Arts and Culture

Ivory Poachers Will Kill Off Earth's Giants: Interview With Cyril Christo From green-suited Babar to sweet, soaring Dumbo, people love elephants, ascribing to them qualities of wisdom and compassion. Weighing up to 26,000 pounds, these largest and most powerful of land animals have no natural predators, except, of course, for human beings, who are destroying their habitats and using automatic weapons to slaughter them for ivory.

Chinese Crickets Train, Have Pre-Bout Sex, Ferocious Fights: Lewis Lapham The combatants were strong, well- matched and ready to go. One zoomed in for a quick assault only to be rebuffed by a fierce lunge from his opponent, making onlookers collectively gasp. Circling, they locked and wrestled, repeatedly flipping each other over. After a heroic battle, one cricket finally went off in defeat, and the money changed hands.

Michael Lewis Paints Risk-Eating Short-Sellers as Slump's Heroes: Review Twenty years ago, when I worked at Salomon Brothers, every person on Wall Street had read two books: Frank J. Fabozzi’s “Fixed Income Analysis” and Michael Lewis’s “Liars’ Poker.”

`Twilight' Star Mourns Brother's Suicide; Hamm's Cold Case: Rick Warner Near the end of “Remember Me,” there’s a lingering shot of the Twin Towers on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just before they were destroyed by terrorist- piloted jets. Like much of the movie, the symbolism is heavy- handed.

Nixon, Bare Flesh on Fifth, Addams Family, Honey Vodka: Great N.Y. Weekend Peter Strauss does a terrific impersonation of legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in “Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers.”

Mexican Street Food, Fine Dining Win Over Sun-Starved Londoners: Interview Mexican food had barely made its presence felt in London until recently, unless you count tourist joints where the fare bears as close a relation to the cuisine as Walkabout bars do to fine Australian dining.

Basquiat Work Sells, Damien Hirst's Pig Tempts at $2.7 Billion Dutch Fair A work by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold today within the first two hours of the official opening of the world’s largest art and antiques fair in the Dutch city of Maastricht. Other pieces by Damien Hirst, Alberto Giacometti and Paul Gauguin attracted interest from billionaires who took time browsing Tefaf, the 23rd annual European Fine Art Fair.

Kim Cattrall Flirts, Clowns in Noel Coward's `Private Lives': London Stage Kim Cattrall transformed the monochromatic role of Samantha in “Sex and the City” into a portrayal of sexual self-confidence. Maybe any actress with a certain va-va-voom could have done the same. Va-va-voom will never be enough to tackle Noel Coward’s “Private Lives.”

See Nicole Kidman Sulk, Hear Chopin Play, Rea Warble: Great London Weekend Steal a glimpse of a sulking Nicole Kidman as the Friday stop on your weekend in London.

How Annie Leibovitz Found New Partner to Handle $24 Million Debt, Archive Late last summer, Richard Nanula, a principal at private-equity firm Colony Capital LLC, met celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz in New York as she was struggling to repay a $24 million loan.