oddlyenough

Ninja Turtle visits museum to view his namesake’s art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York celebrated its Michelangelo exhibit by having a special guest — Nina Turtle Michelangelo — inspect his namesake’s works. The Met posted photos to Twitter showing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Michelangelo — or at least someone dressed as the half-shelled hero — taking in some of the works at the museum’s Michelangelo Buonarroti exhibition. The museum said Thursday’s visit was organized in part by tourism website NYCgo.

“This morning we welcomed Michelangelo, one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (@TMNT) at The Met. Our celebrity guest came to see the work of an artist who happens to share his name,” The Met tweeted.

Squirrel carrying Danish robbed by another squirrel

A shocked Ohio resident passing through a parking lot captured video of a squirrel with a “giant” Danish being robbed of its pastry by a second squirrel. The video shows a squirrel carrying the Danish through a condominium parking lot in Aurora. The squirrel’s meal proves short-lived when a second squirrel arrives and runs off with the rodent’s dessert.

“I was cruising through a condo parking lot early on a Saturday, and this Squirrel caught my eye. No one would believe this, so I whipped out my phone and caught this guy carrying a giant Danish in his mouth. He was looking for a cup of coffee I think. But a bigger squirrel stole his pastry before he had a chance to enjoy it!” the filmer wrote.

bar warns patrons not to say ‘literally’

A New York bar is drawing attention online for signs posted outlining its latest policy change — a ban on the word “literally.” Signs posted outside and inside Continental in Manhattan’s East Village warn patrons that they could be ejected from the drinking establishment if they dare to utter the word.

The sign reads: “Sorry, but if you say the word ‘literally’ inside Continental, you have five minutes to finish your drink and then you must leave. If you actually start a sentence with ‘literally’ you must leave immediately!!! This is the most overused, annoying word in the English language and we will not tolerate it. Stop Kardashianism now!”

Trigger Smith, the owner of the bar, said the policy is meant to be “tongue-in-cheek.” “I’m just trying to shake things up a little and possibly enlighten people to be a little more respectful of the English language,” he told WPIX-TV. “We are not Literally throwing people out. Yet!”

Some have accused Smith of sexism, saying the sign is designed to specifically target young women, but he brushed aside the criticism. “Anybody who knows me knows I’m a feminist who supports women’s rights and is 100 percent behind this whole ‘Me Too’ thing. I guess people will find an issue in anything,” he told Grub Street.

Museum offered 18-kt toilet to Trump: Washington Post

New York’s Guggenheim Museum offered to lend an 18-karat gold toilet to President Donald Trump after the White House asked to borrow a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The museum’s chief curator offered to loan the toilet, which had been used by tens of thousands of visitors, in a Sept. 15 email to a Trump administration official, the newspaper reported.

A Guggenheim spokeswoman declined immediate comment on the Washington Post report and White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not clear how the White House responded to the Guggenheim curator’s offer.

The piece, by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s, is an 18-karat gold, fully functioning toilet. It is called “America.”

It was put on display in 2016 in a single-stall bathroom at the Guggenheim, where it was used in private luxury by more than 100,000 people, according to a Guggenheim blog post. The museum said the object, which was on display for a year, “skewers social complacencies” and the extravagances of the wealthy.

Trump, a real estate developer turned reality television star, campaigned for president as a savvy businessman with the commercial sense to succeed in the White House. His exact personal wealth is unknown.

The offer came in response to a White House request to borrow the painting “Landscape with Snow” by 19th century Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, for installation at the president and first lady’s private living quarters, the Washington Post reported. The request for the painting was declined.

Guggenheim chief curator Nancy Spector had previously written about the toilet in a 2017 blog post, in which she took swipes at the president. She wrote that the “Trump reference” inherent in the gold toilet resonated with people “during the sculpture’s time at the Guggenheim.”

“When the sculpture came off view on September 15, Trump had been in office for 238 days, a term marked by scandal and defined by the deliberate rollback of countless civil liberties, in addition to climate-change denial that puts our planet in peril,” Spector wrote.

Trump is known to have a taste for gold and gilded objects. On Christmas Eve, he took calls from children while seated on a gold chair in a tapestried room at his Florida vacation home.