Liars and Saints

 This is for you if you watched the finale of "Better Things," and you found yourself becoming a trembling puddle of tears. You know who you are. One of Pamela Adlon's many gifts is the ability to identify great peripheral characters and bring them to the center. I'm not sure Adlon ever dreamed of making Xander prominent (in early days) -- but Xander's difficulties became compelling, and Adlon wisely pursued Xander's story in the middle seasons. Lenny was a blip on our radar, for a while, and then she began to suffer through an especially painful divorce -- and so, for a year, she was given a chance to step down-stage. This current season, the standout was Caroline. We hadn't seen much of her. You know Caroline; she exists in your own life. Maybe you *are* Caroline. Caroline is the person so fragile, when her crazy mother-in-law complains about a chandelier in earthquake-plagued L.A., she can't simply laugh it off. She must instead say, "Who told

 In this house, we often think about poop. Salvy is fighting a war of attrition with Susie.  She goes, or I go.  Salvy sometimes expresses himself by quietly pooping in Susie's room. The gesture is quiet, but the subtext is loud and clear. Recently, we all began to think about potty training--for my son. And the speech therapist handed me a great gift. She said, "Wait until the third birthday. Boys are slower than girls, and a boy with a speech delay is particularly slow. I mean, you *could* try right now. It's just that you'll fail." This made me chuckle. I thought of a deranged type-A overachiever--a Kristen Wiig character--determined to thwart the experts because  early potty training is a must . I will be the first  who does not fail!!! My husband laughed, too. "Sure, it sounds really fun to potty train. Let's do it now--with the guaranteed-failure promise. Then, when the plan falls apart, we can start all over again in August!" I giggled crazily

 I'm in the process of "shedding" a family friend, so I appreciate Bonnie Raitt's new single, "Made Up Mind": It starts out slow. With:  Go ahead and go . Pretty soon, the melody is like A rainstorm tin-roof symphony. But it starts out slow. Raitt is describing the early stages of decay. What does a dying friendship sound like? "Go ahead and go." Also: bitter remarks, like pounding rain on a tin roof. It goes on and on For way too long. It always ends on a bad note. If you could dance at all, you'd dance alone. It goes on and on. Raitt is sort of an actress, and the way she hits the word "way" is like something from the catalogue of Meryl Streep. The quiet behind a slamming door. The break of a heart that won't break no more. Getaway wheels in a straight line-- Serenade of a made up mind. Suddenly, the rate of decay accelerates, and the use of parallel structure creates tension. "The quiet," "the break," "

  One of the best screenplays I've considered recently is "Office Space." This film came out in 1999--the Holy Grail Year of Motion Pictures, the year of "Boys Don't Cry," "Election," "American Beauty," "Ripley," "Sixth Sense," "Being John Malkovich"--but I think that, even in '99, "Office Space" didn't really have competitors. It's a script that buzzes with ideas and rage and humor; it's a case of knowing, right away, you're in good hands. Ron Livingston works in a cubicle. The overlords have just recently altered the style of the official workplace cover sheet, but Livingston has become sloppy, and he has (in one case) reverted to the *old* cover sheet. This means that not one but seven superiors must stop by to clear their throats and ask, awkwardly, if Livingston could ditch the old cover sheets, mmmkay? Meanwhile, across the street, Jennifer Aniston works at "Tchotchkes

  Here are little moments I'd "rewrite," if I could edit my own week: *My son's physical therapist visits. She spends time with the entire family. At the end of the hour, she says, breezily, "Clearly, your child has a better rapport with Marc than with you!" *Constipation leads to Miralax, which leads to diarrhea and diaper rash. But, before you discover the diaper rash, you put your child to bed. This means--at 2 AM--there is sudden shouting. Then you're all awake for the next two to three hours. *The cleaning person passes by, and she is on the phone, and she says that something is SUCIA! And I know just enough Spanish to grasp the meaning of "sucia"--but not enough Spanish to make sense of the context surrounding the word..... But, anyway, we are all alive! WE'RE ALIVE!!! Onward and upward....

  Molly Shannon's father, a closeted gay man, was driving a car. He had his family with him. He'd had too many drinks. It seems he fell asleep and drove the car into a pole; three people died. One was Molly's infant sister; the cause of death was later listed as "putrification of the brain." I don't know how Molly forgave her father, but she did, and then she lived for many years with this damaged man (who should maybe not have had any children in his care). Molly's neck was dirty because her father couldn't climb the stairs to wash her. Molly's father would scream with jealousy if Molly spent too much time with a schoolyard friend. And Molly's father encouraged his prepubescent daughter to smuggle herself onto a flight to New York; when Molly succeeded, her dad said, "Find some way to get yourself back to Cleveland. I'm not paying for the ticket." My old teacher Amy is fond of saying: "Two people get hit by a bus--one become

