The long weekend is over and I feel like I got a lot accomplished. We cooked some great meals on the grill, though it was two flocking hot to eat outside (flocking is a euphemism I picked up from the novels of Frank Delaney that I’m currently reading to my wife). Big honking steak on Saturday and hamburgers on Sunday. My wife cooked a wonderful Copper River sockeye salmon filet yesterday to complete our culinary weekend.
Random observation: you can stream the new Journey album for free today. It’s not bad but so far only one song has leaped out and grabbed me as distinguishing itself.
I also finished the novella I’ve been working so diligently on for the past month or two. The first draft came in at 17,000 words. I printed it out yesterday (59 pages) and did a full read-through/long-hand edit and got most of the changes keyed back in before the salmon arrived on the scene. Then I finished the manual changes and did another thorough read-through on the screen. To my surprise, the story ended up slightly longer after revision: 17, 500 words and 61 pages. Usually I trim about 15% on revision, but not this time. Maybe it’s different with longer works. In fact, this is the longest thing I’ve ever written that didn’t go all the way to book length. Printed out a nice, pristine copy and got it in the mail just before the deadline, which is midnight tonight.
I finished Pacific Heights by Paul Harper, the pen name of crime writer David L. Lindsey and am about to begin Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, which looks intriguing and fun.
This weekend we stumbled upon a good movie, more by accident than anything else. It’s called Mao’s Last Dancer and is the true story of a young boy, Li Cunxin, who was selected from his country school (fairly arbitrarily) and sent to Beijing to learn how to be a ballet dancer. It’s based on Li’s memoir of the same name. He isn’t a very strong boy, but he is determined to make his impoverished family and his country proud, so he works harder than everyone else and excels. He is chosen by the director of the Houston Grand Opera (played by a mincing Bruce Greenwood) to be a visiting student (this was during the 1980s), where he learns that much of what he has been indoctrinated to believe about America is wrong. However, his request to stay is denied, which sets off an international incident when a group of Americans is detained inside the Chinese consular offices in Houston and are surrounded by FBI while diplomatic negotiations ensue. Kyle Mclaughlin plays his immigration attorney. Lots of impressive dancing and a good story well told.
We’ve gotten hooked on the Graham Norton show. Our OnDemand system has three full past seasons available, so we’ve been picking the ones that have people we’re familiar with as guests. Last night it was Dame Helen Mirren, Janet Jackson, Tyler Perry and Stephen Fry. I often wonder if North Americans who get signed to appear on the show have any idea what they’re getting themselves in for. Jackson looked mortified half the time. Norton is just so wildly over the top and energetic. My wife wouldn’t believe me at first when I said he was about our age. She thought he was about 35 based on his energy level. Fun show.
