Advertisement

Newsletter: Great Reads: Wanderlust and L.A.’s real-life ‘His Girl Friday’

Share

Hey there. I'm Kari Howard, and I edit the Great Reads (a.k.a. Column Ones) for the Los Angeles Times.

Two of my biggest loves are narrative journalism and music, and I'm lucky that my days are filled with both: When reading the stories, I get inspired by songs I think fit the article's theme — a soundtrack.

Here are some of the past week's Great Reads, plus their soundtracks.

The car that beat Hitler — and the collectors fighting over who owns it

Will the real "Million Franc" race car please rev your engine? This is a great yarn about a 12-cylinder Delahaye that was arguably the most important car in the racing world eight decades ago. On Aug. 27, 1937, French driver Rene Dreyfus broke a world speed record with the car. Seven months later, Dreyfus and his Delahaye beat a German car at a Grand Prix race in southern France. The victories won Dreyfus a share in a million-franc purse and brought pride to France, but it enraged Adolf Hitler, who couldn't believe that his government-sponsored automobile had been defeated by a French car and a Jewish driver. Today, "the car that beat Hitler" is all but forgotten, except by racing historians, old car buffs — and two elderly millionaire car collectors. Each owns a version of the Delahaye coupe. Each has a historian backing him up. And each claims to own the one, true "Million Franc" race car.

A Delahaye 145 (No. 2) driven by Rene Dreyfus trails a Mercedes-Benz (No. 6) driven by Rudolf Caracciola but went on to win the Grand Prix in Pau, France, on April 11, 1938. (Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

The soundtrack: "Built for Speed," by the Stray Cats. I know they were kind of a gimmicky band, but sometimes their music just hits the spot. Who doesn't love stand-up bass? And I just realized that this soundtrack and the next one both start with car references ("Here I come in my '57" and "Cruising down the street in my '64." Nice bit of auto serendipity.)

The evolution of Father Greg Boyle, from 'Boyz n the Hood' to a calmer L.A.

I moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, when the headlines were full of gang carnage on an industrial scale, inspiring movies such as "Boyz n the Hood" and "Colors" and making "drive-by" part of the country's lexicon. The deaths came hard and fast. During one three-week period, Father Greg Boyle buried eight young men and boys. Few people can lay claim to witnessing the evolution of violence in L.A. like Boyle, probably the city's most famous gang activist. A controversial figure with police, he once brokered gang truces and said that "nothing stops a bullet like a job." But now he says, "After working with gang members for 30 years, I can see that it's about healing."

A coroner's team prepares to examine the body of a gang member killed in a drive-by shooting on 42nd Place. Five Deuce Hoover Crips graffiti can be seen crossed out on the wall of the apartment next door. (Patrick Downs / Los Angeles Times)

The soundtrack: "Boyz-N-The-Hood," by Eazy-E. I looked at Wikipedia to remind me when this came out (and was stunned to learn it was 1988). The entry made me laugh — it's like a scholarly doctoral thesis on a rap song. Intentional? Oh, and favorite part of the song: that it name-checks this paper: "One sucker dead/L.A. Times front page."

The story of the Griffith Park drummer. Get ready to feel joy.

This is such a classic Los Angeles "Great Read" by Mary MacVean. I love it — and not just because it's about music (or the "Soul Train" clip I added to the piece online). I love it because Robin Russell is so many good things about L.A. all in one: He's creative, he appreciates the wildness of the city and he does what brings him joy, even if it isn't your traditional path to success. Here are the first lines: For 14 years now, sometimes three times a week, Robin Russell has gotten up around 3 a.m. and driven his maroon van from Pasadena to the same spot in Griffith Park, not far from the zoo. In the dark, he rakes out a small clearing under an oak tree, unpacks a six-piece drum kit and sets up, everything in its place on an old piece of red carpet. And he plays. He plays if people are there to hear. He plays if the birds and coyotes are the only ones listening. Often he starts under the stars. He plays through sunrise and on into the afternoon. He leaves before dark, the time depending on the season. “Drums were made to play outdoors. That’s what they were for in the beginning,” Russell says.

Robin Russell at Griffith Park. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The soundtrack: "How Good It Feels," by the New Birth. I didn't know this band before I read the story, but its music was such a perfect soundtrack to the story. A bit of an Earth, Wind and Fire vibe, very '70s in the best way.

What I'm reading online

Aeon is one of my go-to online magazines. One of its recent headlines was clickbait for someone like me who dreams of getting a vintage camper and traveling across the country: Wanderlust runs in America's veins. A few of my favorite passages: The US invented the automobile and the road movie, the motel and the mobile home, the drive-thru restaurant, the trailer park and the freight train as a vehicle for nomadic living. There’s a feeling of comfort and stability that comes from being in motion, especially in the big, wide-open spaces of the West, and a feeling of instability when velocity comes to a standstill, akin to a sailor finding his land legs after a voyage at sea. And this, about today's American nomads, the RV retirees: You know you’re living in a restless nation when an estimated quarter-million grandparents choose to say goodbye to their families and communities to live on the road. They tend to travel together in herds, moving from campground to RV park, northwards in summer, and south in winter, with brief annual detours to visit the kids and grandkids. In the desert outside Quartzite, you see them park their RVs in a circle like covered wagons, with a central campfire where these genial enthusiasts gather on lawn chairs for cocktails and cheese snacks.

What's on my bedside table

Actually, it's on my desk at work. Some newsroom ghost knocked "Headline Happy" to the ground the other day, and when I picked it up, I had to reread bits of it because it is so great. Florabel Muir is my Los Angeles journalism hero! She's like a real-life version of the Rosalind Russell character in the wonderful "His Girl Friday." (In fact, I think someone should do a movie about her. I volunteer for the screenplay.) Consider this tremendous passage, in which the cops allow her to traipse through a murder scene involving a gangster (and in which The Times once again gets a shout-out): Perfume pervaded the room from the night-blooming jasmine clustered outside the window through which the deadly shots had been fired. The Los Angeles Times was lying across his knees and on it was stamped: "Good Night. Sleep peacefully with compliments of Jack's." Bloody sections of his shattered brain partially blotted out the eight-column headline telling of another fatal shooting in a poorer section of Los Angeles. As I moved the newspaper to see what he had been reading, blood dripped on my satin evening slippers. Oh, and I love that the link above is to libraries where you can check it out, because on Alibris, it appears to cost $45 and up.

What's on my turntable

Although I spend most of my time listening with headphones to Spotify, sometimes I want to hear the needle touching down on vinyl. That's why I have a turntable in my office — and two at home (one inside, and a battery-powered one outside when the weather's fine — which it usually is in Southern California). This week's vinyl: "Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits." The cover pose is so ladylike — the mustard-yellow dress, the hands clasped demurely in front of her, the high-heeled shoes angled like a prim runway model. In contrast to the buttoned-up femininity is that VOICE. Full of pain and heartbreak and unrequited love. "I've got your picture/She's got you."

Want to chat? Have a great idea for a Great Read? I'm @karihow on Twitter and kari.howard@latimes.com on email.

Advertisement