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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Ongoing Electoral Efforts to Up the Anti-Democratic Ante</strong> - Republican-led legislatures and right-wing activists alike are making things more difficult for election officials. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-ongoing-electoral-efforts-to-up-the-anti-democratic-ante">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trumps Threats of Violence Are Too Dangerous to Disregard</strong> - As the various investigations around the former President close in on him, his campaign to discredit and intimidate his accusers will only intensify. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-threats-of-violence-are-too-dangerous-to-disregard">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>False Choices and Familiar Stories in a California Homeless Encampment</strong> - How do you tell the story of the biggest crisis on the West Coast when every typical journalistic avenue seems to have run its course? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/false-choices-and-familiar-stories-in-a-california-homeless-encampment">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Supreme Court Considers What May Be the Final Blow to the Voting Rights Act</strong> - Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor warn of whats really at stake in Merrill v. Milligan. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-supreme-court-considers-what-may-be-the-final-blow-to-the-voting-rights-act">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Putins Draft Order Has Inspired a Russian Exodus</strong> - “Ive never seen anything like this,” an advocate said. “It feels like a sort of popular resistance.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/putins-draft-order-has-inspired-a-russian-exodus">link</a></p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<li><strong>Celeste Ng is back with a dark parable of Americas history of child removal</strong> -
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9UAOUqvym2vf7zyQxk1F68anqC4=/0x699:1838x2078/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71460906/OurMissi_9780593492543_jkf_RBCseal__1_.0.jpg"/>
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Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng | Penguin Press
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The author of Little Fires Everywheres new book, Our Missing Hearts, brings Cold War dystopia into the present.
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<a href="https://go.skimresources.com?id=66960X1516588&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fbookshop.org%2Fbooks%2Four-missing-hearts-9780593492543%2F9780593492543&amp;xcust=Vox100522"><em>Our Missing Hearts</em></a>, the new novel from <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/12/16288136/celeste-ng-little-fires-everywhere-review"><em>Little Fires Everywhere</em></a> author Celeste Ng, takes place in a retro sort of dystopia, a Cold War kids nightmare. Its the kind of world where people spend a lot of time worrying over <em>un-American values</em> and <em>threats to the American way of life</em>, where kids are taught to inform on their neighbors, and everyone still rides their bike to school.
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But the America of <em>Our Missing Hearts</em> isnt fretting over secret Russian communists. In the process of recovering from a vaguely detailed economic meltdown thats become known simply as “the Crisis,” America has turned on China, and on every “Person of Asian Origin” who might either come from China or be mistaken as having done so.
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The resulting society, as all successful dystopias do, bears an unsettling resemblance to our own, retro vocabulary be damned. In Ngs world, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/05/18/confronting-the-invisibility-of-anti-asian-racism/">Asian Americans are harassed and attacked in the streets</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22914767/book-banning-crt-school-boards-republicans">Books are banned from schools and libraries</a>, then pulped and turned into toilet paper. Most urgently, <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/6/6/17431298/immigration-kids-ice-border">children are taken away</a> from any parent whos been reported as holding un-American ideas, placed with foster families in faraway cities, and given new names so they never find their way back to their old homes.
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Bird, the 12-year-old boy at the center of <em>Our Missing Hearts</em>, has not been taken away from his family. Instead, his mother, Margaret, has vanished. An Asian American poet whose famous line <em>our missing hearts</em> has become a slogan of the protest movement, Margaret disappeared three years before the beginning of the novel. Bird has been left with his terrified single father and a thousand questions. As the novel begins, Bird is in the process of making up his mind to look for Margaret.
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Birds quest powers <em>Our Missing Hearts</em> forward through the first and strongest of its three sections, as he makes his way through secret library networks, hunting down missing books laced with clues. There is something both sweetly old-fashioned and subtly horrific about Birds fairy tale-inflected search for his missing mother, his slowly dawning realization that the world in which he lives is deeply flawed. It reads like a classic kids book you half-recall picking up in the fifth grade. Its giving <em>The Giver</em>.
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Once we leave Birds narration and move into Margarets more adult voice, however, <em>Our Missing Hearts</em> begins to falter. Margaret is amorphous, less a real character than a political cipher who exists to draw emphatic underlines below all Ngs real-world parallels.
