Happy birthday HST!

Primavera II

Madrid primaveral

Life

Gold

He is definitely not the most skilled figure skater but he is a hottie.

Jamie Cullum - God Only Knows

A single man (on the road)

This weekend I saw two movies I wanted to see since I've read they were filming them. First was an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's chilling nightmare, The road. By coincidence, I finished reading the book exactly a year ago. I have to admit that even though the book adaptations normally cannot match the corresponding literary works, in this case the movie is actually quite well made and satisfying. The world is still bleak and barren, there is clearly no normal life ahead for the characters, yet the movie actually feels a little bit optimistic. Last year, after I finished the book, I was truly devastated.
Yesterday I went to see A single man, a directorial debut of Tom Ford, a former chief designer for Gucci. He adapted a 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood. Unfortunately, I haven't read the book so I cannot make any comparisons, but the movie really stands well by its own as a story of an aging gay man. George Falconer, a university professor, lost his partner of 16 years in a car accident. Colin Firth is so believable and real, it's heartbreaking. Julianne Moore as his longtime friend is also great. Jon Kortajarena, a Basque übermodel, plays a male prostitute and he is surprisingly good as well. Unfortunately, the young student that flirts with Falconer was not well chosen, IMHO. He is just too pretty. Overall though, this film is spectacular, the interior designs, the clothes, the changing colours during the time-course of the movie are perfect... well done.

50¢ mug

I'm lovin' it.

A sad good-by

J.D. Salinger died today. On Tuesday, I have finished re-reading The Catcher in the Rye. Boy, what a coincidence.
It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to. ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 21

Madrid en blanco

I was kind of depressed in the morning, but the sun rays made it much better. Apparently, it was snowing in places where it hadn't snowed for more than 50 years!

Enough is enough, OK?

Luces de Navidad

SolGran VíaChueca

わたしを離さないで

Yesterday I finished Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go", a book from the same category as McCarthy's The Road, the one that leaves you speechless in utter shock. England, late 90s. Kathy B. describes her childhood in Hailsham, a somehow special boarding school. We meet her friends Tommy and Ruth and her teachers or "guardians", who greatly support artistic abilities of the students. However, even in these idyllic times, there are some cracks in the façade and we start to realize that something terrible is awaiting these kids in the future. We learn that they cannot have babies and they will work as "carers" and later "donors". It's in the second part of the novel, with the three friends as teenagers living in a farm community, when we are finally told the truth: the students were human clones, raised only to have their organs harvested. During the "donations", other clones, the "carers", are supporting the "donors" and after three or rarely four donations, the "donors" are "completed". In the third part of the book, Ruth and Tommy both started to "donate" and Kathy works as "carer". After Ruth "completes", Kathy and Tommy go to visit one of their former guardians, the Hailsham director, to ask if there was anything true about rumours that if two former Hailsham students were in love, their "completion" would be postponed so they could live together for some time. They are told not just that it's a pure nonsense, but also that Hailsham doesn't exist anymore, that the gentle way of raising the clones in the boarding schools have been abandoned. For something much worse, I assume. What is the most disturbing part of the novel is the fact that the clones accept their miserable destiny, their imminent deaths, without fighting or even questioning it.
One of the key scenes of the book takes place while they are still in Hailsham. Kathy has an audiotape with her favourite song called "Never let me go". As a child, she thinks that the song is about a mother and her child, as the chorus goes: "Baby, baby, never let me go...". She is singing the song in her bedroom and accidentally sees the Hailsham director looking at her, crying. She doesn't understand why the teacher cries and in fact, she may never understand. I believe that the director saw humanity deteriorating, something we should "never let go".

Museo de Historia

After more than three years of work, they finally revealed one of the most beautiful doorways in Madrid.

(Pedro de Ribera, El Real Hospicio del Ave María y San Fernando, 1721-1726)

Helvetica 3

A third post about the most stylish typeface in the world. One of my favourite exposition places in Madrid, La Arquería, which belongs to the Spanish Ministerio de Vivienda, is showing an exhibition about new technologies and materials for industry. The walls are decorated with these stunning posters:

This Charming Man

Chad White by Daniel D'Ottavio.

Language ignorance

I have visited the RJB today to see a new exhibition of a contemporary Spanish architecture. It would be a shame not to share a picture of this panel:

Priceless.
(for non-Spanish speakers: "medicas" (without accent) really means "you medicate", but in this case "centro de especialidades médicas" means "centre of medical specialties")

Glee

Without music, the new Glee show would be just a standard Freaks & Jocks high school TV. But those guys can sing, including him:

Montpellier, je t'aime

... and thanks to you guys, it was also so much fun.