The literature of rejection

June 9, 2018

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 …

Kate Spade, by any other name

June 6, 2018

In 2013, Tiffany & Co. celebrated Baz Luhrmann’s new film version of “The Great Gatsby” with a day of events that concluded with a Roaring ’20s-style party at the Fifth Avenue flagship. I swanned through the night in a black column dress that was accented mainly by a Kate Spade necklace of green turquoise florets. Throughout the evening, several people stopped me – this was at Tiffany’s, remember – to say what a great necklace it was.

That was the Kate Spade effect. Whether it was with a statement necklace or a book with an inspirational saying or one of her signature vibrant handbags that marked a young woman’s coming of age and defined a generation in the good-times ’90s, Spade had a way of lifting you up. That she could not do the same for herself proved to be her tragedy. …

Royal fever

May 12, 2018

I have a confession to make: I am in love with a much younger man – Prince Louis.

OK, so he’s only 3 weeks old but he has stolen my heart. Prince Louis is already a star — thanks to his shutterbug of a mother, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge — but even he will have to take a backseat this week as we get set for the Olympics of romance. I am talking, of course, about the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry May 19 at 7 a.m. (EDT).

As with any such event, this is not a sprint for the press but a marathon. In my guise as editor of WAG magazine, I have been among those whetting the appetite with wedding previews …

Against bad manners

February 11, 2018

On Oct. 25, 1995 – one day after the United Nations turned 50 – then New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani threw Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat out of a concert at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall that ironically featured Ludwig van Beethoven’s great ode to humanity, his Symphony No. 9. The Clinton Administration then criticized Giuliani for an egregious breach of international diplomacy, but Giuliani said he could never forgive Arafat’s terrorist past, even though at that point he had been praised by both the Americans and the Israelis for his role in the Middle East peace talks.

It’s an age-old problem. We have our values. Do we cast them aside in social situations? We do not. But neither do we make a mockery of our values by punctuating them with rudeness.

Impolite behavior seeks to ridicule and humiliate others. But it is really only a reflection of those who advocate it.

I thought of this while watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang as Vice President Mike Pence avoided contact with Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, even though he was sitting right in front of her and the president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, had shaken her hand. ...

The State of the Union – the Trumps’ and ours

February 4, 2018

President Donald J. Trumpet went all “Kumbaya” in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, proclaiming the pablum platitude that every president proclaims – that the state of the union is strong, because the American people are strong and together they’ll continue to be strong, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Look, it’s too little, too late. The mean-spirited, divisive damage is already done, with more always just an unscripted tweet away. And in case you didn’t get that message ...

Diana’s summer reign

August 30, 2017

She was born at the beginning of one summer and died toward the end of another. And like the season that framed her life – deceptively soft, blinding in its glare – hers was too short.

Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of Diana, Princess of Wales. Time is a funny thing. It heals, they say, all wounds, carrying us out on its merciless tide. But what it really is is another country. The world is a very different place now than the one Diana left. ...

As the Easter egg rolls: A bromantic breakup

April 18, 2017

Easter eggs are not all that have been breaking lately. Hearts have been broken, too, as the bromance of the century ends.

Donald J. Trumpet and Vladdie “Rootin’ Tootin’” Putin called it quits after a relationship that lasted less time than that of Aaron Rodgers and Olivia Munn but certainly longer than Britney Spears’ first marriage.

“There is a low level of trust between our countries,” Secretary of State “Sexy Rexy” Tillerson, the John Forsythe of our 1980s nighttime soap opera, noted somberly after meeting with the Russians. ...