matthew’s alibi

Julie Andrews speaks at Royce Hall during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Photo © Jasula via Flickr

The main reason to come back to the festival for the second day, as far as I’m concerned, was Julie Andrews. Sure, she’s a festival staple, but I’m not interested in hearing her read children’s books, I want the dirt behind Mary Poppins.

Well, Julie Andrews’ new autobiography, Home, is presumably a volume 1, as it stops short of the world’s favorite nanny. It ends, in fact, shortly after an offer from Walt Disney himself to come out to California to “hear some of the music for a new movie.”

But amazingly, Disney’s offer is not the most Cinderella-esque feature of her early life.

Andrews, it turns out, had a pretty grim upbringing: hiding out in the subways as the bombs ravaged Britain, touring the country in a barely-making it family Vaudeville act, and compensating on the stage for a father who was sometimes too drunk to work.

But, amidst the hard times, there were some really remarkable events. Andrews described meeting the Queen Mum (the Queen at the time) when she was only 10 years old. She was the youngest performer ever to play a command performance for the royals. And, when she was playing a panto (Cinderella, of course) in London, she was seen by some New York producers, who cast her for the soon-to-be smash Broadway play The Boy Friend.

Then, just when her run in the show was ending and she was ready to go home to her family in England, she got a call from the representative of a couple of Broadway tune smiths named Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who wanted her to hear a few songs from their upcoming musical My Fair Lady. Which is where she was seen by Walt Disney.

But there were plenty of hard times first; Andrews said “I thought I knew a lot [about my own life], and I did,” but she said she found some extra perspective on it by writing her story down and then re-reading her own account.

Interviewer Patt Morrison asked her what sort of things she had realized. “I thought I had a very happy childhood, and to my surprise, I found out maybe I didn’t. I kept telling my daughter, ‘I hope this isn’t too depressing…’.”

Andrews reports that many years ago, she had been approached by a publishing house to write her autobiography, and she had thought at the time that if she ever did, it would be “for my grandchildren,” and she didn’t see the point in publishing it.

Later, she said, re-reading Moss Hart’s autobiography, Act One, she realized that by telling the story of her childhood, she could document a part of theater history in an entertaining way, as Hart did. Andrews’ book is about the last days of Vaudeville; when the glamor was starting to fade, the theaters were becoming run down, but television had not yet taken over as the primary entertainment medium.

She may have underestimated the interest in her life; this week, her book hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

Andrews, as you might imagine, is the very paragon of style and class. She’s totally enchanting, and it’s easy to see why she’s popular with such a wide cross-section, from gays to grandmas. She speaks with thoughtfulness and polish, moves with grace, and laughs with a throaty naughtiness when she tells stories like the one she told on Sunday about her preparations to go topless for the movie S.O.B., or when describing the flatulence of My Fair Lady co-star Rex Harrison.

She is willing to make fun of herself (as when she imitated her first, admittedly lousy, performance on the legitimate stage, in a bad Tennessee accent, with lines like “you cain’t die, Joe!” and “[I'm] jes’ skimmin’ rocks on Turkey Creek!”), but equally aware of her legacy. When Morrison asked Andrews whether she had negative feelings about subsequent actresses who played Eliza, Andrews answered humbly that she considered herself lucky to have been chosen to be in the original cast of what was one of the greatest musicals of Broadway’s golden age.

(Morrison was one of the better interviewers I saw over the weekend, but she seemed a little murky on My Fair Lady - she asked Andrews at one point to confirm whether she was the first actress to “sing” the Shaw play. Also, Wikipedia says it’s Morrison’s trademark, but where I come from, it’s considered good manners to take your hat off when you enter a theater, and always when you’re interviewing Julie Andrews.)

Andrews said she’s often asked for advice by young people, and she says she advises them to think of themselves at the center of the pie. She says she tells them to pick out the things they’re interested in, the things they might want to do, and envision each of them as a radius from their place at the center. In that way, she says, no matter which direction you choose, it’s a direction you like. And, when you veer off, you’ll be in another direction that you like.

I’ve found myself thinking about that advice several times over the past two days; it’s some of the soundest I’ve heard for creative, ambitious young folks. Half the time, it seems like my biggest enemy is that I have so many interests and so much I want to do with my time that I end up feeling overwhelmed and don’t do much of anything. Or, that I’m not satisfied only doing what will fit into a day. But Andrews says, line up the options you like most, and then go full force in one of the directions. Sounds like a plan.

It wasn’t surprising when Gore Vidal mentioned Fellini. Somehow, he seemed to namecheck every significant person in the 20th century in the course of his hour on the Royce Hall stage yesterday.

It was coincidence, I thought, when Ray Bradbury mentioned him as well, on the same stage, just a few hours later.

But when Joe Henry quoted the legendary director this morning when he shared the Royce Hall stage with Aimee Mann and Steve Almond, I began to suspect that someone must have posted a note backstage to remind people as they stepped from behind the curtain. “Smile! Mention Fellini!”

The crowd was smaller than it should have been for this morning’s panel; Aimee Mann has sold out Royce by herself more than once in recent years; but as Steve Almond remarked, “nothing says rock and roll like a Sunday morning.”

Nevertheless, the music was fantastic and the conversation was stimulating. Almond’s agenda for the two songwriters, both of whom are often said to write “short stories to music,” was to examine the notion of literary songcraft. (Where’s Colin Meloy when you need him?)

One of the highlights of the session was the examination of the idea that a song should tell a fictional story. Joe Henry was a vocal proponent of the non-autobiographical character sketch. “I think honesty is incredibly overrated,” Henry declared.

Henry produced Aimee Mann’s latest release, a concept album called The Forgotten Arm. Mann attested that Henry had told her more than once, when consulted about lyrics, that “you don’t get any points for truth.”

