dahlia," encouraged him to tell interviewers about his past. "He said, 'If you're willing to talk about this on the media circuit, we can put you out there and sell some books.' And he was right. I told the story 9 million times." self-described "master self-promoter with a tight grip on a pop-psych show-and-tell," Ellroy used to tell reporters that his mother--a divorced alcoholic who could sometimes be harsh to her son--got "whacked." More than once, he referred to her slaying, which occurred when he was 10 years old, as "the Geneva snuff." But today his tone is fervent, not flip. Thirty-seven years since he lost her, he is trying to find his mother again, to recognize the woman who gave him voice. "To one degree or another I've exploited her or ignored her. I've understood that for a long time. But now, I know the true force that this woman and her death has had on me," he says, explaining that by investigating her murder, he hopes also to understand more about her life. "This is an attempt to go back, to portray the woman with love and, if possible, bring her killer to justice." o it is that Ellroy, whose raw, tautly written but very dark books have won him both a faithful following and a coterie of critics, has arrived in an uncharacteristically soft-spoken place. This is a man who made a career out of chronicling the lives of burned-out cops, has-been or never-was stool pigeons, two-bit snitches and three-time losers. This is a man who can--and does--use the words milieu and Zeitgeist in a single sentence, a 6-foot-3-inch espresso addict who manages to appear brooding even when wearing loud Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts (his favorite apparel). This is no mama's boy. On the contrary, Ellroy says he hated his mother when she died. "On my 10th birthday in March, 1958, she said, 'Now you're a young man. You can decide if you want to live with your dad or live with me,' " he recalls. When he chose his father, "she whacked me in the face. I had made up my mind that was the last time she was going to do that and, of course, it was. . . . The next thing I know, she's dead." Ellroy's decision to reopen the investigation of his mother's slaying came after a newspaper reporter-friend discovered Geneva Ellroy's murder file while researching a story about unsolved San Gabriel Valley homicides. Ellroy had never thought to track down the file himself, but once he learned it was there, he couldn't get it out of his head. If nothing else, he knew, it would make a great story: a grown man confronting a gruesome incident from his childhood, a hardened crime novelist coming face to face with the most personal of crimes. He arranged to write a piece for GQ magazine about reading the murder file--a collection of police reports, mug shots and coroner's data--for the first time. The article, called "My Mother's Killer," was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. But it didn't give Ellroy the peace he'd hoped for. "I thought the pictures would wound me," he wrote in GQ. "I thought they would grant my old nightmare form. I thought I could touch the literal horror and somehow commute my life sentence. I was mistaken. The woman refused to grant me a reprieve." o, he resolved to go further, to expand the article into a book, to be titled "My Dark Places." Embarking on a real homicide investigation was a daunting task, even for someone who'd written about so many fictional ones. Ellroy hired a detective he'd met when he first viewed the murder file, Sgt. Bill Stoner, who was retiring after 32 years with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and was looking for a new challenge. Stoner, a reserved man with a neat mustache and a modest manner, was the first to tell Ellroy that they were unlikely to solve the case. The killer's trail was ice cold. So many years had elapsed that many of the key players--and perhaps the killer himself--were dead. Others would be hard-pressed to remember details of that hot June night in 1958 when Geneva Ellroy lost her life. But this unusual partnership--Ellroy in his white Jack Purcell sneakers, Stoner in his wine-colored loafers--had one thing in its favor. Stoner knew from experience that on rare occasions the passing of years can unlock secrets: previously reluctant witnesses want to unburden their consciences before they die. Today, Ellroy and Stoner have a particular person in mind who they hope will come forward, a woman they call simply the Blonde. It is only a matter of reaching her, they believe, to let her know they need her help. eneva Ellroy dressed pretty on the night she died. Her sleeveless blue and black dress was set off nicely by a blue-lined, full-length coat. She wore faux pearls--a simple necklace complemented by a huge ring on her left hand. It was a Saturday, her son was staying with his father, and she was going out. She arrived at the Desert Inn, a bar on East Valley Boulevard in El Monte, about 8 o'clock. Several people remember that she was joined by a woman and a man. The man was 40ish, white, swarthy and about six feet tall. The woman was younger and described as "hard-faced." She wore a brown summer dress and tied her blond hair back in a ponytail. The Swarthy Man and Geneva Ellroy left the Desert Inn about 10 p.m. Twenty minutes later they pulled a dark green Oldsmobile into a nearby drive-in, Stan's, and ordered a snack. The carhop remembers that they talked vivaciously and seemed to have been drinking. By 11 p.m., they were gone, but three hours later, they drove in again. Geneva Ellroy ordered chili. She was chatting gaily, but her clothes looked disheveled, and the carhop speculated she and her companion had been necking. The Swarthy Man, meanwhile, looked sullen. He ordered coffee and acted bored with the woman at his side. The couple left at 2:45 a.m. Eight hours later, Geneva Ellroy was found dead. One of her stockings was tied around her neck. Her broken necklace lay under her body, and 47 pearls were found scattered nearby. hen interviewed by police, patrons of the Desert Inn said that the Blonde and the Swarthy Man were not regulars. One hard-drinking customer said the Swarthy Man had given his name, but he couldn't remember it. An artist made a sketch of the Swarthy Man, which was circulated to newspapers and law enforcement around Los Angeles County. But police came up empty, lacking leads and suspects. Today, the Desert Inn is a Mexican restaurant called Valenzuela's. Stan's Drive-In was demolished long ago. But the mystery remains, and Ellroy and Stoner say the Blonde is their best hope for solving it. They talk about her frequently, speculating about why she has remained silent. "The Blonde is the key," Stoner tells Ellroy. "Was she a girlfriend of your mother's? Of the suspect's? Maybe she's married to the suspect." Ellroy picks up where Stoner leaves off. Maybe the Blonde was married to someone else who was criminally connected to the Swarthy Man. Maybe she feared reprisals. But surely, he says, surely she has told someone what she knows. "She's a barfly. A juicer," says Ellroy. "These people shoot their mouths off." Stoner concurs. "She's told somebody--maybe a bar acquaintance--about her girlfriend who was murdered, about how she was lucky it wasn't her. All we have to do is hit the right person." If and when they do, they've made it easy for that person to get in touch. Ellroy has a toll-free tip line, which he repeats to anyone who will listen: (800) XXX-XXX--[Number deleted because this is a 1995 story--lrh]. toner and Ellroy have had some disappointments. One of the original investigating officers is dead and the other can't remember much. They've found the carhop, whose memory is flawless, but she admitted she never was quite sure about the type of car the Swarthy Man drove. They've talked to Geneva Ellroy's landlady. She cried when she saw James, and provided him with some details about his mother he didn't remember. She used to like to make popcorn, for example, and eat it with a spoon. But the landlady was no help when it came to identifying the Swarthy Man and the Blonde. Ellroy and Stoner are working under a publisher's deadline: The book must be written by mid-1996. If they don't get their man by then, Ellroy will write about the search, about his fierce friendship with Stoner, about his mother's life and his own. In some ways, he muses, such an outcome would be fittingly ironic. "It [would be] Geneva Hilliker Ellroy's last laugh," he says, slipping briefly into her voice as he imagines what she'd say. "Jimmy, you exploited me and now . . . you've gotten three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. You would have gotten 83 [weeks] if you'd found the killer before the hardcover was published!" But Ellroy says his search will continue until the killer is caught. And if that day comes after deadline? "Then [my publisher] is going to say, 'Come here,' " Ellroy says, beckoning with a long finger. " 'Come here and write an addendum for the paperback edition.' "

