Angelenos of an intellectual bent, the moment we have waited for has arrived. An emissary from the great New York publishing world is setting up shop here in LA. Life will never be the same. Finally, people will talk about books! And ideas! There will be parties filled with 25-year-old editorial assistants wearing ill-fitting tweed jackets and pretending that they read Granta!

Oh, wait. The publisher in question isn't FSG or Knopf or one of those other tweedy places. It's Judith Regan's ReganBooks, purveyor of such fare as Jenna Jameson's memoir How To Make Love Like a Porn Star and the novel that the musical 'Wicked' was based on. Ah. I see.

But fear not! It sounds like Regan will be taking her role of teaching culture to us unwashed Angeleno heathens pretty seriously. From the NYT:

She also said she intended to bring a different idea of culture to Southern California. "I would like to create a cultural center," she said, a sort of salon where authors could meet informally with people in the television and film businesses, with a bookstore and cafe, space for readings or other cultural events and perhaps a studio for a radio show that she hopes to serve as host.

Great, because as it stands, book authors never meet with anyone in the film or TV business. I mean, they would, but there's just no place to have informal meetings! And everyone knows there are absolutely no 'cultural centers' in LA already. Sure, there's the Skirball, and the Getty, and a dozen or so other museums, and various lecture series, but those don't count. Lord knows there are no bookstores or cafes in LA that host readings. And of course, Los Angeles has no culturally-oriented radio programming.

Thank you Judith Regan! You will be greeted with flowers and dancing in the streets!

(Link via my sis FishbowlNY)