Biutiful - Barcelona Has Never Looked So Terrifying

Several weeks ago, I was lucky enough to see Biutiful, the new film by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Starring Javier Bardem and set in Barcelona, the movie centers on Bardem's protagonist, Uxbal, a crime boss in the city's immigrant ghetto El Raval. When Uxbal is diagnosed with terminal cancer and left with only weeks to get his affairs in order, he must reconcile the wildly juxtaposed parts of his life - his two children, crazy bipolar wife, party monster brother, African street hawkers, and his sweatshop with dozens of illegal Chinese immigrants - and finally find peace. The film was an Oscar favorite, both for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor (Bardem).

When compared to the sun-soaked and light-hearted cinematography of Vicki Cristina Barcelona, the grim textures, gritty plot lines, and spiritual themes of Biutiful show the city of Barcelona at its most terrifying. In the same city where tourists frolic along Las Ramblas, an underground economy of pickpockets, drug dealers, corrupt cops, under-the-table construction contracts, and illegal sweatshops thrives, with Uxbal at the center. For only having visited Barcelona briefly, I was shocked at how accurate the film was as to the pace of life and the culture of the neighborhoods it followed. The difference between the "international" Barcelona of tourists and that of the underclass has never been revealed more sharply. Not only was the chaotic urban landscape of Biutiful shot beautifully (biutifully?), but the film's plot was full of ethically ambiguous moments where Bardem's performance really came through. Is it better to leave your children with their bi-polar, unstable alcoholic mother than no mother at all? Are you doing a favor for illegal immigrants by giving them shelter and illegal work visas? At what moment do you just give up your struggle and finally reach out to your loved ones, even if it's too late?

I highly recommend this movie, so if you can't see it in theaters, wait for it on DVD!

Google's New Feature Celebrates Graffiti Around the World

Graffiti, for some strange reason, has always fascinated me. Why? First, a lot of the visual arts, like art galleries, museums, sculpture parks and hell, even glass studios can give off a very pretentious air to the uninitiated like myself. There's definitely something intimidating about walking into some chi-chi gallery somewhere - first you have to dress up like you belong there, then fake being familiar with any particular artist's ouevre, and forget about taking pictures! Only if you plan on buying the fucking thing...Sculpture parks, while nice, are very few and far between, and tend to have a very static quality to them. They're like elaborate, whimsical pieces of outdoor furniture. Entertaining, for sure, but the pieces are supposed to be part of the landscape. You're not supposed to think about them, they just are.

Graffiti, on the other hand, is dynamic and full of life. There is little to no fanfare for any kind of "emerging artist" in the field. Aside from Banksy, perhaps, has anyone ever heard of a famous graffiti artist? In most areas, the act of creating this type of art is considered a criminal act. A fantastic mural you found randomly one day could well be gone the next. And believe me, folks, I'm not talking about random gang signs scribbled across the sides of ugly buildings; we're talking the real deal, legitimate - often impromptu - works of art that grace our cities in the most unexpected ways. No admission fee, no fashion, no art dealers, completely pure and to the point. 

Our Lord and Savior Google has developed a search engine that acts as a directory for the best street art/graffiti on the planet. Using Google's Street View feature, the search engine compiles the best shots of graffiti murals around the world. From Spain to Japan to your Seattle neighborhood, chances are one of your favorite works is listed on there. Did I mention the site is interactive? If you find your favorite piece on Street View, just zoom in to the best possible shot of the piece, and submit it to Google Street Art View. I added a mural on Roosevelt & 68th in Seattle a few days ago, and it's already live!

Here are a few of my favorites:

Ibiza, Spain - Right here, right now!

Valenica, Spain - a punk rock Uzi Christ

Valencia, Spain

Amsterdam's Red Light District - it says "slave trade" next to her jacket, fitting because 70% are actually slaves :(

Barcelona, Spain - gentrification and tourists as terrorism?