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When Margaret first becomes outraged over her countrys child removals, Ng has her begin to learn “things shed been able to not know, until now,” about the brutal historical removals of Indigenous children and migrant children and foster children — as though Ng doesnt trust her readers to recognize those parallels on our own. When Margaret encounters the Black parents of a woman killed at a political protest holding a sign with Margarets poem on it, she spends pages thinking about the troubled political relationship between Black and Asian American communities. The eventual understanding she reaches with the parents in question becomes “a small tug at a complicated knot that would take generations to unpick.” Whenever Margaret is talking, this book has a tendency to swing from interestingly polemic to disastrously didactic.
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In contrast, Ngs writing about parenthood is tender, lucid, and unsentimental. One parent telling a story about their lost child cant remember if the story took place when she was 5 or when she was 15, because of “how slippery and elastic time was in the fact of your child, how it seemed to move not in a line but in endless loops, circling back again and again, overwriting itself.” Margaret teaches Bird “to pluck honeysuckle blossoms from the vine and touch the end to his tongue: such sticky sweetness.” In her love for Bird, Margaret resolves at last into a real person: in the specificity of it, the sensuality.
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Ng had her breakout hit with 2017s <em>Little Fires Everywhere</em>, a beautifully observed novel of suburban motherhood that was adapted into <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/3/19/21185789/little-fires-everywhere-review-hulu-reese-witherspoon-kerry-washington-celeste-ng">a Hulu series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington</a>. <em>Our Missing Hearts</em> is a weaker outing than its predecessor, clumsier and less grounded in character, too ham-fisted in the political points its determined to make. Still, it shines in Ngs language, and in the dark fairy tale she conjures forth.
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<li><strong>How not to get ripped off on your wedding, explained by the people who plan them</strong> -
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<img alt="A picture of a car that says “just married” on the back with a dollar sign." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/I55rUVBZKRiECIy7U8RLo3_cA1M=/92x0:2759x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71460723/wed6.0.jpg"/>
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The biggest scam in the wedding industry is the one you pull on yourself. | Amanda Northrop/Vox
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Weddings put the $ in your $pecial day.
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Susan Norcross has a real bone to pick with<a href="https://www.brides.com/doughnut-wall-ideas-5077359"> doughnut walls</a>. Not their particular existence, but rather what they represent for her as a wedding planner: a trend she finds some of her clients asking about because they saw it online, and one that they absolutely dont care about or need to have.
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“In 20 years, do you think youre going to look at your husband and go, We didnt have the doughnut wall? No,” Norcross, who owns<a href="https://thestyledbride.com/"> The Styled Bride</a> in Philadelphia, said. “For the most part, all these little tiny things, these — pardon my French — BS things that people get hung up on, Im like, thats really not the point.”
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Weddings are meant to be a moment to celebrate love, one of the most important days of peoples lives as they bring their friends and families together. They can also be incredibly expensive,<a href="https://www.theknot.com/content/average-wedding-cost"> costing tens of thousands of dollars on average</a> (especially if youre in certain parts of the country). Then theres the<a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/6/8/15730320/wedding-expensive-tax-why"> so-called wedding tax</a>, where services, products, and vendors for weddings wind up costing much more than they would for a birthday party, corporate gathering, or other event. Basically, it turns out theres a $ in that $pecial day. Amid inflation and current economic conditions, wedding costs now are even higher.
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“Even for the seasoned wedding planners like myself, it is hard to estimate budgeting, because suddenly overnight the cost of things that we have known what they cost for ages … have skyrocketed,” said Mandy Connor, the owner of<a href="https://hummingbirdbridal.com/"> Hummingbird Events and Design</a>, based in Boston.
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I reached out to a bunch of wedding planners — many who focus on luxury and high-end events — to talk about how they think about the institution of weddings, whats worth it and whats not. Of course, no wedding planner is going to be like, “OMG, this is totally a scam.” But it was surprisingly insightful. We talked about the potential pitfalls couples should look out for, the ways they should navigate priorities, and how external pressures from friends, family, and the internet weigh on a day that should, ultimately, be about them. And, of course, we talked money.
