In LA last week, touring schools and doing LA Times Festival of Books, I had that eyes-wide-open feeling you get when you hit a new city. Driving on the wrong side of the road, different accents and ideas and ways of being. I could not approach life in my everyday way. Travel makes me feel like a child again, using every sense to gather information about the world and I love it.
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| Magnolia Elementary School with the Sierra Nevada looming in the b/g. |
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| With the kids at Magnolia. A great day organised by Annie and Andrea at Mrs Nelson’s Books. |
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| Signing kids’ hands in San Dimas, outside LA. |
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| I was waiting for the principal to eject me from school grounds for defacing students’ skin. |
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| A kid stamping his forehead with my stamp. |
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| I got to eat a proper American school lunch. Livin’ the dream. |
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| I get excited about yellow school buses, too. I blame A Nightmare on Elm Street. |
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| Yogurtland in Claremont, CA. Sweet justice. |
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| Spectacular flavours. |
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| I think I paid $1.87 for this goodness. |
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| Downtown LA’s Frank Gehry designed Disney Concert Hall. |
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| I went up to the Getty Museum in West LA and perused the Monets, Manets, Sisleys and other impressionist works. The architecture at the Getty is as impressive as the artwork the museum holds. |
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| With my IT’S YR LIFE co-writer and sometime acting buddy Tempany Deckert and her dog Cosmo on one of LA’s many canyon walks. |
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| Gopher hole. It kept poking its head out and I kept missing it. |
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| Downtown LA where I got lost one night with Paul from Simon & Schuster. |
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| I received the red carpet (or red paper) treatment at Andersen Elementary School in Newport Beach. |
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| Mucking around with librarian Lori Osawa at Alderwood Elementary in Irvine, CA. |
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| Scarring books with my signature. |
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Mac Slater Hunts the Cool
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| With the lovely Alex from Whale of a Tale, a really fantastic kids’ and YA bookshop in Irvine. |
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| Alex found a penny and put it in her shoe for good luck. She didn’t want me photographing her sock but I insisted that I capture this interesting American custom (or does it cross borders?). |
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| My book haul at Whale of a Tale. Looking forward to reading Jack Gantos who I saw at LA Times Book Fest |
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| I call this piece, ‘Vegemite Toast’. |
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| Sunset Boulevarde, West Hollywood, the afternoon that I heard my grandmother had passed away. |
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| And here we are, nine years ago, on the Fox Studios 747 plane set where we shot the film. |
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| A plane soaring low overhead on the night I left LA. |
Cacking my head off Tristan! We all just watched your film Soar,it's very funny, probably even funnier since I asked you to be in our play!!!hhehehee…maybe your thesp mate is available.
Thanks Claire. Glad you liked 'Soar'. I still laugh when I see it.
The kids loved you! Teachers can't stop talking about you! Love the photos!!