Modern Family Easter egg

Sometimes I just can't get enough of Helena Lamb. She's supper happy fun time, and also the Assistant Director on ABC's Modern Family. It's fun knowing someone on the show, meeting cast and crew, and watching the show for the little background gems—such as friends as extras, or photos of friends in the background—and little easter eggs like this one in this season's opener.


Now that's a shout out.

Update:  Awww.  Helena put that in as a shout out to her awesome brother John in Chile who watches the show via iTunes subscription.

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Belize Wedding Adventure!

I didn't manage to finish the videos until Christmas time 2012, but I wanted to back-date a post with the videos from the ridiculously amazing trip to Placencia, Belize for the wedding of Helena Lamb and Annie Weber!




Such beauty, such love, and such an amazing group of people! Making a Facebook group for us to socialize in prior to departure really made making new friends easier and facilitated the adventure. This was a just a superlative group of people and we all got along like a house on fire. Helena commented at the reception: "Y'all keep acting surprised at how awesome all our friends are. Why? We wouldn't be friends with assholes."










And she was right. And certainly no losers would say, "Sure! Let's go party in Belize, in the tropics, at the end of May..."

The Flickr set from the adventure is here. And here is the music video Christmas card I made for Helena and Annie:


And this is the longer video of the weekend, capturing more of the story for my new friends to share.


Don't stop Belizin!

Here come the brides

My favorite pair are getting married this May. In Belize. I'm going. Brother Mac is officiating. Helena (pronounced Hell-Eeen-Ah, but I sometimes call her Helena Handbasket) is one of my all time favorite peeps, is laugh-out-loud funny, and Gets The Joke.

While on a minor adventure to the flea market with Interesting Grace, I stumbled upon the perfect engagement present. I am the WORST at haggling. Brother Mac could sell a drowning man a glass of water. I say things like, "You mean with that water I get TWICE as many hydrogen molecules as oxygen molecules!? Bargain!" I know flea markets are all about the bargaining, but when I found this item and explained to my companion, "Oh my God this is so awesome! I MUST have this!" I sort of lost all credibility in negotiation. Luckily for me, to the "vendor" this was just another piece of junk from the boxes of trash he took from someone else in hopes of making a penny out of other people's garbage, and the price he quoted, while exorbitant to his mind, was really undervaluing this literary find.

Helena received the rare book this week. After I dropped it in the mail, I had a moment of panic, thinking "What if she doesn't get the joke? She's going to think I just sent her garbage..." I should not have feared. In fact when it comes to gift giving, I may have over-shot with this one. She loves it as much as I had hoped.

Ladies and gentlemen, printed in a limited edition run by the Stevens department store of Chicago in 1940, the all-inclusive prim and proper guide for The Bride.


Seriously, the etchings used to illustrate this guide are pretty psychedelic. I hate posting large images in the blog but it's necessary to note the WTF details. Helena has indicated that she may post some scans of her own later.






There is so much ironic awesome in this book. It is so over the top it reads more like brilliant modern satire than genuine opinion and advice. I couldn't get it in my little shelf scanner at home, so I resorted to taking few photos. It really doesn't do it justice. Each chapter is written by an expert in the related field, some with a very high-handed and high-minded first person narrative of how absolutely perfect and flawless they are at such things, and you would do well to aspire to her level. In things like gift-wrapping or choosing negliges.

Meet Alice and Robey:


Alice H. Marks: "Known from coast to coast as an expert on what to give. Her packaging of presents is generally accepted as unrivaled."

Little known fact: Also played Mrs. Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies.

Robey Lyle: "Authority on merchandise for women. Expert on Manhattan's shops and shopping. Magazine writer on fashions, household furnishings, and good form and social usage."

Or in other words: Well get her.

And frankly, I am pretty good at getting used socially myself but I'm not going to brag about it. I keep that shit South of Market where it belongs.

The Bride is just full of useful advice, an almost never-ending litany of proper do's and don't that I imagine every young socialite poured over with obsession while wearing a corset and enough layers that the husband to be would have no idea what she looked like form the chin down.

Seriously, the book reads like this:

"In splashing colors of medieval Russian spelndor, a mingling of barbaric ostentation and religious pomp." (Honestly! That's not even a complete sentence. They throw sentence fragments and prepositional phrases around here like it's rice.)

"She let loose a phantasmagoria of pictures, movies, and stills. Yet there was nothing that really counted in her amazing show which is not at the finger tips of Miss All American Bride if she but fix her clear inquiring eyes on the seeming mysteries of a formal—yes, a smart top flight wedding if you will. Once a budget figure has been wrangled out of father—and it need be no astronomical figure—a beautiful wedding is assured, for family, for relatives, for guests, and most of all, a sweet proud remembrance for the bride of her day of days of her life."

