busker

To get the big question out of the way, the Gladwell coiffure seems to be back to the high-forehead Afro. Someone even raised the question of his hair which he explained thus

• He'd originally cut it short to please his mom. When he realised he was older and no longer needed to keep her happy in quite such detail, he let it grow out.
• The incident with the police involved being pulled in for his resemblance of a rapist.
• As Gladwell told us he pointed out, it was only the hair he had in common with the suspect: in all other respects, he was more slender, younger, and better looking.
• Gladwell also explained that, back in the days when his hair was short and mom-pleasing, he was called a dork. With his bushier frizz, he is regarded as 'cool', a heady experience MG is unwilling to bring to a premature end.

The example Gladwell kicked off with was the female trombonist auditioning for an old-school male chauvinist European maestro and getting the post but only because she'd played behind a screen that hid the fact that she was female (not to mention, possibly, American).