An Evening with Malcolm Gladwell
Even though my sweet wife is super duper busy writing lots of important art history papers (actual titles: “The Eschatological Vision of William Blake: The ‘Apocalyptic Sublime’ in Blake’s Designs” and “Utopian Impulse in American Hip Hop: A Self-Reflexive Genre”), Wendy still got me a nice early birthday present: a ticket to see one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, who was coming into town to perform at The Lowry! I say “perform” because while it’s basically just a reading, those of you who are familiar with Gladwell’s books know that he interweaves story and drama through his theories and essays, so sitting through a 90-minute talk of his feels more like a long dramatic monologue, in a good way. It feels enveloping.
On Tuesday evening I took the train out to The Lowry, which is a really awesome building and performance space in Salford Quays, on the Southwestern side of Manchester.
The actual theatre is great - for those of you from Chapel Hill, it reminds me of Memorial Hall, how it looks like there really isn’t a bad seat in the house.
I was fortunate to be sitting on the side of the theater where Gladwell stood and gave his talk, which was fantastic, however I was also right next to an usher who was scolding people left and right for pulling out electronic devices, so I couldn’t grab a picture of Gladwell during the performance. The talk was great - felt like he was reading one of his New Yorker essays right off the page as he talked about the different types of serendipity, how sometimes we set out to find something and discover something completely different (Columbian Serendipity, a la Christopher Columbus); sometimes we are on a mission to discover something but find the solution in a completely unexpected manner (Archamedian Serendipity, like how Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin); and finally Galilean Serendipity, which is where someone tries to devise a way to see into the great unknown, and sometimes comes up with nothing for all their hard work. He unwove an hourlong anecdote about a startup drug company that thought they had found a remarkably effective cure for Melanoma, only to have all their research fall apart and bury the company four years in. It was heartbreaking and honestly kind of a downer but very much directly in line with his voice and work, so I loved getting to watch him deliver the whole thing.
I was a little peeved I didn’t get to take a picture during the reading, but when I saw afterwards he would be signing books in the lobby, I was definitely standing in line, regardless of length. And yes, it was quite a long line…
When I finally got up to see him, I had basically been standing in a queue for 30 minutes trying to think of something incredibly clever to say that would make Malcolm Gladwell realize that we were destined to be best friends in the 10 seconds of interaction I would get with him. Instead, I abandoned that plan at the last second and just tried to make him laugh, since I noticed in every other picture he would not crack a smile. I brought a book up, he signed it with “to Zeke” on the inside jacket, and then I shook his hand and mentioned I was also an American. He cracked a little smirk, said “Oh, that’s great” and then was ready to move on to the next person, but before I let him do that I said “Malcolm, I hope you’ll excuse me but I’m going to try and take the cheesiest picture possible with you right now” and squatted down next to him, striking a fierce rendition of the Stephen Colbert pose. For reference:
And finally, the piece de resistance:
Mission accomplished! He looked over at me and cracked up, and held his smile into the actual picture, which I couldn’t have appreciated more. He said “Thanks” and smiled as I walked off, I guess amused by it. And that’s about as much as I could have hoped for (I mean, I was still waiting for him to invite me to hang out with him and go on tour and write New Yorker articles with him and be his bestest bud, but we’ll save that for our second encounter I suppose).
I walked home with an autographed copy of “What The Dog Saw,” a picture of me with one of my favorite authors, and a smile on my face. On top of that, Salford Quays really is a beautiful area (see photos below for reference). It was a great night and a great birthday present - thanks Wendy!