Barrio Gracia, Barcelona - don't you feel so safe now :)

Jerez de la Frontera, Spain

Granada, Spain - guapaaaaaa

Ibiza, Spain - Is it a cish or a fat?

Ibiza - Gives new meaning to the phrase "brainchild"

Ibiza

Where Should the Cast of Jersey Shore Party Next?

For whatever it's worth, I think Jersey Shore, for as trashy and lame its storyline is, is able to provoke nearly everyone in some way. As the most ridiculous logical extension of reality TV culture yet, it's symbolic of our pop culture, for better or worse. Whether out of schadenfreude or just plain morbid curiosity, you're fooling yourself if you haven't at least heard of the show within the past two years.

Snooki already has a book out. Apparently one of its best lines is Snooki describing "feeling like a bunch of Ellis Island immigrants stepping off the Mayflower..." So in other words, the same feeling you get the morning after you take a shot of Jager mixed with Four Loko and then chase it with a Vicodin? Followed by much fist-pumping action!

So far the show has taken its brave contestants from the decayed decadence of the Jersey Shore to the (juiced!) locales of Miami Beach. Next season will be in Italy - bring these guidos back to black out the old country, shall we?

This brings us to the question of where their next party destination should be for the following season. Time had a great run-down of possible locations:

1. Rimini, Italy:

It would be fun to send the group to Corelone, Sicily to escape the repercussions of their crazy shenanigans at Seaside Heights – aka the town Michael Corelone in The Godfather was exiled to after his restaurant shoot-em-up. But, sending an Italian with mainland heritage to stay on the island is almost equal to blasphemy.

Located near the Adriatic Sea for that must-have tanning time, Rimini’s got tons of discos to replace Karma. Oh yeah and there’s many monuments including the Tiberius Bridge and the Church of San Giuliano Martire to give them a taste of the real Italy because that’s the reason you watch Jersey Shore - for the culture.

2. Ibiza, Spain

Everyone knows that Ibiza is the party capital of Europe and, some might argue, the world. The place where fist-pumping electronic music lives and breathes, Ibiza has featured some of the world’s top techno, house and trance DJs – and hopefully soon DJ Pauly D. That mandatory Spanish siesta can only help this group to keep going strong on Ron Ron Juice into the wee hours of the morning.

Not only is Ibiza full of some of the world's largest (and douchiest) nightclubs - see, for instance, the annual 10,000 person foam party at Privilege. It is also home to world-class beaches, beautiful Mediterranean coastline, friendly locals, and my 21st birthday bender. See Facebook evidence below.

Even their graffiti is sexy

Pacha - this is an off-season off-night at one of the most famous clubs in Ibiza

 3. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The girls in the house, who already wear skimpy clothing that sometimes doesn’t even cover their nether regions, will feel at home in Rio De Janiero. With guidos and guidettes mingling with the local Cariocas, there will be plenty of guys around for Snooki to smush and plenty of girls Sammi to slap and punch away from Ronnie.

Isn't she beautiful?

4. Phuket, Thailand

Let’s move the (mostly) Long Island residents from one island to another and send them to Phuket. See MVP put their brawling skills against the best muay thai fighters in the world. What will The Situation make for family dinner when he only has the local fare to work with? Also, we hear it’s pretty cheap to get those, um, enhancements that JWOWW loves to show off.  

Megan, since you were in Phuket, can you confirm/deny Phuket's appeal as a Jersey Shore destination? Can the full moon parties handle Ronnie and "The Situation"?

5. Sarah Palin's Alaska?

Let’s see if the crew can survive in a place with no GTL. If they can party here, it would prove that they can party anywhere. The drinks would always stay cold – and the temperature even colder. Instead of hunting for people to take home and avoiding grenades, they’ll be hunting for meat and avoiding buckshot. Bonus: If they could combine at least one episode from these two shows, that would be classic. We’d love to hear Sarah Palin versus The Situation on foreign policy.