Geneva Ellroy, RIP

View Larger Map Geneva Ellroy crime scene, Arroyo High School, El Monte, Calif., via Google maps street view.
	o much has already been written about the June 1958 murder of Geneva Hilliker Ellroy; there's very little I can add to what my friend James Ellroy, above, hasn't already said in interviews, first-person articles or in his 1996 book, "My Dark Places." Most of the locations still exist. The businesses have changed along Santa Anita Avenue, but Arroyo High School is much the same. The last time I checked, there was still a restaurant at 11721 Valley Blvd., where her car was found after the killing.    Regular Daily Mirror readers will recall a series of strangulations in 1957, but I haven't come across any in 1958 until now. The only prominent serial killer at large at the moment is Harvey Glatman, who has killed Judith Dull and Shirley Ann Bridgeford and will claim his next victim in July. Photo from findagrave.com Geneva Hilliker Ellroy is buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery. Her grave is next to the chain-link fence along Avenue of the Champions. When you are at her grave you will be near an intersection with a stoplight almost directly across the street from a clinic. (Findagrave.com has the exact number if you want to save yourself the time of looking for it). Here's a noir twist for you: Most of the sections of Inglewood Park Cemetery are named for flowers. Geneva Ellroy is buried in the section west of the one named "Dahlia." Really. Email me

