Sweet & smooth Christmas a cappella from the sextet called "Vocation" - Ett barn är fött (A child is born) & Sleigh Ride -LIVE on Abbey Road, TV4's Nyhetsmorgon

TV4's Nyhetsmorgon: Vocation – Ett barn är fött (A child is born) LIVE on Abbey Road, December 22, 2011.
http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyhetsmorgon?title=vocation_ett_barn_ar_fott&videoid=2126555&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se







TV4's Nyhetsmorgon: Vocation – Sleigh Ride -LIVE on Abbey Road, December 22, 2011.
http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyhetsmorgon?title=vocation_sleigh_ride&videoid=2126551&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se


This music makes me think of the music I heard one odd pre-Christmas night 21 years ago at the Abercrombie & Fitch at Georgetown Mall, where, within 15 minutes, I ran into and spoke with both then-Rep. and future UN Ambassador and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and then-ABC News correspondent and Gator alum Forrest Sawyer, wearing a trench coat that made him seem like Joel McCrea in Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, one of my all-time favorite films.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Sawyer


I was the first person to tell Richardson about his future House colleague -and present U.S. Senator- Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and because he had never heard of him, at first, I think he thought I was joking about Sanders' VERY liberal politics.
"Even for Vermont" I think I told Richardson a few times.


The store had too many contrasting colognes being sprayed into the air for my tastes -by the adorable sale clerk from Kentucky who worked there- but when you were there, it felt like you were in the most Christmas-y place in all of Washington, D.C., besides near the National Christmas Tree on The Ellipse, where I'd been earlier that night.


(Far away from the decidedly un-Christmas feel of SE Broward County this week.)


Yes, back when the late and much-missed Au Pied du Cochon was just a few blocks away up on Wisconsin Avenue, the default hangout for my friends and I after we saw a film in Georgetown, esp. a foreign film.
Back in the early '90's, there were sometimes even two new au courant foreign films playing within four blocks that had the New York Times film critics abuzz, like Indochine or the Chinese film, LIFE.


When I was there with my friends and my then-significant other, the restaurant seemed almost magical, straight out of a film with interesting, attractive people, delicious-smelling aromas, and some "wicked" people-watching wherever we turned our heads.
We felt so "civilized" when we were there, which as pretentious as it sounds -and no doubt was- was no less true.
At certain points in time in the 15 years I lived up there, Au Pied du Cochon was one of the best places in all of Washington, D.C. to be.  


That's where we ate and drank after seeing all three films of the Three Colors trilogy of Krzysztof Kieślowski, starring, respectively, longtime HBB favorites Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy and Iréne Jacob. (I actually bought the film posters of "Blue" and "Red" and had them in frames in my home.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Colors_Trilogy


Boy, thinking back to THOSE days, it REALLY makes this area seem underwhelming, fun-wise.


Downtown Hollywood could do worse than to have one-tenth of the sort of magnetic persona that area of Wisconsin Avenue had at night. 
But in order to have even that, you need something for people to do at night besides eating, drinking or shopping, and right now, what is there?
No movie theaters, no bookstores with either charm or programming, no old-style news stands...


It's completely lacking in energy.


Maybe once the FEC commuter train is running in a few years and most of the shop owners in Downtown Hollywood who are now so rude and unfriendly have fled, someone with some common sense will invest some money and take advantage of its natural advantages.


I must tell you, though, among my friends, many who used to regularly patronize Downtown Hollywood at night, the collective corrosive effect of so much rudeness, second-rate service and products, and perennial worrying about both parking and safety/crime, has burned too many people, too many times.
"They're just not that into you."


Not that this avoidance has helped The Village at Gulfstream Park at night very much, though, because they are NOT going there either.


Some new faces with common sense and personality at Hollywood and Hallandale Beach City Hall, on the City Commissions, wouldn't hurt, either.


Notice all the 4's for Channel 4 above the ginger bread house doors!





Helena Insulander of Vocation is interviewed by Nyhetsmorgon hosts Kristin Kaspersen and and Steffo Törnquist. December 22, 2011.


http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyhetsmorgon?title=samtal_med_morgonens_musikgaster_vocation&videoid=2126473&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se


Nyhetsmorgon homepage full of video clips and info: 
http://www.tv4.se/nyhetsmorgon

Blizzard déjà vu! Carol Joynt gives you a Georgetown view of the Blizzard of 2010

"It's déjà vu all over again" -Yogi Berra.
Above, cover of today's Washington Post


Above, a Washington Post cover from my
last brutal blizzard, January of 1996, when I
lived on Pershing Drive in the Clarendon
neighborhood of Arlington County, off of
Washington Blvd. and near Fort Myer,
home of "The Old Guard" of the U.S. Army
and the site of the historic first plane flight in
Washington.

(One of my former Arlington housemates was
a Sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
at Arlington National Cemetery.

That Fall I moved to another part of northern
Arlington County, just off of N. Glebe Road,
south of Lee Highway, where I had some very
hilly areas to deal with carefully whenever we got
heavy snow, and I had to make my morning and
evening walk to the Ballston Metro, which was
about a 25-minute walk sans snow.

All the video and photos I've been looking at every
day for the past week on the Washington Post
and Baltimore Sun homepages have reminded me
all over again about the absolute worst part of so
much snow: lazy and inconsiderate home owners
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/
http://www.baltimoresun.com/

In my case, lazy and inconsiderate home owners
who lived on the high east-side of curving, uphill
Glebe Road, with their alleyway/side street rear
entrances to their homes, who continually "forgot"
to shovel their sidewalks, despite the County
promising to take it seriously.

Folks like me who took the Metro into work in
D.C. every morning had to walk facing traffic
on main roads, just two feet from passing cars,
constantly on alert for skidding cars or blasts
of snow falling on us as cars moved past us.

I seldom took the bus running from McLean
south on Glebe Road to the Ballston Metro
station on days like that, because even though
the bus stop was within of my bedroom window,
they were almost always running so far behind
schedule that it was quicker -if more arduous-
to walk, albeit very carefully.

Being very coordinated and graceful person,
I hated slipping and falling on ice, esp. in front
of a crowd!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/passable-streets/

First saw this great video in my daily email from
David Patrick Columbia's New York Social Diary
http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/

The added reason to see the post at his website today,
Nary a flurry outside; not so at the Leviev
salon is the photo of talented, savvy and oh-so adorable
designer Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss at the
City Harvest benefit held at the Leviev diamond
jewellery flagship store on Madison Avenue.
http://www.shoshanna.com/
She's got brains and personality to spare -love her!


Below, Carol Joynt gives you the Georgetown
grounded birds-eye view of things during the
Washington Blizzard of 2010, starting with an
establishing shot of M Street and 32nd Street, N.W.


Also see: http://www.caroljoynt.com/and
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheQandACafe