Detailed Proof How the Russians Shot Down the Malaysian Plane

BLOOD ON PUTIN'S HANDS: A Russian SA-11 missile launcher, which was used to bring Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 down, was operated by a Russian crew, according to Ukrainian intelligence officials. Photo: AP

Most of the details have already been released about how the Russian missile launchers were brought into Ukraine by the Russians, how a Russian officer found the plane on radar, the moment the order was given to shoot it down, the exact words used by the rebels boasted they had shot down the plane, the social media post by the rebels bragging they had shot down the plane and - finally - the phone call when they realized - and admitted - that the plane that had been shot down - was a civilian plane.  Also well documented has been the removal of the missile launchers back into Russia - with one of the launchers now missing a single missile.

But the below article from the New York Post summaries all the relevant stories from multiple news sources and is - so far - the best blow by blow description I have seen of how Putin's Russia orchestrated this tragedy.  Here are the opening paragraphs:

Ukrainian officials said “irrefutable evidence” proves that Russia’s military operated the missile system that blew a Malaysia Airlines jet from the sky, killing 298 people.
“This terrorist act was committed with the help of the Russian Federation. We know clearly that the crew of this system were Russian citizens,” Vitaly Naida, Ukraine’s chief of counterintelligence, told reporters on Saturday.
The missile system was spirited into rebel-controlled Ukraine territory in pitch-black darkness at about 1 a.m. Thursday, Ukrainian intelligence sources told The Sunday Times of London.
The Buk missile system crossed the Russian border near the village of Sukhodolsk. By 9 a.m., it reached the city of Donetsk, a rebel stronghold and command center.

 And...

Ukrainian intelligence recorded phone calls between a Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Nikolaevich Petrovskiy, and a rebel fighter.
“Where should we unload this cutie?” the rebel fighter asked.
“Is it what I’m thinking about?” replied Petrovskiy.
“Yes. Buk, Buk,” said the fighter.
Crews brought the system to a spot near the village of Pervomaysk, about 75 miles from Donetsk.

The missile shot up toward the Malaysian Boeing 777, which was 33,000 feet overhead — 1,000 feet above the no-fly zone imposed by Ukrainian aviation authorities.
Ukraine’s intelligence service posted on its Web site a picture of what it says is the contrail of the killer missile.
At first, the rebels were jubilant about their hit.
“We have just shot down a plane,” a rebel field commander said in a phone call to a Russian military officer that was recorded by Ukrainian intelligence.
Soon after that, Igor Girkin, the leader of the Donetsk People’ Army, boasted on a Russian social media Web site that his soldiers had shot down a Ukrainian plane.
“We did warn you — do not fly in our sky,” Girkin crowed.

But the rebels soon realized their mistake. “We have found the first 200 [dead],” a rebel reported to one of his superiors. He added: “We are 100 percent sure that it was a civilian plane.”
Girkin’s boast was soon pulled from the Internet.
Sometime after 11 p.m. that night — seven hours after the Boeing 777’s debris and its 298 passengers rained down on Ukrainian homes and fields — the rebels began moving the missile system back toward the Russian border.
Ukrainian intelligence says Russia pulled back two missile launchers — including the one used against Flight 17 — “to suppress evidence of its involvement in the terrorist act.”

For the rest of the article and more pictures, go to this link. Hopefully, those who have saying we should not be worried about Russia since the Cold War is over, will  realize ex-KGB agent Putin appears determined to resurrect the old USSR in more ways than just its geography.

Brilliant Overview of Putin's Ukraine Role. And This is a Must Read for Everyone.

While I haven't regularly read SLATE in years, after experiencing Anne Applebaum's - brilliant - and there is no other word to describe it - summary of what is really happening over there (which is a reprint of her Washington Post column), I will make certain not to miss another article by her.  Hopefully someone in  the White House will make certain President Obama reads this article.   Here are the opening paragraphs:

The downing of the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane has exposed the chaos in Ukraine as a real war. 

By Anne Applebaum

This tragedy offers Vladimir Putin an opportunity to get out of the messy disaster he has created in eastern Ukraine.

Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images

Before there is any further discussion of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, it’s important that one point be made absolutely clear: This plane crash is a result of the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, an operation deliberately designed to create legal, political, and military chaos. Without this chaos, a surface-to-air missile would not have been fired at a passenger plane.  

From the beginning, the Russian government did not send regular soldiers to Ukraine. Instead, it sent Russian mercenaries and security service operatives such as Igor Strelkov—the commander in chief in Donetsk and a Russian secret police colonel who fought in both Chechen wars—or Vladimir Antyufeyev, the Donetsk “deputy prime minister” who led the Latvian KGB’s attempt to overthrow the independent Latvian government back in 1991.

We can’t pretend this war isn’t happening any longer, or that it doesn’t affect anyone outside of Donetsk.

With the help of local thugs, these Russian security men besieged police stations, government offices, and other symbols of political authority, in order to delegitimize the Ukrainian state. In this task, they were assisted by the Russian government and by Russia’s state-controlled mass media, both of which still constantly denigrate Ukraine and its “Nazi” government. Just in the past week, Russian reporting on Ukraine reached a new pitch of hysteria, with fake stories about the supposed crucifixion of a child and an extraordinary documentary comparing the Ukrainian army’s defense of its own country with the Rwandan genocide. 

Into this ambiguous and unstable situation, the Russians cynically funneled a stream of heavy weapons: machine guns and artillery, and eventually tanks, armed personnel carriers, and anti-aircraft missiles. In recent days, the separatist forces were openly using MANPADS, and were also boasting of having taken down large Ukrainian transport planes, clearly with Russian specialist assistance. Indeed, Strelkov on Thursday afternoon boasted online of having taken down another military plane, before realizing that the plane in question was MH17. He removed the post. In late June, several different Russian media sources published photographs of BUK anti-aircraft missiles, which they said had been captured by the separatists—though they were probably outright gifts from Russia. These posts have also been removed.

