#art-heist

#art-heist

In her 1970 essay "On the Morning After the Sixties," Joan Didion described her disillusionment with the idea that political protest could "affect man's fate in the slightest." It's an opinion James Blaine "J.B." Mooney might share, if he were paying attention. He's the lead character and hapless art thief in director Kelly Reichardt's new film The Mastermind, set in 1970.

"One thing that I realized while writing is that heists are actually easier to execute than we see in movies and on TV shows," Piazza tells Bustle. "So I might have been the least surprised person on the planet about the Louvre heist. In fact, I felt so validated in how I executed it on the page. I also think my version is a little sexier."

The Louvre heist, daily life in Gaza, Russian strikes on Kyiv and sumo in London: the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists

The bold and brazen heist at Blenheim Palace took only five-and-a-half minutes, stealing a fully functioning gold toilet valued at 4.75 million.