June 22, 1938

Found on EBay

 

Why if it isn't another another envelope sent to our old friend Prof. A. Victor "How to Have Beautiful Hair,"  "How to Be Happy Though Married" Segno. Alas, the money that was in this envelope was spent long ago. The envelope is being sold on EBay.   Hey wait! This envelope was already offered for sale in January! An artist's conception of Prof. A. Victor Segno transmitting a "success wave."

Home of the week

June 7, 1908

Above, the home of J. de Barth Shorb (1842-1896) in San Marino, which Henry Huntington has torn down to make way for his cozy little cottage.  True confession: I have been a member of the Huntington for years and spent many hours on the grounds, but I never really thought about what used to be there, rather foolishly assuming that it had all been vacant. In a word, no. "Mr. Huntington was asked how much the building will cost and he remarked that it looked to him as though it will cost $75,000 ($1,649,028.64 USD 2007) at least, perhaps it will cost more. He said he will find out about that later on." Email me

June 4, 1968

       

	Literature: William Styron's "The Confessions of Nat Turner" wins the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. At left, the late Times staff writer Richard Bergholz says that a large voter turnout will probably favor Sen. Eugene McCarthy in his race against Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in the state's presidential primary. A large turnout would also help Republican Sen. Thomas H. Kuchel, who is being challenged by state Supt. of Public Instruction Max Rafferty, the story says.  The Times notes that the primary will be the first election in Los Angeles County to use punch card ballots rather than rubber stamps.
Now Playing: "The Graduate"	And in Orange County ... Above, Ray Charles performs at Melodyland across from Disneyland ... At left, Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in "The Graduate." What's on the 8-track tape player? The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour," the Doors' "Strange Days" and Jefferson Airplane's "After Bathing at Baxter's." Quote of the Day: "Iron Butterfly would be my nominees for the worst group of the year if I hadn't seen the Hook, Smokestack Lightning and Blue Cheer, but the crowd seemed to like them." --Pete Johnson, reviewing Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin at the Hollywood Bowl, Sept. 9, 1968.
McCarthy challenges Kennedy on approving wiretapping of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy said he merely approved the FBI's requests.	New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller says he will take the Republican presidential nomination and win the 1968 presidential race. Richard Nixon, he says, cannot win big cities in key states.
"Kennedy will relax today at the Ambassador here to await election returns." Andy Williams, Shirley MacLaine and Rafer Johnson are among the celebrities backing Kennedy. Email me	McCarthy would ask a person he trusts to examine the closed archives on the John F. Kennedy assassination to see if they should be opened to the public.

               

May 29, 1938

Above, what Los Angeles was reading in 1938--and a shoutout to the Zombie Reading Program over at This Book Is for You.... "When there's no more room in closed stacks, the out-of-print will rise up and walk the earth." At left, a curious and sensational murder case. Arrested in Chicago on charges of killing a white woman with a brick, an African American named Robert Nixon confesses to a series of similar killings in Los Angeles. Nixon (above, a typical headline from the Chicago Tribune) is eventually convicted and electrocuted while his alleged accomplice, Howard Green, is extradited to Los Angeles in the fatal beating of a 12-year-old Marguerite Worden while Nixon killed her mother, Edna. Email me

May 1, 1938

Above, Arnold Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms' quartet for piano and strings receives its U.S. premiere. I once listened to a recording of a talk by Schoenberg and was surprised to hear him pronounce his name "Shane-berg" as in "Bei Mir Bist du Schoen." Below, Nazi teachers (the National Socialist Teachers Assn.) burn books, starting with "Three Times Austria" (Dreimal Oesterreich) by Kurt von Schuschnigg. This bonfire of 2,000 books was largely ceremonial, The Times said. The Nazis planned an even bigger fire for 30,000 volumes collected from libraries and universities to purge "objectionable literature" forced on the people. 