This is the context within which a surface-to-air missile was aimed at a passenger plane: A lawless environment; irregular soldiers who might not be so good at reading radar; a nihilistic disregard for human life; scorn for international norms, rules, or standards. Just for the record: There weren’t any Ukrainian government-controlled anti-aircraft missiles in eastern Ukraine, because the separatists were not flying airplanes.

And for the rest of this must read article - go here.

Special Saturday July 19th Morning Walking Tour of DTLA on How to Fix Los Angeles

Besides some of the usual history of Historic Downtown Los Angeles - at the request of two frequent visitors to Downtown, this  Saturday July 19th, I will preview my new tour on not just the history of DTLA - or what is happening in DTLA - but - also what SHOULD be happening to make Downtown - and Los Angeles to make them both a better place for everyone.

This one-time (for now) tour will start at 10 AM at The Last Bookstore in the Spring Arts Tower  - 453 S. Spring Street - at 10 AM - and run for 2 hours.  And we will be meeting at the 5th Street entrance to the store - which opens at 10 AM.  Saturday July 19th from 10 AM to 12 PM.  For reservations email bradywestwater@gmail.com or call 213-804-8396 anytime before 10 AM.

FOR MORE INFORMATION  - contact Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 - or bradywestwater@gmail.com

BRADBURY BUILDING

All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.  All tours are only $15 per person.  

Wyatt Earp

If you are a participant in 'Historic Downtown Los Angeles 101' Tour, you will see the first motion picture theater built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

Tickets for either tour are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com.  All credit card orders will be processed  at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be made at the start of the tour.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood. And custom designed can be developed by request  for groups of four or more.

We will also be soon starting weekday and evening tours on what it's like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown Los Angeles.

We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their neighborhood.

Somehow Missed Video of Naked People Dancing in Downtown Los Angeles

So if you missed it, too - here is:  Dancing Naked People in DTLA

More Reasons Why Zumthor's LACMA Design Should Not Be Built

Two more voices have been added to the growing opinion that demolishing the original LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) buildings would be a mistake (as I stated here June 17th) and that building the Zumthor design could end up being a civic tragedy.

First, architecture and urban design professor/critic/writer, Witold Rybczynski, brilliantly supports the retention of the original three buildings to preserve LA's cultural history (even though he is not a big fan of the architecture) and because they have, even more importantly, created a great urban space.

Most art museums today resemble either palaces (if they are old), or upscale automobile showrooms (if they are new). This was neither. Groups of excited children played on the plaza, and clusters of teenagers wandered in off Wilshire Boulevard. The familiar mall-like atmosphere made this an unintimidating space; it was definitely not the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But it struck me that this vulgar (in the literal sense of the word) solution to an art museum succeeded in one important way. Because of its lack of pretension, this was a cheerful place in which people appeared decidedly at home.

A sense of place is an elusive quality, difficult to achieve, and not easy to maintain. It is the result not only of architectural forms but also of behavior, habit, and time. Learning to use what you have is as important as having the perfect building. That’s why it’s a shame to hear that LACMA has decided to wipe the slate clean and demolish all its older buildings, except the Goff pavilion. Why does Los Angeles, which has little enough history, feel the need to keep reinventing its surroundings?

Rybczynski also has problems with almost every part of the proposed Zumthor design.

It would be better to reconsider this wholesale demolition. Especially as the proposed replacement, designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, leaves much to be desired. It is a spreading building raised up on stilts; instead of a friendly plaza there is a dark and gloomy undercroft. The kidney shape is supposed to have something to do with the nearby La Brea Tar Pits, but it reminds me of a 1950s coffee table. Finished all in black, the proposed museum will be a somber presence among the palm trees on Wilshire Boulevard, as anomalous as a Calvinist preacher on a sunny Malibu beach. 

Next, Aaron Betsky, writing in Architect Magazine, both opposes the demolition of the existing campus and has considerably problems with Zumthor's design.

Does the Los Angeles County Museum of Art need to start over again? That is the question this institution is answering with a resounding, $650 million “yes.” They are proposing to tear down all of their original buildings, as well as a mid-1980s addition, and replace it with Peter Zumthor–designed, blobby behemoth they say will add 70,000 square feet of gallery space and create a coherent core in which they can pursue their mission.

And...

When I visited LACMA to see this show, as well as the James Turrell exhibition (about which more later) and a few other offerings of what has, it was clear to me that this institution has, under the leadership of Michael Govan, become one of the liveliest and most innovative art museums in the country. The place was bustling. The café, nestled under a canopy that shades LACMA’s central space, was packed; people were wandering from pavilion to pavilion, and the whole compound gave you the sense that there was something else to discover around the next corner or in the next building.

That is why I am wary of the notion of wiping most of this out to create a single, amoeba-shaped labyrinth of galleries lifted above street level and accessed through five separate cores. Through pure circumstance, LACMA has arrived at a state of vitality that is due, I would argue, not only to good leadership and programming, but also to the very messiness of its campus.

Betsky also questions why LACMA should spend... $650,000,000.... and only end up with 70,000 feet in additional space.

But together, these bits and pieces create a condensation of the Los Angeles landscape that is, if not high art, certainly typical in its sense of accretion of forms, images, and spaces that flow from indoor to outdoor again. It seems to me that it would be logical to keep going in this mode by adding on, renovating, and intensifying those qualities.

Would it really cost $650 million to fix leaks, add solar panels to the roofs, create 70,000 square feet of gallery space in additions or separate pavilions, and design effective wayfinding tools? Nor would such a strategy embody a lack of vision. In fact, I would argue that this kind of first-one-thing-then-another, modular, tactical, and renovation-focused way of making spaces is the wave of the future.

I will also admit that I do not quite understand the Zumthor design. Though I have loved just about every building of his I have ever seen, this attempt to turn the adjacent La Brea Tar Pints into a black piano nobile disassociated from the human-made city around it strikes me as odd, out of scale, and out of real context.

