At (Cult)ure we're in the business of producing written words, but that doesn't mean that we don't enjoy things like spoken words or words set to music or things that don't have words at all. So each week we'll bring you a small collection of non-written things that we enjoyed.

Best Podcast: Q, Daniel Radcliffe

Maybe it's a little obvious to talk about how charming and adorable Daniel Radcliffe is (except that, honestly,  Inside the Actor's Studio is the only other interview of his I have ever seen/heard), but I declare that you have a flinty heart if you don't smile at his aspiration to one day dig up bits of flint in Surrey. 

Last week’s The Vampire Diaries, “Rose,” was a little lacking in the holy shit compared to “Masquerade.” Of course, it’s hard not to do. Perhaps they were simply observing the cardinal rule of taking it down a notch to avoid blowing one’s wad. If so, well played. We got deeper into the Petrova mystery, Bonnie’s witchy powers, and Salvatore heartbreak. Also, did I mention the ROAD TRIP? Let’s go.

ROAD TRIP

Stefan’s chillin’ like a villain at school (I take a minute to laugh at this continued pretence). Jeremy strolls up to point out that’s easier to get someone to cover for you if you give that someone a heads up. Stefan doesn’t know what Jer’s talking about, and it pretty soon they both realize that Elena’s unaccounted for. Stefan is going to have a meltdown.

Last night’s The Vampire Diaries, “Bad Moon Rising,” gave us our first glimpse of the Lockwood curse in full form (ooo, guess what they are?), but it also showcased the Brothers Salvatore throwing themselves in harm’s way for the sake of beautiful ladies, a tragic break up, and a ROAD TRIP! Also, naked Mason. You know, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Lycanthropy: It’s Classier than Saying Werewolf

Our opener features some nice juxtaposition: Stefan, Elena, and Damon fill Alaric (yay!) in on the latest in supernatural weirdness (Lockwoods), hoping to gain access to Isobel’s mystical Mystic Falls research while we watch Tyler stalk a running Mason through the woods. Mason checks something out at the old Lockwood plantation (which burned down, hmm), and Tyler finds a cellar of sorts with heavy duty chains and deep scratches on the walls. Alaric reveals that he never picked any of Isobel’s stuff up from Duke, so it’s time for a ROAP TRIP! And while I love a good road trip, we only saw Isobel working on a laptop at home. Surely Alaric has access to plenty of her files already.

It's hard to know exactly where to start in our Badass chronicles. As it only natural, Putin came along to remind us exactly what a badass looks like. In Foreign Policy's slide show about how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spent their summer vacations, Putin does plenty of badass things: ride a motorcycle, fly a helicopter, visit a new mother in the hospital (badassedly, of course). But this image takes the cake:

You need no further explanation than the one FP's already got on tap: Putin stares down a bear. He's staring down a damn bear because, hey, bears should be afraid of Putin people. I submit to you Vladimir Putin, Badass for Life.

It's pretty well established at this point that Putin is one scary motherfucker. Not only that, but he seems to have some sort of deep seated inferiority complex that results in his "anything you can do, I can do better" shenanbons. This week Foreign Policy posted a neat little guide to five world leaders' phobias (apparently Dubya is afraid of horses). Putin, natch, is not among them. Instead, the Putin tidbit appears on Angela Merkel's slide. Merkel was bitten by a dog as a small child and naturally developed a phobia as a result of the trauma. And how sensitive is Putin? This sensitive:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a master of psychological diplomacy, has repeatedly attempted to take advantage of Merkel's fear. In 2006, the then-president perplexed German diplomats by presenting the chancellor with a small dog as a gift and made a habit of having his black Labrador, Koni, sit in on their meetings.

Is he really that threatened by Merkel or is he just that big a dick? You decide.

At the National Arts Centre tonight, the Mariinsky Orchestra, under the baton of Valery Gergiev, performed works by Berlioz, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich. The Rachmaninov was the 3rd Piano Concerto, with the dazzling Denis Matsuev as soloist. Here's a clip of Matsuev playing another piece of Rachmaninov's, "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini."

And here's the Mariinsky playing Dmitri Shostakovich's 13th Symphony. (They played the 15th tonight.)

The whole thing was spectacular. All I can say is that, if these Russians take over the world with as much elegance, sophistication and verve as their musicians display, then I, for one, will welcome our new imperialist rulers.

If you watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, you may have come away with the impression that Russia's culture is a little more...mmm...high-brow than Canada's. (Please don't think I'm necessarily complaining about this, though.) They have the Bolshoi Ballet, we have giant floating beavers; they have Valeri Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra (who, incidentally, will be at the National Arts Centre on March 15), we have William Shatner and a sadly under-used Catherine O'Hara telling very poor jokes. (We do, on the other hand, have Neil Young, who is probably worth a couple of those wordy 19th-century Russian novelists all on his own.)

The Russians have always taken their culture seriously - sometimes too much so. The poet Osip Mandelstam famously said, "Only in Russia is poetry respected - it gets people killed." (He himself would eventually become one of the victimes.) Joseph Stalin had been a well-known, even admired, romantic poet in his youth in Georgia, and showed a lively (and deadly) interest in Soviet writers and composers after he became dictator.

But still - they were also able to produce something like this: