Hindsight, they say, is 20/20. If it is, it must be with prescriptive rose-colored glasses. Because the past has been completed – successfully or otherwise – we tend to think of it as having been lived with a foregone conclusion. We forget that at the time, the past was the present, the outcome never assured.
“Darkest Hour” – an inspirational new film directed with subtle tension by Joe Wright (“Pride & Prejudice”) – recounts several weeks in May 1940 when England stood alone in a world on the brink of totalitarianism. It stars a soaring Gary Oldman, virtually unrecognizable ...
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Read MoreDuring a recent visit to Washington D.C., I had a chance to spend the day among the Netherlandish works at the National Gallery of Art, where a show of “Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting” is drawing long lines through Jan. 21. Johannes Vermeer (1632-75) created few works in his lifetime, roughly 35 – eight of which live in New York. Their scarcity makes them rare, as does their refinement. Still, it seemed as if every one of them is in the D.C. show, along with much of the art-loving world. Indeed, it was hard to see these relatively small paintings for the people. ...
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Read MoreIn his acclaimed new book “The Evolution of Beauty” (Doubleday, 428 pages, $30), Richard O. Prum theorizes that evolution is not just about what we need but what we want. And that has profound implications for gender issues, including what I describe on this blog as “the beauty trap.”
The hourglass shape and youthful facial features, such as large eyes, of the female and the particular characteristics of male genitalia (boneless phallus, large scrotum, small testes) are beyond what is necessary for reproduction, Prum writes. Rather, he says, these features are what each desires in the other.
But it is not a level playing field ...
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Read MoreAt Christmastide, I like to share one of my traditions, which is a reading of a selection from John Milton’s “Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.” As a classical Christian – I know, an oxymoron – I’m always struck by how the advent of Christianity sounded a death knell for Greco-Roman culture. But then, someone’s sunrise is always someone else’s sunset.
Yet Greco-Roman culture – with its sensual tales of gods and heroes, its dramas on the terrible wonder of the human condition, its emphasis on the body in all its brutal beauty – never died. (It’s a theme of Gore Vidal’s 1964 novel “Julian,” about the post-Christian Roman emperor who attempted to reinstall the Greco-Roman pantheon.) The Greeks would instead resurface in the Renaissance and at the turn of the 19th century. ...
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Read MoreWe hear a lot at this time of year about putting the Christ back in Christmas – or, more recently, putting the Christmas back in Christmas. Indeed, one of President Donald J. Trump’s campaign promises was that we would say “Merry Christmas” again – as if we ever stopped.
This used to be a religious campaign against the commercialization of the season. With the, um, advent of Trump, it has become less about the materialism of the season – it’s hard to believe that he and his administration object to anything that makes money – and more about reclaiming a Christian identity that, they think, has been co-opted by multiculturalism and political correctness. It is factionalism versus globalism and, inevitably, us versus them, whoever they are.
And you have to wonder: Why? ...
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Read MoreIn the latest installment of “When Donnie Met Vladdie,” Russian President Vladimir “Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin thanked American President Donald J. Trumpet for a CIA tip that prevented a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg.
No one is suggesting that the nations of the world shouldn’t cooperate on terrorism and other matters – would that they did so regularly – but it seems that some countries like special American friend Great Britain are rethinking the relationship and the sharing of secrets thanks to President Blabbermouth’s indiscretions in other situations.
How do these frayed friendships and new alliances with those who have no love of the United States “Make America Great Again”? ...
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Read MoreVladimir “Vladdie, Vlad the Lad, Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin is running for reelection as Russian president for life and is taking a page out of the playbook of BFF President Donald Trump (“Donnie Trumpet”) – deny, deny, deny and throw your enemies under the bus.
America is awash in “spy hysteria,” there was no collusion or attempt to throw the American presidential election, Donnie’s wonderful, look how the stock market is up, we call each other by our first names, we still hope to work together – blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Jeez. Get a room already. This is getting weird, even for me, and I write homoerotic novels. ...
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