Plan B

Always have a backup plan. Cliché? David Kord Murray, author of the influential Borrowing Brilliance, thinks not. Even the most careful strategy isn't as good as the one that expects to change course -- and can thus improve on the original concept in unexpected ways. Examples abound, from Wal-Mart and Facebook to Eisenhower's nimble approach to D-Day.

May 18: Parade, the "first modern ballet," premiered in Paris on this day in 1917. The production was a collaboration of some of modernism's most famous -- music by Erik Satie, scenario by Jean Cocteau, costumes by Picasso,…

Ethan Rutherford and Matt Burgess (Dogfight: A Love Story) on the writing of Rutherford's surreal and fiercely funny story collection The Peripatetic Coffin

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