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Who’s smiling now? The Republicans’ failure to seal the deal in the midterms has set up a showdown with a weaker former President Donald J. Trump and a surging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen here with wives Melania and Casey respectively. *Courtesy the state of Florida.*

Trumped: Republicans' election repudiation

November 11, 2022

It was going to be a red wave, no, a bloodbath with all kinds of controversies, conspiracies and maybe even violence — the proverbial American carnage. Instead the midterm election of 2022, which should’ve seen the party out of favor (that would be the Republicans) make significant gains on the party in power (that would be the Democrats) was more birdbath than bloodbath, a fairly typical midterm with some election dysfunction, a nutjob or two, but mostly people quietly, boringly exercising their right to vote. We’ll take quiet and boring.

And while the Republicans may wrest control of the House of Representatives and the Senate from the Democrats — lots of races are still too close to call — the Republicans would have only a wafer-thin majority and no mandate, similar to the Democrats the past two years. The difference is this was the Republicans’ race to lose — and lose they did. Indeed if this were a tennis match, it would be like the Wimbledon darling failing to close out the fifth set despite two championship points. (Et tu, Roger Federer?)

Jacob Anderson speaking about “Game of Thrones” at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con International. *Photograph by Gage Skidmore.*

'Interview With the Vampire' and cultural appropriation

November 4, 2022

Some authors are proprietary about their characters; some readers even more so, which is partly why Stephen King’s novel “Misery” and the subsequent film were such successes.

When the casting for the 1994 film “Interview With the Vampire” was announced, author Anne Rice balked at the idea of Tom Cruise as the Vampire Lestat, the antihero of the novel who becomes the main character in the subsequent books in the “Vampire Chronicles” series.

When the AMC series “Interview With the Vampire” bowed Oct. 2, some fans balked at the casting of Jacob Anderson, a Black actor, as Louis, “Interview’s” main character, and the updating of the setting to the Black Storyville section of New Orleans in the 1910s, instead of an 18th-century Louisiana plantation. Louis, they argued, wasn’t Black but white. How could the series change the essence of the character? (We should note that Rice, who died in 2021, was slated to be a producer of the series.) I would argue the new series didn’t fundamentally change the character, but it’s complicated.

Rishi Sunak giving his first speech as British prime minister on Oct. 25. *Photograph by Rory Arnold/No. 10 Downing Street.*

From Truss bust to dishy Rishi: Can Sunak save Britain?

October 26, 2022

When Princess Anne presented Daniel Craig with the Order of St. Michael and St. George — the same order his character, James Bond, is presented with — all I could think was that right now, we could use 007, Craig, the Princess Royal, St. Michael, St. George, Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, Henry V and anyone else who can lend a hand to right the RMS Titanic that is otherwise known as the United Kingdom.

From upstart dynasty to Tudors Inc.

October 19, 2022

They weren’t England’s most successful dynasty. That distinction belongs to the Plantagenets some 300 years of brilliant, beautiful, bloody backstabbers who would’ve eaten the characters on “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon” alive.

But in many ways the Tudors are as fresh and modern as the Windsors in everything from Lucy Worsley’s “Secrets of the Six Wives” docudrama series to Broadway’s “Six” to Starz’s “Becoming Elizabeth.” And that, as a fabulous, beautifully sited new exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan demonstrates, has as much to do with their ability to market themselves as it does with the history of their dynastic ambitions and complicated relationships.

Our crisis of critical thinking and leadership

October 6, 2022

In his perceptive eulogy for Queen Elizabeth II, Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, observed: “People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer.”

Ain’t that the truth. At the risk of sounding like the hammer always in search of a nail, I must nonetheless note once again that we are in an increasing crisis of leadership, from Vladimir Putin’s bungling attempts to conquer Ukraine, which would be laughable if they weren’t so horrific and dangerous, to the ham-fisted handling of Miami Dolphins’ quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s concussion. (The doctor/consultant who cleared him to play was fired. Really? The team’s front office and ownership should all be fired.

What does it mean to be a leader? it means you are a steward of everything and everyone in your care, a servant of others. It means you take responsibility, even when you are not directly involved in the action. Say what you want about QEII, put she saw herself as a steward, one who remained on the job till her dying day.

For most, however, it’s me, me, me all the time, and it doesn’t help that people don’t really understand this, because they have a limited understanding of culture.

Aaron Judge, seen here at bat for the New York Yankees against the Baltimore Orioles in 2017, has surpassed Roger Maris’ American League single season home run record. *Photograph by* ***Keith Allison.***

The Promethean struggle of Roger Maris

October 4, 2022

Sixty one in ’61. And now 61 years later, 62.

New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge has surpassed the American League record of onetime New York Yankees right fielder Roger Maris for most home runs in a single season, which Maris set on Oct. 1, 1961 against Tracy Stallard of the archrival Boston Red Sox. (The Major League Baseball record is held by Barry Bonds, who hit 73 in 2001 amid the steroids era.)

There’s a symmetry in some of the Judge-Maris numbers – Judge wears 99 on his jersey; Maris wore 9 -- but not in their narratives.

Roger Federer at the 2014 Australian Open. Photograph by Peter Myers.

Getting Federer's G.O.A.T.

September 24, 2022

At his Laver Cup in London this weekend — which Team World won over his Team Europe — Roger Federer ended his professional tennis career , a career that has said as much about fans’ perceptions of sports figures as it has about his accomplishments.