A 17th-century Russian manuscript of “The Alexander Romance,” considered one of the earliest novels. Here Alexander explores the depths of the sea.

Trump and the empathy paradox

November 23, 2019

On Nov. 20 — which, as it turned out, would’ve been the 94th birthday of onetime Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968 — PBS’ “Nova” aired a fascinating program, “The Violence Paradox” — one that said a lot about the paradox of empathy in our own time.

Based on the controversial work of psychologist Steven Pinker, the program posited that civilization has become increasingly less violent — yes, despite a world in which every Middle Eastern, African and South American country appears to be protesting its corrupt leadership, Hong Kong students are fighting for democracy against China in a classic David-versus-Goliath battle; and school shootings continue unchecked in the United States.

A legend comes to life

November 21, 2019

He was a realist and a romantic, a lover of strong women and beautiful men. And though he was in his day the richest, most powerful man in the world, his most prized possession was a book – Homer’s “The Iliad,” annotated by his tutor, Aristotle.

Most of all, he was as much a myth as a man and a mystery – even to himself.

When Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 B.C. – a month shy of his 33rd birthday – after conquering and reordering Persia, he left a sprawling empire and a burning question: What drove him?

It’s a question I explore in “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” (Nov. 30, JMS Books), the latest entry in my series “The Games Men Play” and its first historical subject.

The dramatically lit Aphrodite of Knidos — with her baby, Eros, sleeping at her side — in “The Countless Aspects of Beauty” exhibit at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, a feast for the sense. Photograph by the author.

Greek to us

June 27, 2019

“We’re not interested in Alexander I.”

That’s what one of my colleagues said to me about Alexander the Great (who was Alexander III, but no matter).

I thought about this as I returned to Greece recently on another “Legacy of Alexander the Great” tour, this time with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Arrangements Abroad. I thought about this as we swept by plane from Thessaloniki — Greece’s second largest city, named for one of Alexander’s younger sisters — spitj to Athens, the capital, on a 12-day tour that included buscapades to many of the nation’s most important museums and archaeological sites.

Bartholomeus Spranger’s “Diana-Luna” (1566-1611), oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. The work captures the way art eroticizes the virgin archetype.

America's psychological virgin

May 15, 2019

With the passing of movie star Doris Day May 13 at her home in Carmel Valley, California, at age 97, much has been made of her goody two shoes image on film in the 1960s and the way it was pooh poohed in subsequent decades when attitudes toward women’s sexuality were expanding in the advent of feminism. (It was an image that Day, who had a number of troubled marriages, herself dismissed on “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson,” and indeed she often played complex wives, most notably in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and as the torch singer Ruth Etting in “Love Me or Leave Me.” )

Whose identity is it anyway?

May 12, 2019

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s exhibit, “Camp: Notes on Fashion” (through Sept. 9) was inspired by Susan Sontag’s seminal 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’,” which she defined broadly as style over substance characterized by theatricality, irony, playfulness, masquerade and unselfconsciousness. It’s a definition and a show that cuts a wide swath, but in the end it turns out to be less about camp and more about identity — its mutability and its ownership.

Bartholomäus Spranger’s “Minerva (Athena) Victorious Over Ignorance” (circa 1591), oil on canvas. Kunsthistoriches Museum.

Fire and ice in a week that burned

November 18, 2018

It was another challenging week bookended by ice and snow on the East Coast and wildfires in California. I have no expertise to offer in alleviating the devastation wrought by wildfires, but I do have some thoughts on preventing the havoc wreaked by six inches – yes, a mere six inches – of snow, sleet and rain in New York.

By Jove! Trump as disrupter in chief

February 4, 2017

God created the world in seven days, the Bible tells us.

It took President Donald Trump only 14 to destroy it.

“Destroy” may be too strong a word. “Disturb,” “disrupt” are better choices. In one of the greatest games men play, politics, he is the lord of misrule, tweeting and executive-ordering us into a new world that may or may not be brave; terrifying the already traumatized “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and insulting world leaders – with the exception of boy crush Vladimir “Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin – in equal stead.

Australians, refugees, refugees in Australia – is there anyone who has not been blasted by Trumpet? ...