darlings
a sweet little photographic shoot this morning with kate & millie
– lots of smiling and blowing bubbles 
and tossing-curls and giggling. 
and winsomely examining roses-in-bloom
and having a soft, quiet moment together.
isn’t life delicious?
you know we *did* take our motion-camera there too.
*smiling*
you would?
most kind!
doesn’t it feel all 1930s with floppy straw hats and sunbeams-on-eyelashes and cake-for-tea?
we thought so.
darlings
we’re RUSHING out the door ever so soon – but wanted to leave you a moment of reverie in the meantime – five photographs from the past day and a Poem that we read as the sun dipped behind the Palm Trees while sipping tea-with-lemon.
enjoy.
A Subaltern’s Love Song
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament – you against me!Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.Her father’s euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o’clock news and a lime-juice and gin.The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.The Hillman is waiting, the light’s in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing’s the light on your hair.By roads “not adopted”, by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o’clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl’s hand!Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I’m engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
darlings
just got back from the exhibition.
it was Quite an Oeuvre – in not a bad way at all – but we’re so overwhelmed by seeing all the lovely people and the nice things that they said and quite frankly realizing that because we had the Flu when we left NYC, we didn’t really get to say goodbye and so perhaps tonight was goodbye or not but yes, probably and there were people from all areas of our life which was a little bit uncomfortable at times and sometimes Rather Lovely and Sweet and then strange again and we Did take some pictures but couldn’t get the angles that we wanted and so we’ve just got one to show you.
Lisa and Lyn who looked beautiful.
and then it was all over – two-and-a-half-hours-later and we drifted outside and there was talk of cabs and uptown/downtown and meeting friends and going on somewhere and we just wanted to sit down quietly and take it all in – the seeing-the-photos-on-the-wall and the Friends and More Friends and then take a walk into the Village and turn left up sixth avenue a bit, turn left again, can’t quite remember where – after bleecker anyway, and then feeling a bit tearful about who-knows-what we suddenly thought “oops, forgot to have supper” (that can happen here) and so we ducked into a bodega and bought a Manhattan-Walking-Snack (seltzer, string cheese and a lemon gluten-free bar with nuts if you’re not sure what that Is) and felt a little less weird about everything and Called a friend back in L.A who made us giggle (we ducked into a chemist/drugstore/purveyor-of-aspirin as it’s Far too noisy to talk on a cellular telephone on the street in NYC and the sad-late-night-love-music made us rather Melancholic – does it sell more aspirin? surely not guvnor) and then we got distracted by the Chinese balloons.
aren’t they delicious?
isn’t there a scene in either Working Girl (party on staten island right before Alec buys her the inappropriate underwear) or Desperately Seeking Susan (when they all pause to watch the commercial in Jersey at Roberta’s house) where we see chinese lanterns that are really similar? or was it Nobody’s Fool with Rosanna Arquette? hmmm.
can you picture it?
can you send us a picture of it?
we couldn’t find it from Mr. Google.
yes, that’s how easily we get distracted from Vast Feelings about where-we-have-lived and who-we-have-known and how Kind people were to come and see the pictures and so on.
balloons.
balloons.
balloons.
and movies.
seen anything good recently?
we need to fly back to L.A tomorrow and catch up on movie watching now that our exhibition is Alive and has a Life of its own on This Coast.
we hope people sit in ‘sNice on sullivan and get to dream a little about faraway places and so on while sipping their soy latte.
that would be nice.
that’s why we did those pictures anyway.
to engender a smile and a day-dream.
thank you to everyone that came – and those that wanted to but couldn’t get there – and those of you via the Interweb who came in spirit – that was lovely.
but we’re sort of relieved it’s over.
to tell the absolute truth.
darlings
tis strange and surreal to be back Here (where we lived for 7 years if you’ve just joined us – and Welcome if you have *winninglooktocamera*)
and rather Glorious, of course.
we had a coffee and a bagel at the counter of a 1929 coffee shop on Fifth and it all felt very teamgloria if you know what we mean – 
and then we met up with the lovely Jonathan (yes, from one stop nyc) who helped us Hang The Exhibition!
the landscapes (from L – R = Paris, Manhattan, Hong Kong, Taiwan) are on the large wall on the right as you walk into ‘sNice on Sullivan Street (in, SoHo, we are Enormously Grateful that we got to have a Show in SoHo, darlings)
greg and jim are on the inside right of the front (french) doors. 
brooklyn is above the water cooler.
nick is centre (drew is to the left but someone was standing there and we couldn’t quite ask them to move as they were Admiring the photograph) and Stacy & Zack are to the Right on the Left wall (if that’s not Too Confusing). 
