ChrissieWe went to Wayne's Tree World yesterday arvo and bought our tree.I tried to find a fraser fir, as was recommended by Jen, but settled in the end for a gorgeous noble fir that is just short of 2.5 metres (eight feet) and just the most perfect shape.
Then I spent the rest of the day trimming it, with help from David to put on the lights.
I love Christmas — as I blogged about last year.
Every year I try to find a little new something for the tree. This year it's a couple of dozen Polish crystal glass raindrops ...... I love them so much I'm tempted to go and buy a whole heap more.
It's chilly today and we're going to light the fire! Yay!
:: A friend of mine mentioned choral music yesterday — on facebook — and I've been listening to a Haydn mass non-stop ever since. Perfect for this time of the year.
I also love Sufjan Stevens' huge album, Songs for Christmas. It's just so beautiful, and he gets such a distinctive sound with all the old familiars. Do you have any Chrissie music you love?
:: We're having a day in LA tomorrow. Will's passport expires in January, so we're off to the Australian Consulate in Century City to get him a new one. Hoping to get in a couple of hours at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art as well.
I shall so miss LA when we're back in Australia!
On Friday we'll be back there again, as guests of the organisation, Australians in Film, to see a special preview screening of the new Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's at the Warner Bros studios in Hollywood, so I'm excited!

Weird spooky cosmicoincidence, yeah!

** Don't watch this video (above) until you've read my ramblings! **

I am such a Pandora-adora.
It's a shame that you can't use it in Australia: basically it's a wide-world interweb radio station thingy which lets you list about 10 of your favourite artists. It then plays you - through your computer machinery - non-stop, f-r-e-e music by them and by other artists which Pandora reckons you would like, based on characteristics it has determined for the artists you have listed ('the Music Genome Project').
So, for the past few weeks, since I fell in love with The Lovely Antony, whose name is on my Pandora list, I have been listening, fascinated, to a whole other world of music and artists that I'd never have experienced otherwise.

Well, one of the new songs I have become addicted to is Joanna Newsom's Swansea. It is so astoundingly w-e-i-r-d. And wonderful - she is a classically trained harp player with the singing voice of an eight-year-old and the face of a 16-year-old. But so very talented.
So now watch the YouTube video at the top of this post, and then click on this to see Joanna live on YouTube, singing Swansea.

Antony ...

... singing 'If It Be Your Will', from the Leonard Cohen documentary, I'm Your Man.

:: And, if you look carefully, you'll notice a guitarist bathed in an electric blue light. He is Chris Spedding, whom - ahem - I met at Brian Ferry's post-performance party in the Parmelia Hilton in ... must have been ... 1977.
Sounds glamorous, but it was terrible. The concert promoters had lined up a selection of Perth 'models', including the reigning Miss Jeans West (or was she Miss West Coast?), for the band's perusal. You can just imagine ...
I also remember watching JK struggling to get in to the party, red-faced and outraged at being refused admission, despite thrusting the delectable young GS before him. That was fun! 'Look! Look! I've brought my OWN Perth model!' I can almost hear him squealing.
There was even more fun when G was let in but J was entirely rejected ... though I may be imagining that as the ideal and just ending to that little story.

:: By the way, the new blog header was scanned from a real novel, Perfect Love, by Elizabeth Buchan. It's an all-women-are-saintly-while-nearly-all-men-are-pigs potboiler, though very well written and a fast and entertaining read.