Cristina, Camp, and Candelabras

If there’s one thing I love, it’s camp.  So, if there’s a second thing I love, it’s Liberace. My grandparents have lived in Las Vegas for more than twenty years, and I’ve been visiting the (currently homeless) Liberace Museum for about as long. My house features many a tchotchke purchased at the museum’s gift shop.

Liberace Museum Turkey Feather Costume

So, you can only imagine how stoked I was for Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabara. From the day it was announced, I was ready. As the day of its premiere on HBO drew nearer, I knew I had to get my friends together to celebrate and watch. The campiness and fabulousness and Liberaceness were not to be denied. Now, because I currently live in Los Angeles and all my friends live in the Bay Area, the lovely Angela offered up her house and her party-planning prowess. Angela did the heavy lifting (and amazingly so!), decorating a la Lee’s “palatial kitsch” with gilded…well, everything. I brought some booze and a Jello mold. And my enthusiasm!

Behind the Candelabra Party Accessories

Guests were encouraged to dress up in Liberace-worthy duds. I opted for a sequined dress and big rings. (Photo by the lovely Adiel.)

The champagne was flowing! (Don’t worry, we weren’t getting children drunk. Club soda is just way more festive in a champagne glass!)

There were concoctions of dubious origins.

Silly photos were taken, featuring many silly faces. And apparently a beret made an appearance.

7cdcb25cc67411e2b28822000a9f1468_7

And Lee himself presided over things.

By the time the movie started, we were all pretty well in the bag. We did not have an official drinking game, but made one up as we went along. There was enough fromage in the movie that we all pretty well instinctively knew when to drink. For instance, when this happened:

btc-9

A good time was had by all. A great time was had by most! (Put that on my tombstone.) I think we all need to watch the movie again because we were kind of drunk the first time, but I call that a successful evening.

Our next shindig will feature the classic film Willie Dynamite, which I foisted upon Angela and Steve when they came to visit me a few months ago. It really deserves a party.

Rectify

Rectify Aden Young

I’ve been meaning to get a post up about my trip to NY, but that’ll have to wait (probably until it’s been so long it doesn’t matter anymore). But, in the meantime, I’m going to tell you about the best show you’re probably not watching (and maybe haven’t even heard of)…

It’s called Rectify and it’s on the Sundance Channel. It was just picked up for a second season, and I couldn’t be more pleased. The first season, which is still airing (Mondays at 10), is only six episodes.You can likely catch up on demand (the first two episodes are even streaming on Sundance’s site) and it’ll probably be on Netflix shortly after the season ends in two weeks. And all of them are on Amazon already, so if you have $10 to spare, you can buy the whole season right now, like I did. And you should. This is the best thing I’ve seen on TV in a long time. It’s a very different show from anything else on the air. It’s slow and quiet and thoughtful. It makes you think about what it means to be alive, what is real, what is just… That makes it (and me!) sound sort of pretentious, and maybe some people would react to the show that way, but it’s really and truly an amazing piece of television. The basic premise is a guy, who was sentenced to death at 18 for the rape and murder of his high-school girlfriend, gets out of jail after 19 years based on some finally-tested DNA evidence. The show deals with his life after prison (the six episodes take place during the following six days), informed by flashbacks to his time on death row. There’s an overarching plot about the town’s reaction to his release, his potential re-trial, his guilt or innocence, with a bit of whodunnit mystery built in (because it is, after all, a TV show and not a Terrence Malik film–though it does look a bit like one sometimes) as well, but the series is really built around Aden Young’s amazingly powerful and quiet performance. This is a man who’s almost completely lost and overwhelmed and it’s an incredible thing to watch. I can’t recommend Rectify highly enough. Do yourself a favor and give it a shot. I was hooked after the first fifteen minutes.

Sweep!

Sharks Sweep CanucksBoom! Sharks swept the Canucks tonight! The first series sweep in Sharks history! The first team to finish a series this year. Can’t wait for round two!

NYC Here I Come

Chicken Livers Celeste NYCEvery year I take a trip back to NYC and I visit museums, see plays, walk around, drink, and eat at all my favorite places (and try to find somewhere new too).  The chicken livers from Celeste on Amsterdam are must-haves. That giant plate comes and I dig in. I eat nearly the entire thing and then gobble up a bowl of gnocchi and a delicious orange-blossom grain cake for dessert. That I managed to take even a blurry picture last year is amazing because all I wanted to do was dive in. Those chicken livers are one of the highlights of my year.

I’m off on a plane tonight and I can’t wait to hit the ground running. Well, that’s a lie. I take the red eye and all I want to do when I arrive is check in early and sleep, but, after that, I’ll hit the ground running! Follow along on Instagram to see all the shenanigans!

Ach, Mein Leben!

Berliner Weisse and Waldmeister SyrupI have never been to Germany, but if my experiences at German restaurants are any indication, I think I would enjoy it. Sausages, pretzels, schnapps, and the tasty concoction you see above: Berliner Weisse mit Schuss. Berliner Weisse is a semi-sour wheat beer and it’s often served mit Schuss or with a shot of syrup, usually raspberry or a lovely green woodruff-flavored Waldmeister syrup, which is my favorite (it’s also good in cheap champagne). Both ingredients can be sort of hard to track down (even many German restaurants have trouble getting them all year long), but it’s well worth it to try. (I found both in Las Vegas, which is, like, a drinker’s paradise, even far off the Strip.) The drink is light and sweet and refreshingly delicious. Plus, it’s probably the one beer you can confidently drink with a bendy straw.

Family Matters

My family is rad. And they have always, no matter what, no matter how fantastic or stupid my choices have been, been completely loving and supportive of anything I’ve done. Plus, they’re awesome and fun. I try very, very hard to never take that all for granted.

On Good Intentions…

I am the worst blogger. I’m not really a blogger. That might explain it. But, I do enjoy playing with my WordPress theme, so—voilà!—redesign. Not that I do much more than tweak someone else’s theme, but let’s not get hung up on details.

Anyway, I tend to play with this blog when I start intending to write in it again, so here we are. Again. I’m sort of using the idea of blogging as motivation to get my life into a bit more shape. I’ve been in LA for seven months now, if you can believe it. I barely can! While I have my job, have gotten my apartment together (there’s a blog post idea for me!), and have a few spots I like around town, I don’t really have much of a life here. I sort of just exist and look forward to trips home to San Jose and visits from friends. I sleep in too much during the week, don’t really dress up for work, and am generally just in a bit of a funk. I’ve always been very happy to go out and do things alone, but, for some reason, Los Angeles just doesn’t seem much like a place I want to do that. I moved down here not knowing anyone and making friends at 35 (dude, I turned 35 last month) can be tough…particularly when you don’t go anywhere. Heh.

So, intentions are good. And I have them. Let’s see how it goes…

Post Navigation