Sister acts: The beauty trap, continued

January 11, 2016

At first glance, Carrie Fisher, a contemporary actress and author, and St. Teresa of Ávila, a 17th century philosopher, abbess and mystic, wouldn’t appear to have much in common (even though Fisher was reportedly a script doctor on “Sister Act”).

But the two both wound up in the particularly meaty Jan. 10 edition of The New York Times’ Week in Review as unwitting examples of how far women still have to go when it comes to being defined by men, particularly where their looks are concerned.

Fisher, who reprises her role as Princess Leia in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” found herself embroiled in an Internet brouhaha in which posters were unable to forgive the princess for aging – as if the Web were a particularly petulant Peter Pan. This prompted novelist Jennifer Weiner to write a piece in which she opined that we all need to let it go, including that endlessly self-improving Weight Watchers’ investor, Oprah. ...

A classical Christmas

December 24, 2015

At Christmastide, I like to share one of my traditions, which is a reading of a selection from John Milton’s “Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.” As a classical Christian – I know, an oxymoron – I’m always struck by how the advent of Christianity sounded a death knell for Greco-Roman culture. But then, someone’s sunrise is always someone else’s sunset.

Yet Greco-Roman culture – with its sensual tales of gods and heroes, its dramas on the terrible wonder of the human condition, its emphasis on the body in all its brutal beauty – never died. (It’s a theme of Gore Vidal’s 1964 novel “Julian,” about the post-Christian Roman emperor who attempted to reinstall the Greco-Roman pantheon.) The Greeks would instead resurface in the Renaissance and at the turn of the 19th century. ...

Shadow in the sun: The real Elizabeth I

October 19, 2015

Goodness, I don’t know how much longer I, an Elizabeth I fan, can hang with “Reign.”

This season, The CW series about Mary, Queen of Scots has introduced another nemesis apart from her ever-hating mother-in-law, Catherind de’ Medici – Elizabeth I of England.

But portraying Elizabeth as a mean girl is so limiting – particularly when the truth is more delicious than the fiction. ...

The pope walks into a meeting and…

October 6, 2015

That sound you hear is the inevitable back-peddling that results when something blows up in a public figure’s face. In this case the figure is the ever-popular, nary-a-misstep Pope Francis, who, it turns out, met during his Washington D.C. visit with Kim Davis, the rogue Kentucky clerk who went to jail rather than issue gay marriage licenses.

It’s a measure of the esteem in which the pope is held that many have been falling over backward to make excuses for what has been viewed as a miscalculation. The Vatican had intimated it was no big deal. Davis’ lawyer, of course, countered, Oh, yes, it was. ...

(Madison Square) Garden of earthly delights

September 25, 2015

Pope Francis’ celebration of Mass at Madison Square Garden tonight prompted my friend, sports publicist and blogger John Cirillo, to email me a post on his favorite Garden moments, which got me thinking about my own.

But first, a little history. The Garden, named for President James Madison, really was once a garden – a rooftop garden that was part of an elaborate Moorish-style complex designed by architect Stanford White, who was shot there in 1906 by a crazed Harry Thaw over Thaw’s wife (and White’s former mistress) chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit. (She figures in both E.L. Doctorow’s novel “Ragtime” and the movie “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.”) ...

Welcome, Pope Francis

September 22, 2015

Time to take a break from the sports world to say a proper hello to Pope Francis, who arrived yesterday in Washington D.C. There the jovial pontiff was greeted by a smiling, laughing President Barack Obama – a graceful man meeting a man of grace.

It was immediately apparent that Pope Francis intends to keep it real during his American sojourn (black Fiat, black shoes, eyeglasses he bought himself in a Roman shop). ...

To ‘Sir,’ with love

April 12, 2015

A big shout-out to opera star Renée Fleming, a woman after my heart.

In The New York Times’ T magazine column “Take Two,” which juxtaposes comments from unlikely duos on unusual products, she has this to say about “Sir” (Taschen, 700 smackeroos), photographer Mario Testino’s ode to men:

“I had a lot of fun looking at this. It has more six-packs than a 7-Eleven. I like that men are now being scrutinized in the way that women have been for so long.”

Her mighty opposite here – Arnold Schwarzenegger, who knows a thing or two about sculpted male bodies – added: “What I discovered in here was an extraordinary celebration of men. It’s the ideal Christmas present. If I’d spend $700 on a pair of shoes, why not on a book?”

Why indeed? Certainly, Mr. Darcy himself, Colin Firth – one of the subjects, along with George Clooney, Jude Law, Mick Jagger, Keith Richard and others – would alone be worth the price of the book. ...