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”? ...

He just can’t quit him: Trump, Putin and ‘Brokeback Mountain’

July 7, 2017

A shout-out to Frank Bruni of The New York Times for a truly terrific column about President Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin and the bromance of the century (although French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may yet give them a run for their money).

Brilliant though the column is in comparing Pump (Putin-Trump) to the great love stories (“Romeo and Juliet,” “Casablanca”), Bruni missed one, “Brokeback Mountain.” When the haunting movie of Annie Proulx’s sparely beautiful story came out in 2005, much was made of the gay love story. ...

The wayward gaze: Trump and the ‘other’ perspective

July 6, 2017

It’s interesting – and not entirely coincidental that Mika-gate exploded right at the end of Pride Month and in a summer that has seen the release of “Wonder Woman” and “The Beguiled,” a movie told from the female viewpoint. Culture continues to consider women even if President Donald J. Trump rarely does (though he did take a shine to blond Irish reporter Caitriona Perry.)

That he fails to take a shine to blond journalists who challenge him like Megan Kelly and Mika Brzezinski is more the material point. ...

‘The Beguiled’: A fox in the henhouse (Beware the hens)

July 2, 2017

Much has been made about how Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” is a feminist reimagining of a 1971 Clint Eastwood movie that was itself an adaptation of Thomas P. Cullinan’s Southern Gothic novel, “A Painted Devil.” But the well-crafted remake turns out to be less about feminism and the female perspective than about the sacrifice of the individual – male or female – to the survival of the group. ...

A world grown cold

May 27, 2017

The Manchester bombing is just the latest example of man’s inhumanity to man. But it’s hardly the only one.

There’s the caning of two men in Indonesia for no other reason than they engaged in gay sex.

Then there’s the Trump budget, the anti-Robin Hood, taking from the poor to give to the rich. ...

More adventures in publishing: The ninth annual New York Rainbow Book Fair

May 1, 2017

Three years ago, I took my novel “Water Music” – the first in my series “The Games Men Play” – to the New York Rainbow Book Fair and had a blast.

The ninth annual Fair – held on Saturday at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice – proved no less exhilarating. (Pic at right, by Gina Gouveia.) ...

No bull: ‘Fearless Girl’s’ ancient Greek evocation

April 17, 2017

The controversy over the faceoff between “Fearless Girl” and “Charging Bull” on Wall Street has raised all sorts of psychosexual and political implications.

Some have seen the 4-foot-girl – hands on hips, chest puffed like a sail heading into the wind – as a symbol of feminist ideals. Apparently, that’s what sponsor State Street Global Advisors, which wants to encourage more women in the boardroom, had in mind. ...