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“My job is ridiculous, and Im the first to admit this, that I help people spend money on this one big day,” said <a href="https://emilymonusevents.com/">Emily Monus</a>, who specializes in LGBTQ+ and vegan weddings and is based in New York. “Weddings are — and I say this with a high regard — they are a luxury, theyre not an obligation. Weddings are optional. You dont need a wedding to be married.”
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<q>“I know this is one of the most important days of your life, but do you want to spend the rest of your life paying for it?”</q>
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And if you do decide to do it, really, you do you — and keep an eye out for the pressures youre under, financial and otherwise, in the meantime. A wedding is a lovely opportunity to gather loved ones and have a really great day. (The only other such opportunity you get for this is your funeral, in which case, youre dead, so you sort of miss it.) It is also one day, and one where its easy to get pulled into spending much more financially — not to mention emotionally — than you bargained for.<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/1/18246428/wedtech-wedding-startups-zola-the-knot"> Its a multibillion-dollar industry for a reason</a>.
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As Tara Fay, the owner of<a href="https://tarafay.ie/"> Tara Fay Events</a> in Ireland, says, “I know this is one of the most important days of your life, but do you want to spend the rest of your life paying for it?”
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Budgeting is how to not get got (and how they get you)
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Most of the wedding planners I spoke to for this column were pretty adamant on the right approach: Figure out your budget, line up your big-ticket items, and then work from there. You wouldnt go house-shopping willy-nilly without looking at the price; the same goes for wedding shopping.
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“You have to pay for and secure the important vendors that make an event happen, and once its done, the money thats left I call the fun money. People get so excited with the fun, they book that right away because its fun,” said<a href="https://jovemeyer.com/"> Jove Meyer</a>, a wedding and events planner based in Brooklyn. “If people dont have food, a location, and a safe way to get to and from the location, then what does it matter if its pretty?”
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The aesthetic stuff can feel exciting — and come with sticker shock (I regret to inform you that whatever florals youre purchasing for a wedding are not the same as the ones you see at the grocery store).
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Sarah Haywood, a luxury wedding planner based in the UK, said some couples fall into a trap where they weigh superficial details over those that will actually affect the experience, so they make cuts to budgets where they shouldnt. “Your guests are not going to remember the $5,000 floral arrangement if the meal wasnt very good,” she said.
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She recalled a couple that had saved up to book an upscale hotel for their wedding — only to discover that it was too expensive for any of their guests to stay there. Their families did, and one of the fathers spent the entire weekend complaining about how expensive the drinks were. “If youre not J. Lo,” she said, “you dont have to plan the wedding for J. Lo.”
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For the love of god, read the fine print
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Planning a wedding involves a ton of decisions, big and small. It can feel overwhelming. It can also be where people get tripped up and miss red flags — or yellow flags — theyll regret not having noticed later.
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Vendor contracts can be a lot to wade through, but missing something can wind up costing you. Being in breach of contract is where some additional charges can show up — for example, people forget to notice that, say, the photographer requires a meal, so if theyre not provided one, they leave the event. Or they dont see that theres a clause about fluctuations in market prices around items such as food and flowers.
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<q>“You dont have to plan the wedding for J. Lo”</q>
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“You want to make sure, for all your proposals, it has everything included so there are no surprises,” Meyer said. Vendors will often lead with the cheapest option — X amount of dollars for Y number of hours — and couples dont realize that they need more than Y number of hours. Rental companies might say everything gets picked up at midnight, and if people want to wait until the next day, the price difference can be substantial. Or couples will book a photographer for six hours and later on in planning realize they actually want 10, which, again, will cost more. “You feel robbed, I get it, but its all been laid out in front of you and you just werent realizing,” Meyer said.
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Bethany Pickard, the owner of <a href="https://www.modern-kicks.com/">Modern Kicks</a>, a wedding planning company based in the Hudson Valley in New York, warned to look out for hidden fees for extra services and question whether theyre necessary. When a florist says theyll also help with linens, that might entail them going to a rental company, renting the linens, and then charging you a coordination fee for serving as the go-between. “A couple going to a full designer like that may not know that items are being upcharged,” she said. (The hack here: Rent the linens directly from the linen company.)
