Arabesque: Dancing on the Edge in Los Angeles by Cherie Magnus
A prequel to the award-winning memoir, The Church of Tango.
Virtual Book Tour Dates: 1/12/15 to 1/19/15
Genres: Personal Memoir, YA, University, Personal Relationships, Dance
Sale Price: $2.99
Blurb
It’s 1960 in Los Angeles. Cherie is 17 and on the threshold of
change, even as the world awaits the cataclysmic turbulence that soon
comes. Cherie is a dancer, a student at UCLA, and in love with a
handsome, troubled graduate student who wants her to give up her career
plans. The havoc sets her off-balance and into a nightmare world far
from her dreams.
See the book trailer on Youtube!
Excerpt
ARABESQUE: DANCING ON THE EDGE IN LOS ANGELES
PREFACE
Wings of Mercury
Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels, And fly like thought from them to me again.
—Shakespeare, “King John”
Six months before my sixteenth
birthday, my father bought me a 1957 shiny black Mercury Montclair
convertible, a ragtop. It escaped me at the time, because unlike him I
never had the hots for vehicles, but it must have been nifty, real neat,
or as my best friend’s boyfriend Scooter said when he saw it,
“Bitchin’!”
Dad often gave me things he
wanted for himself—like an accordion for Christmas when I was ten, a
poodle puppy for Valentine’s Day, and a movie camera for high school
graduation. Whether Daddy used me as an excuse to buy a hip car or not,
the Merc came in so handy and made my life easier, better, and more
grounded. It had a sharp black and yellow interior, automatic
transmission, radio, heater, and electric top retraction, but it didn’t
matter to me if it was cool or fancy, only that it started up and took
me wherever I wanted to go. I could depend on my car and myself. My Merc
was always where I left it, waiting for me.
Dad installed a wolf-whistle as a
surprise and, as was the custom for cool cars in the fifties, painted a
name, “Mme. Cherie,” in fancy pinstriped script on the rear fender,
which caused me no end of embarrassment. Madame?
One of my high school boyfriends
had a souped up ’49 Ford named a discreet “Fabulous Fooler.” Outside,
it was stock, but under the hood there was enough power to catch
unsuspecting drag racers off guard with the Fooler’s fast get up and go.
Speed was vital to “Bubblehead” Barry, but reliability was what was
important to me.
Having my own transportation
meant I could stay in the same high school until graduation. My parents
moved house frequently, and throughout my childhood and adolescence I
changed schools every few months, which flipped me out. Until my Merc I
depended on my mom to drive me to school and my dance lessons. But with
wheels, it didn’t matter that we shifted from one rented house to
another all over the San Fernando Valley. At last, I was able to keep my
ties to school, friends and dancing.
For the first time in my life, I
felt liberated. Alone in my car, I could go anywhere I wanted, with
whomever I wanted, at any time I wanted, so long as I had a dollar to
buy three gallons of gas. I was in control of my own destiny. Now that I
was behind the wheel, a car to me meant the Land of the Free and my
Mercury was a ticket to fly there.
When ultimately, at seventeen, I
drove over the hill to Westwood to attend UCLA, the air was cool and
fresh from the Santa Monica sea breezes, the Village was old and quaint,
and the University had history, tradition and knowledge along with the
biggest library I had ever seen. I was so glad to leave the Valley
behind and to begin the life I felt was rightfully mine. It was 1960 and
my world—the whole world—was about to change forever. I couldn’t wait.
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About the Author
Cherie Magnus, born and raised in Los Angeles, was a dance research
librarian in the L.A. Central Library and a dance critic for local
newspapers before moving to France, Mexico, and finally Argentina in
2003. Many of her articles on dance, travel and international culture
have been published in magazines, professional journals, and several
anthologies, such as Solamente en San Miguel, and Chicken Soup for the Soul: Reboot Your Life.
She wrote a tango blog from 2006-2014. A Finalist in the Buenos Aires
Tango Championships in 2006, she has appeared in two video
documentaries. She now lives in Los Angeles.
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