Quote of the Day: " 'Books by Emil Ludwig, Stefan Zweig, Vicki Baum' and  'clerical monarchist literature' must disappear from German homes." 

 

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April 29, 1908

Above, make a fortune selling the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar! Below, The Times' editorial on the poet's death, published Feb. 11, 1906.

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Just say no

A copy of this book has turned up on EBay for (get this) $500! Until a few years ago, it was possible to pick up "Thieves" for a few dollars, in fact I found an autographed copy at a Salvation Army store for something like $2. Now, however, prices have hit the stratosphere. The book is utter junk and certainly not worth anything close to $500. Do NOT waste your money on this book. If you want a copy that badly, check it out of the library and take it to Kinko's. Debunking "Thieves" would be a life's work, but trust me, it is the disorganized rant of a disgruntled ex-cop, who published the book himself and was so desperate that he gave away copies and asked people who liked it to send him money. And it says nothing about the Black Dahlia case, regardless of what you may read elsewhere.

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April 18, 1908

Above, an update on the Doukhobors ...   Below, the fleet is on its way! And so is Elinor Glyn!

Quote of the Day: "To swear to love for life is an insult to God. Love is an emotion placed in beings by God to induce them to re-create their species. It's an emotion which no human being can control and it leaves the body as quickly as it enters. " --Elinor Glyn, author of "Three Weeks," May 3, 1908

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Jack Smith on Wry

 

"Jack Smith on Wry," on display at the Huntington Library through May 12, 2008, focuses on the life and works of columnist Jack Smith, an institution at The Times from the 1950s to the 1990s. I asked his son Doug, a colleague for many years, to contribute a piece on the exhibit and he graciously agreed. --Larry

By Doug Smith
Times Staff Writer         

These were the photos that framed my childhood: my dad at his Underwood typewriter, smiling smartly; my dad interviewing starlet Jayne Mansfield, a glass of sherry in one hand; my dad in street shoes scribbling while running the indoor track at the downtown YMCA; my dad in Fleet Street finery, aping the visiting Beatles; my dad at the rewrite desk of the old Los Angeles Daily News, ready to grab the headset of his black stanchion phone.

I was the only child I knew whose father had the city’s best photographers on hand to record his every posture and visual gag along with some very serious moments that documented the rambunctious and irreverent life of a newsman in post-World War II Los Angeles.

Now I am revisiting those memories -- sharing them, rather -- with the other Sunday visitors at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. Since high school art appreciation, I’ve associated that stately institution in San Marino with the icons of high-toned portraiture, "The Blue Boy" and "Pinkie."

How unexpected then that these remnants of a more recent era we may now rightly view as cynical and crude hold a place of honor in the Huntington’s Library West Hall, in the company of Chaucer, Gutenberg’s Bible, Shakespeare and the Founding Fathers!

And how rewarding that the shoe box we kept for so many years at the bottom of a closet is helping to preserve the story of an era that, for better or worse, was already disappearing when its lighter moments were being captured in these quirky images.

Alone among the hotshot journalists who carried on L.A.’s "Front Page" tradition after the war, my father evolved with his craft into the age of cold type, word processing, color photography and ever more stringent professional standards. His elegantly phrased, humbly introspective columns continued to hold a devoted audience until the week before his death in early 1996.

But one unfortunate habit my father carried from those formative years on the city beat was the daily journalist’s penchant for clearing out all the cobwebs of yesterday’s news at the start of each new day. He never saved anything until well into the 1980s, when he began to carry on published dialogues with readers, requiring that he file their letters away for future reference.

So I felt like something of a sham when my brother and I approached the Huntington soon after our father’s death wondering if they’d have any interest in his "papers." Of course they would, head curator Sara S. "Sue" Hodson said, not realizing that there were really no papers to speak of, just a room full of plaques, civic commendations, books, computer disks, hokey gifts acquired over the years and those old photos.

I suspected that some of that detritus (one of my father’s favorite words) might have a value, but which particular things? And what value? I dreaded the necessity of going through them. What to keep? What to discard? Would I become a foolish pack rat of precious nothings or be guilty of brutally sending my own heritage to the landfill? The answers had to wait another eight years. Despite our unanimous commitment to the Huntington, Curt and I soon learned that our mother didn’t want anyone poking around our father’s Mount Washington sanctum on her watch. Until her own death in 2004, she left the den as he had, working at my dad’s computer, but keeping his every pencil pot and bookend in place.

