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Posts Tagged ‘silly’

Eating an Apple Attracts a Crowd

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2026| 1 Comment »

Photo: Tierney L. Cross/Washington Post.
Carl Endrulat, right, and his girlfriend Jenny Mandl were behind the “Eat an Apple With Me” event in Washington, DC.

October is the time for apple picking most places, but it was a hot day in August when Washington, DC, focused on apples. On that day, a lot of strangers arrived in Malcolm X Park to eat an apple together.

Liam Scott writes at the Washington Post, “Carl Endrulat is a Pink Lady type of guy. The first time he ate one was euphoric. …

“Endrulat’s love of apples reached a new high when about 1,000 people gathered at Meridian Hill Park in Northwest Washington to eat an apple together. Endrulat organized the ‘Eat an Apple With Me’ event with his girlfriend, Jenny Mandl. …

“There’s no deep or hidden meaning in the event, Endrulat said. The wackiness is the point. ‘It’s really an exercise in silly joy,’ said Endrulat, who works as a software engineer for a Defense Department contractor.

“Bringing people together was the goal, too, Mandl said. ‘People yearn for community,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t have to make sense.’ …

“At the park, which is also known as Malcolm X Park, the cascading fountain was flowing, and hundreds of people were bustling around. Temperatures were high. Spirits were higher. Apples were everywhere.

“Red Bull brand ambassadors were on site, passing out free white peach energy drinks. ‘Gotta support the whimsy,’ Bryce Waweru said as he hawked cans.

“Nearby, Rose Dallimore, 26, and her friends wore red papier-mâché apple hats that Dallimore’s mom had made for them.

“ ‘It’s an awesome way to bring people together for something that isn’t super high stakes, which is needed in DC,’ Dallimore said.

“Jack Wilson, 38, came with his two kids, 4-year-old Wilhelmina and 7-year-old Thomas. Wilson said his son asked him why they were eating apples in the park.

“ ‘And the answer was because it’s silly, and it had been a while since we’d done anything silly,’ Wilson said.

“Madison Gee came with a few friends for what she called her ‘impromptu bachelorette party.’ The DC Tutoring and Mentorship Initiative took advantage of the crowd to sign up volunteers. …

“When Endrulat and Mandl first posted the event on Partiful in June, Endrulat didn’t think more than 20 or 30 people would come. But then Mandl reached out to several Partiful employees on LinkedIn. One responded and put the event on the app’s discover page. ‘Then it started blowing up,’ Mandl said.

“The event grew so popular that Endrulat and Mandl had to get a permit from the National Park Service. On Wednesday, the couple met with representatives from D.C. police and the park service to go over final details. …

“At first, Endrulat and Mandl were planning to provide apples to the attendees. Mandl had visions of her car overflowing with the fruit. But they said the National Park Service told them that public health concerns meant they couldn’t offer any fruit that people eat the skin of. Oranges and bananas were okay, the park service said. … So they pivoted to making the event BYOA: Bring Your Own Apple.

“Why apples? Why not? …

“The fruit is also a comedy bit for Endrulat: His Instagram is filled with pictures of him eating apples in front of sites like the Charging Bull in New York’s financial district and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There’s also one of him eating an apple while running a race.

“It’s really funny to me to have a photo of some notable thing behind me while I’m eating an apple,” Endrulat said.

“At 2 p.m., a collective crunch filled the park as hundreds of people took a bite of their apples at the same time. Juice dripped down their chins, and Endrulat took a selfie.”

Almost as silly as the outhouse races of Minnesota! More at the Post, here.

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Check Out the Ig Nobel Prizes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2025| 3 Comments »

Photo: AP Photo/Charles Krupa.
A detail of the 2025 Ig Nobel award, one of many that get awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine for silly sounding scientific discoveries that often have surprisingly practical applications.

If your serious research gets an award for sounding silly, it’s a good idea to put your sense of humor on display and accept the free publicity. That’s what winners of the Ig Nobel have learned to do. Some researchers even hope they’ll be chosen.

Michael Casey writes at the Associated Press, “A team of researchers from Japan wondered if painting cows with zebralike stripes would prevent flies from biting them. Another group from Africa and Europe pondered the types of pizza lizards preferred to eat.

“Those researchers were honored [in September] in Boston with an Ig Nobel, the prize — a hand made model of a human stomach — for comical scientific achievement. In lieu of a big paycheck, each winner was also given a single hand wipe.

“ ‘When I did this experiment, I hoped that I would win the Ig Nobel. It’s my dream. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable,’ said Tomoki Kojima, whose team put tape on Japanese beef cows and then spray painted them with white stripes. Kojima appeared on stage in stripes and was surrounded by his fellow researchers who harassed him with cardboard flies.

“As a result of the paint job, fewer flies were attracted to the cows and they seemed less bothered by the flies. Despite the findings, Kojima admitted it might be a challenge to apply this approach on a large-scale.

“The year’s winners, honored in 10 categories, also include a group from Europe that found drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person’s ability to speak a foreign language and a researcher who studied fingernail growth for decades.

“ ‘Every great discovery ever, at first glance seemed screwy and laughable,’ Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, said in an email interview ahead of the awards ceremony. …

“The 35th annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony is organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, a digital magazine that highlights research that makes people laugh and then think. It’s usually held weeks before the actual Nobel Prizes are announced.

“The ceremony to celebrate winners [began] with a longtime tradition: the audience pelting the stage with paper airplanes. Several of those who couldn’t attend had their speeches read by actual Nobel laureates including Esther Duflo, who won the Nobel Prize for her experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.

“There was also a mini-opera about gastroenterologists and their patients, inspired by this year’s theme which is digestion. …

“There was also a section called the 24-second lecture where top researchers explain their work in 24 seconds. Among them was … Trisha Pasricha, who explained her work studying smartphone use on the toilet and the potential risk for hemorrhoids.

