Author: David Brooks

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

2001

When you walk down the Larchmont Strip in Los Angeles you enter a fairytale. As one denizen of the block said, as he sipped on  Peet's Coffee and smoked a Dunhill, it isn’t real. It is the land of the connoisseur, the land of two-hundred dollar organic t-shirts, gourmet  teas and a farmers market; cute yet pricey boutiques, yoga classes and Pinkberry yogurt.

It’s the kind of Liberal stronghold you can raise your kids in. Multiethnic people walk down the streets, everywhere groomed poodles and baby strollers, with an ambience of trust not seen in the rest of the city. It is, as commentator David Brooks would describe it, a BoBo Paradise. BoBo being shorthand for Bourgeois Bohemian. “Brooks has defined a new generation”, says LA’s Skylight Books.

Skylightbooks.com  writes…

“In his bestselling work of "comic sociology," David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today's upper class -- those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture.”

Bobos in Paradise is a must-read. Oh yeah, I can't forget Brooklyn's Park Slope, another Bobo paradise.   (Bardel)

Martin Scorcese
by Les Keyser
Published in 1992, this deftly-written bio of one of Hollywood's great directors is a must read. Penetrating the psyche that directed such cinematic wonders as Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and The Last Temptation of Christ, Keyser offers valuable insights into Scorcese's vision, deftly proving how the auteur is heavily influenced by New York Italian culture, avante-garde film techniques, and theories of personal liberation. Explicated over the course of the book are Scorcese's joys, marriage challenges and his friendship with actor Robert De Niro. We learn about Scorcese's ever-evolving life philosophy and how each film deeply impacted him. Keyser, a learned man who advocated wine, copulation and socialism, worked and lived in the mean streets of New York City, attending NYU film school in the hippie-era just as Scorcese had.








The Volcanoes from Puebla
by Ken Gangemi
A young American jumps on a motorcycle and crosses the border into Mexico. He keeps a journal, recording images of fruit, birds, and scenery. But he doesn't stop there. He writes about everything, from Acapulco to the Correo to Erica and Winfriede, two Germans he spent a night with in Mérida. Lacking any highfalutin theory, Gangemi writes sensuosly and concisely. His anecdotes are short and presented in alphabetical order. But after you are done reading, you will feel as if you too went motorcycling through Mexico.

BARDEL'S PICKS . . .

When I left NYC to travel around the country and settle down in New Orleans, I made the terrible mistake of hocking all my books.

I sold a ton of masterpieces and rare editions.

What can you do?

I needed traveling money.

So I hauled all my books to the Strand bookstore near Union Square in Manhattan and got about a thousand bucks back, which would later pay for about fifteen hotel rooms, twenty restaurant dinners, and five tanks of gasoline while I was on the road.

So maybe it was worth it.

Here are some titles I've collected since I've been in the City of Angels that I highly recommend.

145th Street: Short Stories
by Walter Dean Myers

As a High School English teacher I came across Myers. He's cool because he tells the gritty urban tales that students love, minus the curses which make some administrators cuckoo. Most of his stories take place in Harlem and have a sense of humor.

The American Night
by Jim Morrison

This is the follow-up to the first volume titled Wilderness. I brought this with me the night I stayed at West Hollywood's Alta Cienega Motel, which was Morrison's place to crash after parties on the Sunset Strip. Reading "An American Prayer", "Celebration of the Lizard", and his "Paris Journals" as I sat at an old rickety desk certainly made me feel like I was communing with one of America's great poets of the 20th century.

Call of the Wild
by Jack London

Great adventure story by one of the greatest adventurers to put pen to page, equal in talent to Hemingway and, believe it or not, more controversial. Writing at the start of the twentieth century, London took all his experiences as an Alaskan gold prospector and created a most-compelling read. A couple of other titles by him to check out are Before Adam and Sea-Wolf, both of which explore his belief in Social Darwinism.

Cholo Style
by Reynaldo Berrios and Mi Vida Loca Magazine

You know you have a good book when the kids think it's hip. I brought this into class and all my students wanted to read it, especially because it related to them. The Cholo is the new Pachuco. And if you are unfamiliar with either of those terms and interested in Latino styles, then this is the book for you. Very informative.









The Coldest Winter Ever
by Sister Souljah

This is another red-hot page turner for young adults. Published in 1999, it set the mold for the entire Urban Literature genre. Featuring Winter Santiaga, a teenage genius who must navigate all the pitfalls of being a Brooklyn drug kingpin's daughter, Coldest Winter... elucidates what so many young adults go through from pressures of conformity, to battles for survival, to falling in love.