When the time finally came, Sue and two assistants spent days, including weekends, digging through things that in some cases may have gone untouched for decades. Time after time they filled their cars: a life-size laminated picture of my dad, notepads, shreds of paper, cartoons, plaques, statuettes, awards, photos of the unidentifiable and several quite beguiling paintings by representatives of Mount Washington’s long-established arts community. (Those they photographed and returned to us.)

And, after all, there were papers. They took away several stacks of file folders that contained mostly reader letters. It gave me a warm feeling to see that we had possibly provided something of value. But more important, when at last Sue said they were done, I had the confidence that every knickknack and faux artifact they didn’t take -- a cast plaster Maltese Falcon -- was, indeed, of minuscule value and could be discarded without remorse.

As time went on, we occasionally heard from Sue, who always spoke enthusiastically of the pleasure she and the other archivists were having poring over my dad’s things. She promised that once the tedious work of cross-referencing every item was complete, she would go to work on an exhibit.

My doubts persisted, especially after we got the news from the appraiser who evaluated the gift for tax purposes. Apologetically, he gave us a number that he knew was a lot less than we expected. He softened the blow to our egos by telling us that the collection contained some precious items, principally the reader dialogue and the letters my dad sent home from the Pacific during World War II. But, of those most sought-after records of a writer’s thought process -- marked-up manuscripts, drafts, rewrites and self-edits -- there were next to none.

In the tradition that shaped him, my dad was generally a first-draft writer, and, ironically, by the time he had been anointed a “Man of Letters” with an honorary degree from UCLA, he was writing on an electronic keyboard, obliterating his every first draft with whatever changes he typed over it.

So it was a little surprising when Sue called not long ago to say the exhibit was taking shape and gave us a date for its opening. Whatever could be in it?

It turns out a lot is in it, all intelligently tied together by those photographs that span my dad’s life at The Times, our life on Mount Washington, our adventures in Baja and the postwar ascendancy of our metropolis and its newspaper.

Jack and Denise Smith, sometime in the 1940s

The curators have reverently placed the exhibit at the far end of the Library West Hall, weaving a pathway to it through the most breathtaking collection of manuscripts and papers one might expect ever to see west of the Potomac.

Jack and Denise Smith, 1991

The lofty image of Abe Lincoln’s portrait gazing over the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, signed in the actual hand of the senators and congressmen who adopted it, is artfully segued to the "Front Page" by a coup de grackle. The oversized book of Audubon’s color engravings is opened to the one of that black bird, known only east of the Mississippi, that my father twice sighted in our Mount Washington yard, causing great consternation and fun in the birding community.

The bird joke is just the beginning of the fun.

Right away I find some of my dad’s good bad Hemingway and the amusing surprise of some bad writing in his own voice: “I’ll be as nervous as a pregnant nun,” he wrote my mother in August of 1945, imagining their soon-to-be reunion. There are some cards on which he scribbled thoughts both whimsical and serious: “Los  Angeles is simply the freest city in the world.”

The exhibit’s strength, of course, remains the breadth of the public conversation he conjured out of the details of his personal life. Examples can be flip: Charlton Heston citing God as the source of the phrase “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” “I heard him as I was walking down the mountain.”

They give voice to unknown scholars: Barbara Bilisoly’s offering of a haunting poem by Catullus as the source of my father’s signature phrase, “Spend All Your Kisses.” And they’re hilariously corny: Jim Wade’s takeoff on the POSSLQ generation, writing on behalf of his AFOY (ardent fan of yours) wife on the need for a good “PN (proper noun) for people involved in PMH (pre-marital habitation).”

Sue assures me that correspondence comprises a substantial collection of diverse knowledge, wit and Southern California lore that will serve researchers for years to come. I’m glad for that. But I now see the real value of the exhibit in the connection it makes with those who still fondly remember my dad.

I watch with satisfaction as people work their way around the glass-encased displays that follow the phases of my dad’s career. Invariably they laugh out loud at the Baja station. It must be the story about the toilet in the living room that gets them.

