Author: David Del Valle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781593939816
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 458
Book Description
This is the HARDBACK version. David Del Valle, writer, curator, collector, and Hollywood historian, takes you on a first person tour of the man-made Shangri La beneath the Hollywood sign, ultimately descending into the smog-shrouded netherworld of Lost Horizons. His candid recollections prove to be a celebration of contrasts, as David hangs out with the reigning pop culture icons of the day, Timothy Leary, Christopher Isherwood, Terry Southern, and Kenneth Anger. David maintained a life-long passion for those artisans that created the Horror genre. He grew up as a monster-watching kid of the 1950s, watching those films unfold on television, and his interactions with genre personalities like Vampira, John Carradine, Christopher Lee, and Barbara Steele testify to his devotion to their legacy. The book also delves into his long relationships with Vincent Price and Curtis Harrington during twenty-five years of living in Beverly Hills, as well as unforgettable moments such as introducing Hermione Baddeley to the Avant Garde filmmaker Rainer Fassbinder in a West Hollywood leather bar while Martha Raye searched her purse for poppers. Ken Russell, one of David's favorite directors, was fond of reminding David "Every day in Tinsle town is Halloween." Enter the realm of Lost Horizons and discover that you are no longer a tourist. You are now one of the attractions.
Lost Horizons Beneath the Hollywood Sign (Hardback)
Author: David Del Valle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781593939816
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 458
Book Description
This is the HARDBACK version. David Del Valle, writer, curator, collector, and Hollywood historian, takes you on a first person tour of the man-made Shangri La beneath the Hollywood sign, ultimately descending into the smog-shrouded netherworld of Lost Horizons. His candid recollections prove to be a celebration of contrasts, as David hangs out with the reigning pop culture icons of the day, Timothy Leary, Christopher Isherwood, Terry Southern, and Kenneth Anger. David maintained a life-long passion for those artisans that created the Horror genre. He grew up as a monster-watching kid of the 1950s, watching those films unfold on television, and his interactions with genre personalities like Vampira, John Carradine, Christopher Lee, and Barbara Steele testify to his devotion to their legacy. The book also delves into his long relationships with Vincent Price and Curtis Harrington during twenty-five years of living in Beverly Hills, as well as unforgettable moments such as introducing Hermione Baddeley to the Avant Garde filmmaker Rainer Fassbinder in a West Hollywood leather bar while Martha Raye searched her purse for poppers. Ken Russell, one of David's favorite directors, was fond of reminding David "Every day in Tinsle town is Halloween." Enter the realm of Lost Horizons and discover that you are no longer a tourist. You are now one of the attractions.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781593939816
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 458
Book Description
This is the HARDBACK version. David Del Valle, writer, curator, collector, and Hollywood historian, takes you on a first person tour of the man-made Shangri La beneath the Hollywood sign, ultimately descending into the smog-shrouded netherworld of Lost Horizons. His candid recollections prove to be a celebration of contrasts, as David hangs out with the reigning pop culture icons of the day, Timothy Leary, Christopher Isherwood, Terry Southern, and Kenneth Anger. David maintained a life-long passion for those artisans that created the Horror genre. He grew up as a monster-watching kid of the 1950s, watching those films unfold on television, and his interactions with genre personalities like Vampira, John Carradine, Christopher Lee, and Barbara Steele testify to his devotion to their legacy. The book also delves into his long relationships with Vincent Price and Curtis Harrington during twenty-five years of living in Beverly Hills, as well as unforgettable moments such as introducing Hermione Baddeley to the Avant Garde filmmaker Rainer Fassbinder in a West Hollywood leather bar while Martha Raye searched her purse for poppers. Ken Russell, one of David's favorite directors, was fond of reminding David "Every day in Tinsle town is Halloween." Enter the realm of Lost Horizons and discover that you are no longer a tourist. You are now one of the attractions.
