Esotouric hosts Raymond Chandler bus tour

Follow in the Footsteps of Philip Marlowe thru Raymond Chandler's Downtown and Hollywood

WHAT: "Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place" bus tour

WHEN: Saturday July 11, 12pm-4pm, departs from Lincoln Heights/Cypress Metro Station

COST: Regular price $58/person (15% off for KCRW and KPCC members), including Chandler-themed gelato from Scoops. Special offer: ride any two July literary tours for $96 (save $20) or ride all three for $134 (save$40). Contact Esotouric to reserve.

MORE INFO: visit http://www.esotouric.com or call 323-223-2767

RELATED TOURS: Esotouric's July literary series includes
CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S LA on July 18 and
JOHN FANTE'S DREAMS FROM BUNKER HILL on July 25.

This July, the eclectic bus adventure company Esotouric offers three bookish bus tours of LA literary landmarks, focusing on the lives and work of Raymond Chandler, Charles Bukowski and John Fante. They're also offering a special promotional ticket celebrating LA's literary legacy.

Passengers can ride any one of the tours at the regular $58 rate, ride two and save $20, or ride all three and save $40. For more info or to reserve visit http://www.esotouric.com and see the "July Literary Tour Discounts" links in the left sidebar.

The series begins on July 11, when Esotouric presents a tour dedicated to the city's greatest detective novelist, Raymond Chandler, and his personal relationship to the mean streets of Hollywood and Downtown LA, where he lived, worked and set his stories.

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES: IN A LONELY PLACE delves deep into a lost city that exists in shadowy parallels to contemporary LA. Bungalows. Crime. Hollywood. Blondes. Vets. Smog. Death. This was Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, which resonated from deft and melancholy fits of his writer's bow.

Join Esotouric on an exploration of the city that shaped Chandler's fiction, and that in turn shaped his hard-boiled times, in a four hour tour of downtown, Hollywood and surrounding environs: Musso & Frank, the LA Athletic Club, the Hotel Van Nuys, Paramount Studio's gates, and much, much more. On this tour, you'll discover why an unassuming stretch of Olive Street near Pershing Square is much more deserving of the Raymond Chandler Square designation than the Hollywood corner that bears the honored name.

Through published work, private correspondence, screenplays and film adaptations, the tour traces Chandler's search for meaning and his anti-hero Philip Marlowe's struggle to not be pigeonholed or give anything less than all he has, which lead them both down the rabbit hole of isolation, depression, and drink. As the bus rolls from point to point, your guide Richard Schave draw the lines between Chandler's life and his fiction, offering insight into his peculiar marriage to the much-older Cissy, the enigmatic redhead who appears in many forms in his short stories and novels.

The tour includes a stop at Scoops Gelato in East Hollywood for a complementary sampling of avant garde ice cream master Tai Kim's unexpected flavors, which have in the past included the Chandler-inspired Bacon-Caramel and Nicotine (made with crushed Nicorette gum).

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule
Sat June 20 - Reyner Banham Loves LA: Route 66 architecture tour
Thurs July 9 - The Hippodrome (Downtown Art Walk Shuttle, free)
Sat July 11 - Raymond Chandler's LA
Sat July 18 - Charles Bukowski's LA
Sat July 25 ­ John Fante's Dreams from Bunker Hill
Sat Aug 1 - The Real Black Dahlia Saturday
Sat Aug 8 - Pasadena Confidential
Thurs Aug 13 - The Hippodrome (Downtown Art Walk Shuttle, free)
Sat Aug 15 - Blood & Dumplings
Sat Aug 22 - Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice
Sat Aug 29 - Reyner Banham Loves LA: The Lowdown on Downtown-The Secret History of LA

For more info on Esotouric, visit http://www.esotouric.com