Tomorrow I will go out and find my Mexican Princess
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serai.
Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
-- Ask the Dust
Tomorrow at 11 a.m., John Fante will be honored by his adopted hometown with the naming of the corner of 5th and Grand downtown as "John Fante Square". I'll be going down to see the ceremony.
It was in 1985 that I first heard Fante's immortal words of love for my city, when I tuned in to Mike Hodel's Hour 25 and heard Harlan Ellison read an excerpt from Ask the Dust. I fell in love instantly and went out the next day to find the book. It was everything the reading of those few pages promised - dreamy, down-to-earth, dry, observant, impassioned, hopeful, resigned. Best of all, it was a voice that knew L.A. I was too young to experience it the way Fante did in the 30's, but a little of that "sad flower in the sand" still remained. Many of those buildings were still there downtown when I was a child - Grand Central Market still bustled, the little Italian grocery store and the Million Dollar Theater and Clifton's and best of all, the Angel's Flight Trolley. He put into words what I felt about Los Angeles, and still do, better than anyone else I've ever read. After years of hearing my city be put down and eyerolled at, I'd found someone who articulated the reasons I've always loved the place where I grew up.
So I'll be there to see Fante honored, you better believe it. It'll be a pleasure to see him finally get his due from the town he loved so much.
Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
-- Ask the Dust
Tomorrow at 11 a.m., John Fante will be honored by his adopted hometown with the naming of the corner of 5th and Grand downtown as "John Fante Square". I'll be going down to see the ceremony.
It was in 1985 that I first heard Fante's immortal words of love for my city, when I tuned in to Mike Hodel's Hour 25 and heard Harlan Ellison read an excerpt from Ask the Dust. I fell in love instantly and went out the next day to find the book. It was everything the reading of those few pages promised - dreamy, down-to-earth, dry, observant, impassioned, hopeful, resigned. Best of all, it was a voice that knew L.A. I was too young to experience it the way Fante did in the 30's, but a little of that "sad flower in the sand" still remained. Many of those buildings were still there downtown when I was a child - Grand Central Market still bustled, the little Italian grocery store and the Million Dollar Theater and Clifton's and best of all, the Angel's Flight Trolley. He put into words what I felt about Los Angeles, and still do, better than anyone else I've ever read. After years of hearing my city be put down and eyerolled at, I'd found someone who articulated the reasons I've always loved the place where I grew up.
So I'll be there to see Fante honored, you better believe it. It'll be a pleasure to see him finally get his due from the town he loved so much.
