America, Countries

Reid all about LA

No, me neither, but you’ll recognise her inspiration for her latest novel about tennis… and what’s best you get to Reid all about LA.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is rolling out Carrie Soto Is Back at just the right time with Serena Williams winding down her career.

With Carrie Soto the bad-ass GOAT of women’s tennis and creation of a driven LA dad.

TJR has cornered the market for sparky novels about LA.

With Carrie Soto coming hard on the heels on August 30, of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & the Six and Malibu Rising.

And because we’re a broad church here, and our friends at Discover Los Angeles alerted us to the big book news in La-La Land…

A trip around Carrie Soto’s LA.

Drink in Malibu

Swell: Aqua Surf

Avid readers of TJR already know Carrie from the Rivas’ Malibu house party in Malibu Rising.

And so Discover Los Angeles advises we take an open-top car and try to spot which luxury beachfront home is the Rivas.

Then dive into the lives of the Riva siblings with Aqua Surf promising to have you up on the swell in under two hours.

Spray it again: In the Pacific

And it’ll scratch an itch I’ve had since my last trip out there (steady!) and didn’t get to learn to surf because of a double booking.

Before refuelling at Neptune’s Net which has a similar family vibe as the restaurant June’s parents run in Malibu Rising.

You might know it too from The Fast & the Furious, Gilmour Girls and Point Break.

The Golden Age

Walk of Fame: With Donald Duck

Evelyn Hugo is your archetypal Golden Age diva, just like what you’d find at Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood’s Classics Tour.

And you’ll get to explore the iconic backlot from the early days of the Studio through the 1970s.

Readers can also channel their inner Evelyn from when she wins her first Oscar at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

And exploring the museum’s collection of Old Hollywood costumes, props, memorabilia and more, head over to the Oscars Experience.

Where you’ll hear your name called on the Dolby Theatre stage and receive a video of your winning moment.

Write on: Jackie Collins’ burial spot

Landmarks of the golden age of film that are must-dos include a martini at the century-old celebrity hot spot restaurant Musso & Frank.

Or visit former Oscars host, the Pantages Theatre.

You can even stay in the classic hotel that once housed Marilyn Monroe and hosted her first professional magazine shoot, the Hollywood Roosevelt.

Make mine’s a Mac

Angelic: Bandanaman

Daisy Jones & The Six, of course chronicles the rise of a rock group and their beautiful lead singer in 1970s Los Angeles.

Actually Fleetwood Mac and the making of Rumours.

And you can live the high life like they did in celebrity venues, like The Troubadour or The Viper Room.

And see for yourself how music is made at United Recording Studios and Capital Studios.

Lastly, don’t forget to swing by Amoeba Music, the world’s largest independent music store, to pick up a few albums.

Well, maybe not lastly because you’ll want to get back to tour Carrie Soto book and Reid all about LA.

 

America, Countries, Europe, UK

John Glenn and other space cadets

Many have said it about me, so on the 60th anniversary of his becoming the first American to orbit Earth here’s to John Glenn and other space cadets.

And a nod, of course, to NASA HQ in Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

And our friends, a visiting spaceman among them, who shared their world with us.

Including witnessing multiple sunsets.

Take me to space: Bandanaman and Spaceman

The bould John, 95 years young, last went into space when he was 77.

Now that space tourism is a thing and is no barrier to age as Captain Kirk, William Shatner, 90, proved let’s look to the stars.

Through the Rainy Days and Songdays songs that have inspired us the Space Race generation.

A Mars a day

Making it up as he goes: David Bowie

Life on Mars, David Bowie: And no, not Bowie’s first space song, nor his last.

Think Space Oddity, The Man Who Fell To Earth and Ashes to Ashes.

But Life On Mars from the album Hunky Dory is certainly his best.

And to bring it back to earth Bowie name checks Ibiza and the Norfolk Broads … both stop-offs for this space cadets.

Rocket science

Making a spectacle of himself: Elton John

Rocket Man, Elton John: Elt was spaced all right when he put the score to his pal Bernie Taupin’s lyrics.

So we can’t place him anywhere though we imagine that the-then coked-up Mr John would have been seeing a lot of The Troubadour in West Hollywood then.

Swing among the stars

What he just said: Frank Sinatra

Fly Me To The Moon, Frank Sinatra: We don’t know if they’ve got old blue eyes out in space but Frank’s voice is out of this world.

Obvs we want to name check Hoboken, New Jersey and the other cities that he bigs up, New York, Chicago and LA.

But the closest we got was Las Vegas and this inscription to the Rat Pack in Neon City

All-Hit Radio

Sibling space cadets: Karen and Richard Carpenter

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, The Carpenters: Now this one is a new one on us but this was actually originally written by the Canadian band Klaatu (no us too but they were named after an ambassador from the extraterrestrial confederation in the film The Day The Earth Stood Still).

But it was in the hands of Richard and Karen Carpenter that the song really took off.

And it naturally has that Californian twang with the unique lead-in of Mike Ledgerwood on All Hit Radio.

This song will be heard once again

De Burgh was here: In the Nativity Scene

A Spaceman Came Travelling, Chris De Burgh: Only Chris De Burgh could come up with anything quite as overblown as a space hook to the Nativity Story.

But the Irishman did after reading Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken, with a sprinkle of WB Yeats and his belief that every 2,000 years something cataclysmic happens.

Never mind that the Nativity Story is only mentioned in two out of the four gospels.

And the Monty Python boys went this way too when they had a spaceship land in Bethlehem in the Holy Land in Life of Brian.

A Galaxy far, far away

Idle life: Monty Python

Which brings us neatly to Eric Idle’s pithy reflection on the human condition in Galaxy in The Meaning of Life.

So it applies to us all, John Glenn and other space cadets.