Adventures in publishing, Washington edition

August 11, 2016

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. ...

Alex and Athena take Manhattan

July 20, 2016

In WAG’s June “Celebrating the Globe” issue, I wrote about my passion – OK, some would say my obsession – with all things ancient Greek, particularly Alexander the Great, the Greco-Macedonian king whose conquest of the Persian Empire in 331 B.C. when he was in his mid-20s would lead to the dissemination of Greek culture in the East, underscoring a cultural cross-pollination and political tension that are still with us today.

Recently, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan explored these themes in its blockbuster exhibit “Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World,” which I also wrote about in our June issue and which featured a kind of greatest hits of the Hellenistic (post-classical Greek) world. ...

The hair up there: Trump and the age of transition

July 17, 2016

We live in wondrous, terrifying, complex, fascinating times. In the United States, we are about to embark on two political conventions – the Republican July 18-21 in Cleveland and the Democratic July 25-29 in Philadelphia – that offer productive change and stasis, the future and the past, though not in the ways you might imagine.

The motif of the presidential campaign is that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, represents the same old-same old inside Washington, while Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is the fresh, brash outlier. But in fact, we’ve been looking in a mirror, and it’s the opposite. Clinton and the Dems, with their inclusive approach to race, gender and ethnicity, signal the future, and Trump – with his appeal to angry, white, working-class men – the past. ...

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. ...

Equal pay for equal work – in sports and life

April 9, 2016

This has not been the best moment in the relationship between the traditional sexes. (And we have to say “the traditional sexes” when talking about men and women, because we are moving toward a time when people will define themselves as something other or by no gender at all.)

The situation between the sexes has gotten tense on the campaign trail – as we have practically daily proof – but recently the battle shifted to the sports world as five veterans of the U.S. women’s soccer team charged the U.S. Soccer Federation with pay discrimination in everything from per diems to compensation for participating in exhibitions. This despite the women’s superior achievements to the men’s team.

“We continue to be told we should be grateful just to have the opportunity to play professional soccer and to get paid for doing it,” Hope Solo told “Today.” “In this day and age, it’s about equality. It’s about equal rights. It’s about equal pay. We’re pushing for that.”

This comes on the heels of a misogynistic rant by Raymond Moore, then CEO of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., in which he said that the women rode the coattails of the men in tennis and that they should get down on their knees in gratitude. ...

America’s son – Peyton Manning

March 6, 2016

When I was a child, I used to envy star athletes. They would retire young – having already accrued a lifetime of fame, wealth and accomplishment – and life would now be an open road on which they could do whatever they wished, being rich enough to do it and young enough to enjoy it.

But what if the open road were a vast wasteland? Who knows if athletes see delicious anticipation and opportunity or dread in retirement?

We can only imagine what’s going through Peyton Manning’s mind as he prepares to call it a day after 18 years of throwing a football with commanding accuracy. ...