http://www.bipedsmonitor.com C.E.D. Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:39:37 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="attachment_273" align="alignright" width="164" caption="Spain's Plan E"][/caption] My wife and I just returned from an extremely pleasant vacation to Spain, which like most of the industrialized north, is trying to cope with the economic recession by (too little, too late?) pumping money into public works.  We were really impressed to see ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2009/09/planb-for-spain-how-to-get-robbed-in-barcelona/ [caption id="attachment_256" align="alignnone" width="218" caption="Rocio Molina, from http://www.tristeyazul.com/Noticias_Flamenco/Fotos/Rocio_Molina_04.jpg"][/caption] It's been nearly a year since I posted about being swept away by Belen Maya in Carlos Saura's "Flamenco".  Maya and her young Malaguena dance partner, Rocio Molina, recently performed their latest exhibition of Flamenco energy, "Mujeres", at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2009/07/flamenco-update/ [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="402" caption="From Scott Walker: 30 Century Man"][/caption] All right. I admit that I lost track of Scott Walker after "Make It Easy on Yourself" (Bachrach/David, 1965) and "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" (Crewe/Gaudio, 1966). I don't think I ever picked up copies of Scott, Scott ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2009/07/scott-walker-21-century-man/ Because of a dire lack of nutrients, I was in the mood to remove random posts from this blog on a Friday spring fever afternoon.  Next time you try this on a Wordpress blog, you might think of doing a SQL backup.  Luckily I am so word-tied that I have ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2009/03/when-you-click-delete-all/ While I generally prefer films which are messy, with loose ends and imperfections that show that the filmmaker is trying to do more than he dare, occasionally I see one whose conception from start to finish could not posssibly be improved on. Tonight I put Carlos Saura’s Flamenco on the wide ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2008/09/total-art-saura-and-storaro/ The New York Times Magazine today published a reflection on the road movie genre by Walter Salles, who has directed three of the best. He mentions Hopper, Kiarostami, Antonioni, Wenders, Winterbottom, John Ford and others as masters who have pushed the genre to explore the movements of culture as well ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2007/11/road-movies-the-salles-view/ If you go to the movies today, you are usually looking to have to endure 150 minutes of flashy, overbudget, effects-heavy gimmicks produced by the Hollywood machine. This unpleasant experience extends even to “groundbreaking” movies, like those made by the Mexican new-wavers Inarritu, Cuaron and Del Toro, all vying for 2006 Oscars. Yes, they all ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2007/02/reality-bites/ Still under construction, this will be an extremely interesting building for a number of reasons: the architecture, the concept (hey, this IS the 21st century), and what it will do to a very backwater neighborhood of Rome. There will now be an axis between MAXXI and Parco della Musica (that includes the poor old ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2006/07/zaha-a-roma/ Sometimes, even comfortable Brits can shake us out of our complacency. I just got around to seeing Michael Winterbottom’s Code 46, which was first screened at the Venice Film Festival in 2003. The screenplay, a cooperation between Winterbottom and his longtime writer associate, Frank Cottrell Boyce, hits on all the right ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2006/04/the-pay-as-you-go-future/ It was the best of times, even though, or possibly due to the fact that, life itself (as well as all the trains, boats and planes) was running at half speed. The only depressing note in this otherwise strange world (strange in that it was almost identical to the feel of ... http://www.bipedsmonitor.com/archives/2006/02/the-mother-of-all-snowstorms/