Both critics also praise Michael Govan for what he has done at LACMA - and I am Govan's biggest fan when it comes to his revitalization of LACMA - and they each praise the relatively small, coherent, logical, jewel box structures Zumthor has designed in Swiss Alps near his home. Four qualities totally lacking in his LACMA design.

And now - below is my entire original post on the six reasons why the Zumthor design can not and must not be built:

Kevin Roderick over at LA OBSERVED has the best round-up of articles on architect Peter Zumthor's latest revised design for a new LACMA; a design that now crosses Wilshire Boulevard and  incorporates part of the parking lot (and future LACMA development site) across the street.  This was done to lessen the building's impact on the tar pits in Hancock Park.  But by doing this, new problems have been created - two of which are large enough to - in my opinion - kill the project once they are properly considered.

 But there is a potential solution to this possible stalemate..  Build a new museum on the parking lot parcel - which eliminates the need to demolish any of the existing buildings at this time - and then decide what to do with the rest of the campus.

Below are the six reason why I feel this project will not go forward.  But it is really reason number 6 - and 5 to a lesser extent - that I feel will make the project impossible to construct.  But first read Kevin Roderick's summary.


1.  The original LACMA buildings - though not the great architecture they could have been if Mies van der Rohe had been selected - are increasingly emblematic of their time and are now an important part of our social and cultural heritage.  The complex is also reaching an age when the merits of its urban planning design and its architectural style are able to be better appreciated and evaluated.

The Anderson building is more problematic.  Its architecture is merely typical of hundreds of buildings of its time and its awkward siting disrupted the entrance to the original complex.  Still, with a new architect, the Anderson might be reconfigured to play another role or be totally remodeled/rebuilt to become part of  the new building design and possibly the new main entrance to the complex.

Ideally, the Bart Prince designed Pavilion for Japanese Art would also be kept.

2.  The proposed new building still remains a sprawling blob with no clear entrance and no obvious connection with either the sidewalk or the street.  It remains an alien object hovering over Wilshire; an object seemingly meant to be driven by - and driven under - but never actually entered.  It is the literal recreation of the old Los Angeles myth that LA is not a city but only 37 suburbs in search of a city. Now, granted, those who already regularly go to art museums will likely find the alien quality of the structure - towering above them on 30 foot silicon legs, intriguing.  But it is far less likely that those who already find art museums too intimidating will feel welcomed by this structure.

3.  The sprawling floor plan is a museum goers nightmare.  By going horizontal rather than vertical - besides eating up all the usable land on the existing site and destroying the viability of the site across the street - Zumthor makes navigating the museum much harder.

Tourists already suffering from museum feet after days of walking and locals who want to stop by for an hour to see some of their favorites will no longer be able to take an elevator in the Ahmanson or the Anderson and find what they want to see.  They will instead have to walk far longer distances to get from one part of the museum to the other.  This design is to museums what urban sprawl is to cities.

4.  The new building will still plunge everything under it into darkness.  But that shadow now also includes Wilshire Boulevard and the sidewalks  on both sides of the street.  Unlike the Getty or the present LACMA complex (which allow you to go out into the sunlight and the fresh air of a plaza between each building to refresh your palate), Zumthor rejects any interaction with the ground or the outside world other than viewing it from up high through windows.

5.  Unexpectedly, this latest plan also has the side affect of making any major future, logical expansion of the museum - close to impossible.  By having the building across Wilshire and incorporating the middle of the parcel across the street that LACMA had  bought for future development - Zumthor not only destroys what previous architects have built - but he also destroys the ability for LACMA to have any future architect develop a major building on the other site - or on any other part of the existing LACMA campus

And now that the May Company - which was originally going to be part of LACMA before it became the Hollywood Museum (one of the brilliant moves Michael Govan has made since taking the reins at LACMA) is gone and with the new building now being forced to sprawl over all the developable land on the other side of Wilshire, any major future expansion will have to occur on another site.

And since the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is only LA museum that collects the entire history of  art and in every possible medium from medieval armor to contemporary fashion to antique zoetropes - the only way it can compete for major donations for its dozens of different collections  - is by having the land for major donors to build the spaces needed to greatly expand those collections.

6.  Finally - here is the last - and most important - reason why this plan can never never be built.

Throughout history art has found itself under attack by those who oppose the culture it sprang from.  Al Queda's destruction of major cultural monuments in Afghanistan and the current destruction of  'offensive'  art and artifacts in Iraq are only two of many recent examples  And if LACMA  constructs a massive art museum over Wilshire Boulevard that millions of people will pass under each year -will  create not just a target  - but the perfect target imaginable for those who oppose the cultures that created that art.

All it will take is one person - a single Timothy McVeigh - or a solitary terrorist with misguided religious beliefs  -  to detonate a truck filled with explosives - or a portable bomb - while driving under LACMA to bring the building's connection over Wilshire tumbling down  And there is no way that type of attack can be prevented.

So by building a museum filled with thousands of years of Western (and non-Western) art over a major iconic road in the heart of a major city, LACMA will be creating a uniquely - and totally unnecessarily vulnerable -  target; a compelling, failure free target perfect for any international terrorist group  - or any single person - wanting to attack that culture.

And that alone is reason enough not to build this project.

Avalanche Hits The Last Bookstore! Yes, an Alvalanche of Literary Fiction at $1 Each!

I don't have time to go into the details right now since I am in danger  of drowning in the flood of fiction; fiction written by awarding winning authors (Nobel, Pulitzer, Man Booker. Faulkner, Neustadt, Franz Kafka, Goethe, European Union, Georg Muchner, German Book Prize, Sao Paulo, Leipzig Book Fair, American Academy, Aga Khan, Edgar Alan Poe, Bram Stoker. Hemingway Foundation/PEN, Hugo, Wallace Stevens, Prix Sorieres, Alan Paton, LA Times, Grand prix du Roman, Arthur Ellis, Lambda, James Jones, Whiting Prize, etc. - and those are just the awards won by the books in just one of the 500 boxes) that have just arrived in the - one dollar room. 

