this was one of the books flavorpill recommended to fill the girls' void. flavorpill admitted that it isn't totally "girls" cos it takes place in LA instead of nyc, but the LA was its selling point for me!
i love movies, shows, and books with an LA setting cos i love pointing out landmarks that i have been too. (btw: i give some legit "entourage" and "(500) days of summer" tours around LA). and joanthan lethem did not disappoint.
LA landmarks mentioned:
right of the back, i knew i would enjoy this book because the book opens in a museum and in my head it was the lacma. jeff koons' three ball 50/50 tank is alluded to which can be found in the bcam at lacma. though this is not a direct reference because the book was published in 2007 and the bcam did not open until 2008 but talk about a good prediction!
the happy/sad foot clinic sign on sunset is mentioned as well. it its an oracle for lucinda, she consulted it for directions with life's pressing questions (apparently beck believes in it's power to according to the sign's facebook. yes the sign has a facebook! when i told my friend danny about the mention in the book he told me about the facebook. check it out: www.facebook.com/happyfoot.sadfoot)
restaurants were also mentioned. hugo's restaurant in weho was a destination for its oatmeal fritters. i have been to hugo's for it's pasta mama (as recommended by susan feinger on the best thing i ever ate) but did not know about it's oatmeal fritters and googled and yea the book gave the exact description of that dish. neptune's net in malibu is where the book ends. and a great fish tacos place is mentioned and since this is pre-ricky's fish tacos, i am assuming it is "the best fish tacos in ensenada" on sunset. lastly lucinda has a cuban sandwich at cafe tropical and i've gotten a quick bite from there cos my friend karen lived down the street, they put abuelita in their mochas! so being a true angelano at heart, i will say lethem did LA well.
the novel is the story of a girl, lucinda, her band and an odd affair she has with this older guy, in the late 90s. i assumed it took place today but one character is using this "new" thing called email and at one party (which i will detail later) people use walkman's instead of ipods. but i mean life hasn't changed too much in LA so this book was pretty contemporary.
as odd as this may sound, i liked the "art" in the book more than anything else about it. lucinda works at a gallery for her ex, falmouth and he made some great art. he did an installation involving a complaint line. he put up flyers around LA with a hotline number and set up a gallery space where people took calls and accepted complaints. i was hoping that the number would be real, the back cover had a flyer with a number, which i called but sadly nothing. but still a cool concept, i imagined an exhibit of the complaints. complaints written up on cards and placed side by side on a museum wall. the compliant that stood out to me was "nobody told me about aging/moisturizer/death". the complaint line is how lucinda meets carl but we will get to that later.
falmouth's second installation was a silent party called Aparty. so there are parties known as silent discos where attendees wear wireless headphones that are linked to the deejay so everyone is dancing to the same music but an outsider can not hear anything. cool, huh? falmouth's silent party was similar. but since it was back in the 90's, everyone brought walkmans and danced to their own music. i liked this idea more because then you get all kinds of dancing to all kinds of music. and considering this was pre-ipod days in which we can make playlists with a couple of drags and clicks, so that meant people had to make mixed tapes or CDs specifically for the party or could have cheated and used the radio. i like the idea of people moving to their own groove at a party.
the description of the party also captured the essence of hipster/silverlake/echo park parties. how you hear about some thing from a friend of a friend (or an email list) about a gallery opening or a free show and everyone shows up for the free booze. and then it turns into this huge thing with a long line and just chaos. (i will say i have a pretty good track record in which i somehow magically get into places sans being on a list or standing in line for hours.) so that was a good description of LA-hipster life (not that i'm a hipster.)
the story in a nutshell is that lucinda meets a this older guy (who is really good and giving orgasms) via the compliant line and their conversations and his words become the songs for the band. there are a bunch of other little side stories like lucinda's most recent ex kidnaps a kangaroo from a zoo, and the band is on the verge of "making it" after playing the silent party. i think carl the complainer had some interesting theories on love which will be quoted below. but did it fill my void? not really, i didn't identify with lucinda like i did with the girls from girls. but if you love LA and a music geek, i think you would dig this book. so check it out.
ps another LA-esque aspect was a radio deejay, Autumnbreast, who is an LA legend who plays all the "it" bands and used to hang with all the great bands of the 70s. i think he is based upon kroq's rodney on the roq (the studio in the book was in culver city which is where kroq is).
quotations:
i will say that i was gross out by the older guy cos he seemed sloppy and fat versus hot old like dermont mulroney in new girl. but he did have some great thoughts on love:
"Nostalgia, except it's not just regular nostalgia. More like nostalgia vu. Longing for longing, instead of for the thing in question."
"'I don't think it counted for that much one way or the other. We were only one another's astronaunt food.'
'What's astronaut food?'
' You know, stuff in little packets that you keep lying on the shelf. Everyone has some lying around. The people you imagine you might be with but you know you never will be. The people who if you're in a couple but you're a little bored or restless you meet them for a coffee alot and the other half of your couple isn't thrilled about it. Or if you're single, they're the people you're keeping on a mental list just so you don't feel like there aren't possibilities. Friends who are almost more than friends but really, they're just friends. Astronaut food, bomb shelter provisions. If you were ever going to have anything with them it would have happened already. Sometimes you even fall in bed with them but it doesn't count for much. It's always a mistake to try to get any nourishment out of that stuff. But not a big mistakes. That's the beautiful part, the stakes are low.'"
"Only as a friend of mine use to say, you can't be deep without a surface."
"All thinking is wishful."
"Pour love on the broken places."
"'I'm not drunk.'
'Your eyes are X's.'"
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