FEB
2015 14

The Bones of the San Valentine

Manolo says, many happy returns for the DÃa de San ValentÃn! May your day be filled with joy and chocolate hearts and trinkets made of pure love (and diamonds)! And now, let us not forget the reason for the season… Yes, those are indeed the boney remains of the San ValentÃn, or at the least one of the many relics that are claimed to exist. This nearly complete set of bones, which is one of the lesser known, is in the Real Iglesia de San Anton, on the Calle Horteleza, very near to the place where the tiny Manolo first…

FEB
2013 05

The Face of Villainy

Manolo says, the English archeological nabobs have made the facial reconstruction of the newly found bones of the Richard the 3, and not surprisingly he has the very shifty eyes…. Here is the close-up of the artist’s reconstruction.

OCT
2012 04

The Continental

People say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. False. The road to Hell is paved in cobblestones, which means you can’t wear heels. That’s what makes it Hell. When I first expatriated, I lived in a little village paved with the Devil’s bunions and it was a two mile walk to the restaurant that provided most of my sustenance. I walked eight miles a day that car-less summer. Heels were out of the question. I used bronze Roman sandals instead. After all, a girl must have some glamor. Even when I had wheels, I still refused to…

SEP
2012 11

What Miss Plumcake is…

It’s Tuesday, time to find out What Miss Plumcake is…

JUL
2012 16

Washed Out = Washed Up

Manolo says, the other day, on the Facebook, the Manolo was complaining about the samey-sameness of most of the stylebloggers. The Manolo must have looked at 20,000 style blogs over the past few days, some of them exceedingly popular, and all of them featuring the same clothes, the same poses, the same washed-out, overexposed style of photography. Time for the change! The Manolo decrees: the washed-out style photos are all washed up. Color is the new black! Out = Identical style bloggers all obsessed with being part of the in crowd In = Crazy girls who throw on the clothes…

JUL
2012 09

TED Conferences: Night School for the Self-Satisfied Rich

Manolo says, the Manolo recently learned that the tickets for the TED Conferences–which produce the YouTubes of the obscure middle-brow “thinkers” and pop-media savants flattering the ricos–cost $7,500 per person! Thus, upon learning this, the Manolo put together this Venn diagram of the average TED Conference attendee…

JUN
2012 15

Things that Confuse the Manolo: Competitive Yoga

Manolo says, wah? This international competition has made the noise of momentum, too, but just where it is heading is hard to predict. Will it become a sport recognized on the Olympic stage as Rajashree Choudhury, the founder of USA Yoga and the International Yoga Sports Federation, hopes? Or is it destined to remain a quirky transplant from India practiced by an exclusive set of Bikram yogis? […] The event was held at the LAX Radisson, where the mirrored ballroom became a competitive yoga stadium and runway-like hallways morphed into warm-up rooms for yogis. Onstage, a garland-draped image of Bishnu…