Yes, novels and short story collections by the leading authors of this and most of the last century can now had for a short time for just one dollar each - and hundreds more arriving every day at The Last Bookstore at 5th  Spring in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles at 5th & Spring.

A LA Cowboy Misses Cowboy Christmas

For those not familiar with the West,  the week before - and after - the Fourth of July is called the Cowboy Christmas. That is because there they are so many damn rodeos going on at one time that poor ole cowpokes don't know which one of them to unwrap first. So it is not uncommon for rodeo cowboys to hit half-a-dozen – or more – rodeos – in one week by sharing private planes – or splitting driving shifts in cram-packed extra-large pick-ups.

Now while I never did the rodeo cowboy thing – with a few exceptions – when I first hit the cowboy trail I did train bucking stock that we sold to stock contractors and we at times went to the rodeos to see how they performed… which brings us to today’s tale…

During my first Cowboy Christmas, one of the contractor’s bucking stock couldn’t make it from one rodeo to the next in time and my own personal horse – Mr. D – the buckinest horse that ever lived – just happened to be with me. So with it being a seller’s market in bucking broncs – I asked good old Mr. D if he would care to make his rodeo debut and he quickly gave me an eager snort - hell, yes.

The next few hours were mighty entertaining for all of us - and particularly, Mr. D, as we watched one cowboy after another go flying in near record times.

So we repeated this several times over the next few days. And it was a mighty sad Mr. D when we finally returned back to the ranch after our first Cowboy Christmas. The next year, however, due to small rodeo’s close proximity to a much larger rodeo – a couple cowboys who were in the money for that year’s championship showed up – and one of them got promptly throwed by Mr. D as soon as they cleared the chute.

Now as keeping a low profile was always our number one priority, with that kind of attention focused on my horse – we quickly broke camp and left – and returned to the ranch. 

The following year, we hit some smaller rodeos – making certain that no ranking cowboys would be there – but when one person moseyed over to us and asked us if this was the Cowboy Christmas horse… we quickly packed up and left, thus ending Mr. D’s rodeo career to both our regrets.

So now I am sitting in a loft in Downtown Los Angeles and Mr. D has long been grazing up in horse heaven.  But my mind today is far way in another time and another place where Mr. D and I are getting ready to celebrate our first Cowboy Christmas.

Because it is Cowboy Christmas and this cowboy is a long way from home.

This is a short version of the Cowboy Christmas story which will be in my upcoming book - "My Cowboy Years; a Memoir of Lives Too Short".

Missing Murals from Old State Building in Los Angeles Not Missing - But Stolen!

California, Flags, Beauty and History
The Lucile Lloyd Mural, The Origin and Development of the Name of the State of California, is permanently installed in the John L. Burton Hearing Room behind the dais.

On October 16, 1937 three murals painted by Lucile Lloyd were unveiled at the State Building in Los Angeles. Commissioned specifically for the building through a Great Depression -Era program (the WPA), they remained on view for 38 years. The building was torn down for safety reasons in 1975. Fortunately, the murals were saved and in 1991, the Senate Rules Committee had them restored and installed in the California Room, recently rededicated The John L. Burton Hearing room, in honor of former Senate President pro tempore John Burton.

In a sweeping panorama, the three panels tell the history of the name of California. The two side panels portray important flags that have flown over the state. The central panel shows the history and development of the state through the Spanish Mexican and American eras. Realistic figures trace the state’s history, and vivid, colorful images illustrate the state’s unique natural beauty and resources.

Brand Books in Glendale to Close!

I don't what is harder to believe.  That Brand Books is only 29 years old (which means I must have started going there right after it opened - or that is now closing.  Sameea Kamal, of the LA Times has the full story in their Glendale paper.  sameea.kamal@latimes.com
 

Brand Bookshop to close doors after 29 years

A man searches the shelves of used books in at Brand Bookshop. The store will be closing its doors this summer after 29 years in business. (File Photo / June 28, 2014)

After 29 years in business, Brand Bookshop will be closing its doors.

Store employee Mauricio Ramirez confirmed the Brand Boulevard store that specializes in used books would be closing sometime in August.
Noriaki Nakano, adopted son of owner Jerome Joseph, said the decision to close the store was due to his Joseph’s poor health after a fall he took in July 2013.
“He lost the ability he used to have, not just simple memory, but the ability to handle or comprehend the business,” Noriaki said.
Joseph is now at an assisted living facility in Glendale since he is unable to live alone, Nakano said.
In addition, Nakano said it doesn't make sense to invest more in a business that is not bringing in a lot of money.
“I want to use the money for a better life for [Joseph], and to spend more time with him.”
Nakano, who is 66, said he has also reached the age for retirement himself.
The 5,000-square-foot bookshop has an inventory of about 100,000 books, Nakano said.

“It’s a big operation,” he said.

Joseph opened Brand Bookshop in 1985 with his business partner, Larry Mullen, a science fiction enthusiast who suggested the idea back when bookstores were still thriving, he told the News-Press in a previous interview.

“Business was good around 1993 up to about 2003 and that’s when business began to really slow because of the Internet and the economy,” Nakano told the News-Press in November 2013. “Lots of bookstores are downsizing or closing right now.”

Nokano said that sales at Brand Bookshop were down by 30% to 40% at the time, but they hoped the holiday season would help boost sales.

The store sent out a notice about its closing to its email list of 2,600 people. and while he received a lot of responses that were ‘difficult to deal with,’ he feels it was the best move for him and the store.

“The book business has changed dramatically,” he said. “People do not need to buy books, they can actually access reading any book on the Internet, so I understand, in a way, it’s very practical, especially among the young generation.”

