LA Times Festival of Books (plus Doctor Who!)

[gwynnega]

A break from chapter 23 revisions to write a post. All weekend I've been in distracted, novel-in-brain mode, only relieved by flurries of Doctor Who-ism. I still have quite a bit of work to do on the chapter, but I think I'll have it done by Wednesday.

I went to the LA Times Festival of Books today, which was fun. The weather was perfect - warm but not too hot. (Finally we have springtime, with no rain in the forecast!). I wandered around UCLA and looked at the various booths. Jim Krusoe and Chris Abani were on a panel this afternoon, but I didn't have a ticket, so instead I saw Erica Jong give a talk about her latest book and then went to a poetry reading by Eloise Klein Healy, which was sort of like going from the ridiculous to the sublime.

As a teenager I was a huge Erica Jong fan, and I still think her early poetry is good - but she's an example of someone clobbered by early fame. She complained today about how the critics loved her until she sold a lot of books, but the sad fact is, her books have gotten worse and worse over the years. (An exception is her book on Henry Miller from the early 90s, which was terrific.) She took herself to task for her narcissism, but, funny and likeable as she seems to be, I doubt she's gonna change her stripes at this juncture. Then again, I may end up picking up her new book, which is about her life as a writer (even though I loathe its title, Seducing the Demon).

Eloise, on the other hand, read some marvelous new poems written to Sappho, and I can hardly wait for the book to come out.

On the Who side of things, this weekend I watched the wonderfully cracktastic The Edge of Destruction. Wonderful because the whole thing is set in the TARDIS - cracktastic because I never did understand how a broken spring on the fast return switch made Susan into a scissors-wielding maniac and made Ian want to strangle everyone. (Also, how great is it that the fast return switch signage was written in felt-tip pen on the console!)

I wish I had time tonight to rewatch School Reunion, so I can marvel at the Ten/Sarah Jane and the Rose/Sarah Jane and the Ten/Sarah/Rose, not to mention Ten's glasses and ASH's Hair of Evil. But alas, I'll probably be deep in chapter 23 revisions all evening. Back to it!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

Where should I start with the Dr Who-watching? I got got very confused on Netflix the other day!

[gwynnega]

I'd start with City of Death. It's filmed in Paris, has a wonderful witty script by Douglas Adams, and features one of my Doctor Who OTPs, the Fourth Doctor/Romana II! (Portrayed by Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, who were married for a bit...)

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

Excellent, thanks. And you were writing Four/ Romana, weren't you?

[gwynnega]

Yes, I was! :-) (I made a vid about them, too...)

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Ooh, about her life as a writer? I might just have to pick that up....and yeah, I agree wtr Jong. Her early poems are OK, and FoF actually pretty good (when Philip Roth writes about sex, he gets made a cultural icon; when Jong writes about sex, she pretty much gets made a cultural joke), but the books after that were too much about her Crazy Fame for me, and I don't think she ever wrote as good a novel, altho I remember Parachutes and Kisses wasn't half-bad (I didn't read Fanny). A lot of her later novels feel like not-fully-fleshed-out sketches. I really liked her book on Henry Miller, too -- I have it in a funny edition which is taller than it is wide.

[gwynnega]

Yes, FoF was pretty good, as was PaK. Fanny was quite good, really a tour de force in terms of using the 18th-century idiom. But then there was that dreadful Any Woman's Blues, and that dreadful novel about Shakespeare and Venice, and today she said she's writing ANOTHER Isadora Wing novel. But yeah, I am intrigued about the current book...

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Oh lord AWB and Serenissima (Shylock's Daugher) were OH so bad. And ANOTHER Wing book....really? Meanwhile, apparently her daughter's written a novel -- _and_ a memoir. My, my.

[gwynnega]

Her daughter's already written a memoir? Sheesh...I remember when the kid was a baby!

[usedtobeljs]

Your LA Festival stuff sounds great, but perhaps not as great as novel progress. :-)

[hugs hugs]

[gwynnega]

There's still a bunch of work to do on chapter 23, but I'm hoping to get it done by Wednesday... :-)

Have a good week, Lori!

::hugs::

[livii.livejournal.com]

Hah, Edge of Destruction is glorious cracked-out love. You're spot on about how they just do not explain the scissors and the strangling! That almost added to its charm, for some reason. Hee hee.

Good luck with the novel revisions!

[gwynnega]

I guess "the TARDIS made them do it"! Ian even tried to strangle Barbara - but strangely she didn't seem to mind! :-)