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Sometimes, people dont do enough research and wind up with someone who isnt so reliable. Connor noted that a “rash” of new businesses in the vintage rental space have recently begun to spring up. “Weve seen a lot of those businesses pop up and disappear just as quickly, leaving some clients high and dry,” she said.
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Other flags planners said to watch out for included payment methods — for international weddings especially, transfer fees, bank fees, and even credit card fees can add up — and full-service venues that say they offer the whole package. If couples dont like the whole package — say, the chairs and tables they offer arent your style — they are going to wind up renting other ones, and those costs will add up. They also may not realize all the couples in the pictures the venue showed them before booking had done the same.
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The biggest wedding scam of all is the one you pull on yourself
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Theres an interesting conversation to have around weddings, and one we maybe dont have enough. Everybody knows weddings can be exorbitant, and everybody is also a little nervous to talk about why that is, and why anyone feels like they have to put them on in the first place.
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Within peer groups, a lot of people tend to get married around the same time, and they often “dont want to share the full detail of the expense” with others, Fay said. Couples can feel pressured to at least match what their friends have done without realizing how much it cost, or that maybe they were getting help paying from elsewhere. Pressure also comes from parents, who may have a certain vision for their childrens weddings, and, of course, from social media.
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People see something on Instagram or Pinterest and dont think about all it entails, whether it makes sense. Sometimes people get obsessed with certain vendors and ideas; they think they have to have a certain photographer or florist, and they just have to learn to let go. Its also worth noting that wedding photography can be a little bit of trickery — who among us has ever taken a photo that doesnt reflect the full picture of reality? “People are showing the best parts of their weddings,” Haywood said.
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<q>Ultimately, the business of weddings is just that — a business</q>
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“Many, many couples fall into the category of listening to a parent or outsourcing opinions to friends or the internet,” Meyer said. “It turns into a copycat of something they think they should be doing.” They hire a vendor because they heard theyre better or famous or in a certain echelon, “and maybe thats not the person they should have hired on their budget.”
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Norcross recalled recently planning a wedding for someone who seemed to be trying to keep up with what her sister had done, finally asking the bride, “Why are you planning this big wedding that you dont want?”
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Many of the planners I spoke to were aware that theres a certain level of conventional wisdom that weddings are overpriced, and they disputed that the industry takes advantage of people. “There is a perception that its not fine to make money. Why not?” Haywood said.
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Ultimately, the business of weddings is just that — a business. Its a capitalistic project just like any other. People get so caught up in the romanticism and beauty of the endeavor that they forget that.
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<em>We live in a world thats constantly trying to sucker us and trick us, where were always surrounded by scams big and small. It can feel impossible to navigate. Every two weeks, join Emily Stewart to look at all the little ways our economic systems control and manipulate the average person. Welcome to </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-squeeze"><em>The Big Squeeze</em></a><em>.</em>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NF25sR">
<a href="http://vox.com/big-squeeze-newsletter"><em>Sign up to get this column in your inbox</em></a>.
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<em>Have ideas for a future column or thoughts on this one? Email </em><a href="mailto:emily.stewart@vox.com"><em>emily.stewart@vox.com</em></a>.
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<li><strong>Triangle of Sadness might be the meanest film of the year. Its director is an optimist.</strong> -
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Woody Harrelson and Ruben Ostlund on the set of “Triangle of Sadness.” | Neon
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Ruben Ostlund doesnt think were hypocrites.
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To watch a Ruben Östlund film — like <em>The Square, Force Majeure</em>, or his new film <em>Triangle of Sadness</em> — is to plunge yourself into an unpredictable vortex. A master of satire, Östlund seems gleefully unafraid of horrifying his audiences, but every squirm is accompanied by a guffaw. And as 2017s <em>The Square</em> took on the art world, <em>Triangle of Sadness</em> sets its sights on the worlds of modeling and high luxury, veering from a casting call to a cruise ship to something much more deranged. (Also, theres a lot of bodily fluids. This is not a film for the weak-stomached.)