Lost Horizons Beneath the Hollywood Sign
Author: David Del Valle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781593936075
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
David Del Valle, writer, curator, collector, and Hollywood historian, takes you on a first person tour of the man-made Shangri La beneath the Hollywood sign, ultimately descending into the smog-shrouded netherworld of Lost Horizons. His candid recollections prove to be a celebration of contrasts, as David hangs out with the reigning pop culture icons of the day, Timothy Leary, Christopher Isherwood, Terry Southern, and Kenneth Anger. David maintained a life-long passion for those artisans that created the Horror genre. He grew up as a monster-watching kid of the 1950s, watching those films unfold on television, and his interactions with genre personalities like Vampira, John Carradine, Christopher Lee, and Barbara Steele testify to his devotion to their legacy. The book also delves into his long relationships with Vincent Price and Curtis Harrington during twenty-five years of living in Beverly Hills, as well as unforgettable moments such as introducing Hermione Baddeley to the Avant Garde filmmaker Rainer Fassbinder in a West Hollywood leather bar while Martha Raye searched her purse for poppers. Ken Russell, one of David's favorite directors, was fond of reminding David "Every day in Tinsle town is Halloween." Enter the realm of Lost Horizons and discover that you are no longer a tourist. You are now one of the attractions.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781593936075
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
David Del Valle, writer, curator, collector, and Hollywood historian, takes you on a first person tour of the man-made Shangri La beneath the Hollywood sign, ultimately descending into the smog-shrouded netherworld of Lost Horizons. His candid recollections prove to be a celebration of contrasts, as David hangs out with the reigning pop culture icons of the day, Timothy Leary, Christopher Isherwood, Terry Southern, and Kenneth Anger. David maintained a life-long passion for those artisans that created the Horror genre. He grew up as a monster-watching kid of the 1950s, watching those films unfold on television, and his interactions with genre personalities like Vampira, John Carradine, Christopher Lee, and Barbara Steele testify to his devotion to their legacy. The book also delves into his long relationships with Vincent Price and Curtis Harrington during twenty-five years of living in Beverly Hills, as well as unforgettable moments such as introducing Hermione Baddeley to the Avant Garde filmmaker Rainer Fassbinder in a West Hollywood leather bar while Martha Raye searched her purse for poppers. Ken Russell, one of David's favorite directors, was fond of reminding David "Every day in Tinsle town is Halloween." Enter the realm of Lost Horizons and discover that you are no longer a tourist. You are now one of the attractions.
The Bipolar Express
Author: David Coleman
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810891948
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 383
Book Description
In the past few decades, awareness of bipolar disorder has significantly increased, but understanding of the condition remains vague for most of the general public. Though the term itself is relatively recent, the condition has affected individuals for centuries—and no more profoundly than in the arts. The historical connections among manic depression and such fields as literature, music, and painting have been previously documented. However, the impact of bipolar disorder on movie makers and its depiction on the screen has yet to be thoroughly examined. In The Bipolar Express: Manic Depression and the Movies, David Coleman provides an in-depth examination of the entwined natures of mood disorders and moviemaking. In this volume, Colemanlooks at the writers, directors, and actors who have faced the mood swings and behavior that are hallmarks of this condition—from Greta Garbo and Orson Welles to Marilyn Monroe and Jonathan Winters. In addition to recognizing the cinematic contributions of manic depressive filmmakers, the author also looks at movies that have portrayed bipolar disorder—with varying degrees of accuracy—including Citizen Kane, Rebel without a Cause, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Aviator, and Silver Linings Playbook. From early silents of the twentieth century through critically acclaimed films of today, this book compares depictions of mood swings on screen with clinical examples of actual manic depression, carefully distinguishing real from stereotypical portrayals. This fascinating study is augmented by a concise filmography of more than 400 feature-length films from around the world with themes or characters relating to manic depressive illness. Though aimed at film fans and anyone interested in manic depression, mental illness, or related medical studies, this book will also prove valuable to medical and mental health professionals.
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810891948
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 383
Book Description
In the past few decades, awareness of bipolar disorder has significantly increased, but understanding of the condition remains vague for most of the general public. Though the term itself is relatively recent, the condition has affected individuals for centuries—and no more profoundly than in the arts. The historical connections among manic depression and such fields as literature, music, and painting have been previously documented. However, the impact of bipolar disorder on movie makers and its depiction on the screen has yet to be thoroughly examined. In The Bipolar Express: Manic Depression and the Movies, David Coleman provides an in-depth examination of the entwined natures of mood disorders and moviemaking. In this volume, Colemanlooks at the writers, directors, and actors who have faced the mood swings and behavior that are hallmarks of this condition—from Greta Garbo and Orson Welles to Marilyn Monroe and Jonathan Winters. In addition to recognizing the cinematic contributions of manic depressive filmmakers, the author also looks at movies that have portrayed bipolar disorder—with varying degrees of accuracy—including Citizen Kane, Rebel without a Cause, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Aviator, and Silver Linings Playbook. From early silents of the twentieth century through critically acclaimed films of today, this book compares depictions of mood swings on screen with clinical examples of actual manic depression, carefully distinguishing real from stereotypical portrayals. This fascinating study is augmented by a concise filmography of more than 400 feature-length films from around the world with themes or characters relating to manic depressive illness. Though aimed at film fans and anyone interested in manic depression, mental illness, or related medical studies, this book will also prove valuable to medical and mental health professionals.
