In this time of medical, financial and existential crisis, Melania Trump is overseeing construction of her safe house, er, tennis pavilion on the White House grounds. She’s urging others to do something for their communities as well. Needless to say, the Twitterati didn’t take to that too well.
Many compared this to Marie Antoinette saying, “Let the eat cake” in response to French citizens starving prior to the French Revolution. Actually, the sentence translates “Let them eat brioche.” Regardless, the French queen probably never uttered these words. But the idea that she did underscores how out of touch the public thought she was.
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Read MoreCongrats to Nole, who beat Feddy Bear in the finals of the BNP Paribas Open March 16 in Indian Wells, Calif. 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3). (That was the tournament Nole was headed to after he played at Madison Square Garden on World Tennis Day, another BNP Paribas event.)
But apparently, the big news out of the California desert is that Roger Federer is back in the top five at age 32. A larger racket, a healed back and the hiring of Stefan Edberg – yet another 1980s star coaching players who were born in that decade – as adviser have all been credited with FedEx’s renewal. (They call them Fedberg. Cute.)
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Read MoreOne of the great pleasures of reading the Weekend New York Times – apart from the opportunity it affords me to collapse with breakfast, lunch or a cup of coffee – is trolling for blog ideas. The March 16 edition of The New York Times magazine yielded a doozy – a map, as it were, of a new project from the Macro Connections group at M.I.T.’s Media Lab called Pantheon. The odd thing is that The Times’ article doesn’t give the website. But here it is.
This being from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pantheon has come up with a complex formula to measure historical cultural production. I won’t bore you with methodology – because I’m not smart enough to. But what’s fascinating to me is what piqued The Times’ interest: What does Pantheon say about fame and celebrity? Something I and others have long suspected and that should give our notice-me, selfie society pause: Fame and celebrity are not the same thing.
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Read MoreWorld Tennis Day – which was celebrated March 3 with marquee matchups of past and present stars around the globe – featured something that Andy Murray said we were not likely to see again. He and Novak Djokovic squared off in the “BNP Paribas Showdown,” an exhibition that reminded us what makes tennis and friendship so great.
A tennis exo – as exhibitions are sometimes called – is a bit like a rock concert mixed with a boxing match. There’s smoke (no mirrors). There are lighting effects and an irresistible beat. There’s an announcer who pronounces everyone’s name dramatically.
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Read MoreThank goodness I have Rafael Nadal as my BPB (Backup Pretend Boyfriend) since I may have to demote Gov. Chris Christie from CPB (Chief Pretend Boyfriend).
Gov. Krispy Kreme – as I affectionately like to call him – is in deep political doodoo after his henchmen (oh, sorry, aides) apparently sought revenge on Fort Lee, N.J. Mayor Mark Sokolich by snarling traffic on his city’s stretch of the George Washington Bridge after he declined to support their boss’ bid for gubernatorial reelection. It is a measure of how far our civilization has come, or fallen, that men now avenge themselves not by decapitation or declaring war but by traffic jams – although if you’ve ever sat in one on the GWB, you might be yearning for the guillotine.
More is at stake here, of course, than Gov. Krispy Kreme’s potential presidential candidacy. There’s the whole issue of a relationship that exists only in my mind. Ever since he burst onto the scene, I have felt that we were kindred spirits. Read more
Read MoreLots of people work over the holidays – me, everyone in the retail, food and hospitality industries, emergency workers in any number of fields and tennis players. Tennis players never seem to stop, with locales like Abu Dhabi presumably taking the sting out of what must sometimes be a grind.
On Saturday, Dec. 28, Novak Djokovic won his third straight Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi, once again defeating David Ferrer. Rafael Nadal settled for third place. That’s a 24-match win streak for Nole and while you can say all you want about Abu Dhabi being a mere exhibition tune-up for the Australian Open, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the fact remains that Nole is looking good. Read more
Read MoreSo Novak Djokovic has announced on his website that Boris Becker is his new head coach. Already the “boobirds,” as Phil Rizzuto used to call them, are out saying this will never work, Boris was a serve and volley player from another time, you can’t teach Nole mental toughness, he’s not as tough as Rafael Nadal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Look, who knows how this will shake down. Nole has always been interested in coming in at the net, more than other baseliners, and Boris has got net. So Boris might add to his arsenal there. As for him teaching Nole mental toughness… Read more
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