Dear Los Angeles The city in diaries and letters 1542 to 2018

Los Angeles native and book critic Kipen performed a seven-year feat of zealous, far-ranging research ( Everything good in the world comes from either librarians or their patrons. ) and editing to create what he describes as a collective self-portrait of Los Angeles. This irresistible compendium of letter and diary excerpts from an array of voices reaching back to the Spanish missionaries follows the calendar year, but each month contains entries that span decades. March 25 delivers a 1774 note by Juan Bautista de Anza, which the guide to diarists identifies as a Basque explorer and the governor of Spanish-ruled New Mexico, followed by a 1942 entry by Bertolt Brecht about having to register as an enemy alien, and a vivid 1946 dispatch by Eleanor Roosevelt. November 12 stretches from 1854 to 2016. Rapport grows with the diarists who appear throughout the book in which regular folks mix with the likes of Lillian Gish, Dalton Trumbo, Thomas Mann, Raymond Chandler, Octavia E. Butler, Christopher Isherwood, M. F. K. Fisher, and dozens more. This West Coast match to New York Diaries (2012) is lushly rewarding.--Donna Seaman Copyright 2018 Booklist

The love-hate relationship between L.A. and its inhabitants comes alive in this scintillating collection of letters and diary entries. Literary critic Kipen (California in the 1930s) gathers passages from 16th-century explorers, 18th-century missionaries, 19th-century soldiers, and 20th-century writers, actors, producers, and movie business wannabes. Common themes emerge-golden climate, far-flung geography (Henry Miller: "[i]f you want to take a walk, you get in your car"), Hollywood absurdism (P.G. Wodehouse: "they didn't want what I did, but they paid me $5,000 for something I hadn't done"), the heartbreak of creative differences (F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Oh Joe, can't the producers be wrong? I'm a good writer-honest")-and provoke wildly different reactions from the well-chosen observers quoted. The result is a Los Angeles that's good (Edgar Rice Burroughs: "I never loved any place in my life as I do this"), bad (Westbrook Pegler: "that big, sprawling, incoherent, shapeless, slobbering civic idiot"), ugly (Hart Crane: "this Pollyanna greasepaint pinkpoodle paradise"), and unique (Ryan Reynolds: "People in L.A. are deathly afraid of gluten.... You could rob a liquor store in this city with a bagel"). Readers fascinated by the town will find an engrossing trove of colorful, witty insights here. (Dec.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A Los Angeles native and lion of the city's literary culture gathers writers' impressions of the City of Angels from across several centuries.Editor Kipen (Writing/UCLA; The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History, 2006, etc.), the creator of the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read program, is a longtime champion of books as a way of forging community. Here, he uses the written word to give readers a complex portrait of "the Italy of Americano wait, we're the capital of the Third Worldhang on, now we're the Ellis Island of the West. What next? Yesterday's hyperbole is tomorrow's ephemera." For the format of the book, Kipen took inspiration from Teresa Carpenter's New York Diaries (2012), spending seven years scouring the diaries, journals, letters, and, occasionally, blogs, tweets, and speeches of people who lived in or visited LA. With almost 500 years of entries, the book covers a lot of territory, from the small mission town under Spanish rule to the Hollywood glamour of the 20th century and the teeming multicultural city of today. Kipen selects one (or usually more) excerpt written on each day of the year, which leads to numerous revelatory, odd, and entertaining juxtapositions. Jan. 7, for example: In an 1861 letter, botanist William H. Brewer complained about 70 straight hours of rain, while in 2017, actor Ryan Reynolds tweeted, "People in LA are deathly afraid of gluten. I swear to god, you could rob a liquor store in this city with a bagel." In a 1926 letter, Valeria Belletti, Sam Goldwyn's secretary, exulted that she finally persuaded her boss to take a look at "that boy I raved to you about, Gary Cooper." Kipen also includes entries from a wide-ranging assortment of writers, including Christopher Isherwood, Hart Crane, Tennessee Williams, Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, Octavia Butler, Susan Sontag, and Truman Capote.Like the city itself, the book mashes wildly diverse sources into an intriguing and surprising whole. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

