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From left, Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in the 1939 adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” still my favorite of the many adaptations, never more so than in this scene of the wild, rough-hewn characters on their beloved Yorkshire moors. I keep a framed copy of this movie still in my library.

'Frost from fire' -- perversity and identity in 'Wuthering Heights'

February 19, 2026

As a collector of “Wuthering Heights” interpretations —Emily Brontë’s novel being the inspiration for my revenge family drama “Seamless Sky” — I was intrigued then disappointed by the announcement of a new film adaptation. I haven’t seen it, but what I have seen of it makes me think Margot Robbie is all wrong for the part of Cathy, not the least of which being that she’s a blonde.

The fair Ralph Fiennes and the French Juliette Binoche would’ve seemed all wrong for the 1992 film “Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.” But they have such talent and chemistry that they are among my favorite Cathys and Healthcliffs, never more so than in their scenes on the Yorkshire moors where their perverse, almost Luciferian defiance of everything and everyone but themselves and the natural world sows the seeds for their haunting, destructive story arc.

Ilia Malinin before the free skate of the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships. *Courtesy*
*FloweringDagwood/Wikipedia.*

Alex Pretti, Bad Bunny, Ilia Malinin and the challenge of identity

February 16, 2026

In a not-very-good but nonetheless watchable 1998 film of Alexandre Dumas”The Man in the Iron Mask” that capitalized on the Taylor Swift-like phenomenon of then teen heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons’ Musketeer Aramis tells DiCaprio’s hapless title character that the greatest mystery in life is who we are.

Who are we? Who are you? We receive names and unique Social Security numbers at birth, pose for endless selfies, research our digital DNA data and generally live in a “me” culture, branded and monogrammed. But who are we really? What are our values? What are the strengths and weaknesses of our personalities?

From left, President Donald J. Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House in Washington, D.C. on May 6, 2025. Carney’s willingness to take on Trump by moving past him has raised his profile on the world stage. *Photograph by Gabriel B. Kotico/the White House.*

Seeing past our region of ice (and ICE)

January 24, 2026

There is another approach to narcissism that I had forgotten – to stand up to the narcissistic, bullying abuse and either directly (Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney) or indirectly (Pope Leo XIV) announce that you are not going to stand for it and will build a world around, through or without it.

Former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse seen in his 2016 U.S. Senate portrait. He’s announced that at 53 he has terminal pancreatic cancer. *Courtesy U.S. Senate.*

December's endgames

December 24, 2025

Ryan Holiday’s “The Daily Stoic” – generally inspirational although too hard on Alexander the Great and too easy on Marcus Aurelius – says that December is the month of endings in which we must contemplate our own. Meanwhile, there have been a number of high profile endings of different sorts, so let’s delve into them, shall we?

From left, President Donald J. Trump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani before a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House Nov. 21. *Courtesy the White House.*

The kings of Queens – the not-so-strange bromance of Trump and Mamdani

November 30, 2025

There’s nothing like a new bromance to get the creative juices flowing: Both Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers outdid themselves with their comic analyses of the lovefest between President Donald J. Triump and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani at the White House Nov. 21 – this after the two politicians traded the most abject insults amid Mamdani’s meteoric rise.

The gentlemanly surrender of British Gen. John Burgoyne to Patriot Gen. Horatio Gates after the Battle of Saratoga on Oct. 16, 1777, as depicted by John Trumbull in this 1818 painting, is how we tend to think of the American Revolution after the fact — nice and stately. Instead, it was a long, brutal guerrilla conflict, and though Saratoga would prove its turning point for the Patriots, it would still drag on for six more years.

Blood debt – kings to pawns in a zero-sum game of liberty and death

November 27, 2025

Next year marks the United States’ 250th birthday and already plans are underway for the celebration, with the nonprofit America250 Commission https://america250.org/ charged with staging different events and programs to mark the occasion. (Each of the 50 states has also created its own commission, with plenty of cultural organizations contributing exhibits and performances.)

Though ostensibly bipartisan, America250 has come under the aegis of the Trump Administration, which wants to ensure that American history is portrayed in such a way that Americans don’t feel ashamed of their past. But Ken Burns – whose “The American Revolution” aired on PBS Nov. 16 through Nov. 21 and is streaming free there through Dec. 14 – has said in interviews that we owe it to ourselves to tell the truth about the revolution and let the chips fall where they may. Far from shaming us, Burns and producing partner Sarah Botstein have said, the revolution should inspire and enlighten us as ordinary citizens overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to buck the British Empire and create the world’s oldest modern democracy.

Bette Davis’ murderous adulteress, seen here with costar Herbert Marshall as her duped husband, finds she cannot outrun her past, in the form of an incriminating missive, in “The Letter” (1940). *Courtesy Warner Bros.*

Will the Epstein emails be politically lethal?

November 16, 2025

“The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” – Corinthians 3:6

In W. Somerset Maugham’s much-adapted 1927 play “The Letter,” a spurned woman kills her rejecting lover, then passes the crime off as an attempted rape and self-defense. Her story seems plausible but for one thing – an incriminating letter inviting her lover to her home while her husband is away, a letter that’s in the hands of the lover’s mistress.

No one writes letters anymore, we’re told, but they do write lots and lots of emails, which they apparently never delete. Will the thousands of emails released from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate ultimately prove to be politically lethal?