minimummy

Walking home today, I have seen a mother and a child close to the Iglesia metro station. 'Oh, what a stylish white outfit the baby is wearing!' Coming closer to them, I've realized that the kid was wearing a mummy Halloween costume. The fashion sense is a bitch.

Angel

There is a great looking poster for Max Payne, which is apparently a very bad movie. I love the way Mark Wahlberg stands in front of the Brooklyn bridge, the arch looking like wings.

Dog

I am reading José Saramago's Blindness now and today I have encountered a part worth mentioning: the protagonists are discussing the time when they went blind and one of them was just in a gallery. He doesn't remember the artists and he describes what he saw and the audience is suggesting who might have painted that one. There was a picture of a cornfield with crows and cypress trees. Sounds like a Dutch painter, they said. There was a picture of a naked woman inside a conch floating on the sea. Obviously Italian, they said. And then there was a drowning dog. In that case it must have been a Spanish painter, they concluded.

Incredibly

beautiful and witty.

Lewis Hine

Breathtaking.
Power house mechanic working on steam pump (1920)

They did it again

and I love it:

Fall Out Boy: What a Catch, Donnie

James Franco

Something I knew for quite some time.

CHAMCARRALERIOS

Today, the train computer system has gone totally berserk. Usually, it shows the next station and then changes to show the final destination, but today we have seen a very amusing mixture of random parts of the names glued together in a very surrealist manner. CHAMISTERIOS (Chamartin + Nuevos Ministerios). ALCOBARTIN (Alcobendas-SS Reyes + Chamartin). CANTOBARRAL (Cantoblanco + Fuencarral). Unfortunately, I couldn't see more because Cantoblanco was my destination.

Senses

Autumn fog in Cantoblanco. The olfactory system at its peak. Sewage processing unit. Kenzo. Decaying leaves. Gasoline. Acqua di Giò. Fried churros. Cigarette. Cat urine. Teatro mundi.

Sangre de mayo

Leaving the train station on Friday, I saw this poster for a new Spanish movie:
Hmmm, it looks quite impressive, I've thought, a history of the Peninsular wars, maybe, good looking actors, too... So when Carlos told me to pick a movie on Sunday, I suggested this one. Oh, what a mistake! A ridiculous pastiche of romantic scenes and court intrigues, mixed with a theater and poetry history and spiced a little bit with the war scenes in the last 15 minutes. When I saw the hand of Goya sketching his masterpiece five minutes before the end and the aerial views of KIO towers, Castellana and Bernabéu during the closing credits, assuring us that Madrid would survive everything, I was sure I was watching some parody. It's a truly bad movie.

Wet Wet Wet - Angel eyes

Klinikum Aachen

The Spanish Ministerio de vivienda organized an interesting exposition about two German architectures from the end of the WWII to the unification. One can see the divergences but also the convergencies of the capitalist and the socialist German states illustrated by numerous projects ranging from theaters, universities and sport facilities to the shopping centers. I discovered one breathtaking bulding from the FRG, a university hospital in Aachen. Apparently, it's the largest single hospital building in Europe. It can be also easily mistaken for an oil refinery:

Obreros

Once a friend of mine in Cali questioned my friend selection. She said I should only befriend people with PhDs. The painter asks me why do I hang out with an obrero. Today on a train I've seen a group of businessmen dressed in Armani, showing off with their iPhones and other gadgets and I thought to myself: look, these people are the ones responsible for the crisis we are experiencing now. I've got the answer.

Bravo, Google

Somehow I like you even more.

Hot, Hot

True Blood is becoming THE must-see show. Nicholas González, one of the hottest men on Earth, appeared in the last episode as a cameo:

Puglia, Ti Amo

Last week I spent in Lecce, Southern Italy, with my "endomembrane" colleagues. The conference was quite time consuming, but every evening we found some time to enjoy the city. I was impressed how stylish the place actually is, even though it has only around 100,000 inhabitants. There are some baroque monuments on almost every corner, the people are polite, very well dressed and very, very good looking, too.

M30

Last week Madrid experienced some quite heavy storms and as this city is never ready for any rain, the M30 tunnel system was again flooded. The M30 tunnels were used as an example how wonderfully can Partido popular govern Madrid province and the whole system was wisely opened just before the local election. Obviously, any problems turn quickly into a political issue. Today, the newspapers report that after some investigation, another public project works were found responsible for the flood by making holes into the existing M30 structures. It's not clear to me whether it was the same reason for the flood we witnessed the last year (I personally doubt it), but whatever. More importantly, the designer of the M30, Manuel Melis, said yesterday: "Estoy deprimido por lo que les están haciendo a mis túneles". He's downhearted for what they were doing to his tunnels. Priceless.

Nancy No More

The fourth and so far, the darkest season of Weeds just ended. The DEA agent was found skinless on the US-Mexican border fence, Doug called the INS to have his girlfriend deported, Celia was kidnapped while in Mexico, Shane has started do deal pot at school... There were no guns aimed at Nancy's head (Season 2 finale) or her house burning to the ground (Season 3 finale) but when she was in the car heading south and calling the gift shop to order a delivery for Silas, it was one of the saddest scenes I've ever seen on TV. Finally, when the alcalde confronted her with the photograph, I though there was no way she could survive that but well, who knows after the second photo presented. Now it'll be long nine months to figure it out.

Genius

The new iTunes version introduced an interesting Pandora-like feature: when playing a song, you can let the Apple database suggest you other songs that can complement nicely the one that you like. Today, I put my all-time-favourite, There Is a Light that Never Goes Out by the Smiths and this came out:

• Life on Mars by David Bowie
• To the End (La Comédie) by Blur
• The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen
• Starálfur by Sigur Rós
• Motorcycle Emptiness by Manic Street Preachers
• Suzie by Boy Kill Boy
• Moving by Supergrass
• Gold by Spandau Ballet
• etc.

Simply amazing! These are all songs that I love to death. Bravo Steve, well done.

True Blood

HBO started to broadcast their new original TV series called True Blood. Takes place in Bon Temps, Louisiana and depicts a world where vampires are not drinking human blood but Japanese synthetic substitute and thus can live among us. Sounds pretty lame at first, but based on the screened episode premises the show is likely to be extremely stylish, cool and worth checking out.