As part of the store’s closing sale, all books will be 50% off from July 1 until the store closes.

Customers with store credit are also encouraged to spend it as soon as possible.

“My dad has actually built up such an empire, it was really a cultural landmark in the city of Glendale and it will be missed by many, many people,” Nakano said. “But nothing lasts forever. It’s time to close and move on.”

Lots of Literary Action at Figaro Bistro at 618 S. Broadway in DTLA from 5 PM to 11 PM Tonight!

 

The Downtown Literary Alchemy Laboratory, is experimenting in the literary arts, the business of publishing and the process of building community with 90 events in 90 days @ Figaro, 618 S. Broadway Ave, LA, CA 90014. Open 6/27-9/27/2014, M-Su 5:00-11:00 pm. A project of Writ Large Press. Contact writlargepress@gmail.com with inquiries.

Saturday, June 28

EXT. 
Discussion of art created in community, the role of art in building community and as an expression of community, featuring Chris Anthony, Jessica Ceballos, and Luis Rodriguez.
6:00 pm
INT.
Readings exploring the deeply personal followed by a discussion on the line between art and life and the role of the personal in connecting to a larger community, featuring Douglas Kearney, Jen Hofer, Wendy C. Ortiz, and Amarnath Ravva, Stalina Villarreal.
8:00 pm
Panelists/Peformers:
Chris Anthony is Associate Artistic Director at The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. Chris is a director, teacher, actor and administrator specializing in community-based art making. Holding an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, she has taught in venues ranging from Elementary Schools to Adult Correctional Facilities. Chris oversees SCLA’s Youth & Education programs, specializing in youth development for adolescents. Recent directing credits include Lunch Lady Courage at Cornerstone Theater, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet, and Othello at the St. Louis Black Rep, and Romeo & Juliet at SCLA. She has been a guest lecturer at the UC Davis, University of Southern California, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal Poly Pomona and Laverne University. A former board member of TYA/USA, her other professional affiliations have included P.L.A.Y. at Center Theatre Group, TeAda Productions, Plaza de la Raza, and Shakespeare at the Huntington.
Jessica Ceballos is a poet who dabbles in music and photography. She's a volunteer, community advocate, avid traveler, and cultural wanderer. Third generation Southern Californian, Jessica has been recognized by the Los Angeles City Council for her work bringing literary arts to the community. (She's even been nominated as Angeleno of the Year !) In April of 2014 Jessica was elected into the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council(HHPNC) as a Director At-Large. As a writer, her work has most recently appeared in Cultural Weekly, Los Angeles Magazine, YAY!LA, LA Examiner, La Boga, Hinchas de Poesia, Haight Ashbury Journal, EAP Journal #1, The RPB - LA Anthology, and RA, among others. She has featured at venues throughout Southern California, often with musical accompaniment. recently she's collaborated with El-Haru Kuroi, Taco Shop Poets & Los Illegals and an LA-based jazz trio featuring Emile Porée, Aaron McLendon, and Isaias Elpes at the Grand Park stage.
As a member of the Hollywood Institute of Poetics, Jessica co-founded (along with Rafael Alvarado), organizes, and hosts the Bluebird Reading Series at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park, CA. In the past, she has hosted a monthly reading at Beyond Baroque and has co-facilitated their 20th Century Latin American Poetry Workshop. In 2013, Jessica was invited by Avenue 50 Studio to curate the Poesia Para La Gente reading series, taking place throughout the North East LA area.
Luis J. Rodriguez is a leading Chicano writer with fifteen books in poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and nonfiction. His first memoir, 1993′s “Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.” has sold close to 500,000 copies and is considered one of the 100 most censored books in the United State by the American Library Association. He is cofounder of Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore and founding editor of Tia Chucha Press. He is also a renowned gang intervention/urban peace leader and has traveled throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, and Japan to read poetry, do workshops or speak. In addition, he is a Native American/Mexican healer and thinker, and has been involved in revolutionary social change for forty years. His latest book is the sequel to “Always Running,” entitled “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing,” which in 2012 became a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Luis recently ran for Governor of California and is continuing the “Imagine a New California” campaign intersecting the three pillars of a healthy and thriving society—the environment, the economy and social justice.
Poet/performer/librettist Douglas Kearney’s second, full-length collection of poetry, The Black Automaton (Fence Books, 2009), was Catherine Wagner’s selection for the National Poetry Series. Red Hen Press published Kearney’s third collection, Patter, in March 2014. He has received fellowships at Cave Canem, Idyllwild, and others. His work has appeared in a number of journals, including Poetry,nocturnes, Pleiades, Callaloo, Fence, LA Review of Books, The Iowa Review, and The Ninth Letter. His produced operas include Sucktion,Mordake, and Crescent City. Raised in Altadena, CA, he lives with his family in California’s Santa Clarita Valley. He teaches at CalArts, where he received his MFA in Writing (04).
Wendy C. Ortiz is a Los Angeles native. Her first book, Excavation: A Memoir, will be published by Future Tense Books in July 2014. Her second book, Hollywood Notebook, is forthcoming from Writ Large Press in 2014. She currently writes the monthly column "On the Trail of Mary Jane" about medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles forMcSweeney's Internet Tendency. Wendy holds an M.A. in Clinical Psychology and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. A Writer-in-Residence at Hedgebrook in 2007 and 2009, Wendy is also co-founder and curator of the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series at the Good Luck Bar in Hollywood.  Wendy has written op-eds for The Olympian and the Los Angeles Times, as well as numerous articles for Works In Progress in Olympia, Washington. Wendy is an adjunct faculty in creative writing and has also facilitated creative writing workshops with Los Angeles youth in juvenile detention facilities. Wendy is at work on a book based on her Modern Love essay published in The New York Times, as well as a poetry collection. She writes, parents, and works as a marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles.
Amarnath Ravva has performed at LACMA, Machine Project, the MAK Center at the Schindler House, New Langton Arts, the Hammer Museum, USC, Pomona, CalArts, and the Sorbonne. In addition to his writing practice, he is a member of the site specific ambient music supergroup Ambient Force 3000 and for the past eight years he has helped run and curate events at Betalevel, a venue for social experimentation and hands-on culture located in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. He holds a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and an M.F.A. from CalArts, where he was awarded an interdisciplinary grant to help support his documentary work in South India.
Jen Hofer is a Los Angeles-based poet, translator, social justice interpreter, teacher, knitter, book-maker, public letter-writer, urban cyclist, and co-founder of the language justice and literary activism collaborative Antena. Her translation of Negro marfil by Mexican poet Myriam Moscona, published as Ivory Black by Les Figues Press in 2011, won the 2012 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets and the 2012 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Her other translations include the homemade chapbook En las maravillas/In Wonder (Libros Antena/Antena Books, 2012);sexoPUROsexoVELOZ and Septiembre, a translation fromDolores Dorantes by Dolores Dorantes (Counterpath Press and Kenning Editions, 2008); lip wolf, a translation of lobo de labioby Laura Solórzano (Action Books, 2007); and Sin puertas visibles: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women (Ediciones Sin Nombre and University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003).
Her most recent books are the handmade chapbook Lead & Tether (Dusie Kollektiv, 2011); a series of anti-war-manifesto poems titled one (Palm Press, 2009); and The Route, a collaboration with Patrick Durgin (Atelos, 2008). She has poems, essays and translations forthcoming from Dusie Books, Insert Press, Kenning Editions, and Litmus Press. She teaches in the MFA Writing Program at CalArts and the Graduate Writing Program at Otis College of Art & Design, and works nationally and locally as a social justice interpreter through Antena. Most recently she has been hand-sewing quilted poems; her installation “Uncovering: A Quilted Poem Made from Donated and Foraged Materials from Wendover, Utah” is currently on view at the CLUI.
Stalina Villarreal is a Mexican and Chicana poet, a translator, and an instructor of English. The book (H)emötoma by Minerva Reynosa has been the main focus of her translations, for which she attended World to World, Mundo a Mundo in 2009 to workshop poems from the book. She is also the translator of “Grace Shot,” by Luis Alberto Arellano in Sèrie Alfa: Artiliteratura, “Eight Fabulous Animals” by Ilan Stavans in Eleven Eleven, and nine poems by Minerva Reynosa in the latest Mandorla. She has an MFA in Writing from the California College of the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stalina lives and works in Houston.

