Many thanks to Pat Casey for a great TV interview yesterday. Delighted to "dive deep" about all things Water Music. What a keen (and flattering) observation to make the parallel between me and one of my main muses, Mary Cassatt.
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Eli’s “excited” for Sam and NFL draftees (and maybe to pose with moi for a pic)
So what did New York Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning think about Michael Sam making history as the first openly gay football player in the NFL?
“I’m excited for him, especially going to the team he wanted,” Manning said of the former University of Missouri defensive end, who was picked by the St. Louis Rams. “I’m excited for all the draftees,” good-guy Eli added.
But perhaps particularly for Odell Beckham Jr., the receiver out of Louisiana State University who the Giants hope will spark their offense after a disastrous season. It helps, of course, that Beckham went to Isidore Newman High School in New Orleans, the same alma mater as Manning and older bro Peyton, the Denver Broncos’ signal caller. As Eli shyly noted, he himself is more than a little familiar with Beckham’s game.
Looking natty in at least three shades of gray – and very much like a darker version of Peyton, particularly in profile – Eli was on hand at Mulino’s of Westchester in White Plains, N.Y. May 12 as host of the 37th annual Guiding Eyes for the Blind Golf Classic. (The tourney takes place June 9 at Mount Kisco Country Club.) This will be the eighth time that Eli has served as the host of the classic – a relationship I explored in WAG magazine’s November 2013 “Voices” cover story.
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‘Cinderella’ rises from the ashes
“In both darker and lighter versions of fairy tales, a woman’s suffering is demanded in exchange for true love and happily ever after,” Roxane Gay wrote in “The Marriage Plot” for the May 11 New York Times’ Week in Review section.
That may be, but not all fairy tales are created equal. Take “Cinderella," on Broadway in its Rodgers and Hammerstein incarnation. She’s not waiting for Prince Charming to rescue her. Rather she goes out to find the man who will appreciate her for who and what she really is.
Rossini’s operatic version, “La Cenerentola,”goes the Brothers Grimm and Rodgers and Hammerstein one better.
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(Michael) Sam to the Rams and May madness
Kudos to Michael Sam and the St. Louis Rams, who’ve decided to take a chance on one another. Sam, the University of Missouri defensive end who came out before deciding to test the NFL Draft, was the 249th pick overall, with just seven left before the final round. But hey, he got in, celebrating with tears and a kiss for his partner that went viral. (I, of course, have been following this story with great interest as my upcoming novel “In This Place You Hold Me,” the second in my series “The Games Men Play,” is about a quarterback’s search for identity – sexual, racial, familial and national – in the beautiful, brutal world of the NFL.)
Sam asked to be judged on his merits, and, to their credit, the NFL and the Rams have done just that. Let’s hope his teammates and opponents, the press and we fans can do the same.
And forget March Madness. They should call this merry month May Madness.
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The equine Ali-Frazier – Affirmed and Alydar
Amid California Chrome’s quest for the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred racing – which continues May 17 with The Preakness at Pimlico Race Course in Maryland – comes Linda Carroll and David Rosner’s juicy new book “Duel for the Crown: Affirmed, Alydar, and Racing’s Greatest Rivalry” (Gallery Books, $26, 360 pages). It tells the story of two coppery 3-year-old colts – laidback Affirmed out of upstart Harbor View Farm in Florida and high-strung Alydar out of Calumet Farm in Kentucky, the New York Yankees of Thoroughbred dynasties – who in the spring of 1978 offered racing fans and the general public alike two very different approaches, the authors write:
“Despite their similar chestnut coloring and their shared bloodlines as descendants of the great Native Dancer, Affirmed and Alydar boasted the kind of clashing styles and complementary personalities that fuel the most enduring rivalries. Off the track, the refined Affirmed was as relaxed and easygoing as the regal Alydar was macho and aggressive. On the track, their contrasting styles forged the equine equivalent of Ali the Boxer versus Frazier the Slugger. Affirmed, graceful and swift like Ali, was the classic frontrunner, gliding with the precision of a stopwatch and flicking his ears to alert his precocious jockey (Steve Cauthen) to an impending challenge, while Alydar, brawny and bullish like Frazier, was the classic stalker, gearing up to unleash his come-from-behind knockout punch. The classic confrontation was so close that it would all come down to one champion’s indomitable will to win.”
Indeed, they would race each other 10 times in 14 months, with Affirmed usually gaining the upper hand, er, hoof. But it wasn’t easy.
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Art imitates life for NFL-bound Caraun Reid
In the Too Funny Department, Caraun Reid – a defensive tackle who graduated from Princeton, sings and plays guitar – may be picked as early as the third round of the NFL Draft. Why is that funny? Because as a novelist struggling to create believable athletic protagonists, I have worried about making them too intellectual and cultural (like me). Then along comes Reid to demonstrate I had nothing to worry about, that God is the best writer and that we shouldn’t be so quick to assume that a jock can’t be a brainiac as well.
But then, I already knew that. In my upcoming novel, “In This Place You Hold Me,” deeply troubled star quarterback Quinton Day Novak attended Stanford where he studied classics. Who’s going to believe this? I thought. Until the Jonathan Martin hazing incident broke, and it turned out, yep, he went to Stanford and majored in classics. You can’t make this stuff up.
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May 18: Reading Genet at The Lionheart
It’s a perfect pairing when you come to think about it: I’ll be reading from my new novel “Water Music” May 18 at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge while the gallery is hosting “Purging Genet,” an exhibit of David Hutchinson’s paintings, drawings and sculpture that were inspired by the writings of the perverse gay writer Jean Genet.
Perverse doesn’t begin to describe the late French novelist (“Our Lady of the Flowers”), playwright (“The Maids”) and memoirist (“Prisoner of Love”). An abandoned child and reform school student-turned-thief, male prostitute and convict, Genet sought redemption and transcendence through degradation. He was one of the authors I flirted with as a voracious young reader. And while he remains a bit outré for my tastes, I have to wonder if there isn’t a bit of Genet in the games my men play.
Hutchinson, a Pound Ridge resident, considers the play between words and images in color-coded paintings and ink drawings that layer translations over the original French, creating new patterns that “purge” the original.
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