Indian Wells, California

Thought Police on the Tennis Court

Here we go again, sports fans! During a recent tennis match between two professionals in Indian Wells, California, a racial comment uttered by one of the players has the usual suspects up in arms. The newspaper that only prints what fits PC, the dreadful Big Bagel Times, was among the first to ...

Michelangelo

The Divine Comedy: Funnier Than Ever

GSTAAD—It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: nonstop snowfall, an empty main street, and the closing of the Palace hotel as well as the Eagle club. (I give the traditional closing-day speech at the club, and my oration this year was deemed politically incorrect.) The older I get the more ...

Vivien Leigh and Kenneth More in The Deep Blue Sea

Between Love and Madness

Who was the first to declare that nothing counts a lot and very little counts at all? The cynic and sesquipedalian Alastair Forbes claimed it, but he spoke with a forked tongue. Iris Murdoch hinted that it was hers, but she, too, was known for bending the truth. Either way, the saying is utter ...

Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis

Boxing: From Sweet Science to Sour

Briefly home from boarding school back in 1951, I went to a bar with a phony draft card, ordered a beer, and watched Rocky Marciano knock out my idol Joe Louis. Joe was 37 and trying for a comeback, as he was broke—and as he sat in his stool after having been counted out, he looked a lot older. ...

An Envious Europe Looks West

When the bloated and declawed Las Vegas casino-money recipient Newt Gingrich had some fun recently over Mitt Romney's ability to speak a few words of French, Europeans took notice of this farce. The French are an angry nation: envious, supercilious, and eager to show superiority over those who ...

Syria’s False Revolution

A couple of weeks ago I wrote in this here mag about Syria. I played it safe. My point was that Assad was not as bad as what may come after him. I now know better. In the long sweep of history, those who play it safe are more often than not wrong. Here's a tip: If you want to get it right, choose ...

Dmitri Nabokov

Skiing With a Lady Named Fear

GSTAAD—It’s early in the silvery morning light as I look out my window up here in the heights. A batallion of wispy white clouds hides behind the surrounding mountains—a reminder that a perfect dawn makes for a perfect day’s skiing. The clouds play games. They wrap themselves around the ...

Attikon Cinema

Charge Them With Corruption!

I was sad to read that the Attikon Cinema on Stadiou Street in central Athens was burned down by anarchist scum pretending to protest against the EU Nazis. The Attikon was built in 1870 as part of a beautiful, ocher-colored neoclassical edifice constructed by a German architect, only to be torched ...

Trapped Between Debt and Default

Who is worse—the pusher or the addict? I’d say it’s fifty-fifty as they sustain each other, although the addict has the moral high ground. Greece is the addict. The German and French banks are the pushers, with Brussels the Godfather shipping the stuff in from Afghanistan. The Godfather is ...

Jessica Raine in Call the Midwife

My Mild English Rose

GSTAAD—Here I go again! I hear music and there’s no one there I smell blossoms and the trees are bare All day long I seem to walk on air…. Some of you must be getting rather tired of this, but I simply can’t help it. I swear on the Bible I’m not doing it on purpose. I dropped in on the ...