Hollywood's New Yorker
Author: Marc Raymond
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438445733
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
When Martin Scorsese finally won an Academy Award in 2007, for The Departed, it was widely viewed as the crowning achievement of a remarkable film career. But what it also represented was an acceptance by Hollywood of a man who became a prestigious auteur precisely because of his status as an outsider from New York. For someone with a high-culture reputation like Scorsese's, this middlebrow sign of respectability was not about cultural standing; rather, it was about using and even sacrificing his distinctive outsider status for a greater share of industry authority within the world of Hollywood. In Hollywood's New Yorker, Marc Raymond offers a fresh look at Scorsese's career in relation to the critical and social environment of the past fifty years. He traces Scorsese's career and films through his association with various cultural institutions, from his role as a student and instructor at New York University, to his move to Hollywood and his relationship with the studio system, to his relationship with prestigious institutions like the Museum of Modern Art. This sociological approach to film authorship provides analysis of previously overlooked Scorsese projects, particularly his documentary work, and gives importance to the role his extracurricular activities in the film preservation movement have played in the rise of his reputation. Hollywood's New Yorker places Scorsese and his films firmly within the various time periods of his career and compares the director with his peers, from fellow New Yorkers like Brian De Palma and Woody Allen to New Hollywood movie brats such as Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. The result is a complete picture of Scorsese and the post–World War II American film culture he has both shaped and been shaped by.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438445733
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
When Martin Scorsese finally won an Academy Award in 2007, for The Departed, it was widely viewed as the crowning achievement of a remarkable film career. But what it also represented was an acceptance by Hollywood of a man who became a prestigious auteur precisely because of his status as an outsider from New York. For someone with a high-culture reputation like Scorsese's, this middlebrow sign of respectability was not about cultural standing; rather, it was about using and even sacrificing his distinctive outsider status for a greater share of industry authority within the world of Hollywood. In Hollywood's New Yorker, Marc Raymond offers a fresh look at Scorsese's career in relation to the critical and social environment of the past fifty years. He traces Scorsese's career and films through his association with various cultural institutions, from his role as a student and instructor at New York University, to his move to Hollywood and his relationship with the studio system, to his relationship with prestigious institutions like the Museum of Modern Art. This sociological approach to film authorship provides analysis of previously overlooked Scorsese projects, particularly his documentary work, and gives importance to the role his extracurricular activities in the film preservation movement have played in the rise of his reputation. Hollywood's New Yorker places Scorsese and his films firmly within the various time periods of his career and compares the director with his peers, from fellow New Yorkers like Brian De Palma and Woody Allen to New Hollywood movie brats such as Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. The result is a complete picture of Scorsese and the post–World War II American film culture he has both shaped and been shaped by.
Enduring Courage: Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed
Author: John F. Ross
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250033780
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
The sensational true story of Eddie Rickenbacker, America's greatest flying ace At the turn of the twentieth century two new technologies—the car and airplane—took the nation's imagination by storm as they burst, like comets, into American life. The brave souls that leaped into these dangerous contraptions and pushed them to unexplored extremes became new American heroes: the race car driver and the flying ace. No individual did more to create and intensify these raw new roles than the tall, gangly Eddie Rickenbacker, who defied death over and over with such courage and pluck that a generation of Americans came to know his face better than the president's. The son of poor, German-speaking Swiss immigrants in Columbus, Ohio, Rickenbacker overcame the specter of his father's violent death, a debilitating handicap, and, later, accusations of being a German spy, to become the American military ace of aces in World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient. He and his high-spirited, all-too-short-lived pilot comrades, created a new kind of aviation warfare, as they pushed their machines to the edge of destruction—and often over it—without parachutes, radios, or radar. Enduring Courage is the electrifying story of the beginning of America's love affair with speed—and how one man above all the rest showed a nation the way forward. No simple daredevil, he was an innovator on the racetrack, a skilled aerial dualist and squadron commander, and founder of Eastern Air Lines. Decades after his heroics against the Red Baron's Flying Circus, he again showed a war-weary nation what it took to survive against nearly insurmountable odds when he and seven others endured a harrowing three-week ordeal adrift without food or water in the Pacific during World War II. For the first time, Enduring Courage peels back the layers of hero to reveal the man himself. With impeccable research and a gripping narrative, John F. Ross tells the unforgettable story of a man who pushed the limits of speed, endurance and courage and emerged as an American legend.
