“The Cass Scenic Railroad Play Down Theater” Webisode #23: CASS IN ’91, Part 1

Webisode #23 (2.4)…”Cass in ’91”, Part One of Two. It is now the fall of 1991, and we return to Cass once again, this time riding behind “Mt. Emily” Shay #3. Due to the track rehabilitation which was underway at the time, ALL trains only ventured as far as Whittaker for the entire 1991 season. Here we ride the 1:00 excursion aboard the Whittaker train set and meet the Bald Knob train set (again both trains are actually going to Whittaker ONLY every hour on the hour; note the BK train set’s cinder car, which would be converted to a covered unit only a few months later), which is pulled by Shay #2, at the lower switchback. This video provides a great example of how a switchback truly functions, and also gives a great view of the Cass dead line as it appeared in 1991, which has changed a great deal as of 2010 (note the last first generation CSRR “Huntington” tourist car rotting away at the end of the car storage track just past the spare Bald Knob cars). This video is also historic in that the engine pushing and pulling the train left Cass only 2 1/2 years later (unfortunately, there aren’t many close up shots of the engine), returning to its home state of Oregon where it today operates occasionally on the City of Prineville Railroad. ABOUT THESERIES The highest rated series from Matt Wilson Productions returns for a second season, featuring visits to Cass Scenic Railroad from 1990, 1991, and 2009 (the latter being featured in HD!). FRESH NEW WEBISODES will be broadcast …
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Carlos Saura’s CARMEN is an erotic roller coaster of a movie, incorporating dance into its story more effectively than any other movie I can remember. It isn’t a “ballet movie,” and it’s not like one of those musicals where everybody is occasionally taken with the need to dance. It’s a story of passion and jealousy—the story of Bizet’s Carmen—with dance as part and parcel of its flesh and blood. The movie is based on the opera by Bizet, keeping the music and the broad outlines of the story of a poor girl whose fierce romantic independence maddens the men who become obsessed with her. Everything else is new. Saura, the greatest living Spanish film director, has collaborated with Antonio Gades, the Spanish dancer and choreographer, to make this CARMEN into a muscular, contemporary story. Their strategy is to make a story within a story. The film begins with Gades as a dance teacher who is looking for the “perfect” Carmen. He finds one in a flamenco dancing school, and as he attempts to mold her into Carmen, their relationship begins to resemble the story of the opera. Given this approach, CARMEN could easily have turned into an academic exercise, one of those clever movies in which all the pieces fit but none of them matter. That doesn’t happen, and one of the reasons it doesn’t is the casting of a young woman named Laura Del Sol as Carmen. She is a twenty-one-year-old dancer who combines convincing technique with a healthy, athletic sexiness, and her dance duets (and duels …