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. ...

Recently, a trio of screen stars has taken to the London stage to portray three of Shakepeare’s greatest characters – David Tennant (“Dr. Who”), Richard II; Jude Law, Henry V; and Tom Hiddleston (“Thor”), Coriolanus. Together they offer a kind of round robin of Shakespearean performance. On PBS, Tennant was a febrile Hamlet, a role that was played with lucent rationality on Broadway by Law, whose Henry V follows hard upon Hiddleston’s charismatic interpretation in PBS’ “The Hollow Crown.”

The three also offer lessons in leadership undone at a time in our history when the systemic failure of Alexandrian leadership – leadership from the front – continues to haunt us. What, for example, would the Bard make of New Jersey Gov. Chris Chrisite? Would he cast him as his blustery Roman general Coriolanus, a man whose skills are undermined – no, doomed – by his own arrogance and blindness to the will of the people? Read more

To ‘Sir,’ with love

Is Christie Coriolanus?