Hello Norway!

Wow, I've received an unprecedented boatload of emails from Norwegians today. Somebody in Norway must've heard about the site and told all their friends. Or, It could be because Norway is the 'spiritual home' of the paperclip. Yup, there's a lot of controversy to exactly who invented the paperclip, but Norwegians win hands down for pride. From about.com: "During World War II, Norwegians were prohibited from wearing any buttons with the likeness or initials of their king on them. In protest they started wearing paperclips, because paperclips were a Norwegian invention whose original function was to bind together. This was a protest against the Nazi occupation and wearing a paperclip could have gotten you arrested." Heavy stuff. I hope that in today's Norway, citizens are free to wear paperclips on their garments in an oppression-free environment. I've even heard that there's a giant statue of a paperclip somewhere in Norway, but numerous attempts to find a picture have come up empty. Does anybody have a picture of the paperclip statue that's somewhere in Norway? If you do, please forward it to me at oneredpaperclip@gmail.com so we can share it with everybody. This is a mystery we definitely need to get to the bottom of. If this statue really exists, which I hope it does, I guess I need to go and see it. Does anybody in Norway reading this live near the elusive Norwegian paperclip statue? Maybe you and I can go hang out at the statue together some day, then go do some fun Norwegian stuff - like go skiing. I like to ski. I know who Kjetil Andre Aamodt is. Or we could go count reindeer or enter a wife-carrying contest...anything really. But at the very least, we should go see the mysterious giant paperclip statue, then go skiing, and then maybe I can couch surf at your place. Sound fun? Seriously. Anyhow, a special thanks to everybody in Norway for all the support, and I hope to see you soon! Kyle

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The paperclip IS a Norwegian invention so of course we have a statue of it ;-)

There is (or was) a paper-clip statue outside BI College in Sandvika outside Oslo, but I am not sure whether it's still there or not, after the college moved to Oslo.

Here is a (blurry) picture of it.

We also had a paperclip stamp a few years ago.

Anonymous said...

The paperclip IS a Norwegian invention so of course we have a statue of it ;-)

There is (or was) a paper-clip statue outside BI College in Sandvika outside Oslo, but I am not sure whether it's still there or not, after the college moved to Oslo.

Here is a (blurry) picture of it.

We also had a paperclip stamp a few years ago.

Anonymous said...

Wife-carrying is not norwegian but finnish. And the World Mastership in wifecarrying is held in the finnish vilage Sonkajarvi each year.
http://www.vg.no/bilder/bildarkiv/1089015075.70805.jpg

Kyle MacDonald said...

yes, I kinda suspected that, but there is wife carying in Norway isn't there?

(I see you send a link from a Norwegian website, so it looks like there are wife carrying competition fans in Norway.)