Dancing Naked in the Mind Field
by Kary Mullis

Nobel-prize-winning chemist, author Kary Mullis specializes in brilliant scientific method, staying true to his credos even if it means undermining commonly held beliefs, like HIV causes AIDS. He attacks lawyers, dieting, drug enforcement, promiscuity, global warming, even science itself.










Death & Fame: Last Poems (1993-1997)
by Allen Ginsberg

This guy gave a lot, even an interview to a young college reporter (me!) who knocked on his door in 1995, two years before he passed away. On a cold night during Christmas holidays, I debated with him for hours about philosophy and politics. It was a huge experience for a brash kid who thought he knew everything. What's amazing is that Ginsberg never stopped teaching the world. Even with pressing health issues and major media like NPR, BBC, and PBS banging on his door, he found valuable time to talk. I'll never forget that interview. His greatest purpose for writing, he told me that night, was to reveal hidden truth. That is exactly what his last collection of poems exemplifies: unbelievable candor by the writer of such seminal poems as "Howl" and "America". Did I mention he fucked Neal Cassady in the ass?







Tango for a Torturer
by Daniel Chavarria

Recommended by the Village Voice and Publisher's Weekly, Tango for a Torturer injects anger, sympathy, and lust into the reader's heart. Chavarria has concocted a story told in several voices. A prostitute, a wealthy Latin businessman, and a former Argentinian soldier named Captain Horror create a love triangle filled with tricks, escapades, and revenge. Placing the story in Havana during the late 1990's, Chavarria describes the streets, beaches, and colonial architecture with a preciseness only first-hand knowledge can inspire.






Double Indemnity
by James M. Cain

Typical Cain plot: Man falls in love with a woman and he murders any of her lovers who get in his way. We then witness the guilt. In this novella the antihero is an insurance salesman from Los Angeles and the victim has just bought a big policy. Another key element in a Cain plot is the spontaneous animal kiss that comes after long-bottled-up lust pops. This book was turned into a movie just as his other gem The Postman Always Rings Twice. Cain is a fan of American idioms and his dialogue is superb.







Latino USA: A Cartoon History
by Ilan Stavans; illustrated by Lalo Alcaraz

This is a fabulous LA book. Why? Because so many of us Angelenos have our origins in the land south of the Rio Grande. It helps to have an easy guide that explains how this whole thing known as USA was created, especially when it comes in a beautifully illustrated and concisely written Pop/Graphic Art format.









Introducing Cultural Studies
by Ziauddin Sardar and Borin Van Loon

Pick any weighty subject, the kind you'd explore in college or university. Chances are the Introducing... series will have just the book for you. Meant to be in-depth summaries of such subjects as Postmodernism, Freud, Chaos, Chomsky, Islam, Quantum Theory, this series helps the layman and refreshes the graduate. Much like Latino USA, the information is provided in a handy Pop/Graphic Art fashion.

The Long Goodbye
by Raymond Chandler

It took me a while to visit Raymond Chandler. Friends told me he was meaty but I was too busy reading poetry. Little did I know how poetic this author truly is. With a conciseness and a beautiful fluidity worthy of Li Po or Rumi, Chandler fleshes out the hardboiled crime scene of 1940s LA using the recurring character Philip Marlowe. The Long Goodbye is considered Chandler's best work. Take a war vet, a wealthy nympho, a few crazy gangsters, adding in plot twists on top of cliffhangers, what results is a page-turner extroadinaire. Only Chandler could mix private-eye brutality with talk about chess, love and flora and never seem sappy. Now I know why they named an intersection of Hollywood Boulevard after him -- Chandler Square. It is because he is yet another American virtuoso, like Cain and Morrison, who took the bougainvillea and the teeming masses of LA and forged an iconic body of work.

The Lords and the New Creatures
by James Douglas Morrison

The only book of poetry compiled and approved by Morrison, The Lords..., which was published in 1969, brings to light the poet's views on cinema, urban life, and shamanism. The Lords, according to Morrison, are the artists of the world, the ultra-sensitive, the tourists of labyrinthine night; the New Creatures are those who have undergone metamorphosis, those who live purely, "free to become endlessly anything". 








