I’m wrapping up a post on The Avengers (preview: it’s fun!), but in the meantime, links of the week!
- Stephen Colbert’s extended interview with Maurice Sendak, broadcast just a few months before Sendak’s death this week, showcased the author’s sad, biting wit beautifully. (Also, I know everyone loves Where the Wild Things Are—it’s lovely—but when I was a kid, Outside Over There, about a girl who must rescue her sister from goblins, hit me even harder. If you’ve never read it, check it out.)
- Anne Helen Petersen’s periodic posts at The Hairpin about scandals from Hollywood’s Golden Age are invariably fascinating, and this one, about Laurence Olivier and his doomed romance with the unstable Vivien Leigh, is particularly entertaining, with lots of pretty photos. (They were a crazy-attractive couple.)
- The fashions at the annual Met Gala are always stunning—not always in a good way, true, but they’re not boring. In any case, New York has a thorough slide show from the red carpet. (If that’s too much to take, Tom and Lorenzo’s annotated highlights are delightful.)
- Drawing on the latest episode of Mad Men, Alex Ross makes some insightful points about the non-universality of music.
- Slate has some fun examining the trendlet of YouTube videos in which zoo lions attempt to attack human toddlers through glass, and as I find those videos surprisingly hilarious, I found the article amusing as well.
Much Review About Nothing 
It was a jackpot week for links! I enjoyed them all. The history of Lawrence Olivier and Vivian Leigh was new to me and an interesting view into how Old Hollywood worked. I’ve never been that attracted by either Olivier’s acting or his looks, but I must say the two of them were a striking couple. As for the lion-toddler videos, I don’t find them as hilarious as you do. In fact I’m a bit appalled at the parents laughing while the lioness scratches at the glass trying to reach the baby. I think if I had been there I wouldn’t have been so blase about the sturdiness of the glass.
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