a christmas tale

darlings

we don’t celebrate christmas in RL.

but we ADORE it at the cinema and in Song.

so we’ve been doing Lots of that.

to start off this piece of “post” with good cheer and a rousing Voice – ladies and gentlemen and those as yet in transition or of the 3.5 gender classification – we give you Darlene LOVE*!

*wavestocamera4thatsweepsovertomusicset*

*if Mr. google won’t let you see that Transmission in your territory Ms Love has a room of her own (online) as every woman really must.

now – let’s see – what other Prep have we been doing?

do you have a large pot of tea nearby?

we should warn you – there’s Quite a few pieces of photographic exposition with a not-so-deep (although there’s always subtext as Mr. Barthes would have opined).

we’ll wait…..

*checks_nails*

oh good.

you’re back.

let’s go…..Christmas Prep – voila!

we’ve been Writing (too early to say what it is – but Ideas are Ruminating)

we went to visit the (outside of the) house-of-Christopher in the Santa Monica Canyon on a lovely Saturday morning (mini) road trip with George.

and spent time gazing out into the Ocean (actually this shot was yesterday – we do need to sort through our Slideshow but we’re in Haste to post before heading out into Monday you see – the perils of not Pauline, but a busy life-of-not-Brian but teamgloria darlings)

oh! this evening was delicious – this was Friday and we went a-caroling with our lovely friend RH and it turned out to be Christmas Songs as opposed to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” (we like that one, most particularly) but it was still such Fun.

what’s this?

oh.

yes.

the sunrises have been gorgeous this season. just had to share another one.

ah! this is at the Natural History Museum – it’s called Heroic Figure – a museum is always a lovely place to visit right before everyone heads inside their houses to pop on a christmas sweater and peel the carrots, non? edifying. indeed.

here we go – out of order – the Christmas Song Experience in downtown los angeles.

and so many CHANDELIERS are in Town this season!

yesterday evening we had another cinematic christmas reverie – with Beguiling Hollywood and the Mister (yup, in RL – we had a blog outing and it was delicious and there was cashmere worn against the slightly surprising low temperature of Hollywood Boulevard by night).

what did we see?

why – Mr. Grant!

you know who used to go to Movies at the Egyptian, don’t you?

yes. Ms. Pickford *shivers*

so this was Yesterday *thinks* – yes, yesterday – and we were Most amused to find a roaring fire at Shutters On The Beach (it really is on the Beach and there are indeed Lots of Shutters, all painted white like a Ralph Lauren photo shoot from 1987.)

this is another christmas display – complete with fake snow on-the-hour (how nice of it to be Timed – and not cold at all) – at The Grove – where we saw another Christmas movie with our friend the Duke that was very funny and sometimes so Naughty (in a funny way not a dodgy movie in the back alley of Soho, London shops sort of a manner we hasten to add) that we had to giggle and stifle a *gasp*.

now in between all this festive cultural activity we had had to Stop and rest a little while to enjoy european magazines and a pot-of-tea (no change there then – a year-round enjoyment, that one).

out of order in the slideshow again (yes, we do know how to “re-Org” but we just don’t have Time today – forgive?) – this is the view from Christopher Isherwood’s house – yes – i n s p i r i n g indeed for him and mr. Bachardy who still lives there (we did Not disturb him, we have exquisite manners and just wait for an invitation for an iced coffee and a tour of the studio someday).

ah. this is where we saw Cary Grant (on screen) last night with Beguiling Hollywood and the Mister

and even more chandeliers in a shop front on Melrose as we walked home from the Grove (because don’t even THINK of parking during the christmas season and a 40 minute walk there and slightly faster back because we didn’t dawdle looking at people’s decorations in their front lawn plots because it was much colder on the return trip is lovely)

and so to rest once more.

what’s that?

why yes, that IS an El Royale mug – we received a gift from our friend the Duke as he is a Resident there now – isn’t that delicious?

so there you go – a rousing start with Darlene Love, followed by Messrs. Grant (Cary and Hugh, different films) and Mr. Tyler Perry (a very different cultural experience) movies – we also forgot to mention that, the other evening, the night before we got stopped at Border Control *shivers*, we went to see Love Actually with miss whistle and her extended friends-and-family and there was quite a bit of passing-the-kleenex-around-to-mop-up-happy-tears.

after all that upbeat christmas fare, we really must watch a dark and brooding French film – which we Last talked about *gasps* TWO YEARS AGO – just after – well – you-know-what happened.

there’s nothing like foreign families engaged in bitter drama to really bring home the joy of celebrating in whatever-way-or-Not-one-chooses.

just saying.

*winningsmiletocamera3*

and fade to (not quite) black.

*peeksopenbehindcurtain*

what have YOU seen during this build-up-to-christmas?

do. tell.

and pictures of trees are always welcome.

we get sort of a contact high, it’s rather delicious.

Last night we watched a christmas tale – have you seen it?

It’s a fairly dark (and wonderfully so) tale about the families we have, the lovers we choose – or don’t dare to choose – illness, love, desire and absent friends (and/or enemies, depending on one’s role in the family dynamic, as the Professionals call it).

Catherine Deneuve is in it as the matriarch. And Glorious.

One to watch (in our humble opinion) is the psycho-ravishing-strangeness of Mathieu Amalric. He destroys, confuses and breaks open the strange sadness and Fury at the core of his family. He’s wonderful.

Yes, darlings – there is a theme coming……but it’s not about our own family. We have no words to describe our own – but there may be a movie or two at some point. Right now, tis unwise and also unfair to those who have-not-blogs to comprehend why we write this.

teamgloria started out as glorious people, places and things (and, we hope, modestly, is returning to such a lofty goal)……………but it swiftly became a way to not-go-cRaZY during the tobias and his sisters: the tumor/tumour story

so this post is both: glorious people (Deneuve, Almaric) and the effects-of-tobias (and his Exit during a five hour surgery).

we celebrate the glorious – and no longer swallow our words.

so the movie’s central theme (well, one of them – it is a rambling delicious discourse, in french, on being french, which has little linear and plenty twists in narrative form – and wonderfully so, darlings) is Family and absent friends.

some of our friends are drifting away………..not from us, per se (these days we are not So Self-Obsessed) but from places we used to see them on a regular basis. Gatherings of like-minded loveliness (you know how NYC is – in a city of eight million people, you’re bound to bump into people you know constantly but one often has to make a meeting date to do so and We Do, often).

they have Other Things to do.

and we feel sadness.

groups of friends swell and shrink and change and grow and dissolve, often through the years and seasons and “life stages” as they call it in Big Business marketing documents……..but it’s still sad.

and we just wanted to raise a (perfectly delicious Conran porcelain white) cup of (milky smooth Cafe du Monde with chicory from New Orleans) coffee to absent friends.

In a christmas tale, it is the reunion that shatters all decorum and re-fits the family and lovers and satellite community into a new whole.

we wish you well.

and we now Must get ready – brunch with ABM on the upper West side of manhattan calls!

thank you for listening – it helped.

teamgloria inc

christmas prep in cinema and song.

absent friends: watching movies in french and sighing over email in other languages.