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But Östlund, who is Swedish, is not the sarcastic pessimist you might expect. Yes, his films make fun of humanity, but he sees them more as sociological studies than targeted polemics against the rich and ridiculous. Any of us, stuck into an existing societal system, might be these people, he says. None of us are inherently above the fray.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="F5q7Gt">
<em>Triangle of Sadness</em> — named for the patch of skin between the eyebrows, which a model might manipulate to express emotion or Botox to suppress it — is a wild ride, and it netted Östlund his second Palme dOr at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered earlier this summer. Now, with the film coming to theaters on October 7, he seems fascinated by the audiences reactions. I talked with Östlund by Zoom about his approach, how to make a scene funny, and what zebras tell us about fashion.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W2S7Re">
<strong>Ive heard people say that they think the film is cynical.</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IEWdzx">
Sometimes I hear people say, “Oh, I would never like to have dinner with Ruben Östlund. Such a misanthrope. He probably hates other people,” and so on. If you ask my friends, I hope they would say something completely different, because I love socializing. I love discussion, and I think that my general viewpoint on human beings is that we are very good at collaborating.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<div id="IXftTd">
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jtN4ZO">
But I have a little bit of a sociological approach to the content of my films. If you look at sociology, its beautiful, because it dares to look at human beings when we fail. It creates a set-up and a situation where we can identify with failure. I am more interested in when we are failing. Im interested in sins, where we dont live up to the idea of what it is to be a good human being.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FA9PR2">
I try to corner myself when Im writing the scripts with the kind of situation that Im getting interested in. What would I do? How would I react? I can identify with the bad behavior.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TE34Ls">
We have so many movies that are dealing with humans being heroes, and where we also are simplifying hard topics to a “good guy” and a “bad guy.” I just dont think that that kind of approach gives me so much to work with.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1xRIL8">
<strong>It can lead to boring stories.</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9UaTnD">
Yes. And also, it is too focused on individuals, with trying to find explanations — is this a good person or a bad person? For me, I try to look at all the characters from a neutral perspective, that they have the ability to do good things. We also have the ability to do bad things. People want me to tell them, “No, that deep inside of us, we are actually good, all of us.” For me, that is kind of obvious. For me, its not even important to communicate that.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CnZbOg">
<strong>Do you think of your films as satirical?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rgYBBY">
Yes. Its the easiest way to communicate that I am dealing with humor, or dark comedy maybe. Its hard to only call it satire, but I have also used that because its the best way of communicating that the audience should be free to react both in a laughing way and maybe being horrified sometimes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4L5N2c">
<strong>So much of satire is about exaggeration that its hard not to laugh and to be horrified. Thats true of all of your work. When I was at Cannes, getting ready to watch </strong><em><strong>Triangle of Sadness</strong></em><strong>, I started thinking about when I saw your previous film </strong><em><strong>The Square</strong></em><strong> in the same theater. I remember the moment in that film that shocked me so much that I couldnt help but laugh. And this film definitely upped the ante. Do you see your work as being connected, or do you see each of them as being separate from the others?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sVWiu7">
No, definitely not separate. I approached the world of fashion and the world of luxury cruises in the same way that I approached the world of art [in <em>The Square</em>]. I was looking at the art world from an economical perspective a little bit. And then the same thing from the fashion world. Its always interesting when you look at it from the economical perspective, because so many things that maybe seem absurd from the outside then start to make sense.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FzcSlIpuLefoFmR-gXkHs_wNCBw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24082022/Eg_yMM0M.jpg"/> <cite>Neon</cite>
<figcaption>
A dinner table scene in<em> Triangle of Sadness</em>.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hPFWPU">
<strong>What kind of research do you do in order to make a movie about those kinds of worlds?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SxAfFE">
