Old comfort

• The movie, Shrek, released in 2001, has remained an internet sensation for decades. Now, the obsession has culminated in what is known as a ‘Shrek Rave’ — a party where people come in dressed as the loveable ogre and paint their faces bright green. The party music includes hits like “All star” and “I’m a believer” — both songs are from the franchise — along with a mix of other genres. The backdrop usually includes a screen with rolling memes, videos and gifs from the movie. The idea of the Shrek Rave was proposed by the Los Angeles-based artist, Jordan Craig (also known as Ka5sh). A Shrek Rave took place in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn last month and has now spread to San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. It will be back in New York on September 23. The New York Times described the Brooklyn event as having an engaged crowd. One of the attendees who was interviewed said, “Shrek really encapsulates a sort of post-9/11 urge for homeliness and American comfort, and the idea of defending your homeland from a threat really captured that American paranoia in one cinematic event.” “Everyone loves ‘Shrek’ just like they love ‘SpongeBob,’” said Ka5sh to NBC News. “Those two things are stuck in the nostalgia part of your brain where things are nice and good

Clear message

• A small red statue of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, suddenly appeared at Central Park inside the children’s playground. This piece of art was created by the French artist, James Colomina, who is known for making bright red sculptures portraying a message, and then placing them in unusual public locations. The statue depicts Putin in a sitting position on top of a mini war tank. “This sculpture aims at denouncing the absurdity of war and at highlighting children’s courage when faced with violent, catastrophic situations triggered by others,” Colomina said on Instagram. Artists and museums have been taking a stance in response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis since it began. The Kennedy Centre in Washington renamed the ‘Russian Lounge’ as the ‘Opera House Circles Lounge’. A few months ago, a group of Ukrainian artists dropped hundreds of paper planes over the sloping ledges of the Guggenheim Museum into the rotunda where museum visitors could pick them up and read them. “This jet is made of paper. But what if it were made of steel… and carried bombs… over the heads of the ones you love,” read the message inside the paper planes.

Sweet delight

• On top of every other disaster, the people in the United States of America are now mourning the loss of the chocolate taco. Recently, Klondike — it manufactures the packaged dessert — announced that it was going to stop the production of the chocolate taco after almost 40 years and people took to the internet to share their woes. The beloved dessert is a taco-shaped waffle cone, filled with vanilla ice cream and topped with chocolate fudge and nuts. “When you eat a sugar cone, you generally eat the nuts, chocolate, and ice cream on the top,” the inventor, Alan Drazen, told Eater. “With the Choco Taco you’re getting the ice cream, cone, nuts, and chocolate with just about every bite.” Online search for the chocolate taco went up by 30,000 per cent after the announcement. The Reddit co-founder, Alexis Ohanian, tweeted at Unilever, Klondike’s parent company, “I’d like to buy the rights to your Choco Taco and keep it from melting away from future generations’ childhoods.” The US senator, Chris Murphy, joked that he was planning to introduce “legislation to invoke the Defense Production Act to mandate the continued manufacture of Choco Tacos.” After the massive outcry, Klondike said that it will consider bringing back the chocolate taco though the company cannot promise any timelines.

Sound of music

• Lollapalooza, Chicago’s famous annual music festival, took place over the first weekend of August in Grant Park. The lineup included big names, such as Dua Lipa, J. Cole and Green Day, who headlined the four-day festival. The event brought 170 artists from across the world to nine different stages. Nearly 400,000 people attended the music festival. Metallica performed on the first day to a raging crowd, and on the final night, J-Hope from BTS took the stage, becoming the first South Korean artist to headline a major American music festival. Lollapalooza was started in 1991 by Perry Farrell, a musician himself. After a few failed tour runs, it was revived in 2005 in the Windy City, drawing 65,000 attendees the first time. It has expanded internationally to Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Chile, among

Footnote

• Pickles are a popular condiment in the US but you either love it or hate it. This year, the humble pickle has re-emerged as a summer trend. Several food manufacturers and grocery stores have introduced pickle-flavoured foods, like pickle chips by Doritos and Ruffles, dill pickle falafel at Trader Joe’s, and many others. The TikTok ranch pickle trend combines ranch seasoning and dill. Pickles have been popping up on pizzas as well. The debate over whether pineapple belongs on pizza could be replaced by a new argument.