I’m rarely impressed by the talent portions of beauty pageants. Yes, I realize that baton twirling went out with leaded gasoline, but the mediocre singing and dancing that are now commonplace in such contests have done nothing to convince me that budding artists eschew the pageant circuit. But just when I’m nearly secure in my […]
Tags:Alaska·beauty pageants·Marjorie Tahbone·Native Americans·sports·World Eskimo-Indian Olympics
In the course of researching the controversial career of Filipino basketball star Asi Taulava, I decided to look into the hoops scene in his native Tonga. That line of inquiry led me to this account of the sport that Tongans describe as “basketball,” but really resembles something else entirely: Basketball in Tonga is not like […]
Scrambling to prep for a key interview and finish a Wired essay, so just a quickie this morning. The clip above features the coolest drummer ever to brush a cymbal; the snippet below reveals how a young woman named Courtney Larkin was able to triumph in this year’s Miss National Peanut pageant: On Monday, Larkin […]
Tags:beauty pageants·Bill Withers·food·music·National Peanut Festival·peanuts·R&B
Up to the jawline with work this p.m., so please forgive the video quickie—a look back at the mid-’80s beauty pageant scene in the North-East Indian state of Mizoram. Safe for work, unless your boss objects to one-piece swimsuits. Note the judges’ archaic emphasis on body measurements—perhaps The Feminine Mystique had not yet been published […]
Tags:beauty pageants·India·Mizoram
