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Welcome to The Lavin Agency's
Newsletter! Every month we bring you the latest news from
our roster of outstanding speakers. For more information
on the speakers below, or to discuss needs for an upcoming
event, please call us at 1-800-762-4234. Or email us at
info@thelavinagency.com.
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Steven Pinker In The New York Times on the Search
for a "Gay Gene"
Leading Cognitive Scientist
Discusses Recent Research on Genetic Basis of Human Sexuality
Renowned cognitive scientist and writer Steven Pinker recently
published an Op-Ed article in The New York Times,
in which he he comments on the discovery that homosexual
and heterosexual men respond differently to two odors that
may be involved in sexual arousal . Dr. Pinker says that
while the discovery, by itself, does not prove that homosexuality
is innate, it raises provocative questions about science
and the ethics of human sexuality. He concludes by arguing
that it may not be coincidence that this new discovery comes
from researchers in Europe and not in America, where the
biology of homosexuality is a politicized minefield that
scares away scientists and universities and the agencies
that pay for their research.
Click
here to read the full article
Click
here to read a bio of Steven Pinker
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Eve Ensler Performing Her New Play, The Good Body
Award-Winning Author of The
Vagina Monologues Touring North American Theaters
Obie-Award-winning playwright Eve Ensler recently gave a
performance of her latest work, The Good Body, to
critical acclaim on Broadway. It was also performed at the
American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and this
year, a full North American tour is set to begin.
Ensler's The Good Body is the result of traveling
to over 40 countries to talk with women about the relationships
(often times, negative) they have with their bodies. Ensler
explores their experiences with monologues representing
women from Bombay to Beverly Hills. In an interview with
The Seattle Times, Ensler explained that The Good
Body is her response to how the "all-pervasive, seductive
and insidious" pressure to be thin and stay young has taken
hold of women from disparate cultures, and how closely the
fears and body-image obsessions of the women she encountered
mirrored her own. "This is the most personal, difficult,
and treacherous play I've done," she said, "because
it's mostly about me."
Ensler is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship Award
in Playwriting and won the Jury Award for Theater at the
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, as well as the 2002 Amnesty International
Media Spotlight Award for Leadership. She is the current
Chair of the Women's Committee of PEN American Center.
Selected cities in the Good Body Tour:
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Miami, Florida
Detroit, Michigan
Boston, Massachusetts
Scottsdale, Arizona
If you would like to book Eve's
performance for your school, please contact The Lavin Agency
at 1-800-762-4234.
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Isabel Allende's Zorro A Hit With Readers and Critics
International Bestselling Author Rewrites
The Legend of Zorro
In her latest novel, award-winning author
Isabel Allende ambitiously re-imagines the myth of the great
hero Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro. The book combines the
magical realism of earlier efforts like The House of
the Spirits, with the historical fiction of Daughter
of Fortune (which was chosen as a selection for Oprah's
Book Club). The Chicago Sun-Times calls the
book "one of those rare and perfect matches of subject and
author," declaring it, "sinfully entertaining, Zorro
is serious fiction masked as a swashbuckler." The book has
now been on the New York Times Bestseller's List
for four weeks, and is in the Top 20 on amazon.com's Fiction
List.
More
information on Isabel Allende
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Lavin
Agency Signs Producers of Film Festival Hit Indiana
Jones - The Adaptation
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Indiana Jones
- The Adaptation
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It should have been nothing more than
a fond childhood memory: three friends, captivated by
the blockbuster Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, spend their
free time and summer vacations filming their own version
of the film, painstakingly re-creating every scene, every
piece of dialog, and their own special effects. Over the
course of seven years they stuck to the project and saw
it through to completion. And that should have been the
end of it — but it wasn't. Fifteen years later, Steven
Spielberg himself saw a copy of the film, was enchanted
by it, and gave the amateur producers the chance to show
the film at festivals and other locations. An independent
film legend was born, and the trio's own life story was
bought by Hollywood.
Now your campus can screen a showing of this indie cult
classic, followed by a talk and Q&A by two of the
producers, Chris Strompolos (who played the role of Indiana
Jones), and Eric Zala, who took on the role of Director.
The film can only be screened with them in attendance,
so this is an amazing opportunity to bring a unique, entertaining,
and popular program to your campus. Screenings of this
movie sell out in minutes on the film festival circuit!
For more information contact The Lavin Agency at 1-800-762-4234.
More
information on Indiana Jones - The Adaptation
Augusten
Burroughs Sells Movie Rights To Book He Hasn't Written
Yet
"It's going to be horrible and
funny and redemptive."
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Augusten Burroughs
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As reported in Entertainment Weekly,
a magazine which hailed him as "One of The 15 Funniest
People in America," Augusten Burroughs has just sold the
movie rights for his next book to Universal Studios. Amazingly,
the book has yet to be titled or written. "In effect,
they bought air," says Burroughs. The upcoming book will
be about the difficult relationship Burroughs had with
his now-deceased father.
In other news, the highly anticipated movie version of
his memoir Running with Scissors has just wrapped
production. The film is being co-produced by Brad Pitt
and stars Annette Bening, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vanessa Redgrave
and Joseph Cross (as Augusten). The movie is scheduled
for release sometime this year.
More information on Augusten Burroughs
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