Lindsay Edmunds 2008

The morning began with an irritating crowd of chores such as getting information together for my tax preparer, attending to old emails, etc. By the time I settled down to find a suitable quotation, I was not optimistic I could do anything wonderful on this rainy Monday.

But I found one right away, from Come Dance with Me. (Thanks, Russ, for being so good at what you do.) I wrote it out, slightly abridged for length, on yellow paper and drove the yellow paper and myself to the local Barnes & Noble, where I put the quotation prominently in the Dance section of the bookstore. Because Anthony's tag line is elegant and concise, I used it almost verbatim. No photo ops here -- but a bit of grace in the middle of the day.

“When I got home I opened the door, took a deep breath of silence, took my coat off, got Top Hat off the video shelf, poured myself some cask-strength Bowmore Islay Malt, added water judiciously, and settled back to watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Fred by himself has never interested me much despite the wonderful things he could do; the enchanting Ginger, however, as a partner of independent spirit, gave him importance and validated his masculinity by acknowledging his mastery and following his lead. . . . Their dancing was real. Unlike western stars who perform impossible feats with handguns and western presidents who command hundreds of thousands of expendable stuntmen and women, Fred and Ginger actually did what they did.”

from Come Dance With Me

Bloomsbury Publishing, London (2005), pp. 88-89

This extract from his thirteenth novel is distributed on 4 February 2008 in celebration of his eighty-third birthday.