Well, when it came to the fashion world, I was talking a lot to my wife, who is a fashion photographer.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KflB4f">
I also try to find sociological studies because theyre good to use as an example of what Im aiming for.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="daOUT2">
There is <a href="https://www.ganador.com.au/retailsmart/differentiate-and-die">this study that I think is very interesting</a> and makes 100 percent sense. A scientist was looking at zebras on the savannah. He was asking himself, “Why are they black and white when they are in the savannah?” He tried to spot one [specific zebra] and follow it when it was in the herd. It turns out, its almost impossible to do because it disappears in the herd immediately. Then they sprayed a red dot on the side of its fur, and then it was possible to follow it. But what also happened was that lions could spot it and tire it out and take it out immediately. So the camouflage that they have is not to hide in the savannah, its to hide in the herd.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7k95Uo">
The scientist was saying human beings work exactly in the same way when we are consuming clothes. Thats why the fashion industry is very efficient when they are changing fashion every fall and every spring because then we have to consume new clothes in order to fit into the herd that we dont want to pop out from.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ykT9jK">
<strong>Thats so striking. I seem to get a ton of videos in my TikTok feed about how I, a millennial, need to change all my clothes in order to have the style of a 22-year-old. And I keep thinking, “Why would I want to do that?” But I guess its to fit back into the herd.</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gKCguH">
Yeah. But its interesting that we are herd animals and that we are constantly trying to maneuver our position in a hierarchy. There is danger in popping out from a herd, which I investigated a little bit in <em>The Square</em> with the monkey performance artist. If you just sit still and dont show yourself, maybe someone else will be the prey.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AdrPaL">
<strong>Is that why </strong><em><strong>Triangle of Sadness</strong></em><strong> starts in a model casting room but ends with the cast literally trying to stay alive among wildlife?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Xlrjut">
Yeah, I was interested in looking at beauty as a currency. I wanted to investigate at first in the fashion world, which has super strong hierarchies, and then go to the luxury world, which has maybe even more absurd hierarchies. When I knew that it was going to be a woman, a Filipino toilet manager, that would be at the top of the hierarchy, I was very curious to see how Carl would relate to his beauty currency if he gets very hungry, and if hes like, “Okay, I really need to use everything I have.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tD1hDh">
<strong>One thing that struck me the second time I saw the movie is that youre good at making images that are inherently funny, for reasons I dont even know why. Maybe theres just a boat on the horizon, but for some reason it makes me want to laugh. Do you have a theory about how to make something funny, just when you look at it?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EzMbkp">
I think that real-time aspect often helps a certain kind of humor that comes out. For example, if someone is vomiting, and then you stay with them half a minute after the vomit, then the trivialities that are happening afterward — “Oh, Im so sorry, I have to go to the toilet” — the social awkwardness comes out. When you have a fixed frame thats staying still with some distance from the subject, then its registering our actions and what we do, rather than evaluating them. You can highlight small things, and then it becomes comical.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UTB6pw">
It sort of reminds me of these Renaissance paintings, where theres just a ton going on in the image, and maybe theres a guy doing something silly in the background or a dog peeking over the frame, and its funny to look at.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vOBDlZ">
<strong>Do you set up the frame and let things happen in it? How choreographed is it?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BXbnuH">
It is very choreographed. What I do is that in the beginning of the day, when we set up the frame, we start to investigate the scene and start to look at how people should move in the frame. Then you sculpt the scene slowly. In the end, I do many takes, often up to 20. Then I take a break.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oMvKkt">
When the actors come back on set, I say, “Five takes left.” And then I do a countdown. “Four takes left. Come on now.” “Three takes left.” Ive started to gather the whole film team around the camera, so we give them maximum attention, so they feel like they are playing an important football game. Its the world championship. And now we have two takes left.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u4v9eE">
And then in the last take, Ive also started to use a gong. So you go like [mimes banging a gong and letting it ring out], “Action.”
