Vis-À-Vis: “Writing On The City, Writing On The Margins”

The G2 Gallery in Venice, California was the setting for the second Vis-À-Vis panel of the day. On the second floor of this venue, the audience was seated in the “Visions of the Arctic” color photography exhibition area. It was a larger space than the first panel’s venue and the established seating was adequate. However, the event was running behind schedule and the panel session began about a half hour later than expected. Before the panel began, copies of “Fiction France: A Selection of French Contemporary Fiction To Be Read And Translated” dated March 2009 were handed out to the audience.

This second panel’s authors were James Frey (Bright Shiny Morning), Richard Lange (This Wicked World), and Jean Rolin (Christians in Palestine) and the panel moderator was Olivier Barrot. Once again the panel focus was on the reading of excerpts from the authors’ works. James Frey read an excerpt from his book Bright Shiny Morning. Frey, who used to live in Venice, California from 1995 to 2002, said that his book has no single protagonist or story. He also revealed that about seventy-five percent of the statistics in the book are accurate with the remaining twenty-five percent being inaccurate (he made them up to serve his own purposes with the novel). The question then becomes, does Frey tell the reader which of the statistics are accurate and which are inaccurate?

Next, instead of from This Wicked World, Jean Rolin read in French, an excerpt from “Culver City”, a short story from Richard Lange’s Dead Boys. Then Lange read that same excerpt in English. Lange had attended film school at the University of Southern California, but discovered he did not enjoy the collaborative nature of film making and turned to writing. Los Angeles is the city that Lange really loves.

Finally, Jean Rolin read his entry in “Fiction France” (mentioned above), which is an excerpt from Un Chien Mort Après Lui (A Dead Dog After Him), while the French-reading people in the audience followed along in the publication. Rolin is in Los Angeles learning how to get around using the public transportation system. He recounted his travels from Los Angeles to Calabasas and from Long Beach to Malibu via bus and rail, remarking on the length of time it took to complete those two journeys. Rolin is doing this public transportation activity as part of his preparation for his next work. Besides, the only car he can drive is a Renault Ford and there probably aren’t too many of them in Los Angeles.

It was Jean Rolin’s book Christians in Palestine that I bought at the end of the session. This is a new subject for me, but sure to give a perspective on the Middle East not usually known. Unfortunately Jean Rolin had left by the time I bought the paperback, so I was unable to have him sign the book or talk to him. As I am also a taker of public transportation, I wanted to share my views of the bus traveler’s life in Los Angeles. Oh well, perhaps someday we’ll meet on a, sometimes inaccurately named, Rapid bus. Until then – Bon Voyage!


Images:
Left: Front cover of Bright Shiny Morning from the website visavisla.blogspot.com
Center: Front cover of This Wicked World from the website visavisla.blogspot.com

Right: Front cover of Christians in Palestine from the website visavisla.blogspot.com