Like most people, I'm a sucker for a feel-good story, and adult-film star Veruca James has got one of the best triumph-of-the-will tales I've heard in a while.
A best picture triumph, if it occurs, will have been engineered principally by Harvey Weinstein, the grizzled Oscar campaigner whose Weinstein Company released "The King's Speech" in the United States and a handful of other places.
The best picture triumph in 2003 for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" was seen as the Academy's making up for overlooking the first two "Rings" installments.
(Mr. Hsieh looks for books with any variation of the word "happy" in their titles, he said, and Mr. Glaeser's best seller, "Triumph of the City," has the subhead "How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier").
Arctic Monkeys repeated their best group triumph of 2007 and 2008, and frontman Alex Turner joked that they had put money on rivals One Direction to win.
While hard facts on failure rates are scarce (no surprise there), there's enough collateral information to make clear that the 360 was at best a triumph of engineers under the worst of conditions, and at worst a complete catastrophe on multiple levels.
In an on-court interview, Razzano called her triumph, first round and all, the best victory of her career.
Building on the success of London 2012 the nation's best apprentices triumphed at the Skills Olympics in Leipzig.
Her second novel, The Dress Lodger, was another best-selling triumph, set in cholera-stricken England circa 1831.
He became the world's best player, triumphing in matches and tournaments.
But the courtroom itself is the performative space, the stage where the best story triumphs, and where all parties, except (usually) the defendant, are just playing parts.
