www.grundlos.org

One month ago a Spanish court ruled a daring judgement: Downloading music for private use isn’t a crime. According to the sentence the accused had not committed any punishable offense, as he didn’t pursue any financial interests. Downloading music from the Internet for private use was common practise and socially accepted, so declaring this illegal would implicate criminalising millions of citizens without reason, stated judge Paz Aldecoa in Santander. For the interested ones: Here’s the link to the newspaper-article in Spanish.

I’ve finally been to one of the most beautiful cities here in Spain: Granada. The last time I wanted to go I didn’t get tickets for the Alhambra. But now at last everything worked out fine. And what’s best, I didn’t go alone but with two great friends here from Spain. I’ve already created a new album with photos from the trip. If you are interested in seeing them I’ll be delighted to give you the password. A short email should be sufficient (if you don’t know my address try a fantasy name terminating in @grundlos.org, that should work).
I’ve found a beautiful artwork of the Alhambra that really captures the spirit of this extraordinary complex.
In case you run Google Earth try entering the coordinates: 37°10’39.40″N 3°35’22.91″W

The Arabic news company Aljazeera broadcasted a simple animated caricature depicting their version of the impacts on the islamic world caused by the pope’s much-discussed speech in Regensburg. It shows Benedict XVI shooting the doves of peace released by aged John Paul II. Benedict XVI cited in his speech a Byzantine emperor with the words “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. This had caused an uproar in the muslimic world. The original cartoon can be seen on their homepage and is titled “Era of the New Vatican”. How far this cartoon represents the generalized feelings in the muslim world is hard to say for me, but Aljazeera seems to my impression quite qualified to really do so.
In my opinion this speech demonstrates either a lack of diplomatic common sense or just plain bad behaviour. In Germany exists a proverb that states “One who sits in a house of glass shouldn’t start throwing stones”. The so called “Christianity” the pope represents has it’s own quite bloody history account of converting by the sword and this even amongst their own followers (just think about inquisition). Islamic conquerors meanwhile usually didn’t force people to convert — just have a little trip to the south of Spain to see the remains of the religion’s peaceful together under the reign of the Islamic rulers of Spain. It were the Catholic Kings that put an end to tolerance and drove the Moslems out of Spain by the point of the sword. Well, just my five cents to that. If you have an opinion just let it be heard in the comments section.

Opinion: Great costumes, great atmosphere, great acting, great story — now, how come it doesn’t make a great film? I guess it’s the script, too much of what could have been great stories of it’s own right appear wasted here and you find yourself wishing it would end sooner. Nevertheless it entertains and especially the historical setting is excellent.

Story/Review: It’s difficult to sum up the story, because the movie just fails to tell it. Anectdotical scenes appear back to back without much to hold them together. This is the movies biggest fault, it’s just not possible to condense 5 (although short) novels in one big movie. I don’t understand why they haven’t spared some material for possible sequels as of late it has become so fashionable making trilogies out of everything. I haven’t read any of the books (but I will) and even so, it’s sadly obvious that here goes a lot of potential just to waste.
A word of advice: This movie is in some scenes quite violent and doesn’t refrain showing blood and gore. It’s never over the top though. There is also some nudity and sexual explicit content, just for your consideration.
Having that said, let’s turn to the good sides of the movie. First one Viggo Mortensen — he is just great as Don Diego Alatriste. Many Spanish find his voice strange, perhaps due to a slight Argentinian accent but I rather think they’re just not used to the original voice of Viggo. In this one he adds a slight rasping to it which suits the character perfect. Mortensen through his acting really saves a lot of what the script has failed to add in depth to Capitan Alatriste.
Although the storytelling is a mess, and almost never explains sufficiently why characters act like they do, there are some truly emotional scenes, which one can enjoy. I’d especially like to mention the plot around the necklace which is very touching.
Music was also a strong point about the movie, there are beautiful atmospheric pieces of classical Spanish Guitar changing with haunting flute/clarinette (? it’s some blown instrument I fail to recognize) passages, creating acoustic scenery that just works really well with the images.
The really great thing about this movie and also the reason why I would recommend viewing it is the art direction. Just have a look at contemporary paintings of people like the Conde Duque de Olivares or Francisco de Quevedo and you will instantly recognize them on screen. They just seem transferred right out of the paintings and brought to life before you. And where the hell did they find that modern Habsburg that incorporates Felipe IV? He is just perfect! If you’ve visited the Prado Museum in Madrid you will have a lot of deja-vu experiences more as the movie takes great effort to rebuild the atmosphere and settings of famous Spanish painter Velázquez. That and the splendour of the historic setting in this very intersting period of the Spanish Empire, those glimpses of the power of the church, the intrigues at court and the desperate battles fought by exhausted soldiers is what saves the film a bit of recommendability. It really wakes interest in reading the books and get to know the history behind the events depicted.
All in all this movie has some great moments but sadly fails to reach it’s full potential. Go see it to wake your interest in Spanish history but be aware of its flaws.

