LA Times Festival of Books – April 25, 2009

Timothy Green, author of "American Fractal" and editor of "Rattle - Poetry for the 21st Century"

This thing is huge. You can see the numbers printed in the newspaper but when you get there and actually see it, it’s overwhelming. So many booths are saturated with piles of people that it’s difficult to tell what is in them. The signs on each booth are consistently white with blue text, no variation in font, color or graphic. I’m sure that the condo association would be happy but it makes it difficult to tell what the booths are about.

Yes, I know, you want to know about the food. As did I. Once you park and sail the shuttle through Westwood Village and get to the festival, you’re ready for refreshments of some sort. Well, I was anyway. I’m not sure why I was surprised that it was all corporate. You can choose from such things as California Pizza Kitchen, Panda Express, Rubio’s, etc. You’re not going to find Thomas Keller here or the creative chef from down the street, but the food choices are not horrible and no more of a rip off than one would expect from this sort of thing. $10.00 for a Thai Chicken Pizza from California Pizza Kitchen or $7.00 for a cheeseburger and chips from the burger joint. Pretty mediocre, but not horrid. My cohorts and I shared a pizza just to get us through until we had time to get the lay of the land.

Filed under: Events, Joanne Baines, American Fractal, LA Times Festival of Books, Marilynne Robinson, Poems, Rattle, T.C. Boyle, Timothy Green