I find my favorite quotation there: "The snakes, dogs and rodents herein mentioned are also real, and nothing is set forth as having happened that did not happen."

To me, it represents my dad’s genius. Rising above a profession that too often tolerated embellishment in the telling of important events, he treated the smallest things in life as worthy of unwavering truth.

As I am about to leave, I spot a middle-aged woman standing over the Mount Washington case, absorbed in what is certainly the nuttiest photo in the exhibit. It’s a family portrait, my dad seated stiffly in white shorts and plaid shirt cradling a fisherman’s cap in his arm like a three-cornered hat. He’s flanked by my mother and my brother, both dressed in Akron wear but posed with the self-conscious grandeur of "The Blue Boy" and "Pinkie." I’m off to one side armed with baseball bat and glove. Our mutt, Gene Biscailuz, sits at our feet, gazing up at my dad in awe.

Doug, Curt, Jack and Denise Smith

I want to walk up and ask the woman, “Do you know that’s me in the Pittsburgh Pirates hat?”

I watch from a distance instead. I’m 50 years older now, and not the same person as the boy in that picture. Whatever our family meant to her, it’s her memory now, not to be encroached upon.

doug.smith@latimes.com

Doug says by way of autobiography: "I’ve been at The Times 38 years now. My dad was here 40, so I may actually overtake him on that stat. I started as a desk assistant in sports and graduated to suburban reporting. I covered school boards, city councils and society events all over Southern California. I wrote a column called Around the Valley for several years and then switched to Around the Foothills in the Glendale section, which, of course, no longer exists. I started doing data analysis in the mid-1990s and found that to my liking. My title today is Database Editor, which essentially means that I now conduct my interviews by asking questions of large bodies of data."

 

 

 

 

Arthur C. Clarke

Nov. 1, 2001

Celebrity Setup: Evolution of a Sci-Fi Master
  * '2001' author Arthur C. Clarke has long been fascinated with electronics.

By David Colker
Times Staff Writer

Arthur C. Clarke, author of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and numerous other science-fiction hallmarks, rarely does interviews. But he owed us.

   On Feb. 3, 1946, The Times ran the first newspaper story about his proposal for communications satellites to bounce radio and TV signals around the world. Although at the time he was almost unknown as a writer and had gained his knowledge of electronics mostly through his work with radar during a stint with the Royal Air Force, his prediction came true with an uncanny degree of accuracy in 1962 with the launch of Telstar. The major flaw in his proposal was that he thought the communications satellites would be space stations with full crews.

   "I wrote it before the microchip revolution and the invention of the transistor, when we were still working with bulky equipment and vacuum tubes," said Clarke, 83, speaking from his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka. "I couldn't imagine it could become so compact and reliable.

   "I've often said that the invention of the transistor was a disaster to space travel. Without it, we would be up there by the hundreds."

   The English-born Clarke gave the world one of the most gripping and frightening portrayals of a computer, HAL, an electronic character with a haunting voice that played a key role in the 1968 film adaptation of "2001." His other works include "Childhood's End," "Rendezvous With Rama," "3001: The Final Odyssey" and the short-story collection "The Nine Billion Names of God."

   COMPUTER: In the 1930s, I was fascinated when I saw [Charles] Babbage's computer at the Science Museum in London. It was wonderfully exciting.

   In the 1960s, I was doing an interview and mentioned that I had just heard about the Hewlett-Packard 9100A, a calculator that had a keyboard like a small typewriter and a three-line display. It was really the forerunner of what we now think of as the desktop computer. Soon after the story appeared I got a letter from Barney Oliver, the famous vice president of engineering at HP, who said, "Arthur, there is a Father Christmas." A 9100A was on its way to me.

   I suppose that's what I was thinking of when I came up with the HAL 9000 computer. And for 30 years I have been trying to set the story straight about the name HAL coming from IBM with one letter added to each. That was pure coincidence. HAL stands for Heuristic Algorithmic computer.

   I think IBM rather liked the idea, though. They later gave me a nice ThinkPad. I wrote "3001" on it.

   I've since defected to Compaq. I use their LTE 5300 laptop, which is several years old but works fine. I also have a desktop that was assembled locally.

   Q: You use both for writing?

