A classical Christmas

December 25, 2017

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. ...

The Darwinian theory of Al Franken

December 11, 2017

Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, is resigning from the U.S. Senate, and many folks are none too happy about it – not the least of whom is Al Franken himself.

In a farewell address that was nothing less than bitterly ironic, Franken wondered why he was going while the P-Grabber in Chief remained in the White House.

He’s staying and you’re going, Al, for the same reason that men harass women: One has the power. The other doesn’t. ...

Las Vegas and the literature of rejection

October 2, 2017

I was working on a story about Emily Katz Anhalt’s new book, “Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths” (Yale University Press), when I decided to take a break with The New York Times online. The headline hit me in the gut:

“At Least 58 Dead and 500 Hurt in Las Vegas as Gunman Rains Bullets on Concert.”

The suspect, Stephen Craig Paddock, 64 – and, according to Las Vegas Police, also dead by his own hand – was described as a quiet, unassuming man with no criminal history by his understandably defensive brother. Of course, he was. The president called for peace and unity. Of course, he did. ...

Local Authors Book Festival

September 26, 2017

Writers like my pal novelist Barbara Nachman https://www.fashionmystery.net/ were front and center Sunday as Barnes & Noble Eastchester’s Local Author Festival came to a close. But the fun continues.

Join me and other writers whose work appears in the new edition of Westchester Review as we read from our works Thursday, Sept. 28 from 7 to 9 p.m. I’ll be reading from the story that became the basis of the second chapter in my new novel “The Penalty for Holding,” about a gay, biracial quarterback’s search for identity in the NFL. ...

Courage and grace in the time of Trump

September 5, 2017

I had hoped to be writing more about tennis with the US Open underway. I had hoped to be resting from my labors on Labor Day.

But as Eleanor Roosevelt said of World War II, “This is no ordinary time.” With challenges and crisis on the home front and abroad, the time demands we go within to reach out, that we roll up our sleeves intellectually, physically and spiritually and use pleasure as it was always meant to be used – as a dessert rather than a meal.

Perhaps, however, it is still possible for me to write about tennis while also writing about character. Both are subjects of a new book by James Blake...

Tennis, everyone

August 24, 2017

The qualifying rounds of the US Open are underway at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. The actual tournament – the last of the four Slams – begins with first-round play Monday, Aug. 28. In the meantime, enjoy the game’s stars in a lighter mood at Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day on Saturday, Aug. 26.

On the tournament’s infrastructure front, the big news is the temporary Louie (as in Louis Armstrong Stadium) while the United States Tennis Association readies the new Louie for its Big Apple Bow next year. On the personnel front, a number of big names will be missing this year. ...

Eclipsed: Trump and Afghanistan

August 22, 2017

It’s fitting that President Donald J. Trump should address the nation regarding our recommitment to the war in Afghanistan on a day when most of the continental United States saw a total solar eclipse.

Historians would say that Afghanistan has eclipsed all our other wars. Not for nothing is Afghanistan known as “the graveyard of empires.” Certainly, it’s the graveyard of modern empires. The British in the 19th century and early 20th centuries and the Soviets in the 1970s got bogged down in wars there but left without the victor’s laurel wreath. We Americans have been fighting there 17 years, our longest war. ...