Other suggestions:

6. Barcelona - aside from having one of the world's most exciting nightlife scene (most bars close at 5-6, with the clubs open until 8-9am!), fantastic scenery, and beautiful people, this city has enough booze and soccer fans to satisfy the most hardcore guidos/guidettes.

7. Madrid - this city has the most bars per capita of any city in Europe, enough said.

Via: Time

San Francisco Bike-Share Makes More than a Few Enemies

Last month we took a peek at a bike-sharing pilot project in the works in the San Francisco Bay Area to nearly 1,000 public bikes on the streets of San Fracisco and points south by late 2011.

The system is aiming to replicate the success of European bike-sharing, with automated charging stations and annual, daily, or monthly subscription fees for users, along with hourly rates. Like many of the most famous systems, the first 30 minutes would be free of charge, to encourage riders to use the system for short trips close to home.

The pilot program would begin with about 500 bikes and 50 stations in the San Francisco city center, focusing on the City Center, Tenderloin, Market Street, and Transbay Terminal areas. An additional 400 bikes would go into the urban centers of CalTrain corridor south of the city.

Now that we have a better take on the foundations of this exciting program, it bears asking the dreaded question of all multimodal projects in the US: will people use it? will we look like assholes for thinking this type of bike transit infrastructure was even a good idea?

Is this what San Francisco was going for? So hipster...

In a scathing critique of the San Francisco bike share program, Matthew Roth of SF Streetsblog argues that the city is setting itself up for failure with an inadequate starting number of bikes that won't serve people's needs.

According to Roth, "bicycle sharing program’s greatest assets are ubiquity and ease of use." The Paris Velib program, considered the vanguard of bike-sharing worldwide, began with 750 stations and 10,000 bikes before quickly expanding to 1450 stations and 20,000 bikes, enough to make the stations more than three times as ubiquitous as the city's subway network, also the world's most dense. The Velib program is surprisingly inexpensive to run, even given the city's notorious problem with theft and vandalism of the bikes. User fees pay for the city's expenses of running the program, and the remaining $4.3 million is paid for in advertising space.

With only 50 stations at its inception, San Francisco's system would be the smallest in North America. When DC Bikes opened in the capital two years ago with 120 stations, a spokesman for the District DOT regretted that the system had not opened with more stations: "Knowing what we know now, we would've launched it bigger."

So just how many bikes would San Francisco truly need to have an effective bike-share system?

According to Colin Hughes, a planning grad student at UC Berkeley, exactly 5328 bikes. Colin first suggested that any bike-share system should be thought of as a form of mass transit, like light rail or a bus route. Without regular, intuitively placed stations and high frequency, no one is going to use the damn thing!

The Paris Metro is the densest subway network in the world, with 300 stations within the city. The trains run from about 5 am to midnight, and users might have to wait about 20 minutes for a train in off-peak hours. In comparison, the city also has 1451 bicycle stations - a transit network almost 5 times denser than its subway system. Users can access these bicycle stations 24/7, they can ride them wherever they like, and the cost is free for the first 30 minutes.

Paul DeMaio, one of the world's only "bike-sharing consultants" based in DC, writes that the ideal bike-share systems need approximately one bike per 150 residents of the service area. This equates to 5328 bikes at 605 stations if we're using the Paris-based metric, or 2960 bikes at 484 stations if we're using more modest metrics from the Barcelona system.

The San Francisco bike-share system was originally announced back in 2009 with only 50 bikes at 5 stations - now the most recent plan calls for ten times that number, 500 bikes at 50 stations, at a cost of $7.9 million.

Bixi bikes from Montreal, on display at Golden Gate Park in a recent expo promoting the SF bike share program

Hopefully more public pressure on the city to make a truly workable number will get things in gear. If you are asking SF residents to ride 50-pound bikes through the rain, you need to make the system easier than catching a bus, hell easier than catching a cab! There should be enough stations that riders won't have to worry about finding a place to park their bike at the end of the ride. 

Via: SF Streetsblog