  A: I don't much use the laptop except when I get away from Colombo. I have a villa by the sea about 100 kilometers south of here, but I only get there twice a year. It's difficult for me to get around. [He mostly uses a wheelchair because of post-polio syndrome.]

   In any case, I do no writing now. E-mail takes up practically all my time.

   Q: You get that much e-mail in a day?

  A: Usually about 30 e-mails that I answer. I correspond with a lot of people--after the attacks on New York I was writing to many friends there. My agent saw people jumping out of the building. I think it was a defining moment in history, much like the sinking of the Titanic. In both cases you have a stable, maybe complacent civilization suddenly hit by disasters. There are a lot of parallels, I think.

   I wrote this in an e-mail to my friend director Jim Cameron, who happened to be at the Titanic, making dives down to the wreck. He communicated from the Russian ship they were using.

   Q: E-mail is an important link for you.

   A: I think future historians will wonder how the human race spent its time, before e-mail was invented, during the long, empty ages when there was only television.

   HAND-HELD: No, I never got a Palm or any of those. I don't move around enough for that.

   BOOKMARKED SITES: I hardly ever surf on the Web. There are hundreds of Arthur C. Clarke sites, and I never look at them.

   GADGETS: I have a glass sphere from Edmund Scientific [http://www.edsci.cohttp://m] that gives out light in all directions like lightning. You put your hand on it and the light goes to it.

   Q: That's an old science fair favorite.

   A: I also just ordered a globe of the Earth 10 inches in diameter that floats in midair through magnets. These things amuse the children and visitors, and myself for that matter.

   I have a DVD player at the house. The other day, Dan Richtor, who played the ape with the bone in "2001," was here and I posed him beside the TV set showing that image. [Richtor now does payroll work for entertainment companies]. I labeled the picture: "From ape to L.A. executive in one lifetime. Is this progress?"

   Q: Other gadgets?

   A: I have one of those stereoscope viewers to view 3-D pictures.

   Q: Like a Viewmaster?

  A: Yes.

   Q: That's as low-tech as you can go.

   A: Very. Nevertheless, you can't beat the high-quality imagery and colors.

   Q: You have a good time.

   A: You can quote my epitaph: "He never grew up, but he never stopped growing."

Feb. 3, 1946

Above, William S. Barton takes a look at Arthur C. Clarke's proposal for geosynchronous satellites. Below,  Clarke writes an update to coincide with the release of "2001: A Space Odyssey."

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March 9, 1958

Above, a literary time capsule: Thomas B. Costain ... James Jones ... James Gould Cozzens ... and Vance Packard. Below, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower calls for a huge spending program to end the U.S. recession. Eisenhower advocates civil works programs to improve the national park system and roads on Indian reservations; dams, flood control projects and other water programs; highway construction; and releasing money so Fannie Mae can buy up home mortgages.

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Lies and consequences

Perhaps other folks were shocked by the revelation that "Love and Consequences" by Margaret B. Jones, a.k.a. Margaret Seltzer, was a complete fake. It was old news to me.

Here's my own experience, from Donald H. Wolfe's 2005 "The Black Dahlia Files," published by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins.

As a published author, Wolfe was granted access to the Los Angeles County district attorney's files on the 1947 Black Dahlia case. To bolster his absurd contention that Elizabeth Short was killed by Bugsy Siegel, Wolfe produced what appeared to be an official document.

Let me show you how he faked it.

First we take this authentic memo:

Then we snip off the top:

Then we get another memo:

And we snip a piece of out that:

And get another piece from the next page:

The finished product looks like this and appears on Page 198 of "The Black Dahlia Files":

I originally pointed this out two years ago. Was the book recalled? Ha! Did anyone involved with the book apologize? You can't be serious! Did Wolfe respond to a request for a comment? Of course not! This is how the book publishing industry works, folks. You should be outraged, you should be sad but you should not be surprised. This will surely happen again until the industry's attitude changes. It is really no more complicated than that.

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Welcome to Kareem

 

Here's a salute from the Daily Mirror to one of The Times' new bloggers!

Craby Joe's RIP

Craby Joe's is gone but the sign lives on.

Jeremy Hansen writes: The Museum of Neon Art is hoping to have the sign up and running by Feb. 14, the next downtown LA Artwalk.  The new location of the museum is on 4th, between Spring and Main on the south side of 4th.  Check it out.

