I tend to use this headline to write about young men who have a disproportionate rage at the world and take it out on others as mass murderers, assassins, terrorists and serial killers. I’ve also written about a number of literary works that deal with such young men – Homer’s “The Iliad,” John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” among them.
But I think it is also an appropriate title for a post about the Lambda Literary Awards, which I attended Monday night at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts as a nominee. My book “The Penalty for Holding,” published by Less Than Three Press, the second novel in the series “The Games Men Play” was a finalist in the Best Bisexual Fiction category. (When I got the news, I had two thoughts: This must be an email for somebody else. And, were any of the characters in my book bisexual? It goes to show that the readers sometimes know more than the authors do.)
As I sat there, I had a feeling of disassociation. I didn’t know anyone …
Read more
Read MoreTragedy, they say, returns as farce and so it is with Rudolph Giuliani – former New York City prosecutor and “America’s mayor” – who in defending his new client President Donald J. Trumpet to “Fox News’” Sean Hannity contradicted him on the Stormy Daniels matter, perhaps putting him in legal jeopardy. More tellingly, Rudy Two Shoes told Hannity he might have “to get on my charger and go into (Robert Mueller’s) offices with a lance” to defend his damsel in distress, his Dulcinea – Ivanka Trump. (I think I speak for women everywhere when I say Ivanka can take care of herself.) …
Read more
Read MoreDr. Ronny Jackson’s decision to withdraw his nomination as Veterans Affairs secretary raises a number of issues – about drinking on the job, playing fast and loose with prescriptions and contemplating job opportunities to which you are not suited. But not the least of the rippling effects is the role of lookism in the Trump Administration, which says something important about power.
President Donald J. Trumpet holds Jackson in esteem, because he looks the part of a rear admiral and Navy doc, is blandly attractive and flattered the president’s physique in his report on his health. Indeed, the president said he would like to be Jackson, referring to his looks. This coincided with the state visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, during which Trumpet reached over and picked a piece of “dandruff” off his suit jacket. I have never seen another American president invade a foreign leader’s personal space in this manner, and you have to ask yourself, Why? …
Read more
Read MoreRecently, I had the pleasure of writing an essay for a new monograph on the contemporary Colombian artist Federico Uribe – whose haunting mixed-media paintings and sculptures draw on a difficult childhood, his complex relationship with Roman Catholicism and the violence of his homeland to explore issues of sex/gender, passion and the body, among others. Now the book is set to be released. ...
Read more
Read MoreIn the kingdom of the blind, they say, the one-eyed man is king. And so it is perhaps inevitable that outgoing House Speaker Paul “Paulie PowerPoint” Ryan should be considered a brain by a country as anti-intellectual as the United States. This is based on his fondness for the Objectivist, everyman-for-himself theories of Ayn Rand, a poor philosopher and an even poorer novelist (“The Fountainhead,” “Atlas Shrugged”) whose characters are basically stand-in for her bloated ideas.
Thus Ryan’s not really much of a Brainiac but then, he has always given the appearance of being something he is not. ...
Read more
Read MoreThe Fresno Bee columnist Victor Davis Hanson has written a column comparing President Donald J. Trump’s slash-and-burn style with the Greco-Macedonian conqueror of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, cutting the Gordion knot impatiently with his sword, thus ensuring the prophecy that whoever did so would become lord of Asia.
Hanson’s gotten some bristling responses from history buffs, and my first thought was to lend my voice to the chorus, being rather protective of Alexander myself. More than anything I wanted to say: “I knew Alexander. Alexander was a friend of mine. Trump, you’re no Alexander.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the issue is deeper than Hanson and his critics might’ve realized. ...
Read more
Read MoreThe word “intellectual” has become a dirty one in our culture, and scientists, artists and academics suspect. But there is no greatness in this world without great thinking.
Stephen Hawking – the transcendent English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and mathematician, who died Wednesday, March 14 at age 76 after battling motor neuron disease his entire adult life – had, of course, a great mind, one that bridged Einstein and quantum theory...
Read more
Read More