Monday, December 29, 2014

Stella and Ella: Public Access Gold!




As you are well aware - OK, then, you aren't because you never read this - I am always on the lookout for good public access kitsch. This is some of the finest I've ever seen: Stella and Ella, identical twins in their 70s with oddly unlined, expressionless faces, doing a "panno-mahn" to Bing Crosby groaning Silent Night. As we find out in the introduction, one of them is dead, which explains a lot (though they may be mistaken about that: to me, it looks as if BOTH of them are). They wear white choir gowns and do a lot of outstretched-arm stuff. There is this "local radar" weather warning thing which I at first thought was some new YouTube feature. It never goes away and lends a bizarre stained-glass effect, along with the orange fibreglass curtains. 

These things aren't parody, which is what makes them so fascinating. They are sincere efforts at worship. Of what, I am not sure. No doubt both ladies are dead now, wearing their white crimplene gowns permanently in that great Public Access Station in the Sky.