</p>
<div class="c-float-right">
<aside id="Nmn9Ph">
<q>“The conflict of being a human being is that we have our primary basic needs, and at the same time we have a culture, and we are living in conflict”</q>
</aside>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FIGkYh">
<strong>Well, theres the structure of this “quote-off” going on in the middle of a scene, with the sea captain and a Russian capitalist oligarch trading quotations from Marx and Reagan and Thatcher and Lenin. Did you have all those quotations in your back pocket?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XDMdEO">
I was brought up in a family where my mother became leftish in the 60s, and we were discussing a lot of politics in my family. My brother became a liberal right-wing. And every Sunday dinner we had, it was always these two ideological bashes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ruW8H7">
I was reminded of when I wrote the script that, during the 80s, when you looked at the world, it was very strongly from a Western perspective or an Eastern perspective. There was the free liberal capitalistic idea about society on the Western side, and the socialistic idea about the state on the Eastern side. When I started to Google quotes from these times, it was so fun to go in and look at it, because Reagan and Thatcher had humor. The people on the left wing, they didnt really have any humor. Their quotes were much more dry, so I had to search much more in order to find the humoristic quotes from the left wing. It was just enjoyable to be reminded about those days.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qhI80S">
<strong>It does feel like that scene has the only truly sincere moment is when Woody Harrelson basically says, “Im a bad socialist because I like my stuff too much.” It feels like a confession.</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gvlGve">
I think hes wrong, actually.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="grqQj2">
Because I think that you cant blame yourself for your dreams. They come from a culture that you are brought up in. The conflict of being a human being is that we have our primary basic needs, and at the same time we have a culture, and we are living in conflict with the culture that we are living in. Sometimes we are dreaming about things that we actually wish that we didnt dream of, that we wish that we were someone else. But its not possible to take us out of the culture and make us into solitary individuals that are just living our life in a non-hypocritical way. I dont like the word “hypocrite.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qNYVUe">
<strong>So are there other slices of culture you want to explore?</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PYN5JM">
My next film is going to be called <em>The Entertainment System Is Down</em>. Its a funny title, right? It takes place on a long-haul flight. Soon after takeoff on a 15-hour flight, London to Sydney or something, passengers get the horrible news that the entertainment system is not working.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GtT8jZ">
I have been interested in the way that we are consuming images and the algorithm that is constantly distracting us, and its very enjoyable, but its also controlling us in some way. Someone told me that a literature professor was comparing Orwells <em>1984</em> with Huxleys <em>Brave New World</em>. He said, “Okay, we didnt end up in the totalitarian state controlling us. We ended up in Huxleys <em>Brave New World</em>, where we have an entertainment machine that we love [holds up phone], but at the same time that is completely controlling us.” So the next thing is that, but going to take place in the body of an airplane that basically is a sociological lab to study our behavior.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Hkt6tl">
<strong>I got on a flight from New York to Sydney five years ago without realizing that there wasnt internet on the plane. I had all these plans for what I was going to do, and I couldnt do it, and I was freaking out.</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="flTdEI">
On the crew?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FQYBm6">
<strong>Well, no. Im a very nice person on a plane, but internally. I had to have a drink.</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mCQ91p">
Theres a term called air rage. That is when the passengers are freaking out so much that they have to do an emergency landing. Studies have shown that if you board the plane through Business Class, when you go to the economy coach, then <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/02/health/air-rage-first-class-airplane-seating-study">the risk for air rage is doubled by four</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eYnUmU">
<strong>I believe that completely.</strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XCCqKR">
Triangle of Sadness <em>opens in theaters on October 7.</em>
</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Succession, Bohemian Grandeur and Regal Kid work well</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Divine Thoughts, Petronia and Agostini Carracci excel</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trafalgar, Trevalius, Multisided and Golden Oaks shine</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Playing in IPL helps in passing information easily: Kagiso Rabada</strong> - The right-armer sees ODIs as an extension of the shortest format of the game</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Tamil Nadu finishes with six medals in squash</strong> -</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Finance Ministry releases ₹7,183 crore grant to 14 States</strong> - With the release of seventh instalment for the month of October, 2022, the total amount of Revenue Deficit Grants released to the States in current fiscal has gone up to ₹50,282.92 crore, an official statement said</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dasara jumbos to bid adieu to Mysuru on October 7</strong> - Elephant Lakshmi, that delivered a male calf on the palace premises while on training for the procession, will also return to its camp in Bandipur with the calf along with the 13 jumbos, including Abhimanyu who carried the 750-kg golden howdah in the Jamboo Savari</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>After months of uncertainty, authorities to resume works on Kozhencherry bridge</strong> - KRFB has floated a tender for completion of the project at a cost of ₹20.58 crore</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AAP releases 4th list of 12 candidates for Gujarat Assembly polls; 41 seats covered so far</strong> - The AAP, which rules Punjab and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, has positioned itself as the main challenger to the BJP, which is in power in Gujarat for nearly three decades now</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Punjab AIG arrested by Vigilance Bureau in ₹1-crore bribery case from 2016</strong> - The money allegedly exchanged hands when AIG Ashish Kapoor, currently posted as the commandant of the 4th Indian Reserve Battalion in Pathankot, was the superintendent of Amritsar Central Jail in 2016</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Greek cliff rescue in double migrant tragedy off Lesbos and Kythira</strong> - At least 17 people have died off Lesbos, after a boat hit rocks under a cliff elsewhere in Greece.