Lliterary Salon in LA Jan. 23

LAVA and Musso & Frank Launch Quarterly Literary Salon Celebrating the Famed
Back Room of Hollywood's Oldest Restaurant

WHAT: LAVA (The Los Angeles Visionaries Association) presents the inaugural
quarterly LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank featuring Dan Fante.

WHERE: Musso & Frank Grill, 6667 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028.

WHEN: Monday, January 23, 2012 from 6-11pm.

COST: $100 per person, ticket price includes 3-course prix fixe dinner
prepared by Musso & Frank chefs, Salon presentations and dessert service.
Beverages not included.

TO PURCHASE TICKETS: Call Musso & Frank at (323) 467-7788 or visit the
restaurant Tuesday-Saturday between 9am and 5pm.

FOR MORE INFO: Contact Kim Cooper, amscray@gmail.com , 323-223-2767.

FULL SALON DETAILS: http://lavatransforms.org/mussosalon1

For much of the mid-20th Century, to rub shoulders with
America's greatest novelists and screenwriters, one needed merely to go to
the corner of Cherokee Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. Here, within the
tight triangle of the Writer's Guild offices, Musso & Frank Grill and the
Stanley Rose Bookshop, flowed the commercial and social sap that nourished
the tree of American letters. The famous minds who congregated still inspire
awe: William Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, John Fante, Lillian Hellman,
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, William Saroyan, John
O'Hara, Dorothy Parker, Nathanael West and many more.

And at the center of it all was the famed "Back Room" of Musso & Frank, the
oldest restaurant in Hollywood. Beginning in 1936, in response to the
restaurant's growing popularity, Musso's expanded its operations into a
small room tucked behind the Vogue Theater. A door was punched through the
west wall of the dining room, and a haughty door man installed. His
instructions were simple: the back room was to be the exclusive domain of
Hollywood's literary lions, their friends and romantic partners. It was
called, informally, The Cocktail Room or The Round Table or the Algonquin
West.

The party raged on, six nights a week, for twenty glorious years.

In 1955, Musso & Frank expanded to the east, and the contents of the "Back
Room"‹the long bar, chairs, light fixtures, coat racks-- were moved
wholesale into the "New Room." The "New Room" was no longer the exclusive
retreat of literary Los Angeles, but the writers kept coming. Today, Musso &
Frank's clientele still includes celebrated novelists, screenwriters, poets
and songwriters, all of whom cherish the old world hospitality, traditional
Continental cuisine and opportunity to soak up the same rarified air that
nourished the greats.

In honor of this ongoing writerly tradition, LAVA (The Los Angeles
Visionaries Association) is delighted to announce the January 2012 launch of
The LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank, a quarterly literary salon and prix fixe
dinner celebrating the great writers and personalities who have frequented
the establishment. The LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank is the brainchild of Kim
Cooper & Richard Schave, proprietors of literary tour company Esotouric --
Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, James M. Cain's Southern California
Nightmare, Charles Bukowski's Haunts of a Dirty Old Man, John Fante's Dreams
from Bunker Hill -- who for the past twenty months have been hosting a free
cultural Salon on the last Sunday of the month at Clifton's Cafeteria
(recently moved to the Los Angeles Athletic Club). Now, LAVA expands its
congenial, intelligent and unpredictable cultural programming into Hollywood
with a quarterly literary Salon event held in Musso & Frank on a night when
the restaurant is closed to the general public. Seating is extremely
limited, and this intimate gathering is sure to sell out quickly.

