Las Meninas

The painting represented above is called "Las Meninas."  It was completed by Spanish painter Diego Velazquez in 1656 and currently hangs in the Prado Museum in Madrid.  Anne, Mark and Bren went to the Prado Museum and viewed this painting.  On more than one occasion they were informed that this is the best painting ever.  Sometimes this was stated in a more qualified way (as in "one of" the best paintings ever), but more than once it was stated that this the best.  The Rick Steves guidebook referenced it as the best painting ever.  A later visit to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona showed that Picasso himself may have also held this belief.  (The Picasso Museum displays a set of 58 paintings that Picasso made about this painting - although with Picasso you'll have to take his word for it on some of them as you cannot tell from looking what exactly is in the painting)

Anne, Bren and Mark are certainly no experts on art and culture (although if you have read this blog, you can be forgiven for thinking otherwise).  But it was still quite a shock to learn that there is a work of art, the most subjective of any discipline, that has been determined to be the absolute best work of art, at a fairly high level of general consensus among people who study and/or understand such things (at least enough of a consensus to be published in multiple places by different people).

This thought made Mark wonder about all of the other things upon which the world cannot reach consensus.  Like, which is the best Beatle?

With all due respect to George Harrison (the 'Scottie Pippen' of the Beatles) and Ringo Starr (all time world champion in category of "Right Place, Right Time"), it comes down to John ('Help!' and 'All You Need is Love') or Paul ('Hey, Jude' and 'Yesterday').  And reasonable people can disagree.

So, out of four Beatles, we cannot agree on who is the best - but of all of the millions of paintings in the world, we all go along with Las Meninas as the champ?  How does that happen?

Other than the painting at the heart of this cultural and philosophical conundrum, the Prado Museum contained hundreds of other masterpieces.  However, no photos were allowed.  The only proof that Bren was ever even there is this single photo of her having a cafe in the Prado cafe.

The remainder of the time this trio spent in Madrid was short and uneventful.  Anne, Mark and Bren took the public bus on a tour around the city to look at the architecture and what not.  Eventually, they came to the conclusion that Madrid is the Oakland, California of Europe.  As Gertrude Stein famously said about Oaktown, "there is no there there."  After visiting the Prado, Anne, Bren and Mark could not find any "there" in Madrid.  It is a beautiful city in and of itself, but you can ride the bus all day because there is no particular place you need to stop.  Are we there yet?  No, there is no "there."

One final note:  We are going to have to start naming these hairstyles.  Any ideas?  Please submit to the comments section (as always, creativity>accuracy).

When Mark first spotted this hairstyle some weeks ago, it was new, exciting and totally not going to be repeated.  Then, it was spotted again.  This time in Spain.  

There are a limited number of explanations for this phenomena.  1. The same guy is following Anne and Mark around.  (This explanation has been deemed to be "unlikely.")  2. This is an actual look that is catching on.  Management has decided that option #2 is probably the more likely scenario and must begin plans to deal with it.  The first step is acceptance.  Check.  Now the novelty has worn off and it has become something that we are going to have to deal with seriously.  The next step is naming the problem.  Let's get started on that muy pronto.