Frizzy-Haired Guy At Party Big Fan of Malcolm Gladwell's
Tom Scocca's Observer profile of Malcolm Gladwell is a fairly even-handed assessment of the New Yorker writer: He's got a unique style and he often tackles his subjects from an unusual angle, but his recent tendency toward the Socratic method and his reductive, show-you-the-architecture tics grow grating. Still, being the shallow types that we are, we found this anecdote more interesting:
But Mr. Gladwell is more than an ordinary civilian. At a party on Sept. 26, marking the launch of Canadian magnate Louise MacBain's new Culture & Travel magazine, a middle-aged woman approached Mr. Gladwell and asked if he was the author of The Tipping Point. Mr. Gladwell told her he was not. Flustered, the woman said she had loved the book, and asked if he had read it. "Yeah, I did read it," Mr. Gladwell replied. "That guy's pretty smart."
Well, fair enough, we wouldn't want to claim to be Gladwell either. But, come on, we've all seen the pictures: Who else would he be, a member of Los Payasonicos? You walk around with hair like that, you'd better own it.
