SCREENWRITERS NEED NOT APPLY by Sandy Siegel If the name Curtis Zahn doesn't ring any literary bells, there's a reason for it. But on Super Bowl Sunday, while 42 million households gathered around television sets to watch the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots battle for supremacy on the gridiron, 48 brave souls defied convention and gathered at the Beverly Hills Public Library to celebrate the life and work of a member of the literary field. The scheduling of The Curtis Zahn Festival of Literary Works, a reading sponsored by Hollywood Hills-based Pacificus Foundation was intentional. The poet, short story writer and playwright, who died in 1990 at the age of 78, probably would have appreciated the timing since convention was not his style. Zahn's self-designed and -built Malibu ocean-front "villa" and adjacent studio were home to writers' workshops in the 1950s that included the likes of Anais Nin, Henry Miller and Christopher Isherwood. Other gatherings at Zahn's house included members of the Hollywood community -- next-door neighbor Tuesday Weld, director Sam Peckinpah and then-unknown actor Danny DeVito. After the Malibu house burned down in 1969, Zahn bought a property above La Cienega Boulevard, tore it down, carved out the hillside and designed and built a redwood dwelling, much of it with his own hands. Today, the house serves as headquarters for the Pacificus Foundation, a literary arts group founded by Zahn in 1959 that now acts to preserve his work -- 17 plays, dozens of short stories, poems and an unpublished novel -- and foster new talent in the areas of poetry, short fiction and drama. "He was a wonderful character in literary Los Angeles," said poet Laurel Ann Bogen. "For those people who knew him when he was younger, he was kind of a wild guy. ... A one-of-a-kind kind of guy." "Curtis Zahn was more popular with other writers than he ever was with the general public," said longtime friend James Breed. "Every writer who ever read him had great admiration for him." The highly regarded though relatively unknown scribe was a Southern California native, raised in Los Angeles and Coronado. Zahn's grandfather, a doctor who came to Los Angeles in the 1860s, helped build the original Bunker Hill, and his father and uncle were successful businessmen whose ventures included a carrier pigeon service between Catalina Island and the Los Angeles Times -- to allow residents to notify the mainland when medical services were needed. Zahn, who shared his father's passion for sailing, attended Berkeley and UCLA in the 1930s but never received a degree. He became a journalist and wrote a fish and game column for a newspaper. Around the same time, he developed an interest in short fiction, prompting him to launch a literary group in San Diego. Zahn returned to Los Angeles and in 1951 moved to Malibu. But it wasn't just luminaries who were invited to his salons. Besides the literati of the day, "you had people who had never been published," said Breed, who was invited to read his poetry at a workshop in 1962, and now serves as president of the foundation. The foundation originally had limited objectives, said Breed. "(Curtis) would say to me, 'Look if there's a writer who needs a typewriter and he knocks on my door, I'll give him $100 or $200.' That was the extent of the Pacificus Foundation." After Zahn's death, his brother approached Breed about taking over. "When I set out to develop this foundation into an entirely different thing, I said first of all, we would not recycle the funds into a few hands," Breed said. "We'd reach out to the community. We're going to have a direct participation where people could come to this wonderful edifice here and enjoy presenting their works and be paid to do so." Quarterly "workshops" are held at the house, which was bequeathed to the foundation. The home contains Zahn's original furniture, banjo, piano and other memorabilia, and the walls of the upstairs room, where the presentations are made, are lined with abstract paintings done by Zahn himself and framed family photos and newspaper clippings, some dating back decades. Writers are invited -- through other foundation members or by word of mouth -- to read their poetry and short stories and have their plays staged. No screenplays are allowed, a publicity release boasts, to keep the group a "gemlike island amidst L.A.'s raging entertainment maelstrom." Breed also contacts college English departments in search of new talent. The writers receive $100 just for reading and vie for $1,800 in prize money in the foundation's annual awards event. Some get to see their work in foundation-published anthologies. "It's kind of nice that an anachronism like the Pacificus Foundation exists," said Bogen, past winner of the Curtis Zahn Poetry Prize and the foundation's literal poet-in-residence -- she rents out two rooms in the house. "(It) gives credence to those of who are working in the literary field (who) are not connected to the movie business." This article originally appeared in the Westside Weekly, March 2, 1997. Copyright 1997 All rights reserved. Distributing or copying this material via e-mail, hyperlink, disk, print or any other medium is prohibited under U.S. copyright law without written permission of the author. |
SHIFTING GEARS by Sandy Siegel There have been sightings here of a Buddhist monk working out in his long robe on a treadmill. Not your typical health club scene. But then, BUS dance and fitness center isn't your typical health club, being situated, for starters, in the old Greyhound bus station on Fifth Street. "I do weight training and Agnes does dance," said Richard Thaler, 39, who owns BUS with his wife. "We thought, 'Wouldn't it be fun to open our own place and combine (the two)?' ... The other notion was, we'd socialize with our friends. We'd work out and then we'd all go out and have some food. So we'll put a cafe in." With architect Steven Ehrlich in tow, the Thalers scoured Santa Monica for empty buildings that might fit their needs. They eventually struck pay dirt. And a lot of regular dirt. "(The building) was all boarded up, it was ramshackle, it was a mess, it was just a dump," Ehrlich said. "But I liked it. ... I liked the fact that it was an old bus station. I loved the big old sign that was there. ... Peeking up through the holes in the ceiling, one could tell that it really had some character." The task of turning the 5,000-square-foot space into a fitness center took six months, starting with what Ehrlich called "our own archaeological dig." Under the grime, they discovered the original terrazzo floor of the bus station, which closed in1994 after 39 years of service. They kept sections of the floor, while filling in some areas with blackened concrete to cover electrical and plumbing upgrades; thus a practical renovation became part of the design. Stripping the ceiling revealed timber and steel-beam roof supports, which they exposed. Skylights that crank open were added to catch the ocean breezes and give the place a light, airy feel. To further add to the flavor, the Thalers pushed to keep "the big old sign" that said BUS. "We had to get the city's approval because it conflicts with all the present ordinances about the size of a sign," Richard Thaler said. "The city loved it. They thought of it as a historical, architectural landmark." As for the facility itself, the focus is an open cafe featuring low-fat food, some prepared by a Chinese Buddhist community in Monterey Park. But truffle chocolate brownies are also on the menu. Surrounding the cafe are a boutique; a large, mirrored dance and fitness studio; smaller rooms for the Mind/Body technique based on the teachings of Joseph Pilates, and a weight-training room run by the Thalers' personal trainer, Brian Cinadr. Unlike many health clubs, BUS has no membership fees -- you pay by the class. "We only make money if people use our place," said Thaler, who owns five independent supermarkets scattered throughout Los Angeles. "We wanted to create an environment where people can come in and feel comfortable," said Agnes Thaler, 40, who is also working toward her certification as a marriage, family and child counselor. "A lot of our friends and people who have been coming through feel like it's a home environment. (It's not) this place where people are checking each other out and feeling uncomfortable." Problem is, not everyone is sure what it's used for: People come in assuming it's still a bus station. "I've had people pull up in a cab and unload everything," Agnes Thaler said. "And I'm running out there, going, 'Wait, wait, this isn't the bus station.'" "Fortunately," her husband added, "there's a Greyhound stop about a block away." This article originally appeared in the Westside Weekly, January 19, 1997. Copyright 1997 All rights reserved. Distributing or copying this material via e-mail, hyperlink, disk, print or any other medium is prohibited under U.S. copyright law without written permission of the author. |