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Mother, Im scared - Zaporizhzhia city devastated by rocket attacks</strong> - Survivors recount horror of deadly attacks on city of Zaporizhzhia, being blamed on Russia.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>UKs Truss joins big European club seeking new order without Russia</strong> - Leaders from the UK and across Europe meet in Prague for a new political grouping.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Annie Ernaux: Uncompromising French writer wins Nobel Literature Prize</strong> - The French writer wins for what the panel says is an “uncompromising” 40-year body of work.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>NI Protocol dispute will not be resolved by 28 October, says Coveney</strong> - If devolution is not restored by then, the NI secretary is obliged to set a date for a Stormont election.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A bold effort to cure HIV—using Crispr</strong> - Key is whether the gene-editing technology can stop the virus from replicating. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1887401">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>We are currently testing the Nvidia RTX 4090—let us show you its heft</strong> - We cant say much yet, but its size may clarify who this $1,599-and-up GPU <em>isnt</em> for. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1887417">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fall COVID surge begins in Europe—and US outlook already looks rough</strong> - With subvariant soup simmering, OG BA.5 kicks off fall COVID surge. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1887431">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Did an NYU professor get fired because students hate organic chem?</strong> - Theres a lot to the recent firing, most of it centered on how to best serve students. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1887214">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>No fix in sight for mile-wide loophole plaguing a key Windows defense for years</strong> - Lazarus is latest group to pull off “bring your own vulnerable device” attack. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1887240">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>a Scottish man walks into a bar in canada</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He noticed there is an animals head hanging on the wall and asked the bartender what is it
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“A moose” replied the bartender
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
“Jesus christ! How big are the cats here?” Said the scot
</p>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DerRaumdenker"> /u/DerRaumdenker </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwyxmb/a_scottish_man_walks_into_a_bar_in_canada/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwyxmb/a_scottish_man_walks_into_a_bar_in_canada/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>A scrawny teenage boy asks his muscular friend how he gets so many girls to sleep with him.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The muscular friend says, “Heres what you do: next time theres a party, get a large potato and stick it down your pants and act normal. Youll see - thatll turn you into a chick magnet.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A minute later, all the girls at the party run away from the scrawny kid, screaming and laughing and pointing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The muscular friend sees this and comes over to his scrawny friend. “Dude,” he says. “You have to put the potato in the front.”
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/NopeNopeNope2020"> /u/NopeNopeNope2020 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xw9k8n/a_scrawny_teenage_boy_asks_his_muscular_friend/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xw9k8n/a_scrawny_teenage_boy_asks_his_muscular_friend/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>[Request] Self deprecating joke about height for wedding</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Long story short, I am officiating a wedding between the 2 tallest and most stunning friends I have. I am about 59 VS his 64 I would like to make some jab about them not being able to get anyone taller or when they asked me i immediately started thinking about how tall of a stool I would need to find and bring with. Just nothing seems all that funny, any ideas? Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit, feel free to delete!
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/runnerup1"> /u/runnerup1 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwcr9u/request_self_deprecating_joke_about_height_for/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwcr9u/request_self_deprecating_joke_about_height_for/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>What do the English do immediately after winning the FIFA World Cup?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Turn off the Playstation.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/vect77"> /u/vect77 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwgkca/what_do_the_english_do_immediately_after_winning/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwgkca/what_do_the_english_do_immediately_after_winning/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><strong>How do you make an atheist?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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Raise a Catholic
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HighRiskLowReward"> /u/HighRiskLowReward </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwqrur/how_do_you_make_an_atheist/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xwqrur/how_do_you_make_an_atheist/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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