I'm Fancy Free and Free for Anything Fancy

I've been in Los Angeles for a little more than a week now, and am just starting to make the slow transition from Guacamole Town to Revision City. So far, we've gone to the movies three times: Page One, the documentary about the New York Times, Tabloid, the new Errol Morris documentary, and Top Hat, in celebration of what would have been Ginger Rogers' 100th birthday. Tonight, we're booked for Harry Potter. That's four movies in about ten days. Sure, they have movie theaters in New York, but I also have a lifetime's worth of friends to see, and parents, and obligations, and readings, and dinner dates. It's been positively luxurious to be able to sit in the dark so often. And, after all, it's research.

The novel that I'm revising is about a movie star. The book starts in 1929 and goes through the 1970s. This means that any movie made in that span of time is a part of the world I'm trying to illustrate, and that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about what it means to sit in the dark, to watch life unfold on the screen, and what it feels like to be on the other side of the lens. Last night, sitting in a theater watching Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire glide across the floor, I began to codify a few of my thoughts on The Movies:

1) My favorite movies are ones in which there is an on-screen credit for 'Gowns.'

2) It doesn't matter if you're a great singer, or even particularly good-looking. What matters is how your maribou feathers look as they flutter from your shoulders as you dance. As Irving Berlin wrote, "I'm fancy-free and free for anything fancy."

3) Joy is timeless, and irrepressible, and for the rest of my life, I want to go to the movies as often as possible, and to watch Ginger Rogers' skirt twirl upwards like the world's tiniest fireworks display, each kick a new mark in the sky.

This coming week, I'm going to dive back into my draft. You can bet there will be more dancing.

Yours, from Los Angeles,

Emma