VIENNA—Somebody once described Vienna as a top opera performed by understudies. The remark was unquestionably witty, but utterly false back when it was made. It is perfectly true for today, however. During the 650-year rule of the Habsburgs, Vienna reigned supreme, an opera sung by its greatest stars. It is the present Vienna, having lost its empire, its imperial family, and its power, that is sung by the understudies. I’ve ...
AUSTRIA—I finally understand what’s wrong with the modern world: motorways! These dehumanizing slabs of asphalt lining our continents are Prometheus-like chains luring us to nonstop movement and uniformity. But before you start screaming that you’ve been isolated for months and would give up a night with Jennifer Lawrence to roar down a highway, let me explain: It all began when Alexandra and I decided to visit my ...
Solitude is a blissful disengagement from the horrors of modern-day life, even if forced upon us by a government lockdown. The trouble with the present situation is the idiot box. The enforced solitude would be a blessing—it tends to breed spirituality—but for the escapism of television. The absolute rubbish, the vulgarity and violence that the networks put out nowadays and call entertainment, is far more dangerous than the ...
GSTAAD—Well, Theodora did not wait and I missed yet another grandchild’s birth. (The prettiest little blue-eyed thing ever, if I say so myself.) Funny thing is, I’ve never been able to be there when it counts. I missed my daughter’s birth because I was playing tennis in Palm Beach and got to the Bagel ten minutes too late. (She rarely forgets to mention it.) I missed my boy’s because I went back to sleep and Alexandra ...
GSTAAD—The staff is back and all is well, as they used to say long ago in faraway places. The gardener and the cleaner are Portuguese, and they greet me with their inherent dignity from afar. The Philippine maid and cook almost gets me in a headlock trying to thank me for keeping her on salary while she rested at home. I shoo her away. Whom does she take me for, a lowlife cheapskate like Philip Green? I’m the one who sent ...
GSTAAD—Hippocrates is known as the father of Western medicine, and he diagnosed and named the disease “micropoulaki” during the Periclean period, around 430 BC. He did not call it a virus, but a sickness of the brain. Some years later, Aristotle described the micropoulaki syndrome as a disease, but one that was not contagious: “No more than a fool can influence an intelligent fellow to act foolish.” Micropoulaki in ...
GSTAAD—Two years or so ago I had back-to-back New York luncheons with Steve Bannon, and boy, did some of his predictions and fears ever come true! Bannon’s White House days as chief adviser to The Donald were numbered right off the bat. He had only one agenda, and that was China. When talking with me he never mentioned Trump nor did he attempt to settle any scores. He’s much too sophisticated for that. Whiny ex–big ...
When indolence becomes intolerable, remembrances of things past become a lifesaver. Charles Moore’s recent Spectator notes also helped; for example, his stories about the 94-year-old Lady Penn, who is the Queen of England’s closest childhood friend. It must be at least thirty years or so ago, but it had slipped my mind because at the time I had been under the influence and without sleep. Then about twenty years ago, in New ...
The front page of the New York Post on the 20th of April, 2020, said it all: a large crowd in front of a Brooklyn barbershop being dispersed by police after a riotous party. There was no social distancing, just glum faces full of aggression and contempt for the fuzz. There was not a single white face among them. So far, so bad. Let’s skip now to remarks by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. ...
So the days dwindle down, September, November... This once-peaceful alpine town is packed with rich refugees fleeing the you-know-what from nearby cities crammed with real migrants. There isn’t an empty apartment left, and the locals are raking it in. Two good friends have died, the village is supposed to be locked down, but god-awful bikers are everywhere, yes, biking down the middle of narrow paths in case someone manages ...
Aristophanes was a comic genius before the Marx Brothers, but he also gave good advice to the Athenians: Stop the war! In his play Lysistrata he had the women going on strike—no more nookie—until the men stopped fighting. During the plague that killed the greatest Athenian of them all, Pericles, Aristophanes advised the young to isolate, meditate, and masturbate, advice still valid to this day. Greece, with roughly the ...
As everyone who has not been in strict isolation in hospital with the virus knows, Harvey Weinstein was recently condemned to death for sexual assaults against six Hollywood wannabes. Actually, he was sentenced to 23 years in jail, but in view of his age of 67, it would have been far more dramatic and fitting for Hollywood had the judge given him death. Following the sentencing, the women who had testified against Harvey all ...
Look at it this way, we’re all doing Desert Island Discs nowadays, and unless you got the bug, it’s a damn good thing, too. I did the Desert Island bit around thirty years ago, with Sue Lawley the presenter, and we got along fine, even after I commented on the air that she had nice legs. I suspect today would have been a different story, but another good thing that the virus has brought is that the #MeToo crap is off the ...
Like everyone who was alive back on Nov. 22, 1963, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when news of the president’s assassination flashed through. (I was coming out of New York’s 21 Club after lunch.) JFK was not only one of the youngest-ever presidents, he was also probably the best-looking, and, of course, the first Catholic in the White House. He was truly mourned by his fellow Americans, and in fact the ...
Desperately boring times, but very healthy ones. No parties, no girls, not too much boozing, lots of smoking and reading very late into the night. And nonstop training and sport. What else can one do when locked in with one’s wife and one’s son and with nostalgic thoughts of a time when people gathered in groups? It seems very long ago, but do any of you remember when people gave parties? Desperate times demand desperate ...
No use datelining anymore, I’m here for the duration. Even the ski lifts have been ordered closed, chiuso, geschlossen, fermé. The only way to ski now is in the old-fashioned manner, à la Hemingway: Climb up with skins, peel them off, and enjoy the one and only run of the day. Not only is the climbing beneficial to one’s health, it’s also the only thing free in good old Helvetia. Mind you, if too many people do it, the ...