January 1 1853 I have not yet seen a gold mine! Few emigrants can say this. Nearly all rush to the mines on their first coming, as if there were no other pursuit worthy of attention. From this mania, however, they are fast recovering. Thus hope is reviving for this part of the country. A great revolution is silently going on. Judge Benjamin Hayes 1923 On January the first, 1923, this mighty temple was opened. Since the break of day, surging multitudes had been gathering, filling the streets in every direction, waiting for the doors to open. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a scaffolding had been hastily erected in front of the Temple and draped with a great American flag. Loving hands, atremble with eagerness and the excitement of the moment, lifted me to the top of the scaffolding, from which the outside dedication service was held, and from which we read the story of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem. Sister Aimee Semple McPherson 1934 Had awful flood in La Crescenta and Montrose. Many killed and injured and many homes washed away. Rained all Day. Stayed home & Quilted. G. McGrama 1941 I must really try to keep this journal more regularly. It will be invaluable to me if I do. Because this year is going to be one of the most decisive periods of the 20th century--­and even the doings and thoughts of the most remote and obscure people will reflect the image of its events. That's a hell of a paragraph to start off with. Why are we all so pompous on New Year's Day? Come off it--­you're not Hitler or Churchill. Nobody called on you to make a statement. As a matter of fact, what did you actually do? Last night you . . . went on to the temple, where the Swami, wrapped in a blanket, read aloud from the sayings of Rama­krishna, the Vedas and the Bible, until a quarter past midnight. Then you came home and couldn't sleep, so you reread most of Wells's First Men in the Moon. Christopher Isherwood 1985 Where is the life? Where are the people? Even though I know all of the answers, I am still not satisfied by the responses. A Korean family bought the Ekins house. Yesterday they began to cut down every tree growing in the backyard. Peggy would turn over in her grave. Debby would cry. I was anguished. What a city! Widen the streets! Tear down the past! Destroy the trees. . . . I'm having trouble building up the energy and commitment I need to form a committee to save 50's architecture. Oi. Aaron Paley January 2 1848 I will now give an account of Col Fremonts proceedings out here as well as the difficulty he had with Col Mason. . . . Col M said--­Sir when I send for an officier whom I rank and command I expect him to obey me--­Why did you not come Sir when I sent for you--­I have a mind to put you under arrest Sir --­Col F replied my business was closed with you Sir was my reason for not comeing --­Col Mason immediately said--­I want none of your insolence Sir --­Col Fremont [said], that is a term applied to a menial Sir and I hope you will wave your rank and give me an opportunity to wipe it out --­Col M answered within the hour Sir--­at the same time telling him that double barrel shot guns must be the weapons --­some delay however occurred in sending the challenge and Mason had time to think of what he was doing and he sent a letter to Fremont asking that it might be put off for a while. Lieutenant John McHenry Hollingsworth 1932 Dinner in Santa Monica. Home in Rolls Royce. Jolly, futile, childish fun. Dawn Powell January 3 1929 The Santa Monica Mountains are not big, as mountains run, but they are very picturesque. That is proven by the Lasky Ranch. Driving past that ranch yesterday we saw motion-­picture sets for a cliffdwellers' settlement, a Belgian village, a western mining town and a water-­front scene, each in what seemed its natural setting. And doubtless those hills and valleys, chocolate-­drop peaks and corrugated canyons have been seen by motion-­picture patrons all over the world. It made us think of the two ex-­doughboys talking of the trees of France. "Did they have any eucalyptus up in the war zone?" one asked. "I never saw any," said the other, "but I notice in all the big war pictures the roads are lined with 'em." We have seen tropical jungles which could not compare with the hillsides of the Malibu range, which are covered with chemise brush tall as a man and so thick that you couldn't even shoot a gun through it for more than fifty yards. Deer and coyotes can hardly penetrate except along broken paths . . . coveys of quail have to alight along the roadside in order to find open ground enough to spread out on, and continually whirr into the air before one's approaching motor. Lee Shippey 1935 The hills are all intensely green, and from my window I awake to look at snow-­capped mountains. The air is very gentle and the sunlight is brilliant and warm. . . . Mother says that I may buy a flute. . . . Mother's being on the newspaper makes it possible for her to get tickets for anything she wants to go to, so that I will be able to attend any concerts there are that I want to. I want to go to the Philharmonic whether I like the programs or not, because I think it is very necessary to hear as much music as I can. I am also enjoying the records Henry gave me. I have a phonograph, not a very good one, but it goes around. John Cage 1979 Bad December, including week in hospital just before Christmas for exhaustion. The usual tests; no new discoveries. Am now on oxygen all night, with portable machine for daytime use. Spent New Year's Eve with K.H. and children at hotel in Death Valley, vast expanse of nothing that has less of anything than any tourist resort in the world--­less water (indeed, no water at all), fewer flora and fauna (unless you count the coyote and the kangaroo rat), fewer hotels and buildings of interest (e.g. handful of very vestigial ghost towns and the unimpressive pseudo-­Spanish mansion called Death Valley Scotty's Castle), less of everything attractive to the civilised mind except heat, of which there is far too much (the average summer temperature is around 120 degrees F). We drive back through ghastly company towns run by chemical firms and by the US navy's weapons research department. Death Valley is minimal tourism, a gigantic natural monument to the theory that less is more. Query: Why is it that all man-­made objects in the States--­especially cars, trains, aircraft and modern buildings--­look like outsize toys? Kenneth Tynan January 4 1928 It is precisely a week ago that we suffered a fright with Miguelito. He was crossing the street nearby when he was hit by a car. Even though it was not serious, it wasn't without consequences, for the car passed over him and dragged him a good stretch. It seems that perhaps he will come out of it with only slight bruises and contusions that have kept him in bed for a couple of days. He now gets around with a bit of a limp, somewhat like don Cuco. Lola did go through a terrible ordeal. Since I wasn't there when it all happened, she went out to see what was going on and there she found only his shoes and was told that her boy had been carried away dead and had been taken to the hospital. And so she returned with his shoes in hand and with her heart in pieces. We immediately telephoned to find out which hospital they had taken him to so we could go see him when a man arrived with him very much alive. Dolores Venegas, to her family 1928 I wish I could see you. It has been many years since we saw each other. We are very happy because dad has a store. . . . [W]hen I was going to buy tortillas I was struck by a car that dragged me about 10 blocks. My dad is thinking how we can return and be together again with my aunt Anita and with all of you. José Miguel Venegas, to his family 1985 I can't make the city what I want it to be. And I can't stop wishing it were something else. I cannot. Nor have I ever really accepted it. So, San Francisco again emerges as the compromise? But no, that's not really where my thoughts are going. . . . For now, I feel homeless. Not here inside my room, but almost everywhere else in the city. I feel like a tourist. Not a resident. But I have all of these déjà-­vus. Aaron Paley Excerpted from Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542-2018 All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.