Chocolate Legs, TED Love: 4 Talks Worth Watching

My legs are splashed with chocolate. And not in a good way, but rather an I-just-spilled-my-drink-on-the-way-home-and-am-now-chocolateless-and-sad way.

In other news–*ILBNH * updates will be spotty over the next week or so, as I’m flying home (Australia) for a quick show off the kidlet visit on Monday. I am going to try to stick to my regular posting schedule (Tuesday & Thursday with a book list on Friday) but my posts will be a little shorter, and more link-filled next week.

And now for the TED love! Here are 4 excellent TED talks, each worth a watch or, well, 4. Why 4 talks? It’s a good number, and one of the digits in my favorite number (64).

ETA: RSS folks, you’ll have to click through.

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Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature.

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Douglas Adams: Parrots, the Universe, & Everything

In accidental spacefarers, bureaucratic aliens and depressed androids, the inimitable Douglas Adams gave a voice to the many facets of the human condition with sidesplitting (and bestselling) results. In addition to his many works of fiction, Adams was also a passionate environmental activist, having campaigned for endangered species through writings such as Last Chance to See, and a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro — while wearing a rhino suit. He was an avid reader of science, and counted among his friends luminaries such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry and John Lloyd.

The Salmon of Doubt, a posthumous collection of his work, was published in 2002.

Blind river dolphins, reclusive lemurs, a parrot as fearless as it is lovelorn … Douglas Adams’ close encounters with these rare and unusual animals reveal that evolution, ever ingenious, can be fickle too — in a University of California talk that sparkles with his trademark satiric wit.

Amy Tan: On Creativity

Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, looking for hints of how hers evolved.

Amy Tan is the author of such beloved books as The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses. Born in the US to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan rejected her mother’s expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She chose to write fiction instead. Her much-loved, best-selling novels have been translated into 35 languages. She’s writing a new novel and creating the libretto for The Bonesetter’s Daughter, which will have its world premiere in September 2008 with the San Francisco Opera.

Tan was the creative consultant for Sagwa, the Emmy-nominated PBS series for children, and she has appeared as herself on The Simpsons. She’s the lead rhythm dominatrix, backup singer and second tambourine with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a literary garage band that has raised more than a million dollars for literacy programs.

Elizabeth Gilbert: On Nurturing Creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

The author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has thought long and hard about some large topics. Her next fascination: genius, and how we ruin it .Elizabeth Gilbert faced down a ­premidlife crisis by doing what we all secretly dream of – running off for a year. Her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia resulted in the megabestselling and deeply beloved memoir Eat, Pray, Love, about her process of finding herself by leaving home.

She’s a longtime magazine writer – covering music and politics for Spin and GQ – as well as a novelist and short-story writer. Her books include the story collection Pilgrims, the novel Stern Men (about lobster fishermen in Maine) and a biography of the woodsman Eustace Conway, called The Last American Man. Her work has been the basis for one movie so far (Coyote Ugly, based on her own memoir, in this magazine article, of working at the famously raunchy bar), and now it looks as if Eat, Pray, Love is on the same track, with the part of Gilbert reportedly to be played by Julia Roberts. Not bad for a year off.

Gilbert also owns and runs the import shop Two Buttons in Frenchtown, New Jersey.