The original version of this newsletter was sent out on Tuesday, April 14.
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Hello, fellow bookworms!
This week, our incredible Assistant Editor Tiana Molony takes us to L.A. in the ’60s and ’70s through the eyes of Eve Babitz in her book Slow Days, Fast Company. I definitely need to add Babitz to my list; this kind of vibe sounds like a welcome escape!
In exciting upcoming news, make sure to mark your calendars for the upcoming Santa Barbara Literary Festival, May 2-3!
Happy reading!
—Tessa, allbooked@independent.com
Where has Eve Babitz been all my life? It’s a question I routinely asked myself while reading her 1977 semi-autobiographical masterpiece, Slow Days, Fast Company. I came across it while desperately searching through a list of “must-read” essay collections, convinced I had read them all, and decided to give Babitz a try.
In Slow Days, Fast Company, Babitz blends the real and imagined through a series of interconnected essays set primarily in 1960s and ’70s Los Angeles — a time that feels elusive to those of us who weren’t there to experience it.
Though she’s well known for her relationships with the likes of Jim Morrison and Harrison Ford, and for playing chess naked with Marcel Duchamp, reading her work, you realize those conquests are the least interesting things about her.
She tells tales of raw, unfiltered, and sometimes racy encounters with her lovers and friends, taking us to iconic spots such as the Chateau Marmont, where she writes about a drunken, cocaine-fueled afternoon with her friends Mary and Gabrielle — the latter believed to be Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas. Though she largely uses pseudonyms in the book, readers quickly figured it out.
There’s no denying it: Babitz was that girl, right in the center of the scene, attending parties with some of Hollywood’s biggest names.
In a particularly compelling story, Babitz takes the reader to Palm Springs with her lover, Shawn, who pops up frequently throughout the book, and her friend Nikki. They arrive on a Friday and wait for their other friends on Saturday. Here, we get a perfect example of Babitz’s writing — witty, sharp, and as entertaining as it is precise — as she captures that familiar delirium of waiting:
“There was to be a noon, but we had learned from the morning that it was going to happen somewhere in the distant future, and meanwhile we actually began to laugh at how the time had so easily snapped our lives like old sticks.”
Reading her, I felt as if I were Babitz’s close friend, following her around Los Angeles from one iconic place to the next. What will we do next? I thought. Where will we go? When she talks about going to one of her favorite restaurants, Ports, I imagine myself there — tucked into a booth with my old friend Eve, a drink in hand, gossiping to the steady rhythm of rain outside.
And when she turns inward, the effect is just as striking. On why she had broken off two engagements, she touches on that familiar feeling of uncertainty, of making the wrong decision out of fear that something better exists: “I was impatient with ordinary sunsets; I was sure that somewhere a grandiose carnival was going on in the sky and I was missing it.”
In Slow Days, Fast Company, Babitz colorizes her thoughts — bringing ordinary black-and-white observations vividly to life.
At the time of this writing, I am already halfway through her book Black Swans and becoming increasingly worried about the day when I run out of Babitz to read.
—Tiana Molony
UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS
Below, you will find a few bookish events coming up in Santa Barbara. If you are hosting a bookish event in Santa Barbara, be sure to submit the event to our online events calendar.
Bilingual Songs & Stories for Kids
Tuesday, April 14, 11 a.m. | Eastside Library, MLK Jr. Rm.
S.B. Central Library: Celebrate Your Freedom to Read! “Banned Book in Common” Discussion
Tuesday, April 14, 5:30 p.m. | S.B. Central Library
Book Talk & Signing: Monte Schulz, Undercity
Tuesday, April 14, 6 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
Spirits in the Air: Potent Potable Poetry
Wednesday, April 15, 4:30 p.m. | The Good Lion
Award-Winning Journalist and Author Masha Gessen
Wednesday, April 15, 7:30 p.m. | Campbell Hall, UCSB
Montecito Library Poetry Club
Thursday, April 16, 10 a.m. | Montecito Library
Godmothers Gather: Emma Grede, Start with Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life
Thursday, April 16, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
Trail Talks: More Mesa: Trails, Natural Resources, and Conservation with John Storrer
Thursday, April 16, 6 p.m. | S.B. Central Library
Presidio Chapel: Poetry in Parks
Friday, April 17, 5:30 pm. | Presidio Chapel
SBPL Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros: Celebrating the Wonderful Abilities Every Child Brings to the World
Saturday, April 18, 10 a.m. | S.B. Central Library
Storytime at the Sea Center
Saturday, April 18, 10:30 a.m. | S.B. Museum of Natural History Sea Center
Goleta Community Center Horror Book Club: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Saturday, April 18, 1p.m. | Goleta Community Center
Tecolote Book Signing: Dr. John La Puma, Indoor Epidemic
Saturday, April 18, 3 p.m. | Tecolote Book Shop
Chaucer’s Storytime: Simone Ruskamp and Reyna Harris, We Were Here, We Are Here: A Living History of Black Santa Barbara
Sunday, April 19, 2 p.m | Chaucer’s Books
Goleta Valley Library Poetry Club
Sunday, April 19, 2 p.m. | Goleta Community Center
Godmothers Gather: Blair Underwood, A Soldier’s Wife: My Mother, the Marvelous Mrs. Marilyn A. Underwood
Sunday, April 19, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
Godmothers Gather: Janet Echelman, Radical Softness
Monday, April 20, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
Godmothers Gather: Geneen Roth, Love, Finally: Untangling the Knot Between Mothers, Daughters, and Food
Tuesday, April 21, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
A&L Presents Bill McKibben: Here Comes the Sun
Tuesday, April 21, 7:30 p.m. | Campbell Hall, UCSB
Community Poetry Readings with UCSB Reads and Goleta Valley Library
Wednesday, April 22, 4 p.m. | UCSB Library, Instruction & Training Room 1312
Godmothers Gather: Jennie Garth, I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose & Embracing Reinvention
Thursday, April 23, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
Solvang Library Magpie Book Club
Saturday, April 25, 1:30 p.m. | Solvang Library
Godmothers Gather: Kate Bowler, Joyful, Anyway
Saturday, April 25, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
Godmothers Gather: Kerry Docherty, Molly Rosen & Jordana Brewster, Selfish: Unlearning, Reclaiming & Telling the Truth
Sunday, April 26, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
Godmothers Gather: Libby Ward & Samantha Rose, Honest Motherhood: On Losing My Mind and Finding Myself
Monday, April 27, 6 p.m. | Godmothers
S.B. SPOTLIGHT
We at the Independent get many books sent to us by area authors, sometimes too many! It’s practically impossible for us to read and review them all, but just because we are busy bees does not mean that they aren’t worth the attention. In an attempt to not completely drop the ball, we have compiled a list of books here that are either written by a Santa Barbara author, feature someone in our community, or have another tie to Santa Barbara. I urge you to look through this list. Perhaps you will find your new favorite read!
The following are the most recent titles that have been sent to us.
Dating Under the Influence of Estrogen by Jann Winford
If you are a local author and would like us to feature your book in this section, please email allbooked@independent.com with the subject line “S.B. Spotlight.”
Book Reviews Courtesy of CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS*
Thanks to the generous contributions of David Starkey, Brian Tanguay and their team of reviewers at California Review of Books, we are able to provide a steady stream of book reviews via our content partnership. Recent reviews at Independent.com include:
A Place in the World by Bill Gaythwaite; review by David Starkey
*At the present time, all of the Independent’s book reviews are provided in collaboration with California Review of Books (calirb.com).
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