Vromans Bookstore Blog

I want to read this book.

That is all.

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Today, the Vroman’s blog presents the last installment of the Slake Magazine blog series! Wednesday, we had an interview with Joseph; yesterday and today, excerpts from the first edition. Be prepared: these are not your average, tame paragraphs.

Jervey Tervalon was awarded a key to the city of New Orleans for his best-selling novel Dead Above Ground. He also teaches writing classes at Vroman’s.

I’ve long suspected that I have some kind of reptile inside of me, not a superego or id, but a lizard so lazy that it responds only to the most desirable rewards, the juiciest flies. Somehow, my inner lizard settled on UC Santa Barbara as recompense for an education in the L.A. Unified School District, especially for what I had to go through at Foshay Junior High, where every day was a Kafkaesque institutional nightmare. Now, I fear, a lot more California schools are looking like Foshay misadventures. Who knew then that if you wanted to see the future of California public education that you’d look not to UC Santa Barbara but to Foshay Junior High?

–Jervey Tervalon, “Golden: The Education of a Young Pootbutt”

Erica Zora Wrightson writes about proximities, distances, and the ingredients of place. Her nonfiction can be found in the L.A. Weekly.

On Saturday mornings your daughter goes to the farmers market alone; it is too difficult for her to maneuver you in your chair through the crowd now, and the uneven pavement makes your back sore for days. The spring artichokes are huge. You watch your child trim the pointy tips. Her technique is uneven, but you will not correct her. You are learning to let go.

–Erica Zora Wrightson, “Artichoke”

Michelle Huneven’s most recent novel, Blame, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and named a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She has also written two other novels, among other things: Round Rock and Jamesland.

My father did like to hold forth. His subjects included geology, the Marxist view of capitalism, and his life as a teenage hobo. Once he’d stopped by my apartment when I was giving a dinner party. He took a chair and, in the slow drawl of a school science film, said: 7 million years ago where we’re now sitting was a trough in a deep sea. . . . He gave us the entire geological history of the Transverse Ranges as we ate. Nobody else got a word in edgewise. For dessert, he described the Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control systems.

–Michelle Huneven, “Separation”

Now that you’ve gotten a taste for Slake, make sure to pick up a copy! Vroman’s has plenty in stock, but the best place to get one is at the Slake event at Vromans on August 13th! We’ll see you there!

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At the beginning of this month, an exciting new publication hit the shelves: Slake Magazine. To celebrate its launch, Vroman’s and one of Slake’s editors and co-founders, Joseph Donnelly, put together a blog series to help you all get a taste of this incredible new magazine. Yesterday, an interview with Joseph; today and tomorrow, excerpts from the first edition. Be prepared: these are not your average, tame paragraphs.

The first comes from Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer prize-winning food journalist with the LA Weekly. He has also written a book: Counter Intelligence. Check it out next time you want to eat in or around LA.

Fruits are pure sex, the naked reproductive organs of a tree: juicy, plump with fertility, cleft with alluring, syrup-crusted fissures. When we look at Chardin’s cherries or a Cezanne peach, what we see is possibility. What we see when we look at Zurbarán’s citrus may be the opposite of that – this is among the chastest damned fruit in existence; unviolated ornamental fruit meant to be admired rather than eaten. There are no crumbs. Not a bite is missing. The lemons are actually citrons, whose rind is fragrant but whose flesh is all but inedible; the oranges, like most in Seville at the time, are almost certainly bitter. These will never be eaten.

—Jonathan Gold, “Fallen Fruit”

The second is by John Powers, a contributing editor at Vogue and critic at large for NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He is the author of the political commentary Sore Winners (and the Rest of Us) in George Bush’s America.

Of course, next to the Manson Family, these West Valley clothes-robbers seem so silly that it’s hard not to think of Marx’s old line about how history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Not that this is such a bad thing. Manson burned with hatred for the privileged—he wanted to kill them. The Bling Ring just wants to be them. Although I’m old enough to grumble about how shallow our culture has become, it’s hard to imagine anyone being nostalgic for the good old days of Helter-Skelter: “Back in the sixties, m’boy, giants ruled the Earth. Our crooks were visionaries. They murdered pregnant women to start a race war. They wrote ‘Pig’ with their victims’ blood on the front door. Now, those were criminals. Your young crooks today—they just steal purses.”

