For immediate release
April 12, 2010
L.A.'s most famous "unknown" author John Fante gets a 101st birthday bus tour
WHAT: Esotouric's "John Fante's Dreams from Bunker Hill" bus and walking tour with the author's daughter Vickie Fante Cohen along for the ride
WHEN: Saturday April 17, 12pm-4pm, departs from Clifton's Cafeteria, 648 South Broadway, Los Angeles, California 90014
COST: $58/person
MORE INFO: visit http://www.esotouric.com or call 323-223-2767
LOS ANGELES- On April 8, the 101st birthday of L.A. author John Fante, the City of Los Angeles officially designated the intersection of 5th & Grand, beside the Central Library, as John Fante Square. After many decades as the obscure favorite of literary insiders, Fante has made a quantum leap into public awareness, with tens of thousands of Angelenos passing through his Square each day. Come celebrate John Fante's new-found fame with L.A.'s most interesting bus tour company, Esotouric, and their once-a-year tour JOHN FANTE'S DREAMS FROM BUNKER HILL.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Fante (1909-1983) was Charles Bukowski's favorite writer, his "Ask the Dust" was the book Robert Towne wanted to film after "Chinatown" (it finally was made in 2006 starring Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek, and Donald Sutherland) and he is honored with an annual festival in Italy. And while his fame in his adopted city has been slow to arrive, Fante might be the funniest, most heartwarming, honest and appealing writer to ever take this city as his subject.
ABOUT THE TOUR: On April 17, Esotouric rolls out its annual literary bus and walking tour, JOHN FANTE'S DREAMS FROM BUNKER HILL, a chance to discover a great writer and the lost downtown he celebrated, through the narration of Esotouric's Richard Schave, the L.A. historian who proposed the Fante Square designation. Downtown Los Angeles is a neighborhood to watch, but the New Downtown exists on the footprint of a fascinating old neighborhood whose stories are in danger of being lost. Many of Esotouric's tours are devoted to revealing this lost downtown, from the burlesque and freak show delights of Main Street Vice to the secret post war woman's history of The Real Black Dahlia to the architectural anthropology of The Lowdown on Downtown. On JOHN FANTE'S DREAMS OF BUNKER HILL, passengers walk and ride in the footsteps of Fante and his anti-hero Arturo Bandini, from the lost Bunker Hill Victorian rooming houses where Fante starved and dreamed of fame, the main library where he roamed the stacks (and later, where Bukowski discovered "Ask the Dust"), the Skid Row bars where b-girls pocketed his royalty payments, on the newly restored Angels Flight Railway, the Grand Central Market where kindly Japanese farmers gave the poor writer free oranges, to the retirement home Angelus Plaza to see Kay Martin's stunning paintings of Bunker Hill's mansions just before the city condemned them.
ABOUT THE TOUR GUESTS: Special guests on the April 17 tour are John Fante's daughter, Vickie Fante Cohen, and Gordon Pattison, whose family was the last hold out against eminent domain of historic Bunker Hill and owned the last two houses on the hill, the Saltbox and the Castle.
Get on the bus to bask in the spirit of the weird old L.A. that's not there anymore, where a poor Italian-American Colorado kid could sell a novel, become a screenwriter, and inspire a new generation of writers just by telling the raw and funny truth. And eventually, even get a street corner outside the main city library named in his honor!
To learn more about Esotouric's forthcoming tour of John Fante's Bunker Hill, visit
http://www.esotouric.com/fante
Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule
Sat April 17 - John Fante's Dreams from Bunker Hill
Sat April 24 – Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's L.A.
Sat May 1 - Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour with Crimebo the Clown
Sat May 8 - Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour
Sat May 15 - The Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour
Sat May 22 - The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain's So. Cal Nightmare
Sat June 5 - Weird Adams crime bus tour
Sat June 26 - Eastside Babylon crime bus tour
Sat July 10 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
Sat July 24 - Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's L.A.
Sun Aug 1- Reyner Banham Loves LA: South Los Angeles
Sat Aug 7- Reyner Banham Loves LA: The New Chinatowns
Sat Aug 14 - Reyner Banham Loves LA: Route 66
Sat Aug 28 - Reyner Banham Loves LA: The Lowdown on Downtown
Esotouric's Kim Cooper and Richard Schave are proud members of LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. http://www.lavatransforms.org
Photographs from the John Fante Square designation ceremony are available on request. See the set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardschave/sets/72157623815232098/
Journalists on assignment can usually be accomodated on the Esotouric bus. John Fante bus tour host and Fante Square nominator Richard Schave is available for interviews, as are John Fante's children. Contact Kim at amscrayATgmailDOTcom, 323-223-2767.
