“All of those guys are maniacs…It’s a matter of style, design, and art taking precedence over physical constraints and money. I once described [hotelier] André [Balazs] by saying, ‘If he was drowning, and you threw him a life preserver, he’d catch it, look at it, look up at you, and say, ‘Do you have this in baby blue?’ ” – Hotelier Richard Born

The Hotel-Nightlife Complex – NYMag

No, this is not a satirical article drawn from The Onion:

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — A polar-bear display for the zoo. Free towels at public swimming pools. A “drug-free Parliament by 2020.” Iceland’s Best Party, founded in December by a comedian, Jón Gnarr, to satirize his country’s political system, ran a campaign that was one big joke. Or was it? In the depressed aftermath of the country’s financial collapse, the Best Party emerged in May as the biggest winner in Reykjavik’s elections, with 34.7 percent of the vote, and Gnarr — who also promised a classroom of kindergartners he would build a Disneyland at the airport — is the fourth mayor in four years of a city that is home to more than one-third of the island’s 320,000 people.

In his acceptance speech he tried to calm the fears of the other 65.3 percent.

“No one has to be afraid of the Best Party, because it is the best party. If it wasn’t, it would be called the Worst Party or the Bad Party. We would never work with a party like that,” he said.

His party won six of the City Council’s 15 seats, and Gnarr needed a coalition partner, but he ruled out any party whose members had not seen all five seasons of “The Wire.”

The Best Party’s members include a who’s who of Iceland’s punk-rock scene. The new government granted free admission to swimming pools for everyone younger than 18.

“Just because something is funny doesn’t mean it isn’t serious,” said Gnarr, whose foreign-relations experience includes a radio show in which he regularly crank-called the White House, the CIA, the FBI and police stations in the Bronx, N.Y., to see if they had found his wallet.

The polar-bear idea, for example, was not totally facetious. As a result of climate change, a few polar bears have swum to Iceland in recent years and been shot. Better, Gnarr said, to capture them and put them in the zoo.

The free towels? That evolved from an idea to attract more tourists by attaining spa status for the city’s public pools, which have seawater and sulfur baths. For accreditation under certain European Union rules, however, a spa has to offer free towels, so that became a campaign slogan.

Gnarr, born in Reykjavik as Jón Gunnar Kristinsson to a policeman and a kitchen worker, was not a model child. At 11, he decided school was useless to his future as a circus clown or pirate and refused to learn anymore. At 14, he was sent to a boarding school for troubled teenagers and stayed until he was 16, when he left school for good.

Last winter, he opened a Best Party website and started writing surreal “political” articles.

Party anthem

The campaign released a popular video set to Tina Turner’s “The Best,” in which Gnarr posed with a stuffed polar bear and petted a rock, while joining his supporters in singing about the Best Party.

“A lot of us are singers,” said Óttarr Proppé, the third-ranking member of the Best Party, who was with the cult rock band HAM and the punk band Rass.

Proppé now sits on the city’s executive board, where he will be deciding matters such as how much money to allocate for roads.

Fed-up Icelanders elect a comedian – Seattle Times

…this country has always been about selling. To make the most money with the least amount of effort. “Hey, Bill. Love your tie. That was some fun last night, huh? Let’s hope our wives never find out. How about signing here on the dotted line so I can wrap this up and move onto the next prospect who’ll happily listen to me tell him the exact opposite of what he really is.”

Via The Trad.

Rosanna sure has her priorities straight.

92 Jell-O Shots and nothing else.

It IS possible!:

My favorite thing that women do without fail happens when we’re eating together. They’ll always find a way to have me eat more than they do, and they always make sure to let me know that they’re “not hungry”. The following clip showcases humor built around women’s odd relationship with food (“hun-cal fro yo?”):

Clarissa: why are you alone right now
and not with your duchess
Cameron: I’m GChatting her
right
now
Clarissa: G-Sex
use protection!
even on the interwebs

Excel model not attached (I don’t want to be labeled sexist when I run for [and consequently win] a US Senate seat in 2022).

Penelope: we’re gonna stroll through Nolita then grab dinner at his favorite place!
so romantic
so cute
i’m gonna die
cameron
i’m not good under dating pressure
Me: you def can’t go in there nervous
Penelope: well at least i’ll be superficially confident
bought a smoking dress
not slutty
it says jackie, not marilyn
& makes him wonder what’s underneath

We Need a Yelp Italy – Yelp

Thanks, Jenny!

I’m seeing this the day it comes out.

Via My Own God.

This shit is so hipster, I ****ing had to post it.

Thanks, Xaphoon Jones!