When Donnie met Vladdie (And Manny reunited with Justy)

July 8, 2017

Smit-ten.

That was the mutual word. Donnie said it was an “honor” to meet Vladdie. Vladdie, looking out from under shy eyes – or should that be sly eyes? – kept calling Donnie “Mr. President.” It must’ve been like the moment Mark Anthony reunited with Cleopatra on her barge. For so long the meeting had been a foregone conclusion. Now, here it was at last.

They shook hands. They leaned in. The chemistry was described as “warm.” (Try hot.) And when Melania tried to break up the meet to keep her hubby on track, she was – what a surprise – ignored. Oh, Melania, will you become like the embittered Michelle Williams character in “Brokeback Mountain”? Is there a Slovenian word for “triangle”? ...

My big fat Greek odyssey, Part IV: Judgment at Philippi

November 19, 2016

Seeing President Obama atop the Acropolis in Athens – talking about democracy then and now – made me yearn to get back to Greece in memory. On the fifth day of the Times Journeys’ “The Legacy of Alexander the Great” tour, we visited Philippi, which looms large in Greco-Roman history. The city was originally founded by Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II, hence the name, but it is perhaps most noteworthy for two different moments in history – the victory of Julius Caesar’s supporters Octavian and Mark Antony over his assassins Brutus and Cassius, and the imprisonment of St. Paul, who brought his nascent mission to the Gentiles there.

At the Archaeological Site of Philippi, we looked upon heights where the battle – a turning point as Rome pivoted from republic to empire – is said to have taken place. Fortunately, we didn’t climb them but instead wandered amid the later Roman ruins that included an amphitheater. There John, the thespian among us, amused the group by striking melodramatic poses. ...

Greek to me: Met opens “Pergamon,” unprecedented Hellenistic show

April 13, 2016

“So,” a publicist at The Metropolitan Museum of Art asked teasingly, “are there enough Alexanders for you?”

She knows me only too well. Lover of the ancient Greeks that I am, there can never be for me enough images of Alexander the Great – the Greco-Macedonian king whose conquest of the Persian Empire in 331 B.C. ushered in 300 years of Hellenism (Greek culture) in Asia, reversing the course of cultural influence from East-West to West-East, and underscoring a tension between East and West that is still with us.

And yet, there I was in the first gallery of “Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World” (April 18 through July 17), surrounded by Alexanders. ...