Welcome to the Bureau of Arts and Culture's New Monthly Interactive Magazine. Download the magazine at the links to the left. We suggest you view the magazine as a two page layout as some articles have a centerfold photographic design. Many of the features are extended on line in audio, simply tap the links & logos to visit and view images related to the Article. We went door to door with a paper edition last year in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, since then we have added sites in New York City, San Francisco, San Diego and Santa Barbara plus the New National Literature site celebrating all things Literary. Last month, we were proud to have BOB MARLEY on The Cover with a featured Interview with Dennis Morris. This month, we have the Legendary Animator & Artist Jules Engel as our Official Guest Illustrator. Jules Engel transformed animation while working for Walt Disney on the ground breaking film: FANTASIA. Also, Exclusive Interviews with Photographers: Andrew Moore, Matt Schwartz and James Gabbard. We also bring you 10 questions with Filmmaker Tom Donahue, Book Store Owner Dennis Wills And Sculptor Colin Sherrell. We invite you backstage with Mark Murphy at REDCAT, Celebrate Miles Davis' 88Th Birthday, give an excerpt from The 'Chapter-A-Day' Novel: " They Call It The City Of Angels ". Plus a 24 Image Essay, Interviews with Tobey C. Moss & Tony Fitzpatrick, Jack Kerouac's Letters, John Coltrane's Influence at Impulse and Elmer Bernstein's Classic Music for: To Kill A Mockingbird. Tap The Images & Links To Visit Some Of The Institutes. Many of The Ads and Images Are Live Links, so you must be On Line. Send Us an E Mail and You May Win A Complimentary Film From One of Our Advertising Sponsors: FIRST RUN FEATURES. We are also proudly welcoming back INDIE Printing as an Official Advertising Sponsor for The Coming Season.
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BOOKS:DENNIS WILLS
Dennis Wills runs D.G.Wills Books in La Jolla CA USA which is having it's 35th Anniversary this year. Guest readers through the years include: Norman Mailer, Russel Means, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Ted Joans, Mary Woronov, Michael McClure, Mort Sahl, Ralph Nader, Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Gore Vidal. Bureau spoke to Dennis about his storied history and this local literary landmark.
Bureau: Your bookstore has a story straight out of literature history. Tell our readers a bit about the store.
DW: I opened the original D. G. Wills Books at 7527 La Jolla Blvd. in late 1979, on an outdoor wooden deck between two buildings, with a tiny adjacent office. While I eventually installed a fiberglass roof over this wooden deck, our first few poetry readings were under the open sky. Artist Francoise Gilot asked us to convert a space adjacent to the bookshop into her artist studio in the late 1980s, as the bookshop reminded her of Paris. But in l991 we moved the bookshop to 7461 Girard Avenue, where my carpenter friends and I remodeled the building and installed the redwood cathedral ceiling and spruce floor.
Bureau: In today's world, the rarity of a place like yours is on par with Shakespeare and Company in Paris and City Lights in San Francisco. How do you keep it going ?
DW: Thanks for the kind words. We were lucky that George Whitman of Shakespeare and Company spoke at the old shop on La Jolla Blvd. years ago. Then Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights read poetry at the new shop on Girard Avenue. We have kept it going by working seven days a week, not minding being in constant debt, and enjoying the company of our many friends within the confines of the bookshop.
Bureau: You have had some very serious guests and events of a completely top notch variety, tell us a few stories about those experiences: Norman Mailer for instance.
DW: When poet Gary Snyder read poetry here in l992, he had such a good time that he gave us Allen Ginsberg's telephone and told us to call him. Then Allen appeared here in 1994 and drew our largest crowd, 100 people crammed inside and over 400 outside. Later Michael McClure was mystical; Lawrence Ferlinghetti was funny and wise; former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins absolutely charming and hilarious; and playwright Edward Albee brilliantly engaging with the audience. Four different TV station satellite trucks, and a police car, showed up for Oliver Stone. We set up a bar in the back with four different kinds of whiskey for Norman Mailer, who then talked about his book on Lee Harvey Oswald. For Christopher Hitchens we happily provided Canadian Rothman Blue cigarettes and especially a fifth of his beloved Johnny Walker Black whiskey, which a group of us somehow finished. Gore Vidal, brilliant and witty, brought down the house with his wickedly funny impersonation of Truman Capote. Nobel Laureate Francis Crick was eloquently patrician discussing the wonders of science. Francoise Gilot most eloquently shared her first-hand recollections of Picasso and Matisse. Pulitzer Prize journalist Maureen Dowd and Jill Abramson, Executive Editor of the "New York Times," appeared together and shared their insider perspective on Washington politics.
Bureau: What are you currently reading ?
DW: I continue to research material pertaining to Somerset Maugham's work as a British Red Cross ambulance driver attached to the French Second Army in late 1914 during World War I, in Northern France along the Picardy Front, then later in Ypres, Belgium.
Bureau: Tell readers about your community and the organizations that support the store.
DW: We are most fortunate in the San Diego area to be surrounded by such universities as UCSD, SDSU and USD as well as a number of biomedical research facilities such as the Salk Institute. Thus students and faculty have enjoyed our academic and scholarly books here for thirty-five years.
Bureau: When I look at images of the store through the years, I feel like i am looking at a friends family album and parties I attended. Tells us about your family.
DW: My beloved mother and father passed away years ago. But it could indeed be argued that the bookshop, the books within and all of our beloved customers and friends have always served as my family.
Bureau: Literature, like any art form, gains popularity, wanes and then gains popularity again, where are we now in that ebb & flow ?
DW: Difficult to say; iconic works of literature which have passed the test of time continued to be studied, while new talent continues to emerge. Some new works enjoy a hot spell, then fade; others endure which only the passage of time may determine.
Bureau: Who else has read at the store and what will be your upcoming events ?
USD Literature Professor Halina Duraj will read from her new short story collection "The Family Cannon" on Saturday at 7 P.M., 10 May. Otherwise we have nothing yet scheduled thereafter. Other events will probably pop up for the Fall.
Bureau: Are you a writer, if so, tell us about that process. if not tell us something about the ART of Reading .
DW: I tend to write letters to authors, especially if we seek their appearance here. Otherwise I continue to work on a project involving ambulance drivers in World War I.
Bureau: Its been a pleasure to talk with you. Would you provide a list of suggested reading for this season that people can purchase at the store ?
DW: We buy a lot of single copies of this and that. Though at this point in time I would suggest:
1) The Torrey Pines Gliderport, Gary Fogel, Arcadia
2) Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach, Ed. by James I. Porter, Princeton
3) My Sister Rosalind Franklin, Jenifer Glynn, Oxford
4) Essays and Reviews, Bernard Williams, Princeton
5) In Paradise, Peter Matthiessen, Riverhead
6) The Withering Storm, Sandor Marai, Alma Classics
7) The Letters of William Gaddis, Ed. by Steven Moore, Dalkey Archive
8) A Broken Heritage: Rock and Roll, Redemption, and the Life of Leonard Cohen, Liel Leibovitz
9) Patrick Leigh Fermor, Artemis Cooper, New York Review of Books Press
10) The Circle, Dave Eggers, McSweeney's Books
7461 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, Ca. 92037 (858) 456-1800 Mon - Sat 10am - 7pm Sun 11am - 5pm
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