Immigrant

I’m working today—but I’m a legal immigrant. I keep hearing that Genesis song going through my head. I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien.

Lisey’s Story didn’t arrive on Saturday; maybe today. My wife and I watched Mrs. Henderson Presents on Friday night. We’re big fans of Dame Judi Dench. This is another entry in a peculiarly British genre of movies based on (usually) real-life events where people suffer some financial loss and get involved in something involving nudity to rectify the situation. Other entries in the genre include Saving Grace (drugs instead of nudity), The Full Monty and Calendar Girls..

In Mrs. Henderson Presents, Dench plays a bored, wealthy widow who, in 1937, purchases a defunct theatre in London’s west end. She hires Bob Hoskins to run the place, which starts out successfully as a non-stop vaudeville endeavor. When other theatres copy their format, they have to up the ante to stay in business. Mrs. Henderson suggests nudity, and she has the political connections to pull it off—so long as the nude women on stage remain stationary during productions, it might be considered art. The advent of the war in Europe impinges on the story, making it simultaneously hilarious (Dench is as droll as droll can be) and poignant. The extra features bring back some of the surviving women who appeared at the Windmill Theatre during the 30s and 40s. A fun film.

I watched Desperation for the second time on Saturday night to refresh my thoughts prior to writing about it for my Cemetery Dance column. Here’s a testimonial: my teenage daughter was supposed to go visit some friends. She was reading The Da Vinci Code on the couch when I started the film. She put the book down after a few minutes and ignored repeated calls from her friends until the film was over. Having it play all on one night should serve the movie well—they won’t have to worry about audience retention. The only conflict is that it runs against American Idol.

I’m half-way through the first Blackwater novel by Michael McDowell. It’s leisurely in its depiction of the aftermath of the flooding of a small Alabama town. A mysterious woman arrives in the town’s midst. Her hair color alone is enough to have some folk distrustful of her, but not all, and she’s quickly worming her way into the community. She conveniently lost all identifying documents and professional certifications in the flood, but is hired as a school teacher nonetheless.

Taking my final stab at Missing Persons after my discussion with my agent on Friday. I deleted a few pages at his suggestion and found places elsewhere in the manuscript for important passages contained in that section. I also tamed down one set of circumstances, and now I’m 500 words into a new chapter near the end. I hope to finish this work by the end of the week and get it back to my agent.