and looking the other way, Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami:
First on the Book Fair agenda was a panel of writers who wrote books about musicians. Crystal Zevon, one of Warren Zevon's ex-wives who wrote a book about him at his request, was the main attraction for me. I love his music, and read her book (skimmed it, rather, because I had to get it back to the library), and Carl Hiaasen wrote the introduction and was interviewed for it. The whole book is in interview form, which makes it a quick read, but in some ways makes it a bit harder to get a cohesive sense of Zevon's life - which was quite bizarre. He was a strange guy. Crystal seemed quite down-to-earth, unassuming. She told about how Warren's girlfriends, who were many, payed court to her, as the ex-wife, at his funeral - but they didn't talk to each other. She read a couple of excerpts from the book, which were quite humorous. One was about his obsession for buying Calvin Klein gray T-shirts, and how he felt vindicated when they stopped making them, and he had thousands still wrapped in plastic.
Susie J Horgan authored a book about punk rock called Punk Love. She is a photographer, and met Henry Rollins when they both worked at a Haagen Dazs store in Georgetown. She showed the photos, some accompanied by punk rock. Interesting - I've heard of Rollins but didn't know much about him, and I'm not a big punk rock fan - but the photos were quite good.
The author who spoke first was David Meyer. He wrote a book about Gram Parsons called Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons. We were a little late, so missed some of his presentation, but what I heard was fascinating to me. His main thesis was that Gram was influential in crossing the boundaries of what was labeled as rock, country, gospel, blues in his day, and that his influence was still felt today. I realized that I didn't know much about Gram, other than his time with the Flying Burrito Brothers and his association with Emmylou Harris. I bought the book, and when I was looking at it later that night, found lots of references to Leon Russell, another influential musician who doesn't get the recognition he deserves. So that was quite exciting for me. I haven't had a chance to read much of the book yet, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Gram crossed paths with a lot of folks. When I got home I searched YouTube for videos - this is a good one (Gram is on the left, in the white suit and black hat, with the hair in his eyes, and the pretty smile - OMG ):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BITiY8M_oDo&feature=related
There was more. We went to the International Village, where kb found me a free (!) book called Essential Guide to Spanish Reading, which I hope will encourage me to read in Spanish. No excuses now.
We went to a talk on the Changing Face of Journalism, which was a freewheeling, funny, outrageous discussion (we were expecting a more somber look at the future of journalism). Then we heard Tom Hayden and Craig Unger talk about the anti-war movement and the Bush administration. By this time, we were burned out, so walked around downtown Miami a bit. It was deserted and bleak, in contrast to the frenetic activity at the mall by the bay.
Then on to South Beach, another place crowded with people and traffic. Beautiful beach. We were mainly looking for food, which we found (for half price!) at the least noisy restaurant with seating off the sidewalk (the seating at these places spills onto the sidewalk, so you kind of walk through the restaurants).
Finally, back to the hotel and sleep, since my plane left early Monday morning. I can't thank kbertocci enough for the opportunity to spend time with her and go to the book fair. I wish Seattle still had a book fair - I never went when it did, so I suppose I'm the reason why.
I took this picture at the Seattle airport, near baggage claim. Last year there was great controversy about the holiday decorations being too religious, so this year they went with this:
(It was under construction, but still.)
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
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