Discover the Secrets of the Past, Present & Future of Historic Downtown LA this Saturday & Sunday

Yes, for the months of July there will be walking tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles every Saturday and every Sunday starting at The Last Bookstore including this Saturday July 5th and Sunday July 6th.
The Last Bookstore (and its  2nd floor with 50,000 books at ONE DOLLAR each!)  Presents  June & July 10:30AM Saturday and a 11AM Sunday START TIMES FOR 2 hour walking tours  of the The Secret Lives of Historic Downtown Los Angeles -  FEATURED In GQ MAGAZINE and Endorsed By - LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE!

 
There will be a HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101  2 hour walking tour every Saturday from 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM and every  Sunday there will be a start time of 11:00 AM and an ending time of 1:00 PM. And among the many things you will learn this weekend is that if a friend of Wyatt Earp's had not built the Alexandria Hotel - it would have been impossible for George Gershwin to have written his iconic Rhapsody in Blue.

And all tours start at THE LAST BOOKSTORE in the Spring Arts Tower at 5th and Spring and they are still only $15 per person.

And  besides our regular scheduled tours, we will be offering customized tours on different days and different times and from one to three hours including weekdays - depending on your schedule.  With a minimum of four reservations, we will design a tour of any part of Downtown focusing on any subject matter you choose.  These tours can be after work, during lunch breaks - or??

FOR MORE INFORMATION  - contact Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 - or bradywestwater@gmail.com

BRADBURY BUILDING

All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.  All tours are only $15 per person.  

Wyatt Earp

If you are a participant in 'Historic Downtown Los Angeles 101' Tour, you will see the first motion picture theater built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

Tickets for either tour are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com.  All credit card orders will be processed  at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be made at the start of the tour.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood. And custom designed can be developed by request  for groups of four or more.

We will also be soon starting weekday and evening tours on what it's like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown Los Angeles.

We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their neighborhood.

Six Reasons Why Zumthor's New Design for LACMA Can Never Be Built

Kevin Roderick over at LA OBSERVED has the best round-up of articles on architect Peter Zumthor's latest revised design for a new LACMA; a design that now crosses Wilshire Boulevard and  incorporates part of the parking lot (and future LACMA development site) across the street.  This was done to lessen the building's impact on the tar pits in Hancock Park.  But by doing this, new problems have been created - two of which are large enough to - in my opinion - kill the project once they are properly considered.

But there is a potential solution to this possible stalemate..  Build a new museum on the parking lot parcel - which eliminates the need to demolish any of the existing buildings at this time - and then decide what to do with the rest of the campus.

Below are the six reason why I feel this project will not go forward.  But it is really reason number 6 - and 5 to a lesser extent - that I feel will make the project impossible to construct.  But first read Kevin Roderick's summary.


1.  The original LACMA buildings - though not the great architecture they could have been if Mies van der Rohe had been selected - are increasingly emblematic of their time and are now an important part of our social and cultural heritage.  The complex is also reaching an age when the merits of its urban planning design and its architectural style are able to be better appreciated and evaluated.

The Anderson building is more problematic.  Its architecture is merely typical of hundreds of buildings of its time and its awkward siting disrupted the entrance to the original complex.  Still, with a new architect, the Anderson might be reconfigured to play another role or be totally remodeled/rebuilt to become part of  the new building design and possibly the new main entrance to the complex.

Ideally, the Bart Prince designed Pavilion for Japanese Art would also be kept.

