Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics
reading at Skylight Books 2/07
by Daniel Hurewitz
[review]
reading excerpts:
- history of Edendale (beginnings and as movie center)
- artists moving to the area
- communists moving to the area
- gay rights movement (Harry Hay and the Mattachine Society)
- esp. interesting: the concluding section about Hurewitz’ interviewing some of the now-aged key players from the ’40s/’50s. Hurewitz, like so many nonfiction writers these days, it seems, feels the need to write his theory of history: how changing social paradigms change how we look back on history and our role therein (if we can remember at all). it was really a very beautiful passage. (see also Bob Woodward’s interview of Mark Felt for The Secret Man and his talking with Gerald Ford in 1999(?) for Shadows—how Ford still kept the clip in his pocket saying that accepting a pardon meant admitting guilt)
Q&A
- define “identity politics”
- why is “bohemian” los angeles less talked of than similar in S.F. or NY? has to do with how a city’s framed by its media. Hollywood has successfully convinced many that it’s all there is of L.A. Meanwhile NY media proudly touts its arts and communities etc. also, there have been fewer cultural studies of written of l.a., but it’s getting better.
- how people not from this city don’t understand the geography of it
[event details]_____________________
Saturday, Feb. 3
5:00 pm, free
Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave [map]
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Daniel Hurewitz presents Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics
“Bohemian Los Angeles brings to life a vibrant and all-but forgotten milieu of artists, leftists, and gay men and women whose story played out over the first half of the twentieth century and continues to shape the entire American landscape. It is the story of a hidden corner of Los Angeles, where the personal first became the political, where the nation’s first enduring gay rights movement emerged, and where the broad spectrum of what we now think of as identity politics was born. Portraying life over a period of more than forty years in the hilly enclave of Edendale, near downtown Los Angeles, Daniel Hurewitz considers the work of painters and printmakers, looks inside the Communist Party’s intimate cultural scene, and examines the social world of gay men. In this vividly written narrative, he discovers why and how these communities, inspiring both one another and the city as a whole, transformed American notions of political identity with their ideas about self-expression, political engagement, and race relations. Bohemian Los Angeles, incorporating fascinating oral histories, personal letters, police records, and rare photographs, shifts our focus from gay and bohemian New York to the west coast with significant implications for twentieth-century U.S. history and politics.”