LAVA co-founder Richard Schave, the Salon host and co-curator, says "I would
argue that along the bar in the old Cocktail Room, somewhere between the
drinking, bragging, fighting and general hell-raising, the better half of
the Hard-Boiled School of American Letters was hashed out and put down on
paper. The purpose of the Salon is two fold. First, to set the record
straight on some basic milestones: the rise and fall of the original
Cocktail Room and its reincarnation as the "New Room" and the symbiotic
relationship Musso & Frank shared with the legendary bookshop next door,
Stanley Rose's. Secondly, a more ephemeral aim: in these hallowed rooms,
that still bear the nicotine stains from Raymond Chandler's pipe and Charles
Bukowski's cigarettes, we want to seek out and amplify the spark which all
those great souls have left behind. Musso & Frank is just bricks and mortar,
but incredible ideas and connections were forged here, and we believe that
spark is waiting to be reignited and make its impression felt in Los Angeles
again."

Each Musso's Salon evening will focus on different aspects of Hollywood's
literary lore, feature fascinating speakers and special guest historians,
and be hosted by LAVA co-founder Richard Schave.

Appearing at the debut Salon is novelist, poet and playwright Dan Fante,
reading from and discussing his new memoir "Fante: A Family's Legacy of
Writing, Drinking and Surviving" (Harper Perrenial). Dan Fante's parents,
the novelist-screenwriter John Fante and the poet-playwright Joyce Fante,
were regulars in Musso's back room and at Stanley Rose's book store. Dan's
stories about their adventures are ribald, hilarious and deeply moving. Also
appearing at the first Salon is Howard Prouty (Acquisitions Archivist at The
Academy Foundation/Margaret Herrick Library and proprietor of the ReadInk
book sales catalog) with an introduction to the culture of Stanley Rose's
shop. And before and after the formal dinner and Salon presentations, guests
will mingle with Hollywood historian Philip Mershon (proprietor of The Felix
in Hollywood Tour Company) and actress Kasey Wilson, appearing in the
character of irresistible, murderous Phyllis Dietrichson ("Double
Indemnity"), the only villainess jointly created by James M. Cain (novel)
and Raymond Chandler (screenplay).

Mark Echeverria, 4th generation General Manager/Proprietor of The Musso &
Frank Grill, says "For 93 years The Musso & Frank Grill has been a keystone
in Hollywood's ever-evolving history. Some of the world's greatest people
have walked through our doors, sat at a booth or a bar stool, and dreamt the
unimaginable. That is what makes Hollywood so unique: unimaginable things
come true. Musso & Frank Grill has always been that inspiration in people's
lives to make the impossible, possible, and it is now time to tell the true
story of the people who put Hollywood on the map, and the restaurant they
did it in--The Musso & Frank Grill. We are extremely excited to work with
LAVA to bring you living history in a setting where history continues to
happen, even 93 years later. So please enjoy an authentic dinning experience
you would have found in the early decades of last century, and bring
yourselves back to the time era of the literary giants, and truly get a
journey through the history of Hollywood, in the restaurant that Hollywood
grew up around, The Musso & Frank Grill."

Dan Fante, speaker at the inaugural quarterly LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank,
says, "For me Musso & Frank Grill is the last authentic remnant of Old
Hollywood. To walk into the place is stepping into a time machine. The
passengers riding with you are guys like Raymond Chandler, Nathanael West,
John Fante, William Faulkner, and Charles Bukowski. Not bad company to tip a
glass with."

Future Salons will focus on the life and works of Raymond Chandler, Charles
Bukowski, Nathanael West and other fascinating characters who've contributed
to nearly a century of literary culture at Musso & Frank.

ABOUT LAVA: Through participation in LAVA, a select group of creative
professionals come together to promote cultural programming that speaks to
the urban experience while promoting positive public space. LAVA's creative
partners share a love for L.A. and unique ideas for exploring it in their
work. Formed by social historians RICHARD SCHAVE and KIM COOPER --
proprietors of Esotouric bus adventures and the 1947project time travel blog
series (including On Bunker Hill and In SRO Land) -- LAVA brings together
L.A.'s most visionary promoters, artists, writers and thinkers.


Applications from prospective LAVA members are being taken at
http://lavatransforms.org/apply

To learn more about LAVA, please visit
http://www.lavatransforms.org