I'm recently returned to my beloved home after a somewhat disappointing trip to Madrid (flickr set).
Madrid proved to have an excessive number of pickpockets (one of whom I thwarted, in classic New York style, as she attempted to rob my mother), and a disappointing lack of olive tapenade. Main lesson learned: When you live in a city as incomprable as New York, it's best to limit vacation to the countryside and take only short day trips into nearby cities. If you stay in one city too long, all you can think of is how much better New York does that whole "city" thing.
But the best part of Madrid, by far, was the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, which showed me an awesome new side of everyone's favorite surrealist.
My hometown, St. Petersburg, Florida, happens to have a larger Dalí collection than the Reina Sofia, but some rather peculiar and interesting stuff of his does call Madrid home.
exhibit a: "Girl at the Window," 1925
Wait, who did you say this was painted by??? I mean, the colors and textures are totally Dalí but what's wrong with this picture? (Answer: Nothing, which is exactly what's wrong with it.)
exhibit b: L'Âge D'Or, 1930
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And only five short years after painting "Girl at the Window," Dalí co-wrote this savagely weird movie with fellow crazy-man Luis Buñel, which, according to the BBC's movie site, actually caused audience riots. One has to wonder: What were these people expecting to see when they bought tickets for a Buñel/Dalí collaboration???
I couldn't understand a word of it at the Reina Sofia, but luckily the YouTube version provides subtitles. Check it out at 1:10 after 20 seconds of vanity from the uploader (not undeserved, since she did dig this up, in addition to tons of other classic stuff) and 90 make that 70…errr…50 seconds of titles [Thanks, brother! I never could get my units of measurement straight.].
Even on its own, the opening scorpion montage is pretty much priceless.
I'm not entirely sure, but the last time I checked, there are only 70 seconds in 1:10.
Oh, man, your sister is not good at units of measurement. Fixed!
Still not quite right. You still have the "20 seconds of vanity from the uploader" to account for. Remember that 20+70 equals 90, so that would put you at 1:30 total. To your credit, you didn't make that particular mistake the first time around and it was my vague correction that set you astray. To settle this once and for all, it should be 20 seconds of vanity and 50 seconds of titles, adding up to 1 minute and 10 seconds total before the actual video starts. :-)
Wait…WHAT does 70 + 20 add up to? Not 70???
Sheesh. Well, we know why you have a surfeit of math aptitude. Had to balance out somewhere.