2.  The proposed new building still remains a sprawling blob with no clear entrance and no obvious connection with either the sidewalk or the street.  It remains an alien object hovering over Wilshire; an object seemingly meant to be driven by - and driven under - but never actually entered.  It is the literal recreation of the old Los Angeles myth that LA is not a city but only 37 suburbs in search of a city. Now, granted, those who already regularly go to art museums will likely find the alien quality of the structure - towering above them on 30 foot silicon legs, intriguing.  But it is far less likely that those who already find art museums too intimidating will feel welcomed by this structure.

3.  The sprawling floor plan is a museum goers nightmare.  By going horizontal rather than vertical - besides eating up all the usable land on the existing site and destroying the viability of the site across the street - Zumthor makes navigating the museum much harder.

Tourists already suffering from museum feet after days of walking and locals who want to stop by for an hour to see some of their favorites will no longer be able to take an elevator in the Ahmanson or the Anderson and find what they want to see.  They will instead have to walk far longer distances to get from one part of the museum to the other.  This design is to museums what urban sprawl is to cities.

4.  The new building will still plunge everything under it into darkness.  But that shadow now also includes Wilshire Boulevard and the sidewalks  on both sides of the street.  Unlike the Getty or the present LACMA complex (which allow you to go out into the sunlight and the fresh air of a plaza between each building to refresh your palate), Zumthor rejects any interaction with the ground or the outside world other than viewing it from up high through windows.

5.  Unexpectedly, this latest plan also has the side affect of making any major future, logical expansion of the museum - close to impossible.  By having the building across Wilshire and incorporating the middle of the parcel across the street that LACMA had  bought for future development - Zumthor not only destroys what previous architects have built - but he also destroys the ability for LACMA to have any future architect develop a major building on the other site - or on any other part of the existing LACMA campus

And now that the May Company - which was originally going to be part of LACMA before it became the Hollywood Museum (one of the brilliant moves Michael Govan has made since taking the reins at LACMA) is gone and with the new building now being forced to sprawl over all the developable land on the other side of Wilshire, any major future expansion will have to occur on another site.

And since the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is only LA museum that collects the entire history of  art and in every possible medium from medieval armor to contemporary fashion to antique zoetropes - the only way it can compete for major donations for its dozens of different collections  - is by having the land for major donors to build the spaces needed to greatly expand those collections.

6.  Finally - here is the last - and most important - reason why this plan can never never be built.

Throughout history art has found itself under attack by those who oppose the culture it sprang from.  Al Queda's destruction of major cultural monuments in Afghanistan and the current destruction of  'offensive'  art and artifacts in Iraq are only two of many recent examples  And if LACMA  constructs a massive art museum over Wilshire Boulevard that millions of people will pass under each year -will  create not just a target  - but the perfect target imaginable for those who oppose the cultures that created that art.

All it will take is one person - a single Timothy McVeigh - or a solitary terrorist with misguided religious beliefs  -  to detonate a truck filled with explosives - or a portable bomb - while driving under LACMA to bring the building's connection over Wilshire tumbling down  And there is no way that type of attack can be prevented.

So by building a museum filled with thousands of years of Western (and non-Western) art over a major iconic road in the heart of a major city, LACMA will be creating a uniquely - and totally unnecessarily vulnerable -  target; a compelling, failure free target perfect for any international terrorist group  - or any single person - wanting to attack that culture.

And that alone is reason enough not to build this project.

Excellent Article on Brigham Yen and Downtown LA in Los Angeles Register

I don't know how I missed it, but a few days ago Bill Johnson of the Los Angeles Register had a feature piece on a four hour tour given to him by DTLA resident and blogger Brigham Yen.  I'll just give you the opening two sentence below - and then you can go to the Register website and read the rest.

You have not truly arrived, I believe, until Brigham Yen takes you under his wing for one of his massively informative and exhaustive tours, one that almost everyone knows about and jockeys to join. The man simply loves downtown. You might think this would have everything to do with his chosen avocation as a real estate agent here, but that seems almost insulting now, post-tour, as I sweat profusely and my feet scream out in agony.

 And here - again - is the link to the rest of the story.

Only One of the Five Largest US Book Publishing Companies is American Owned

In The Good Men Project, mystery writer J. E. Fishman uncovers the mystery of how while everyone has been worrying about the power of Amazon -  the five largest publishers in the United States have ended up in the hands of foreigners.  Two are owned by German companies, one by the French and a fourth is owned by an Australian firm; a tally which does not cover smaller publishers owned by the Brits, among others.  And, according to Fishman, even the last remaining US owned major publisher may soon slip out of American hands.

That leaves, among the Big Five, Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS, which is actually an American company for real. But before you indulge visions of launching a rearguard action from the remaining wisp of ‘Murican cultural territory, you might consider rumors that CBS has considered pitching this dead tome overboard since at least 2013. Maybe the Russians will buy it. Gazprom and Schuster, anyone? - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/arts/book-war-authors-already-lost-hesaid/#sthash.iMJ30NYK.dpuf

That leaves, among the Big Five, Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS, which is actually an American company for real. But before you indulge visions of launching a rearguard action from the remaining wisp of ‘Murican cultural territory, you might consider rumors that CBS has considered pitching this dead tome overboard since at least 2013. Maybe the Russians will buy it. Gazprom and Schuster, anyone?

Now even though I was roughly acquainted with these facts, it was not a situation I much thought about - or even now feel particularly concerned with, much less, am worrying about.  But - still - it is a reality every US writer should be aware of.  Here is the opening of his piece:

J.E. Fishman questions the importance of publishing companies in a book’s success. 

____

Question: If books are an important part of the culture — and I believe they are — does it follow that the way we publish and sell books is an equally important part of the culture?

If you answered Yes, you should know we’ve been under siege from foreign forces for a long time.