There was a discussion of the Joni-Mitchell/Jackson-Browne-style confessional debut album, a phase which Henry says he skipped over. It was interesting to learn that there’s an acknowledgment of this tendency among singer-songwriters. I am more familiar with the fiction writers’ parallel tendency to write autobiographical first novels, but it sounds like the confessional first work is a staple of the creative life, regardless of the medium.

Thankfully, Mann spoke up at the end of the panel to diverge from Henry on the point. Emotional truth, Mann says, is very important, but literal truth, less so. You can change the details in service of finding a deeper emotional truth. “I place value on truth, and I place value on cleverness, but it’s easier to be truthful than it is to be clever.” God, I love Aimee Mann.

Mann doesn’t put much stock in her reputation as a writer of musical short stories, however: “In a three minute song, if you put in four details, you get a reputation for being literary… If you mention that someone’s drinking a cop of coffee and that it’s a Tuesday, you’re a genius… The bar is very low.”

Nonetheless, she revealed that she had been approached by HarperCollins to write a book. Mann says the rep who approached her tried to quell her doubts by telling her “I think it will be easier than you think;” Mann described her response with wild-eyed disbelief, “no, I don’t think that it is!”

The possibility of a graphic novel from Aimee Mann was also discussed, (”then I’d have to learn how to draw [too]…”). Turns out Mann is learning how to draw, in informal sessions with one of her favorite graphic novelists (she didn’t say who [edit: sounds like it's Joe Matt]) at her neighborhood Starbucks. But, she says not to expect any kind of book from her for at least a decade or so.

It was a lovely way to ease into the second half of the Festival of Books - a little conversation, a little music. Mann played ‘Jacob Marley’s Chain’ and a couple of songs from her forthcoming album, @#*! Smilers (which they pronounced as “Effin’ Smilers“). Joe Henry played ‘Little Man’s Room’ and ‘Our Song,’ but I was sad to learn that despite being a fan of the albums Henry has produced (Solomon Burke’s Don’t Give Up on Me, in particular), based on his songs this morning, I don’t share Steve Almond’s enthusiasm. But, I can’t wait for the new Aimee Mann album.

My standard line about the LA Times Festival of Books is that it’s my very favorite thing in Los Angeles. Which becomes something of a mantra when I’m actually at the Festival, since I need something to focus on to deal with the actual experience.

The Times calls the annual event the country’s “largest celebration of the written word,” and it’s hard to imagine they’re wrong - the festival boasts 140,000 attendees, more than 450 authors, and over 100 panels all crammed into two short days. Best of all, all of the panels and stages are free.

Which brings back the need for a mantra: 140,000 people packed onto the UCLA campus in 90 degree heat can be a little overwhelming - it’s like Coachella for people who like books better than bands. (Coincidentally, both events have happened on the same weekend for the past few years. It’s a tough call, but the fact that Festival of Books is free, and the fact that I don’t have to trek to a remote desert have meant the festival has been victorious every year so far.)

After a late night on Friday at the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Awards, I arrived at the festival this morning just in time for the Gore Vidal session. Vidal, who, as Jane Smiley said in her introduction, has been reviled in every place a decent person would wish to be reviled.

Smiley gamely led off with a question about Vidal’s novel Creation, which she indicated that he had asked her to read in preparation for the interview. But Vidal, in his typical cantankerous fashion, was having none of it. Instead, with the most cursory of transitions, he spent the first fifteen minutes on a monologue about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Smiley had to buckle in for the ride.

Vidal is a national treasure, and I despair at seeing him in a wheelchair. He has such faith in this country and its ideals, and a real optimism that they will be restored. He’s a different, dying breed; an intellectual, a contrarian, a gentleman.

He told stories about Charles Lindburgh, about Benjamin Franklin, about Ayn Rand. He eventually discussed Creation, much to Smiley’s relief. His quips and insights glided effortlessly between the sixth century and the twenty-first.

Smiley ended the interview by asking Vidal what’s the best revenge, to which he croaked, “survival,” and he really savored the word. When the Q&A was over, the packed house gave him a second standing ovation.

I nearly gave up on the festival after that, with my lack of sleep and hot sun ganging up on me, but I decided to tough it out, and popped into a mystery panel called “Cruel and Unusual.” I admit, I mainly went to see if local hero (and New York Times bestseller) Christopher Rice was as hot in person as he is in his publicity photographs. Is that shallow? Well, in any case, he is. And the discussion was interesting enough to make me want to stick around, even if he hadn’t been.

The panel also featured Stuart Woods, the mystery novelist with a protagonist named Stone Barrington. Now, I’m not snobby about genre fiction, but I don’t think I would have picked up a book with a hero named Stone Barrington before hearing Mr. Woods speak. But, Woods is fantastic. Funny, articulate, unpretentious, tells good stories, works hard. And when I say works hard, I mean to the tune of more than 30 novels in 25 years.

Woods is exactly the sort of writer I’d like to be, in a lot of ways; he treats writing like a job, and believes firmly that the primary goal of fiction is to entertain. (Wonder what Gore Vidal would say about that.) On the topic of overly ponderous fiction, he cites Mark Twain’s review of Henry James: “once you put it down, you can’t pick it up.”

Finally, I crashed the second half of Ray Bradbury’s talk at Royce Hall. It was the second old master in a wheelchair of the day on the Royce Hall stage, and I enjoyed Bradbury nearly as much as I enjoyed Vidal. Although, Bradbury anchored his talk around the need to act out of love, and in this way (and most others) was much less ornery than Vidal. He described his writing as a lark, and demanded that his audience follow his example, and take seriously the things they most want to do in life, and start working toward those things.