Is it just me or has pop culture news been consistently and increasingly bizarre in my now 17 day absence from North America. Every other day I come back from a hours of liberating offlineness to find stories that just don’t seem real: Oscars to have ten best picture nominees; Sarah Palin resigns on independence day weekend; and, of course, that whole Michael Jackson thing. And I realize this story is nothing in comparison to any of those… but seriously: Rupert Grint - the actor that plays Weasley in the “Harry Potter” movies - has swine flu!? Bananas.
Oh glorious day. I arrive at Karlovy Vary’s aptly named Hotel Petr to find not only my baggage, but a complimentary beer and the long lost ability to smoke in my hotel room. I will soon be clean, properly dressed and intoxicated to ring in my first night at this unbelievably picturesque film festival.
This statue in the courtyard of the Kafka Museum in Prague features not one but two statues of well-endowed, urinating men (that kinda look like JK Simmons to me) that feature robotic penises that move from side to side. The kicker: You can text message any word you want to a number and the statues will SPELL THAT WORD WITH THEIR PENISES. I’m phoneless, so I didn’t have the pleasure, but watch here as one of the penises reflects on someone else’s text message.
This is a fantastic feature from The New York Times, featuring 11 Canadians living in the United States sharing what they miss most about home.
Best quote:
“In history class, in seventh grade (or as we like to say in Canada, grade seven) we learned the story of the American Revolution — from the British perspective. Turns out you were all a bunch of ungrateful tax cheats. And you weren’t very nice to the Loyalists. What I miss most about Canada is getting the truth about the United States.”
— MALCOLM GLADWELL, a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author, most recently, of “Outliers: The Story of Success”
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