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250033780
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
The sensational true story of Eddie Rickenbacker, America's greatest flying ace At the turn of the twentieth century two new technologies—the car and airplane—took the nation's imagination by storm as they burst, like comets, into American life. The brave souls that leaped into these dangerous contraptions and pushed them to unexplored extremes became new American heroes: the race car driver and the flying ace. No individual did more to create and intensify these raw new roles than the tall, gangly Eddie Rickenbacker, who defied death over and over with such courage and pluck that a generation of Americans came to know his face better than the president's. The son of poor, German-speaking Swiss immigrants in Columbus, Ohio, Rickenbacker overcame the specter of his father's violent death, a debilitating handicap, and, later, accusations of being a German spy, to become the American military ace of aces in World War I and a Medal of Honor recipient. He and his high-spirited, all-too-short-lived pilot comrades, created a new kind of aviation warfare, as they pushed their machines to the edge of destruction—and often over it—without parachutes, radios, or radar. Enduring Courage is the electrifying story of the beginning of America's love affair with speed—and how one man above all the rest showed a nation the way forward. No simple daredevil, he was an innovator on the racetrack, a skilled aerial dualist and squadron commander, and founder of Eastern Air Lines. Decades after his heroics against the Red Baron's Flying Circus, he again showed a war-weary nation what it took to survive against nearly insurmountable odds when he and seven others endured a harrowing three-week ordeal adrift without food or water in the Pacific during World War II. For the first time, Enduring Courage peels back the layers of hero to reveal the man himself. With impeccable research and a gripping narrative, John F. Ross tells the unforgettable story of a man who pushed the limits of speed, endurance and courage and emerged as an American legend.
Pictures at a Revolution
Author: Mark Harris
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781594201523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 522
Book Description
Documents the cultural revolution behind the making of 1967's five Best Picture-nominated films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, Doctor Doolittle, In the Heat of the Night, and Bonnie and Clyde, in an account that discusses how the movies reflected period beliefs about race, violence, and identity. 40,000 first printing.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781594201523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 522
Book Description
Documents the cultural revolution behind the making of 1967's five Best Picture-nominated films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, Doctor Doolittle, In the Heat of the Night, and Bonnie and Clyde, in an account that discusses how the movies reflected period beliefs about race, violence, and identity. 40,000 first printing.
Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and The Studio System
Author: Thomas Schatz
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
The central thesis of this book is that a genre approach provides the most effective means for understanding, analyzing and appreciating the Hollywood cinema. Taking into account not only the formal and aesthetic aspects of feature filmmaking, but various other cultural aspects as well, the genre approach treats movie production as a dynamic process of exchange between the film industry and its audience. This process, embodied by the Hollywood studio system, has been sustained primarily through genres, those popular narrative formulas like the Western, musical and gangster film, which have dominated the screen arts throughout this century.
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
The central thesis of this book is that a genre approach provides the most effective means for understanding, analyzing and appreciating the Hollywood cinema. Taking into account not only the formal and aesthetic aspects of feature filmmaking, but various other cultural aspects as well, the genre approach treats movie production as a dynamic process of exchange between the film industry and its audience. This process, embodied by the Hollywood studio system, has been sustained primarily through genres, those popular narrative formulas like the Western, musical and gangster film, which have dominated the screen arts throughout this century.
Leaving Las Vegas
Author: John O'Brien
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802197299
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
This “brutal and unflinching” novel of fleeting love in Sin City inspired the film starring Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue (Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City). John O’Brien’s debut novel, Leaving Las Vegas, is an emotionally wrenching story of a woman who embraces life and a man who rejects it; a powerful tale of hard luck, hard drinking, and a relationship of tenderness and destruction. An avowed alcoholic, Ben drinks away his family, friends, and, finally, his job. With deliberate resolve, he burns the remnants of his life and heads for Las Vegas to end it all in the last great binge of his hopeless life. On the Strip, he picks up Sera, a prostitute, in what might have become another excess in his self-destructive jag. Instead, their chance meeting becomes a respite on the road to oblivion as they form a bond that is as mysterious as it is immutable.
