Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Esotouric to offer John Fante bus and walking tour April 8

L.A.'s most famous "unknown" author John Fante gets a 103rd birthday bus
tour

WHAT: Esotouric's once-a-year "John Fante's Dreams from Bunker Hill" bus and
walking tour

WHEN: Sunday April 8, 12pm-4pm, departs from Nick's Cafe, 1300 N. Spring
Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012

COST: $58/person, or $90 for a two-literary-tour discounted weekend pass

RELATED TOUR: "Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's L.A." rolls on
Saturday, April 7. For a weekend pass or more Bukowski info, visit
http://esotouric.com/weekendpass-april-2012

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

On April 8, 2010, 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--a nomination
spearheaded by Richard Schave, leader of Esotouric's John Fante tour. After
many decades as the obscure favorite of literary insiders, John Fante made a
quantum leap into public awareness, with tens of thousands of Angelenos
passing through his Square each day. One year ago, UCLA Special Collections
hosted an exhibition of their newly accessioned collection of John Fante's
personal and creative archives. And the author's son Dan Fante has just
published his well-received memoir "Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing,
Drinking and Surviving" (Harper Perennial), which he read from to a packed
capacity room at the debut LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank in January.

The great John Fante is obscure no more.

This April 8, lovers of John Fante's books and those curious about the lure
and the lore of downtown's lost neighborhood Bunker Hill are invited to come
celebrate 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 bus and walking tour.

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 8, 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.

RIDE WITH A REAL BUNKER HILL RESIDENT: Our special guest on the April 9 tour
is 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. Gordon will share poignant personal memories of
growing up in the Bunker Hill community, a lively, multi-racial neighborhood
inhabited by artists, writers, the working poor, elderly pensioners and his
own very interesting family, who maintained historic mansions as multi-unit
apartments. Gordon recently testified at Los Angeles City Council, on the
day that the Community Redevelopment Agency which seized his family's
property was dissolved, to honor his old friends who had been displaced and
falsely smeared as slum dwellers.

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

DISCOVER FANTE'S LOST BUNKER HILL AND DOWNTOWN L.A. - In addition to their
bus tours, Esotouric's Richard Schave and Kim Cooper are the creators of ON
BUNKER HILL, a comprehensive historical, architectural and cultural survey
that is part of the 1947project time travel blog series. ON BUNKER HILL is
online at http://www.onbunkerhill.org

For Esotouric's free self-guided walking tour of John Fante's lost Downtown,
visit
http://johnfantesdowntown.notlong.com

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour and LAVA special event schedule
Fri March 9 - FREE! San Gabriel Mission Archaeological Excavation Tour (info
at www.lavatransforms.org )
Sat March 10 - Weird West Adams crime bus tour
Sat March 17 - Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour (weekend pass available)
Sun March 18 - East Side Babylon crime bus tour (weekend pass available)
Sat April 7 - Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles (weekend pass available)
Sun April 8 ­ John Fante's Dreams from Bunker Hill (weekend pass available)
Sat April 14 - The Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour
Sat April 21 - Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits' L.A.
Sun April 22 - FREE! Open House at the historic Stendahl Galleries (info at
lavatransforms.org)
Sat April 28 - Maja's Mysteries: Rapture & Release
Mon April 30- The LAVA Salon at Musso & Frank featuring John Buntin (info at
lavatransforms.org)
Sat May 19 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
Sun May 20 ­ Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour

Esotouric's Kim Cooper and Richard Schave are proud members of LAVA - The
Los Angeles Visionaries Association. http://www.lavatransforms.org


See video of the John Fante Square designation ceremony, featuring
Esotouric's Richard Schave, Councilwoman Jan Perry, the author's children
Vickie Fante Cohen, Dan Fante and Jim Fante, Bunker Hill resident Gordon
Pattison, Fante biographer Stephen Cooper, UCLA Special Collections Director
Tom Hyry and Louise Steinman, Cultural Programs Director at Library
Foundation of Los Angeles at the link below:
http://www.archive.org/details/JohnFanteSquareCeremony

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