Last year, I attended OutWrite, the annual LGBT book festival at The DC Center in Washington D.C., with the second (and original) chapter of my then soon-to-be published novel, “The Penalty for Holding.”
This year, I went back with the first chapter of the now published book (Less Than Three Press) and once again enjoyed myself immensely.
Part of the fun...
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One of the many complexities that has come to light in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus that is the Trump White House is the supposed New Yorkification of Washington D.C. The two cities have always had an uneasy relationship ever since Alexander Hamilton, perhaps the ultimate New Yorker, and Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the ultimate non-New Yorker, struck a deal that would make Washington the political capital of the country and New York, the financial one.
Even today, this remains an unusual arrangement but one that has worked for the United States. As Ric Burns notes in his superb “New York: A Documentary Film," ...
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author of good fortune – or, let’s face it, no fortune at all – must be in want of an audience. And so I repaired once again, dear readers, to The DC Center for the LGBT Community’s OutWrite Book Festival in Washington, this time to read from my novel “The Penalty for Holding” – about a gay, biracial quarterback’s quest for love in the NFL. It is slated to be published next year by Less Than Three Press.
But this was also a busman’s holiday as well, as I had in mind visiting two exhibits I longed to see – “The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great,” at the National Geographic Museum through Oct. 10, and “Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen and the Cult of Celebrity,” at the Folger Shakespeare Library through Nov. 6. What is it that the late Nora Ephron said: “Everything is copy”? Everywhere I went reminded me of what it means to be a writer. ...
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One of my – and my family’s – Christmas gifts to myself was a trip to “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World,” which is at the National Gallery of Art through March 20.
For me, an amateur classicist whose love of Greco-Roman culture threads all of my writing, “Power and Pathos” in Washington was something of a Holy Grail. It originated at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles – one of two big shows on the ancient Greeks to appear this year, the other being “The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece” at the British Museum.
But neither London nor Los Angeles was in my game plan and when my annual Christmas trip to Washington arrived, so did my moment.
That moment didn’t disappoint, for no sooner did my photographing nephew and I enter the exhibit than we encountered “Alexander the Great on Horseback,” a small first century B.C. silver-inlaid bronze replica of the bronze original by Lysippos, the only artist allowed to capture Alexander’s likeness besides the painter Apelles and the gem-carver Pyrgoteles. The backdrop for this equestrian statue is a reproduced portion of “The Alexander Mosaic” (circa 100 B.C.), depicting the Greco-Macedonian conqueror’s defeat of the Persian emperor Darius III at the Battle of Issus. (Both works are in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples.) ...
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Time to take a break from the sports world to say a proper hello to Pope Francis, who arrived yesterday in Washington D.C. There the jovial pontiff was greeted by a smiling, laughing President Barack Obama – a graceful man meeting a man of grace.
It was immediately apparent that Pope Francis intends to keep it real during his American sojourn (black Fiat, black shoes, eyeglasses he bought himself in a Roman shop). ...
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It’s a busy sports month with American Pharoah rolling to victory in the Haskell Invitational; Ryan Lochte hoping to regain swimming glory at the FINA World Championships; Rafael Nadal returning to his winning clay court ways at the Hamburg Open as the Rogers Cup gets underway in Toronto; and Tom Brady moving for a decision on his suspension before the NFL season begins.
But today I want to touch on my first real out-of-town trip with my debut novel, “Water Music” – to the OutWrite Book Festival at The DC Center in Washington D.C. ...
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