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802197299
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
This “brutal and unflinching” novel of fleeting love in Sin City inspired the film starring Nicholas Cage and Elizabeth Shue (Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City). John O’Brien’s debut novel, Leaving Las Vegas, is an emotionally wrenching story of a woman who embraces life and a man who rejects it; a powerful tale of hard luck, hard drinking, and a relationship of tenderness and destruction. An avowed alcoholic, Ben drinks away his family, friends, and, finally, his job. With deliberate resolve, he burns the remnants of his life and heads for Las Vegas to end it all in the last great binge of his hopeless life. On the Strip, he picks up Sera, a prostitute, in what might have become another excess in his self-destructive jag. Instead, their chance meeting becomes a respite on the road to oblivion as they form a bond that is as mysterious as it is immutable.
Beyond the Sea of Ice
Author: William Sarabande
Publisher: Domain
ISBN: 0553268899
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Stunningly visual, extraordinarily detailed, powerfully dramatic, here is the first volume of a remarkable new series . . . The First Americans. When humans first walked the world, when nature ruled the earth and sky, a proud tribe is threatened by a series of natural disasters. A bold young hunter named Torka, who lost his wife and child to a killer mammoth, leads the survivors over the glacial tundra on a desperate eastward odyssey to the save their clan. Through attacks of savage animals and encounters with strangers not unlike themselves, they must brave the hardships of a foreign landscape and learn to live in an exotic new world of mystery and danger. They must travel toward the land where the sun rises for a new day for their clan—and an awesome future for the American.
Publisher: Domain
ISBN: 0553268899
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Stunningly visual, extraordinarily detailed, powerfully dramatic, here is the first volume of a remarkable new series . . . The First Americans. When humans first walked the world, when nature ruled the earth and sky, a proud tribe is threatened by a series of natural disasters. A bold young hunter named Torka, who lost his wife and child to a killer mammoth, leads the survivors over the glacial tundra on a desperate eastward odyssey to the save their clan. Through attacks of savage animals and encounters with strangers not unlike themselves, they must brave the hardships of a foreign landscape and learn to live in an exotic new world of mystery and danger. They must travel toward the land where the sun rises for a new day for their clan—and an awesome future for the American.
Interior States
Author: Meghan O'Gieblyn
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385543840
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Winner of The Believer Book Award for Nonfiction "Meghan O'Gieblyn's deep and searching essays are written with a precise sort of skepticism and a slight ache in the heart. A first-rate and riveting collection." --Lorrie Moore A fresh, acute, and even profound collection that centers around two core (and related) issues of American identity: faith, in general and the specific forms Christianity takes in particular; and the challenges of living in the Midwest when culture is felt to be elsewhere. What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts? The critic and essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka "Flyover Country." She writes of her "existential dizziness, a sense that the rest of the world is moving while you remain still," and that rich sense of ambivalence and internal division inform the fifteen superbly thoughtful and ironic essays in this collection. The subjects of these essays range from the rebranding (as it were) of Hell in contemporary Christian culture ("Hell"), a theme park devoted to the concept of intelligent design ("Species of Origin"), the paradoxes of Christian Rock ("Sniffing Glue"), Henry Ford's reconstructed pioneer town of Greenfield Village and its mixed messages ("Midwest World"), and the strange convergences of Christian eschatology and the digital so-called Singularity ("Ghosts in the Cloud"). Meghan O'Gieblyn stands in relation to her native Midwest as Joan Didion stands in relation to California - which is to say a whole-hearted lover, albeit one riven with ambivalence at the same time.
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385543840
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Winner of The Believer Book Award for Nonfiction "Meghan O'Gieblyn's deep and searching essays are written with a precise sort of skepticism and a slight ache in the heart. A first-rate and riveting collection." --Lorrie Moore A fresh, acute, and even profound collection that centers around two core (and related) issues of American identity: faith, in general and the specific forms Christianity takes in particular; and the challenges of living in the Midwest when culture is felt to be elsewhere. What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts? The critic and essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka "Flyover Country." She writes of her "existential dizziness, a sense that the rest of the world is moving while you remain still," and that rich sense of ambivalence and internal division inform the fifteen superbly thoughtful and ironic essays in this collection. The subjects of these essays range from the rebranding (as it were) of Hell in contemporary Christian culture ("Hell"), a theme park devoted to the concept of intelligent design ("Species of Origin"), the paradoxes of Christian Rock ("Sniffing Glue"), Henry Ford's reconstructed pioneer town of Greenfield Village and its mixed messages ("Midwest World"), and the strange convergences of Christian eschatology and the digital so-called Singularity ("Ghosts in the Cloud"). Meghan O'Gieblyn stands in relation to her native Midwest as Joan Didion stands in relation to California - which is to say a whole-hearted lover, albeit one riven with ambivalence at the same time.