That's great. By the way, Ed Fuentes of View From a Loft has suggested getting official designation of 7th and Main--the former home of Craby Joe's--as Charles Bukowski Square. It sounds good to me.

Paul Coates

Jan. 30, 1958

Memphis Harry Lee Ward, Hollywood's oldest newsboy and foremost collector of literary works, once made the observation to me that:

"Parkey Sharkey is far more literary than you are, sir."

It wasn't a comment meant to degrade me. This I'm sure of.

First, because Memphis and I are very good friends. Such good friends, in fact, that on one occasion he admitted grandly that I was his favorite columnist on Page 2, Part II of the Mirror News.

And second, because Memphis regards Sharkey as a literary equal to many of the famous masters whose volumes are stacked ceiling-high in his small living quarters.

Just last summer, in fact, Memphis put out $25 of his limited earnings to purchase Parkey's autobiography.

The amount comes to about $5 more than Memphis' total expenditure for the combined works of Whitman, Poe and Longfellow.

So you can see that, at least in Hollywood's foremost collector of literary works, Parkey Sharkey has an avid following.

Parkey's greatness, according to Memphis, stems from his ability to write with "a vital and human ruggedness."

"His illiterate writings," Memphis says, "touch the mind and heart of everyone."

And that's pretty much the way I feel about Parkey.

I receive, on the average, two or three letters a week from him.

His spelling's terrible. His penmanship's lousy. But in the letters is a rich, unconscious humor born of Parkey's valuable inability to categorize his thoughts. When Parkey is angriest, he's funniest.

--Which is fortunate for me, because most of Parkey's letters to me are written when he is angry at something or somebody, either animate or inanimate.

A few months ago, after much quibbling, Parkey repurchased his life story, "The Parkey Sharkey Taxi Story," from Memphis Ward.

The price was, again, $25, although I'm not sure whether Parkey has completed payments yet.

Since then, Parkey has been acting as his own agent, with headquarters in the Palo Alto City Dump, where he resides in a small shack when he's not getting along with his wife.

He has had some serious literary discussions with "the professor," a close friend who is, actually, a professor at Stanford University.

On the professor's advice, Parkey reworked parts of it. He added episodes which appealed to the professor and to various barroom associates.

And he submitted it to some New York publishing houses.

The first few turned it down.

But the last one was quite enthusiastic. The publisher wrote him a letter overflowing with praise of his talents, calling him everything but a 20th century Shakespeare.

Attached to the letter was a contract for Parkey to sign and consummate the deal.

Summed up, it said that the publishing house would roll off a couple thousand copies of Parkey's book if he would pay the house a sum of $1,500.

Friends have explained to Parkey that if a publisher were really enthused about his autobiography, he would pay Parkey for the privilege of printing it.

But Parkey prefers, so far, to ignore their advice. A letter I received from him yesterday states:

"Paul, I gave your name to this New York Publisher who is going to print my book. Don't get worried. I just gave your name as a ref.

"I think he has come down on the price of the book quite a bit since I mentioned your name to him.

"I think if I keep after him he may pay me for publishing my book. Instead of me paying them.

"Groucho Marx mentioned me in the Saturday Evening Post last May. He described me but did not use my name.

"Paul, I am never going to get rich with my taxi, that's why I want to get my book on the Market.

"I went over to see the proffeser last night, he told me to keep after this publisher until he wants to pay me for my book.

"I had another fight with my wife at the hotel again. She kicked me out again and I had to sleep in my taxi.

"Paul, I was thinking if I could get about a thousand letters from your readers saying they'll buy my book I could send them to my publisher, he might pay me for my book.

"What do you think of this idea? When I sell my book I am moving to the mountains."

I'm sending my letter today. And if you haven't read any good books lately, I'll forward yours.

[Note: The Times' obituary on Parkey Sharkey appeared Sept. 21, 1969--lrh].

       

Literary diversions

Jan. 30, 1938
Los Angeles

It's a Sunday morning in Los Angeles and Times readers turn to the weekly magazine. Here's an installment of an Erle Stanley Gardner story, as published 70 years ago.

 

Best sellers

Jan. 26, 1958
Los Angeles