If you missed Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times, PBS's documentary about the Chandler family and the city's newspaper of
record they once controlled, be sure to catch the rebroadcast this Saturday
at 9 p.m. on KCET. (Or watch it online
on the station's Web site.) It's a hypnotic train-wreck of a story,
with the post-Chandler-era bankruptcy stuff getting shoved onto some
title cards at the very end. The two-hour program is ably narrated by Liev Schreiber,
although Hal Holbrook's impersonation of first publisher Harrison Gray
Otis sometimes sounds like Willliam Burroughs with a slight cold. Mike
Davis, Ruben Martinez and Catherine Mulholland are some of the many
commentators who try to analyze, excuse or condemn the Chandlers' role
in making Los Angeles the empire city of the future.
Also, tonight, longtime Times city editor and writer Bill Boyarski will appear at an evening hosted by Brentwood's Diesel bookstore to discuss his companion book to the documentary.
Diesel, 225 26th Street, Suite 33, Brentwood; 7 p.m. (310) 576-9960.
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