–John Powers, “Out Stealing Purses”

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Los Angeles is in for a big, frosty glass of literary lemonade (or perhaps a delicate, rare fine wine is a more apt comparison). At the beginning of this month, an exciting new publication hit the shelves: Slake Magazine. To celebrate its launch, Vroman’s and one of Slake’s editors and co-founders, Joseph Donnelly, put together a blog series to help you all get a taste of this incredible new magazine.  Today, an interview with Joseph; tomorrow and Friday, check back for excerpts. And now, without further ado: the interview!

Vromans: What is Slake Magazine?

Joseph Donnelly: Slake is a quarterly publication –by from and for Los Angeles and the world beyond. As the tag says, “A city and its stories.” Los Angeles has a wealth of stories and experiences that we believe are of interest locally and around the world. As I’ve said before, this city assumes the challenges and privileges of the modern world more than any other city in the US and that makes life here so rich. We feel the best way to reflect that rich experience is through this expansive experiment in slow lit. Within its pages one can find deeply reported journalism, fiction, essay, memoir, art, poetry and photography. It’s a book of neighborhoods as this is a city of neighborhoods. You never know what you’ll find around the next corner or on the next page. Plus, it’s just good summer reading. Something to take with you and it come back to time and again.

V: What makes Slake different from other magazines?

JD: Well, it’s size, scope and ambition set it apart. Every page is handcrafted in service of the narrative — whether employing images or words. It’s for a deep, engaged experience, rather than a quick hit. We took great care to present each piece as its own work of art, whether its poetry written on the walls of an abandoned house or deeply reported journalism that feels like it’s a book within a book.

V: Why Slake: Los Angeles? Does the magazine plan to expand in the future, showcasing other cities, countries, etc.?

JD: We plan to keep our focus on Los Angeles, or emanating from Los Angeles. But, Los Angeles, we like to say, is the first city of the 21st Century here in the US. Unlike Las Vegas, what happens here doesn’t stay here.

V: How did your time with the LA Weekly inform or affect the creation of Slake?

JD: The LA Weekly under Laurie Ochoa (and I like to think I had a role) had the same ambition and expansive, inclusive character. We also believed in nurturing distinctive voices. There wasn’t an institutional mandate or voice, other than quality and relevance. So, in that way, it was very formative. Also, we developed and incredible network of talented writers and artists. Laurie and I both feel a responsibility to provide some sort of safe haven for the kind of intellectual life we know thrives here. That, and have a lot of fun.

V: What writers and artists were you most excited to include in the magazine?

JD: Well, all of them, really. There are some marquee names in this issue, as you can see: Geoff Nicholson, John Powers, Jonathan Gold, Michelle Huneven, Luke Davies, John Albert, Judith Lewis Mernit and more. But we also included many new and exciting voices and even some amazing discoveries. Some of the most rewarding experiences were with relatively unknown writers such David Schneider, whose “Ballad of the Trunk Monkey Bandit” is one of our favorites. Jamie Brisick who worked very hard with us on his engaging and harrowing piece of memoir “Blood and Water,” and Erica Zora Wrightson who has a beautiful piece called “Artichoke” that closes the book. We also brought in a bunch of poets — Polly Geller, Ray DiPalma, who is from New York but whose piece struck as universal, John Tottenham, and others — and were really excited to showcase poetry, which can be so vital and dynamic and shouldn’t be kept out of the mainstream the way it is.

V: I know part of Slake’s creation was the desire to prove the idea that “Print is Dead” wrong. How will you keep the medium of print fresh in an increasingly digital world?

JD: I think by making it so seductive it can’t be put down. We hope that’s what we’ve done. We believe Slake is something people will want to keep. You can’t really keep digital words, or at least not in the same way. We believe words and images are for more than just information, that they can provide a moving experience, whether its informative, entertaining, poignant or agitating.

V: Three words that describe Slake:

JD: Beautiful, engaging, satisfying.

V: Can you tell us anything exciting about the next issue?

JD: We’re just starting to turn our attention to it. We’ve been swamped with the release of the first issue, but you can be sure it will be as surprising as this one.

V: And is there anything else we should know about Slake?

JD: There are a bunch of readings and events scheduled for this summer, we hope to see folks there. We want this new voice to really take root and thrive and be around for awhile. We want to make something that shows LA to the world in the way we know it, as as fascinating, dynamic and smart place.