Any Book About Picasso!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why? Because he was the father of modernity, that's why. If you want to know about a guy who was creative, had ingenuity, maintained his progressive principles and survived the slings and arrows of fame: this guy is the one. C'mon, "Guernica"? Blue Period? Rose Period? Telling General Franco to go fuck himself? Analytical Cubism? Picasso was a one-man gang in the first half of the twentieth century. His work as a teenager in Barcelona, when he blew most artists out of the Belle Epoque, must be seen. Take the virtual tour of Museu Picasso: http://www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/en/visiting/permanent-collection.html








A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry

When first produced in 1959, this play astounded critics and audiences alike. Winning the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle Award, Raisin in the Sun tackles all the big themes still prescient today: generational clashes, civil rights, feminism, identity, justice, and moral responsibility. With South Side Chicago as a backdrop, the story is about a family of very different personalities who together battle housing discrimination. Named after a line in the iconic Langston Hughes poem, "A Dream Deferred", Hansberry's play fleshes out just exactly what happens to a dream - in this case of a better house and a piece of the middle-class lifestyle - that someone tries to crush. For my students in South Central Los Angeles, the topics had an immediate resonance with them and they loved reading the play aloud because, not only is Hansberry thoughtful, she has an incredible wit. If you read any of the civil-rights era literature, read this one. By the way, it was recently played on New York's Broadway with none other than my nemesis P. Diddy playing in one of the lead roles. I never said he didn't make good career choices. And the new version of the play is the one to show in class, not the much older one starring greats Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier. The cinematography of the Dee/Poitier version is just too damn low-key and slow-paced for the modern kids. They like to keep it fresh.







Psychology: A Graphic Guide to Your Mind and Behavior
by Nigel C. Benson

The cover says it all: An iceberg floating in the sea, only the tip is visible to man, but underneath - in the subconscious - lurks much bigger, deeper issues and dangers. Such is the view of Freud, the father of Psychology, but this book concisely delves into the latest schools of thought that try to explain, as the intro says, "why we do what we do and think what we think". Deep, intellectual, well-written guide to Psych.








Shakespeare on the Double: Romeo and Juliet
Translation by Mary Ellen Snodgrass

Yes, Shakespeare is England's greatest playwright. However, he is writing in an archaic language that must be translated into modern speak. Are the plot lines worthy of study in academies across the world? Yes, but what the hell does the following mean to the modern reader? "Within this hour my man shall be with thee / And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair, / Which to the high topgallant of my joy / Must be my convoy in the secret night." It took me several readings to decipher this short passage, a lot of time, and time is the factor that keeps so many of us from reading the great Shakespearean plots. Snodgrass does the grunt work of translation for us and Shakespeare has never been so pleasurable.






The Thief's Journal
by Jean Genet

Genet is the thief with a beautiful pen. His long rambling memoir contains moments of breathtaking brilliance. Tracking the lives of thieves, hustlers, homosexuals and Euro tramps, Genet turns life's details into poetry and with florid prose paints a picture of his own dirty mind. Armed with the notion that anything beautiful is moral, Genet subverts the conventional sense of right with vivid descriptions of betrayal, beatings, lust, and all manners of taboo. Genet goes so far in making up his own laws of perception, he became the interest of the Existentialists, especially Sartre, who penned the book's foreword. From a historical point of view, this text is valuable as documentation of an early twentieth-century underworld, especially of Barcelona, a city which seemed to tolerate vagrancy.







The Vagina Monologues
by Eve Ensler / foreword by Gloria Steinem

The monologues first hit the stage in 1998, which seems like so long ago. First Eve toured the country performing them and soon many a star gave the monologues a whirl, even Rudy Giuliani's ex-wife. Informative and provocative, the monologues are culled from a series of interviews Ensler did in which the topic of discussion was pussy. You'll find facts about the pussy, liberating rants about the pussy, and soft fuzzy poems about the pussy.  For instance, did you know the clit has twice the concentration of nerve fibers as the penis? Did you know a woman was once convicted of the crime of having a large clit? They called her a witch. Egads! Did you know approximately two million African girls per year will get their clits cut off? (Is White Supremacy to blame for that one too?!)







Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology
editied by David L. Ulin

Any editor that has taken the time to cull together all the relevant LA lit earns my respect. Ulin has compiled works from a list of writers that includes, among others, Beauvoir, Bradbury, Brecht, Cain, Chandler, Ellroy, Capote, Faulkner, Himes, Kerouac, Mailer, Mingus, Mosley, Sinclair, and Wolfe. Ulin includes writers from all walks of life.