Kal Penn. Try and escape him as you might, but these days, he's everywhere you look.

You may remember him fondly as Kumar, the hungry stoner from Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle,* and you've likely seen him pop up on this season's 24, as "villainous" teen, Ahmed Ahmar. In fact, Penn, currently starring in Mira Nair's The Namesake, is even slated to teach a course at UPenn (haha, no relation!) next year.

But none of that has stopped him from doing what he does best: making bizarre cameo appearances at the New York Public Library, and managing to simultaneously ruin both The Namesake and "Catcher In The Rye."

Reports our Jossip spy:

[Kal Penn] actually crashed an event I went to at NYPL for The Namesake. It was just supposed to be just Jhumpa Lahiri and Mira Nair talking about the process of making the book into a film. He quietly took the microphone to ask a question during the Q & A and then was like "Surprise! I'm Kal Penn!"

But wait, that's not all. Nono, that's not all.

Then, of course, Mira Nair told him to come up to the stage, where he awkwardly sat in silence for about thirty minutes, because no one wanted to ask him any questions. Then finally, someone took pity and said, "I guess I should ask Kal Penn a question. Umm… how did your own experiences as an Indian American affect your portrayal of Gogol?" He then proceeded to go on a weird, incoherent rant, the gist of it being that the character's being Indian didn't matter (if you read the book, or see the movie…you'll know that it is actually extremely important and the source of everything dramatic that happens) and that the main character of The Namesake bore more of a resemblance to Holden Caulfield than to himself.

And just how did the author of "The Namesake" take the analogy?

The look on Jhumpa Lahiri's face when he compared her book to "Catcher in the Rye" was quite delightful. I thought she might vomit on him onstage.

'Amazing,' we thought. And then, as we were searching the deep recesses of our minds for a clever closing line, we suddenly realized our source had already done our work for us:

In conclusion, I would not pay $150,000 of Penn tuition to attend his class.

Touché, tipster. Touché.

*Or, Harold et Kumar Chassent Le Burger, as it's known in Canada.