Speaking of events, join Slake at Vromans on August 13th! Five contributors will be present to talk about Slake and their writing. 7pm, Vroman’s main store. Check the link for more information.

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What do you do with cupcakes gone awry? Judge them, of course! (And then eat them.)

Luckily, all the cupcake contest entries from Saturday’s event were utterly wrecktastic (it’s a good thing, I promise). The entries trickled in during a hilarious slide show of some of Jen and her husband’s favorite Cake Wrecks, followed by an illuminating q & a. Did you know, for instance, that Jen Yates has another blog?

Shortly thereafter, the contest got underway. I snapped pictures of some of my favorites:

Cake Rex. Oh so clever.

Who knew a cupcake could look so much like… a cake??

Or a bunny?? Hold on a second… that’s not cake.

And a miniature cupcake cake. That’s got to be a tea saucer it’s sitting on. Tiny.

My humble entry held up better than I expected, and survived a very perilous drive through Pasadena. It also appears in the official Cake Wrecks post on the event, which basically made my day.

(It’s a tiger. I promise.)

Here’s a shot of all the wrecks!

Thanks to everyone who entered, everyone did an amazing job. There are some pretty amazing decorators in Pasadena, apparently – re-creating a wreck is harder than it looks! The winners of the competition walked away with fabulous prizes, including a carrot-jockey necklace and Wreck-inspired pins. Look at them, posing with their Wrecks!

So cute. Unfortunately I didn’t get a good picture of the winning cupcake, but you can check it out on the Cake Wrecks blog. It is pretty hilarious, and very well done. Especially the censor bars.

It was an extremely successful event, over all, and left you all with a very happy (and sugar-coma’ed) blogger.

Mmmm, cupcakes. That absolutely delightful red velvet specimen was provided by Linda, of Sweet Art Cupcakes. She brought us some of the most beautiful cupcakes I have ever seen, and in copious amounts.

I hear the Strawberry was incredible, as well.

Anyway, a big thanks to everyone who came, plus special mention to our lovely ladies of cake: Jen Yates and Cake Wrecks, Linda and Sweet Art Cupcakes, and Connie, our events host (who picked this one up last minute so I could take pictures).

See you all next time for more sugary madness!

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Ladies and Gentlemen, it is that time again. The time for….

CUPCAKES.

Some of you may remember the highly successful Cupcake Bake-off Vroman’s held last August. From what I hear, it was kind of amazing. Looking at the pictures from the event makes me want to eat lots of cupcakes. Luckily, on June 26th, that is exactly what I will do.

On that deliciously fateful day, Jen Yates will be presenting and signing her new book, Cake Wrecks. If you’ve ever taken a look at the Cake Wrecks blog, you know you’ll be in for a treat that day (har, har). The images she digs up are amazing, but it’s really Jen’s commentary that makes these failed cakes totally hilarious. She will be showing slides and answering questions about her new book.

Pictures of cake, however, only get you so far, and that’s where all of us come in. It is cupcake contest time.

This one will work a little differently than last year. First and foremost, professional baker Sweet Art Cupcakes will be bringing plenty of cake for all, so there is no need to make a huge batch. In fact, to enter, you only need three things:

• One cupcake, decorated to match your favorite Cake Wreck from book or blog,
• A board or plate to put your cupcake on,
• A pen/pencil/piping bag to write your name on the plate or board (we’ll provide sharpies if you forget).

I have been informed that anyone entering cupcakes under the name “Your Name” will get a laugh but no credit, so choose wisely, smartypants. Since Vroman’s and Sweet Art Cupcakes will be providing cupcakes for this event and this is a decoration challenge, not a taste challenge, you can leave the rest of the batch at home (or bring it to share if that is too much of a temptation… that’s my plan, anyway). Jen will do the judging and she has some incredible prizes for the winners, so get your wreck on!

Plus, if you win, you’re guaranteed to get a picture of your cupcake on this blog. What can compare to minor internet fame, after all?

Since there has been a little confusion, I thought I needed to clarify:

• There will be cupcakes at the event, provided by Sweet Art Cupcakes. Those are just for eating.They have nothing to do with the contest.
• The cupcake contest entry is a cupcake you bring from home. You only need to bring one decorated cupcake to the event.
  

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

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