Good Vibrations

Just returned from McWilliams country--always a pleasure. Victoria Steele said the UCLA event on Thursday was the best-attended Bonnie Cashin lecture they've had yet (!)

The KPCC interview also went well, I thought, but my brother Scott had some useful pointers for me afterward. He has plenty of media experience, so I listened carefully. Patt Morrison was as impressive in person as I expected--very astute, of course, and with her trademark chapeau, but also a great radio voice.

Rusty Harding at All Saints Pasadena organized an informal book talk on Friday night that I thoroughly enjoyed, and Michael Dawson pulled together a great group at his bookstore on Saturday. I could do that sort of circuit indefinitely--so many interesting people in their own right, and so many receptive to McWilliams and his achievement.

Another trippy part of the L.A. trip was an impromptu dinner with Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, on the boardwalk in Venice. Jeff Norman, who works for P3 but is also organizing events for Ritter and others, put it together.

Local Color

A local blog, Sausalito by the Bay, picked up on the piece in San Francisco State's Campus Memo. (Sausalito is home to PoliPointPress, where I'm editorial director.) Here's the link:

http://sausalitobythebay.com/blog/the-single-finest-nonfiction

Lo-Cal Swing Redux

Here's the L.A. flapjaw schedule for American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams. Amaze and impress your friends with your knowledge of McWilliams and his achievement!

Thursday, June 15--Bonnie Cashin lecture, UCLA, 4 p.m. Open to public.
www.library.ucla.edu/special/scweb/cashin/lecture.htmSaturday.

Friday, June 16--Patt Morrison, KPCC, 89.3 FM, 2-3 p.m.

Friday, June 16--All Saints Church, Pasadena, 7:30 p.m.

June 17--Dawson's Book Shop, 535 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, 2:30 p.m. Open to public. www.dawsonbooks.com

Gunkist Oranges

Just read Gustavo Arellano's piece in the OC Weekly on the 1936 naranjero strike in Orange County. In the introduction to Fool's Paradise: A Carey McWilliams Reader, Gray Brechin notes that McWilliams "peeled back the giddy and gaudy orange-crate label of official state history to reveal the disturbing reality of what California is and has been." Citing McWilliams but also offering a fuller picture of the strike and its suppression, Gustavo does a little peeling himself.

http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/gunkist-oranges/25266/