Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 June 25

= June 25 =

the diameter of Germany
In Snowman's Land (a German movie, 2010), Walter is said to drive more than two thousand kilometres east from his home to an unnamed mountainous German-speaking region. By my map, he must have started in Ireland. Did I misunderstand, was something mistranslated, or are the East German roads really really twisty? —Tamfang (talk) 02:43, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there's got to be something wrong there. Playing around with Google Maps, I get the driving distance from Salzburg (in Austria, but near the German Border) to Flensburg (in Germany, near the border of Denmark) to be about 1100 km.  That's about the longest distance one can get while driving in Germany (which is a bit longer on the N-S axis than on its E-W axis).  One would have to drive there and back again almost to get to 2000 km.  -- Jayron  32  04:03, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * From somewhere in Germany to a remote region of the Carpathian Mountains might well be 2000 km.  There are/were German-speaking pockets in that region.  Sussexonian (talk) 08:29, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

de.wp, by the way, says the place is "im schwedischen Nirgendwo" (in Nowhere, Sweden). It also says the coda scene, which looks to me like North Africa, is in the USA. —Tamfang (talk) 20:07, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The "somewhere in Sweden" reference is pretty undisputable. But in any case, here's a small map showing German-speaking enclaves prior to WWI.  They extended as far east as the Volga river in Russia. μηδείς (talk) 02:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Northern Spain, Bilbao for example, is approximately 2,000 km from eastern Austria, Vienna for example. And there maybe pockets of German speakers further east in Hungary, Slovakia or Czech Rep (as a result of the Austro-Hungarian empire and/or WWII).  Astronaut (talk) 11:09, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Reindeer goat cheese pizza
In The Last Boy Scout as well as Hudson Hawk, Bruce Willis mentions "reindeer goat cheese pizza". Is it supposed to mean anything? ☯ Bonkers The Clown  \(^_^)/  Nonsensical Babble  ☯ 12:39, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The implication is "fru-fru" cooking: i.e. gussying up what is supposed to be simple, common food. Pizza is supposed to be cheap, simple, common food.  Fru-fru restaurants will gussy it up by adding all sorts of expensive or exotic ingredients.  That's all he's saying there.  -- Jayron  32  20:18, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Reindeer pizza does apparently exist, and there are lots of goat cheese pizza recipes out in the ether, so it seems there may be some justification for Mr Willis's quip. Thanks to Jayron for the explanation - the original comment was wasted on me, but then so is pizza.  -  Ka renjc 20:26, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The question is not whether or not the concept exists. The literal likelyhood of creating an actual reindeer and goat cheese pizza isn't relevent to the context of the statement.  It's to be understood idiomatically in terms of the statement being made about the class relationships between the speaker and the person(s) being spoken about.  It's the same sort of linguistic understanding as found in the more famous Real Men Don't Eat Quiche.  Which is to say that men, even real men, do eat egg pie.  The statement itself, rather, is a statement designed to signify something about class and inclusion, about the self and the other, and NOT merely a dry statement describing a pizza.  -- Jayron  32  20:38, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Heh, I did actually get that(!) But as a metaphor for that kind of inappropriate titivation or gentrification and the social/class implications (a) of doing it, and (b) of commenting on the fact that it has been done, reindeer goat-cheese pizza was unknown to me and I found it very pleasing. It was just doubly satisfying to google and discover that the product is not only plausible but almost certainly exists somewhere, presumably on a bed of dressed baby leaves, without a shred of associated irony. Thanks again.  Ka renjc 11:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)