Jorden is above the sweetners. 
and Portugal is to the right of Taiwan (not in RL, just in our show – the Taiwan image has a lot of orange in it so we were trying to blend the colo(u)rs/shades/hues in some sort of Artistic Way).
and then we had Lunch with our Literary Agent at a very chic eatery and felt Quite Overwhelmed – by jet lag, by the exhibition opportunity, by being Back Here, staying with lovely friends and generally Life.
in a very good way, of course.
yesterday morning we drove across town to visit maria, jake and rosie and take the second in a series of our west coast portraits and had the loveliest and most sentimental time.
thank you ever so much maria, jake and rosie!
darlings
just a Very short post as we’re in between washing machine then drying cycles……*slightlypaniclooktocamera*
#sigh – oh for a Jeeves!
and (looking at that lovely audiobook image) for a 1930s pied-a-terre and a snazzy pair of purple socks with black shiny lace-ups too, actually – that would be splendid (or Topping, as Bertie Wooster, would have said).
we digress (*looksnervouslyatalarm*) and just have 7 mins before having to Dash Downstairs to the Laundry Room (which is actually very nice and bright and has a window which looks out onto the paparazzi who are hanging around – must be someone Famous staying nearby – this is Most Definitely L.A, darlings).
we moved some furniture around today because we wanted to create a Picture Wall – or a wall of memories with:
* some of our articles from when who we are in RL was a Journalist in London, England
* a few landscapes (from our camera lens, not paintbrush) from the book – we thought we could rotate them in and out so at the moment there’s Hong Kong, Norwich and Madrid facing us as we write reminding us of So many things we’ve seen and So many hours of Jet Lag.
* recent portraits
* one or two portraits from (a long time) before we came to the USA
* an original LP (that’s a Long Playing Record for the young people) of Edith Piaf’s Chansons Parisiennes (we’ve never actually played it as we don’t have a vinyl-playing-machine but the LP is still in the beautiful rendering of a map of Paris and a flirty gendarme from when we found this treasure at the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts Library Sale.
and then there’s also a few other esoteric ephemera from our Travels and Travails to numerous (and numinous) to recount.
so here it is!
do you like it?
we’re Ever so Pleased.
and it means we have re-orientated the table so we can see this View every time we look up.
doesn’t Los Angeles look Rather Tuscan Village at twilight?
so – darlings – hence why we called this post thus:
a wall of memories and a view of dreams
ALARM RINGS
ah.
the Laundry Calls.
see you tomorrow (by the way, lovely to see you, as always)
EXITS STAGE LEFT BY THE PICTURE WALL.
darlings
so we’ve been looking through the collection of Photographs from our travels (because we needed to put together something of a slideshow for someone in our RL-existence) and here it is – on a special page called (rather helpfully, we thought): Photos. (or you can click on the picture and it will take you there (the miracles of The Hyperlink – we still remember the first day we learned how to make an “a” tag, ah heady days.)
so many places.
so many memories.
actually, if you’re curious about how we got into digital (and learned about the a “tag”) the story of our digital beginnings is here (but remember it’s about who we are in RL, not our teamglorianess so it’s all “I” and a bit British-in-tone not wonderfully-We as we are here ;-)
taking a quick break back at the hotel to rest before heading out to the conference somewhere on the outskirts of paris (why, oh why, are conferences never in the centre de ville anymore. one is so bored by the desperate nature of industrial estates.)
posted all the pix from madrid, milan and paris here:
how utterly splendid. just got an email from MyCityAntiquing.org, asking for permission to use these two pictures, which i took last summer, through the railings (it was a sunday and closed) of the sculpture garden at elizabeth street gallery.
just thinking of this request – and of teamgloria’s pictures heading out into the world – will make the sonogram and biopsy (ouch) at noon today SO much nicer (she said in an awfully julie andrews accent) ;-)
