For the 4th: Old-Fashioned American Story Telling from . . . LA?

People knock LA for not having a real literary culture. “What happens to civilization when it hangs its hat in LA?”, asks longtime Power Line friend Christopher Flannery today on the debut of the new site Even in LA.  The site offers old fashioned—that is, patriotic—short story telling.

Beauty in a man or a country is the outward glow of inward goodness. It is the goodness that is most worthy of love, but beauty calls attention to the loveworthy thing. Beauty awakens love, and since no man or country can live without love, and since I live in this country, I was thinking about what it is that makes America beautiful, what it is that makes America good. I was doing this in the freedom that seems at home in America and even in my native city of Los Angeles—even in L.A.—when these stories started to come.

It is our hope that these stories may in some small way move the better angels of our nature to touch the mystic chords of memory that strengthen our bonds of affection and make us friends. In our case, these mystic chords stretch not only from battlefields and patriot graves, but from back roads, school yards, and bar stools, city halls, summer afternoons, and old neighborhoods—from everywhere you find Americans being and becoming Americans.

You can buy an album of these short stories Chris has scored and recorded with David Tucker from the site, or listen to them online. In just world, there’d be a public radio show by these guys: the Coastal Frontier Companion, or something. Maybe that will come next.

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