You now see why this book begs for commentary. And an editor. The run-on sentences, fragments, stream of consciousness, haphazard use of commas, and what can only be described loosely as a sentence "structure" are completely forgiven by the use of the word phantasmagoria. Try working that into a conversation sometime. Bonus points if you are at work. Double bonus score if you are in confession.

"Once the theme of the bridal costume (Yay! Costumes!!) is decided it must be carried on through the entire wedding party, as to form, color, and material. The bride in satin cannot select organdie for her maids. What are known as period costumes, mist always maintain their theme through the entire wedding party."

(oh GOD, a THEME wedding!! I'm choosing Civil War. No, wait! Barbarella!)

"It is but a matter of planning that knows its way about town and country. Starting right at the beginning, and driving along the well posted route. Miss All American Bride may have her dream wedding with all the glamor of that super bridal, with the probable exception of a princeling. It is a good hunch (and every man wants a girl with a good hunch) that whoever stands in the groom's adding raiment, whether it be the blue jacket and white trousers of a summer country home wedding in the garden..."

Also try working princeling and raiment into your next conversation. While wearing a blue jacket and white trousers. Before doing so, look up "5150" so you'll know what they're referring to when they are talking about you in hushed tones.

With regards to packing for the honeymoon:

"I venture no suggestions for those of you participate actively in sports. You know what you need already. Last of all in addition to the fur coat and top coat already discussed, it is well to have another of the casual sport variety, not necessarily expensive.

Hats, gloves, purses and bags for day and evening, suitable shoes‚get these as you can afford them. But stockings, of course, as well know, can not be over done. No matter how modest the trousseau, it can well have two dozen pairs of several weights."

Almost nothing is mentioned about what is to be expected of the bride on her wedding night by her new husband. Much is written about the lingerie, but not why she needs fancy bedtime clothes, or the fact that the groom is expected to take them off. The closest the guide gets is a reference to the importance of the selection of the going-to-bed wardrobe as a "part of a young girl's preparation for her married life."

The perhaps more helpful sub-chapters on marital expectations entitled "fellatio" or "when your groom knocks at your back door" are markedly absent.

You can also imagine the author clutching her pearls, fan at hand, as she seeks to address the scandalous but unfortunate reality of "Special Nuptials." That is to say, second marriages. The mere thought gives me the vapors.

"Second marriages, or shall we say the frequency of them, have accentuated the need of a new chapter on wedding etiquette. Perhaps a whole volume is needed to meet all the many problems of good form that arise. But the regulations, conventionalities, or what we will, are still so vaguely defined that it is better to be brief and set down clearly those things that have become accepted."

Simplicity and informality should mark the wedding of a bride who has been divorced. Her marriage, if it does not take place in a judge's chambers, will be celebrated in a chapel, church, or her own home. She will not wear a white gown and veil. She may wear a formal afternoon dress, or a traveling costume if it is a civil ceremony. She will have one attendant or none. No children by her first marriage should attend her."

Whatevs Mrs. Havisham.

Furthermore,

"Just when a bride may be considered too old for bridal white is too delicate a subject for this arbiter to decide. But there is unwritten caution that where there is doubt, simplicity is in order. The older woman is usually married in afternoon gown and hat. If she is married in her own home she may wear a simple gown without a hat. In other respects she can follow the usual wedding conventions."

The last pages of the book are a blank catalog for the bride to be to register the gifts she received, from whom, from where, and when thanked. Thumbing through these pages from 1940 was almost archaeologically fascinating. Or in Helena's words, "They scored." The gifts varied from "silver server" to "five dollars, cash."


I was more impressed that the thank-you notes were typically next day. Nicely done.

So far, the only preparations I have made for Helena's wedding have been reserving a room, getting airfare to Belize, joining a gym, and starting a diet. And, of course, finding the best engagement present ever.

See how far we have come, and be confident in how far we can go.

Going on the Lamb

Helena Lamb, one of my absolute favorite people from Nashville, has been in LA for quite some time, and a couple of years ago was one of the very few honored to become a trainee of the Director's Guild of America.

She has been working non-stop since on shows such as Bones, Journeyman, Brothers & Sisters, and spent a lot of time on Vanished before it was canceled by Fox. Whatever you think of those shows, she is a Director, not a writer. I really want to like Bones, but the writing/characters just aren't up to scratch. And I really wanted to like Vanished for Helena (not that she was in charge or anything), but the dialog was so awfully comic book (actually comic books are much better), and no one sounded close to/acted close to anyone set in Atlanta.

However, Helena has gone from an overworked apprentice of the DGA, to an overworked Second Second Assistant Director for the new ABC show Women's Murder Club (based on a series of James Patterson novels), which premieres tonight.

So a huge YAY! for Helena! Those crime scenes? All her.

Local Chronicle/SF Gate critic Tim Goodman was unimpressed (the show is set in San Francisco, and so many of those get SF so wrong), but New York (Magazine) loved it, as did The Hollywood Reporter.

Tune in and decide for yourself. Tonight on ABC.



Or, if it is a slow work day, watch the premiere online.