Malcolm Gladwell: “David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan ArreguÃn-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years … in which one side was at least ten times as powerful – in terms of armed might and population – as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.”
Tag: 05.11.09
Billy Elliot Racks Up More Prizes At Outer Critics Circle
The working-class-boy-does-ballet juggernaut took top honors for new Broadway musical, new score, direction, choreography, featured actor and actress (musical) and lighting design, as well as a special citation for the three young men alternating in the title role.
Tintin-ophilia At The Auction House
“Tintin mania swept a Belgian auction house on Sunday with almost 600 lots associated with Hergé, creator of the famous cartoon reporter, breaking national and world sales records, an expert said.” The sale raised a total of €1,172,000.
The Addams Family Lurch-es To Broadway
“[T]he new Broadway-bound musical about the winds of change blowing though the haunted mansion of the famously macabre family will star two-time Tony Award winners Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth” as Gomez and Morticia. The show is based on the original Charles Addams cartoons, not the TV series.
British Government Makes Rehearsal Spaces Available To Bands
“The benefits stack up socially, economically and culturally – and hopefully some of those young people will pick up valuable skills and go on to work in one of our fantastic creative industries.”
PEN/Faulkner Award-Winner: And Why Shouldn’t The President Read My Book?
Barack Obama recently endorsed PEN winner Joseph O’Neill’s book. “Novelists should believe strongly enough in what they do to say, “What’s the big deal? Why shouldn’t the president read my book?’ O’Neill said. ‘Surely it’s not contended by anybody that the only valuable information about the world is to be found in briefing books’.”
Movie Producer Advertises For Virgins
“Posters appearing around Sydney are offering $20,000 for virgins to appear in a feature-length documentary. But the fine print reveals the would-be stars – a man and a woman – must be prepared to be filmed as they auction their virginity online. In return, they get the cash, 90 per cent of the winning bid and, one presumes, a good night out.”
Germaine Greer To Carol Ann Duffy: Congratulations (I Think)
“Of course, you can use the dosh to fund a prize for the best poetry collection of the year, but I’d be just as happy if you blew it on the horses or invested it in fetish gear. You shouldn’t be feeling that you have to fund a poetry prize out of your meagre emolument.”
Center “Disassociates” Itself From Artist It Funded
Toronto’s “Koffler Centre of the Arts has ‘disassociated’ itself from a Jewish artist whose project they helped fund, after discovering her ties to Israeli Apartheid Week, a campus coalition which accuses Israel of being an apartheid state and has been severely criticized for being anti-Israel.”