SURREALISM AROUND THE WORLD: FRANCE

Well, on this Bastille Day, God bless the French for keeping at it and trying to be Surreal, even if the results (as catalogued by this series) are somewhat mixed.

As a treat for Charles De Gaulle's birthday today, we're giving our loyal reader this video of French prankster Remi Gaillard recreating the opening scenes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN...and, by extension, D-Day...on Normandy beach as (some nude) sunbathers and one very humourless golfer look on in confusion and irritation.



And finally, we leave you with this: C'est la fin des haricot verts.

La Marseillaise!

Vince out.

Surrealism Around the World: Naked in Paris

This is...well, borderline surreal, I guess. But it's from Paris, where surrealism is also from, and where that little girl told the story about Winnie the Pooh and the crocodile killing the witch in the forest, so I figured we needed to give it a shout out.



French pole vaulting champion Romain Mesnil lost his sponsorship deal with Nike, so he made the symbolic gesture of running through Paris totally naked, apart from his two poles. One of them has a black box over it in this video.

I don't know. I guess it's surreal. But we haven't highlighted any Surrealism Aroudn the World in a while, so it'll do.

Vince out.

SURREALISM AROUND THE WORLD: Nice Try, Denmark

SURREALISM AROUND THE WORLD: Where Dan and Vince look at other countries and go "What the hell is THAT?"

We've been talking a lot about the Japanese and how their "normal everyday" is pretty much our "Surreal," but we'd like to throw the spotlight on some other countries, as well.

Now, the Danish aren't exactly known for their Surrealist tendencies...I guess their mainly known for their breakfast pastries and that guy Hamlet. But I have to admit, this video is pretty Surreal. Huge domino chains aren't Surreal, and replacing the dominoes with beer bottles isn't Surreal, either. It's just a thing.

But we'd like to applaud the execution of this particular thing. It's the little touches that elevate "colossal waste of time" to "potential Surrealism." Little things like the unexpected music cue from Jaws, the interesting use of surfaces to create something akin to a John Cage soundscape, and then...well, I won't ruin it for you. I'll just say, if you get thirsty, and do what these guys ultimately do to whet your whistle, well, our hats are off to you.

Vince out.

Ps. And just to be clear, our hats are bowler hats. Like Magritte would've wanted.