When (Olympic) doves cry

February 8, 2014

In my new novel “Water Music,” the Summer Olympics in New York includes an opening ceremony as pretentious and ponderous as any of those sound and light shows that make up the actual opening ceremonies.

Let me ask you a question (or two or more): Why can’t the host country simply present its culture rather than hit us over the head with it? What did the opening ceremony for the Sochi Games really have to do with Russian culture? Why not an excerpt from “Swan Lake” or a clip from a film of “War and Peace”?

The irony of all these opening ceremonies is that they are supposed to celebrate the unique histories and cultures of the host countries, but they are actually interchangeable because they’re filled with faux PR symbolism. Enough with the cutesy mascots and whirling snowflakes and required releasing of a peace dove and that un-singable Olympic Anthem. Read more

Hanyu’s great skate

February 7, 2014

Well, it didn’t take long for the theme of rising to the occasion – or not – to emerge at the Sochi Games with the new team figure skating event. American Jeremy Abbott, whom I’ve rarely seen skate well, turned in a disastrous performance. Canada’s elegant Patrick Chan, the three-time world champion who acknowledged that hometown nerves got to him at the Vancouver Games, skated well but tight. Evgeni Plushenko was, well, Evgeni Plushenko. He’s a big-game skater but loses points in my book for arrogance. (We all remember how he dissed gold medalist Evan Lysacek in Vancouver when Plushenko stepped up to the top of the podium before taking his silver medal place.)

No matter. For me the performance of the first night of team competition belonged to Japan’s Yuzura Hanyu. Read more

Mark your calendars for "A Night of Beauty"

February 6, 2014

Thursday, March 13, 6-8 p.m. Check-in 5:30 p.m.
Bloomingdale’s, White Plains

Local readers are invited to mingle at "A Night of Beauty" with Georgette Gouveia, editor of WAG magazine and author of “Water Music,” the first novel in her provocative, sensual new series “The Games Men Play.” Get face time with our local personality, then take time to treat your face to one-on-one skin care consultations and makeup applications from all your favorite brands. Indulge in savory hors d’oeuvres by 42 The Restaurant and snap a photo for WAG. Read more

Is Peyton the Michelle Kwan of football?

February 6, 2014

Forget Richard III. This is the winter of my discontent, and it isn’t just the unrelenting cold, snow and ice in the Northeast. (It’s like “Dr. Zhivago” without Omar Sharif.)

No, it’s partly because my guys – Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Colin Kaepernick, Gov. Chris Christie and now Peyton Manning – have all fallen short this season. (Thank God Tim Tebow has found his calling as a T. Mobile pitchman and ESPN analyst, or this winter would be a total bust.)

Let’s leave off Gov. Krispy Kreme, shall we? Remember how in math you always had to pick out the one thing that didn’t belong to the set. Well, he doesn’t belong to the set. His is a different kind of performance to be judged by other criteria. What I want to talk about today in the aftermath of that dud of a Super Bowl and with the Olympics beginning Thursday, Feb. 6 with the new team ice figure skating event is why some people – brilliantly talented everyday achievers – fall flat in big moments. Read more

Year of the (Sea)hawk

February 2, 2014

It’s supposed to be the Year of the Horse. But someone forgot to tell the Seattle Seahawks.

And the Denver Broncos. Thunder, the Broncos’ Arabian stallion of a mascot, may have thundered into MetLife Stadium, but the Broncos sure didn’t.

So what did we learn from the less-than-Super Bowl?

1. Good pitching stops good hitting. Football translation: Good defense stops good offense. The Hawks’ D-line just shut Peyton Manning and company down.

2. But you still have to put up some points, otherwise a good defense means nothing. Ah, 43 – 8 Seattle? No problem.

3. The guard has changed. Peyton may be the classic pocket passer but – and it breaks my heart to say this – his time is past even as he lives it. The game belongs to a breed of young, largely African-American, running quarterbacks – led by the Hawks’ Russell Wilson – who are not afraid to move and mix things up. They’re risk-taking, they’re thrilling and their time is now. Read more

Do clothes make the NFL man?

February 2, 2014

The NFL Awards were telecast on Fox the night before the Super Bowl. They’re like the Oscars only with men in suits that don’t fit. People: You’re multimillionaires. You can afford to go to a designer and have a half- dozen suits made. None of this squeezing into barely buttoned jackets as if you were sausages in casings.

Even those who looked good didn’t quite get it right. New Orleans Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees was sharp in his blue suit, but the tan shoes stood out. Blue and tan is a big combo this spring – for women. Men don’t always rock it.

There were exceptions. Former San Francisco 49ers star-turned-NFL analyst Deion Sanders was elegant in a three-piece suit and scarf. Current 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick was stunning in a black turtleneck and a black suit that fit perfectly, squaring those broad shoulders. He presented the Best Play award to Green Bay Packers’ QB Aaron Rodgers with 49ers QB great Steve Young. The ESPN analyst, whom I profiled in WAG’s January “Super” issue, was once as Kaepernick is now – a running quarterback. But he graciously told Kaepernick that he never ran as fast as Colin can. It was interesting to see how compact Young is in comparison to Kaepernick. They certainly don’t make ’em like they used to. Read more

Is Christie Coriolanus?

February 1, 2014

Recently, a trio of screen stars has taken to the London stage to portray three of Shakepeare’s greatest characters – David Tennant (“Dr. Who”), Richard II; Jude Law, Henry V; and Tom Hiddleston (“Thor”), Coriolanus. Together they offer a kind of round robin of Shakespearean performance. On PBS, Tennant was a febrile Hamlet, a role that was played with lucent rationality on Broadway by Law, whose Henry V follows hard upon Hiddleston’s charismatic interpretation in PBS’ “The Hollow Crown.”

The three also offer lessons in leadership undone at a time in our history when the systemic failure of Alexandrian leadership – leadership from the front – continues to haunt us. What, for example, would the Bard make of New Jersey Gov. Chris Chrisite? Would he cast him as his blustery Roman general Coriolanus, a man whose skills are undermined – no, doomed – by his own arrogance and blindness to the will of the people? Read more