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Rafanole interruptus

August 21, 2014

There will be no Rafanole this year at the US Open, which gets underway Saturday with “Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day” at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow, Queens, N.Y.

The big news is that defending champ Rafael Nadal has pulled out due to the wrist injury that kept him out of the early portion of the hard-court season. There appears to be a pattern here: Rafa plays lights out to ace the clay-court season, peaks at the French Open, cries when they hand him the umpteenth trophy at Roland Garros in Paris, flames out at Wimbledon, gets injured, takes some time off and starts the whole cycle again.

This would seem to favor Novak Djokovic, but wait. After a trifecta of Ws (Wimby championship, world No. 1 ranking and wedding to longtime love Jelena Ristic), Nole burned out of tournaments at Toronto and Cincinnati. The New York Times, which seems to have no enthusiasm for Nole, noted that he’s been “fending off charges” that he hasn’t been practicing much since the wedding. Fending off charges? Really? Is he a criminal? What’s next, blame the wife?

Awesomely athletic August

August 7, 2014

Summertime and the livin’ is supposed to be easy. (Thank you, Ira Gerswhin.) But for athletes and sports fans, there is no rest for the weary.

First, Phelpte (as in the Michael Phelps-Ryan Lochte rivalry) is back in action at the USA Swimming national long-course championships in Irvine, Calif., which will determine next year’s team for the world championships. They were slated to face-off four times, including Wednesday night’s 100-meter freestyle event.

The story lines go something like this: Phelps was bored in retirement and is glad to be back. Lochte – who turned 30 Aug. 3, Happy Birthday, Ryan! – moved to Charlotte, N.C., where he’s acquired a new coach and a new maturity, which should be music to fans’ ears. We’ll see how his newfound maturity and Phelps’ newfound hunger for swimming pan out.

Tonight, Colin Kaepernick leads the San Francisco 49ers into M&T Bank Stadium to meet the Baltimore Ravens for a nationally televised game that’s a rematch of Super Bowl XLVII. I am so there (i.e., in front of the tube) for this.

I wish I could be there (as in Cleveland) Friday for the start of the Gay Games (through Aug. 16), which always take place the same year as the Winter Olympics. But at least “Water Music,” my new novel about four gay athletes and how their professional rivalries color their personal relationships, will be there...

Greenwich Polo Club update

July 3, 2014

There have been a few changes in the Greenwich Polo Club’s lineup since I last reported on the start of the season on June 1.

The July 13 match will now feature local artists and their works.

On Aug. 31, it’s the Virginia’s House of Hope Charity match from noon to 5 p.m. The second annual “Benefit of Hope” will have an open bar, tastings, entertainment and the time-honored tradition of halftime divot stomping, all in support of the charity’s Tugboat Program, which provides qualified candidates from underprivileged backgrounds with a career start in the maritime industry. (After the three-week program, each student is certified to work as a tugboat deckhand, which could ultimately lead to becoming a captain with a six-figure salary. House of Hope guarantees that each graduate is hired.) Tickets are $350 VIPs, $250 individuals...

Do sports put women at a disadvantage?

June 24, 2014

A recent story in The New York Times about women missing out at the workplace, because they know less about that ultimate water-cooler subject – sports – comes at a time when Andy Murray has caused a stir at Wimbledon with his new female coach, former French star Amélie Mauresmo.

Reaction has ranged from the supportive (Maria Sharapova) to the cautious (Novak Djokovic) to the sexist (Ernst Gulblis, who said, “I am waiting for a couple of good-looking players to also quit so I can have a new coach.” Ernst, stop splitting your infinitives.

At least Ernst was, well, earnest. At Sarah Lawrence College’s recent “Publish and Promote Your Book Conference,” the reaction to my series “The Games Men Play” included the typical, “So, you’re into sports.” And it’s not said as “So – you’re into sports!” but rather with a quizzical, skeptical tone. I then find myself explaining that as a former senior cultural writer for Gannett Inc. and now editor of WAG, I’ve always had to be interested in culture with a capital “C,” which goes way beyond...