Release Date in Germany is 27.10.2006

Last weekend some friends and I passed the afternoon at the Madrid Theme Park. That’s a great park full of exciting attractions pretty close to the center of Madrid in the former hunting grounds of the king (Casa de Campo) which as of today continues to be vast stretch of greenlands right behind the kings palace. We had a great time mounting in all the roller coaster rides it had to offer. I said we, well some required a lot of convincing and others utterly refused riding some of the more … “thrilling” ones. But, well — the we-had-a-great-time-thing I guess applies to all of us! Afterwards I had the kind of voice that usually is aquired by years of smoking thick cigars and enjoying to much high percentaged drinks… I just love yelling while riding a roller coaster!
Visit my photo-gallery for some pictures (please ask me for the password if you’re interested)!

Surely everyone has heard of this famous painting by Picasso and most of you will have seen a reproduction somewhere. Here in Madrid you can find the original in the Reina Sofía Museum of Modern Art. It’s quite a story how it got there, as Picasso gave the painting to the Museum of Modern Art in New York where it were to stay until Spain would be a free country (i.e. Francos dictatorship abolished). In 1981 it finally was transferred to Madrid, as Spain was after the death of Franco steadily becoming more democratic and liberal.
The painting itself (which unfortunately I wasn’t able to photograph due to strict controls on cameras in the exposition — on the left you see a preparatory painting which I was lucky to photograph before the supervising personal spotted me) is monumental. It really impacts on the viewer, crying out all the pain and sorrow of not only the Spanish Civil War but all the wars that have been fought in all times on this planet. Well I won’t give you a review of the painting here, you’ll have to go visit Madrid and see it for yourself. What I really wanted to talk about is, what I found incidentially, a small detail in the exposition. Pointing out several paintings wich thematized war and the suffering of the innocent (Goyas Shooting of the 8th of May in Madrid and Picasso’s Corean Massacre amongst others), there was also a title page of a newspaper, announcing the beginning of the first world war. It said:

All Nations In State of War
Germay vs. the Rest of the World

It really struck me, that it’s not that long since this news spread like fire all over the earth. Living in a prosperous democratic country, the thought of war seems really far off. War is something that happens in the Middle East, in Africa — of course –, Iraq and maybe South America. The closest I experienced were the Balkan States — but that also isn’t exactly near by, at least far off enough to not disturb me. War were I live? Impossible. Is it? People seem all so peace-loving and democratic. But… it’s not so long ago, that everything that seemed so stable just began to crumble and be grinded into small pieces by the catastrophic wars that shook the world. Could it happen again? How fast and without warning could that be? I don’t know, but I think we shouldn’t let us fool ourselves… mankind hasn’t changed, and just because everything seems to go very well, doesn’t mean it will continue to do so. Peace in Central Europe is just 60 years old. It won’t last forever. It’s a bit frightning… but I think it’s true.

As some people might know I’m spending a year in Spain studying abroad. Although as a western country the difference in lifestyle isn’t worlds apart (we even have the same currency), there are those little differences that one can’t help noticing. A particularly funny difference that occured to me during my stay in Madrid is the way the Spanish park their cars. Coming from a land where obedience and a pronounced sense of public order are traditionally strong values (:-) good ol’ Germany) the slightly anarchic way of the Spanish to cope with dwindling space in a crowded city intrigues me. Most fascinating of all, noone seems to mind, in the contrary, there is a kind of mutual understanding and some very practical solutions to eventually arising problems. For example people just “honk their car free” when it has been parked in. Within two or three minutes (well sometimes the ‘felt’ time is a bit longer) the owner(s) of the other car(s) come out of whereever they had been staying (usually a bar or a telepizza shop) to let him drive away. Another cause for amusement on my part is the war many Madrileños lead against the recently installed park-o-meters. I’ve added some images taken with my mobile camera on a stroll some months ago to give you a more vivid impression — I hope they get you smiling.

Parking Sin No. 1: Parking where there’s a sign that says you shouldn’t.

Parking Sin No. 2: Parking where other people would like to walk.

Parking Sin No. 3: Parking in third line.

Parking Sin No. 4: Destroying public property.