It started back in the Thirties when a newly minted British company called Penguin sent a flotilla of cheap paperbacks to our shores and changed the economics of American book publishing forever. I know what you’re thinking: Who knew that the British had founded anything new at all since the nineteenth century? But at that time, apparently, they spotted some economic flaws in the hidebound U.S. book industry.

When those dime paperbacks flooded the market, you can bet that a lot of stodgy old east-coast publishers started pissing their dollar-stuffed pants. The new competition soon put their fat margins under pressure, eventually forcing them to indulge in the sincerest form of flattery: imitation. Pretty soon there were dime paperbacks (later known as mass market paperbacks) everywhere.

Through all of this disruption no one asked authors what they thought. When it came to business, authors were there to be read and not heard — at least not on the subject of business. Many authors probably stood appalled, but others jumped in and wrote pulp fiction until their fingers bled. Some of these authors went on to become major brands. Go figure.

But the foreign invasion didn’t stop there. It took a pause for World War II, and with the whole world a smoldering wreck and the U.S. standing proud we had nothing to fear for a while from foreign dominance. Then the Germans, of all people, came ashore.

In 1986 that now-famous German publishing conglomerate Bertelsmann — of whom, I guarantee, not a soul in America had ever heard before 1986 — purchased venerable old publisher Doubleday for nearly half a billion dollars. With that kind of loot kicking around the Nelson Doubleday household, our cultural defenders forgot to contemplate whether this acquisition was good for American letters. Maybe it helped knowing that Bertelsmann had begun life as that most unthreatening of all entities: a Bible publisher.

 Anyway, once again, no one asked authors — you know, those originators of the content that makes the book business the book business — what they thought. The only option authors had was to go on writing books and hope it all worked out.

The rest of the article is here.

The Book War That Authors Have Already Lost

June 21, 2014 by The Weeklings 2 Comments

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J.E. Fishman questions the importance of publishing companies in a book’s success. 

____

Question: If books are an important part of the culture — and I believe they are — does it follow that the way we publish and sell books is an equally important part of the culture?
If you answered Yes, you should know we’ve been under siege from foreign forces for a long time.
It started back in the Thirties when a newly minted British company called Penguin sent a flotilla of cheap paperbacks to our shores and changed the economics of American book publishing forever. I know what you’re thinking: Who knew that the British had founded anything new at all since the nineteenth century? But at that time, apparently, they spotted some economic flaws in the hidebound U.S. book industry.
When those dime paperbacks flooded the market, you can bet that a lot of stodgy old east-coast publishers started pissing their dollar-stuffed pants. The new competition soon put their fat margins under pressure, eventually forcing them to indulge in the sincerest form of flattery: imitation. Pretty soon there were dime paperbacks (later known as mass market paperbacks) everywhere.
Through all of this disruption no one asked authors what they thought. When it came to business, authors were there to be read and not heard — at least not on the subject of business. Many authors probably stood appalled, but others jumped in and wrote pulp fiction until their fingers bled. Some of these authors went on to become major brands. Go figure.
But the foreign invasion didn’t stop there. It took a pause for World War II, and with the whole world a smoldering wreck and the U.S. standing proud we had nothing to fear for a while from foreign dominance. Then the Germans, of all people, came ashore.
In 1986 that now-famous German publishing conglomerate Bertelsmann — of whom, I guarantee, not a soul in America had ever heard before 1986 — purchased venerable old publisher Doubleday for nearly half a billion dollars. With that kind of loot kicking around the Nelson Doubleday household, our cultural defenders forgot to contemplate whether this acquisition was good for American letters. Maybe it helped knowing that Bertelsmann had begun life as that most unthreatening of all entities: a Bible publisher.
Anyway, once again, no one asked authors — you know, those originators of the content that makes the book business the book business — what they thought. The only option authors had was to go on writing books and hope it all worked out.

- See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/arts/book-war-authors-already-lost-hesaid/#sthash.iMJ30NYK.dpuf

hat leaves, among the Big Five, Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS, which is actually an American company for real. But before you indulge visions of launching a rearguard action from the remaining wisp of ‘Murican cultural territory, you might consider rumors that CBS has considered pitching this dead - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/arts/book-war-authors-already-lost-hesaid/#sthash.iMJ30NYK.dpuf

hat leaves, among the Big Five, Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS, which is actually an American company for real. But before you indulge visions of launching a rearguard action from the remaining wisp of ‘Murican cultural territory, you might consider rumors that CBS has considered pitching this dead - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/arts/book-war-authors-already-lost-hesaid/#sthash.iMJ30NYK.dpuf

That leaves, among the Big Five, Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS, which is actually an American company for real. But before you indulge visions of launching a rearguard action from the remaining wisp of ‘Murican cultural territory, you might consider rumors that CBS has considered pitching this dead tome overboard since at least 2013. Maybe the Russians will buy it. Gazprom and Schuster, anyone - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/arts/book-war-authors-already-lost-hesaid/#sthash.iMJ30NYK.dpuf

That leaves, among the Big Five, Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS, which is actually an American company for real. But before you indulge visions of launching a rearguard action from the remaining wisp of ‘Murican cultural territory, you might consider rumors that CBS has considered pitching this dead tome overboard since at least 2013. Maybe the Russians will buy it. Gazprom and Schuster, anyone - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/arts/book-war-authors-already-lost-hesaid/#sthash.iMJ30NYK.dpuf

Latest New Books in the $1 room at The Last Bookstore!

Latest new arrivals at The Last Bookstore at 5th and Spring in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles include over one hundred trade paper backs of quality contemporary fiction and even more hardcover & paperback books in the literary history/criticism section, lots of newer sports books, 4 more boxes for the African American section, 30 more Hollywood bios, and over a hundred more books added to the American, European and Asian history/culture sections - plus at least a hundred added to business, psychology, the social sciences, Latin America, natural history & gardening - plus more vintage books for film and TV sections.  And at 11 AM this Sunday June 21st, there will be a two hour walking tour of Historic Downtown Los Angeles.