Greenwich Polo Club gallops into another season

May 31, 2014

There’s no Prince Harry to spice up the Greenwich Polo Club this year, but that doesn’t mean fans aren’t in for an exciting season.

Things get off to a rollicking start Sunday, June 1 with the White Birch home team – named after club founder Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm and White Birch Paper – in action against CT Energia. The home team will be led by Argentina’s Mariano Aguerre, considered one of the all-time greats, and his fleet countryman Hilario Ulloa. In April, the two teamed to help Alegria take the U.S. Open title.

The polo club is set in Greenwich’s verdant, undulating backcountry. Recently, I had a chance to chat there about the season with Australia’s Nick Manifold, who’ll be playing No. 2, an offensive position, for CT Energia Sunday. What a treat it was to sit out in the grandstand on a picture-perfect spring day, the cottony cumulus clouds so ripe and low that they seemed ready to touch the Jim Dine sculpture (think a huge, modern “Winged Victory”) that stands guard across the field. As the staff put the finishing touches on the immaculately manicured expanse and added patrons’ nameplates to the box seats, Nick gave this relative newbie a polo primer, something I was extremely grateful for as my one experience with the game had been last May’s Sentebale charity match starring Prince Harry and Nacho Figueras that was an otherworldly media event. (Polo does, however, figure in “Criterion,” the third novel in my “The Games Men Play” series, the story of a star-crossed equestrian family told in part from the viewpoint of a horse trying to win the Triple Crown.)

On ‘Words and Pictures’ – and words and pictures at The Lionheart Gallery

May 21, 2014

We’re all patterns in the universe, swimmer Daniel Reiner-Kahn reasons in my new novel “Water Music.” But sometimes it’s only when we’re at the end of a journey – maybe even life’s journey – that we understand how the strands came together. At other times, we recognize how the strands fit as they’re being woven.

Last week, I had an onstage conversation with film critic Marshall Fine at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck, N.Y. about the relationship between language and images after a screening of “Words and Pictures,” which opens this Friday, May 23. It’s the story of a tempestuous rivalry between a prickly artist (Juliette Binoche) and a showoff writer (Clive Owen). Four days later, the writer (me) and the artist (David Hutchinson) came together more happily at a reading from “Water Music” at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge. After, I opened up the floor for a discussion about David’s paintings and drawings there, which are based on the perverse writings of Jean Genet.

First, a few words about “Words and Pictures,” a rather contrived but nonetheless absorbing movie about a love-hate relationship that sparks a contest between the artist’s students and the writer’s. It occurred to me after that the only arena in which men and women compete is the intellectual one.

Adventures in the book trade, continued

May 21, 2014

Whew, what a couple of weeks it’s been. I feel like I should be crashing, but instead I’ve come up for air to take stock and marvel at all that’s happened.

It began when I appeared in my guises as WAG editor and author of the new novel “Water Music” at the pre-Mother’s Day “Indulge” event in The Westchester, White Plains. Less than a week later, I sat down with Pat Casey, editor in chief of The White Plains Examiner and host of “Examiner Talk News” on Pleasantville Community TV to discuss WAG and “Water Music.”

That night, I was film critic Marshall Fine’s guest for a discussion of the relationship of words and images at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck after a screening of the new Juliette Binoche-Clive Owen movie, “Words and Pictures.” That discussion would continue a few days later at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge where I read from “Water Music” and then opened up the floor to consider the way text is used in David Hutchinson’s paintings and drawings, which are on display there. (More on this in the next post.)

In-between the movie and the art gallery appearances, I was at Crunch Fitness’ one-year anniversary party in White Plains. OK, you say, it’s not the Cannes Film Festival. Maybe not, but the same principle applies: You’re putting yourself and your work out there. And along the way, you learn some valuable lessons.