“When any winner appeared to be rambling on too long, a man wearing a dress over his suit would appear at their side and repeatedly yell, ‘Please stop. I’m bored.’

“Other winners this year included … a team of international scientists that looked at whether giving alcohol to bats impaired their ability to fly.

“ ‘It’s a great honor for us,” said Francisco Sanchez, one of the researchers from Colombia who studied the drunken bats. ‘It’s really good. You can see that scientists are not really square and super serious and can have some fun while showing interesting science.’

“Sanchez said their research found that the bats weren’t fans of rotten fruit, which often has higher concentrations of alcohol. Maybe for good reason. When they were forced to eat it, their flying and echolocation suffered, he said. …

“Among the most animated of the winners was a team of researchers from several European countries who studied the physics of pasta sauce. One of the researchers wore a cook’s outfit with a fake mustache to accept the award while another dressed as a big ball of mozzarella cheese got pummeled by several people holding wooden cookware. They ended by handing out bowls of pasta to the Nobel laureates.”

More at AP, here. Fun pictures.

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Permission to Be Silly

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 11, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Barbara Lowing/Common People Dance Project.
Goofing around on stage is the whole point at Australia’s Common People Dance Eisteddfod.

You could pull many different lessons from today’s story, but one that stands out to me is the way that a mother’s insecurity can warp a young child’s self-image, making a revolution necessary. The revolution may turn out playful and silly, a childlike release like a new dance style in Australia.

Dee Jefferson interviews an enthusiast called Bryony Walters, whose mother used to shame her about her weight. Bryony tells Jefferson it “affected her relationship with exercise, and movement in general. ‘It always seemed like a punishment that I was inflicting upon myself. … It wasn’t a thing you were engaging with to have fun or to feel good.’

“But when she saw a post in her community Facebook group about dance classes for a DIY eisteddfod, Bryony’s curiosity was piqued. …

“Neridah Waters and her Facebook post set off the amateur dance revolution known as Common People Dance Eisteddfod. Now in its seventh year, the project invites people of all ages, abilities and bodies to dance together – to 80s and 90s music, while wearing leotards, sequins, sparkles and glitter – culminating in a dance-off as part of the Brisbane festival. ….

“Waters, a stalwart of Brisbane’s alt cabaret scene, describes the project as a mix between Young Talent Time, sports carnivals, 80s gameshow ‘It’s a Knockout’ – and, of course, the Australian Rock Eisteddfod Challenge: a nation-wide high school competition that was popular in the 80s and 90s.

“Bryony, who has performed in five Common People Dance Eisteddfods, says it’s a ‘rare and special’ opportunity to ‘engage in really joyful movement in circumstances where the concern isn’t how you look.’ …

“Like Bryony, Amanda [Dell] came to Common People with an unfulfilled childhood dream of dancing. This year, she is dancing for Southside, one of seven teams of between 30 and 65 people competing in the eisteddfod, each performing their own routine of around five minutes – featuring moves with names like Jazz on Ya Face, Chicken Chicken Pelvis and Aunty Pat’s Christmas Trifle.

“Waters, who came up with the idea for the eisteddfod during a middle-of-the-night burst of inspiration, had no idea it would snowball into an annual juggernaut attracting hundreds of participants. Back in 2019, she was experiencing a lull in her career after becoming a mother. She’d been teaching community dance classes that were attracting middle-aged men and shy people who ‘wanted me to teach them seriously, from scratch, how to dance,’ she says.

“ ‘I wanted to do something more theatrical. I wanted participants who were as silly [as me].’

“As soon as she posted her alternative rock eisteddfod idea ‘it went nuts.’ she says. ‘People understood immediately the sense of humor behind it.’

“Starting off in her local community hall, the project spiraled into classes and teams in different suburbs. Brisbane festival came on board to host the eisteddfod as part of their program, and before the inaugural event the dancers of each team marched through the streets of South Bank to converge in a dance battle outside the festival’s Spiegeltent – set to Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger.’

“Amanda, who was part of the march – wearing a leotard for the first time, not to mention in public – remembers it being nerve-racking. ‘The way that women think about their bodies, that’s a big thing to do,’ she says. ‘But you’ve got the power of the group. And that day is one of the best days of my life – it was just such joy and excitement.’

“Waters says, ‘We had women who were size 20 or 24 in leotards who looked like superhero versions of their suburban selves.’ …

“From the get-go, Common People Dance Eisteddfod has predominantly attracted middle-aged women. … Some are former dancers looking to let their hair down, most are amateurs or people who have never danced. Whatever their reasons for coming, they stay for the sense of community, the confidence boost – and the endorphins.

“Amanda, who describes the last few years of her personal life as ‘a shocker,’ rarely misses a class. ‘I know that no matter how I’m feeling beforehand, I will feel better afterwards,’ she says. ‘Having people that you meet with regularly, who you can rely on for that emotional support and friendship and fun – those things are invaluable.’

“For some, the eisteddfod is life-changing. Waters tells me about Zak, a shy teenage boy who slowly came out of his shell doing Common People’s living-room dance parties during lockdown. When IRL classes resumed, Waters encouraged him to take more of a leading role – culminating in him dancing and lip-syncing to a packed house for the eisteddfod.

“A couple of months later, Zak decided he wanted to run for school captain. ‘His mum said “Are you sure?” and he said, “Mum, look, I stood in front of 1,500 people and did the dance battle. I can do anything now,” ‘ Waters says. ‘And so he did it – and he ended up becoming school captain.’ “

More on the Brisbane Dance Festival at the Guardian, here. The Guardian has no paywall, but please consider donating to them — any amount.

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