  My frenemy is like Maria von Trapp, and he makes me feel like the Baroness. People on this block use our Google group to make angry remarks: "The town is removing another tree! Soon you won't be able to call us  Maple wood!" "Someone deposited personal garbage items in *my* private garbage can. Was this you? Photo attached." But my frenemy writes only to invite people to parties, or to say: "I found a wounded bird in my yard. I want to care for the bird appropriately. Can anyone point me in the right direction?" And my frenemy is very excited about local library renovations--and not at all furious that the renovations project seems to require two-to-three years of planning. My frenemy  loves literacy ! He does not suspect--as I do--that the building project really requires one or two months, and that workers all over town, funded with tax dollars, are just sitting on their collective ass. Finally, my frenemy accepts playdate invites in a prompt, deci

 A novel I like very much is "The Good House," by Ann Leary. Ms. Leary is married to Denis Leary, and she wrote about that marriage for the NYTimes, for a column that later became a Tina Fey chapter in Amazon Prime's "Modern Love." Ann Leary has at least two literary interests. She enjoys stories of alcoholism, so she is drawn to John Cheever and to "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne." Additionally, Leary likes a sinister atmosphere; she lists "Rebecca" and "Mr. Ripley" among her favorite novels.  So--no surprise--Leary's breakout book, "The Good House," has a charismatic, high-functioning alcoholic at its center. Hildy Good is around sixty, and she has attempted rehab, but at night, alone, she works her way through many bottles of wine. This arrangement seems to sustain Hildy, until it doesn't. A troubled new family arrives in town, and some people threaten to destroy Hildy's business, and suddenly the drink

 My family is parting ways with two bad TV shows: "Billions" and "Organized Crime." The process takes time. First, you have to acknowledge that the show has jumped the shark. The acknowledgment might come thirty to fifty episodes *after* the actual event. (And this is like the standard comment about divorce: The thing is dead for two years before you actually shoot a bullet in its head.) I began to lose patience with "Billions" when Axe departed, abruptly; I thought the complete disinterest in Axe's children was a case of writerly laziness, and I had no idea what to make of Wendy's behavior. But it's not like I stopped watching right after Axe left. I kept hoping that the show would win me back; after all, Corey Stoll once did great work in "House of Cards." But the returns were shrinking hour after hour, until one night I really felt that I was watching paint dry. Thus, to mix metaphors, the plug was finally pulled. Even so, I find m

 It's a big season for one of my favorite artists, Bonnie Raitt. Her tenth album, "Nick of Time," was just inducted into the National Recording Registry. Also, Raitt is releasing a *new* album, her first in over six years. (The Wall Street Journal compliments Raitt's "stunning" voice.) My favorite Raitt song is everyone's favorite, and its opening lines are inscribed on my brain: Turn down the lights. Turn down the bed. Turn down these voices--inside my head. Lay down w ith me. Tell me no lies. Just hold me close-- Don't patronize. Don't patronize me. I can't make you love me if you don't. You can't make your heart feel something it won't. Here in the dark, In these final hours, I will lay down my heart, And I'll feel the power. But you won't. No, you won't. I love that Raitt is not presenting herself as strong or admirable; she is quite sad and weak, and this seems like a picture of universal human experience. The &qu

 My family has started to wade in the waters of sex education. I've read that it's smart to talk, and talk, about sex, so that kids do not begin to conclude that certain natural behaviors are filthy and worthy of shame. For example, I'm told, a two-year-old should start to get familiar with the terms "vulva," "vagina," penis," "clitoris," "bum," and "nipples." These should just be parts, like any other parts, like your head, shoulders, knees, and toes. To demystify the word "penis," and to convey the sense that the world is wide, you could mention to your child: "Not everyone with a penis is a boy." I said this, and my husband choked on his coffee; "I just, I thought you might begin with some context," he whispered. Then: "I guess I have to learn not to giggle when I hear the word  penis ." I am not a barricade-building revolutionary, but some tired ideas about gender really bothe

 Sometimes, Hollywood forgets to take an interest in families; the action concerns a boy and girl who might date (certainly the story ends on or before the wedding day), or the action concerns male colleagues joining up to take on a male villain. So it's a treat to revisit "The Sixth Sense," which is about mothers and sons, and about an actual marriage. "The Sixth Sense” centers on Toni Collette, whose kid seems to have gone mute, or semi-mute. Collette knows something is wrong, but the kid won't spill the beans. (Once, when the kid drew the nightmares in his head, his teacher yelled at him. So the kid has learned to draw smiling suns and rainbows.) The kid really doesn't want his mother to see how profoundly alone he has become, so he pays the local bully to *seem* friendly on the walk to school. Off the Philadelphia streets, in a classroom, the bully can resume bullying. But it's those crucial "public" minutes that need to seem G-rated (becaus

  The movie "Titanic" is 25 years old, and the bad parts are just as bad as you may recall. Yes, Rose says, "Put your hands on me, Jack!" And: "Draw me like one of your French girls." And, yes, Rose confronts her fiance and screams: "I'd rather be Jack's whore than YOUR WIFE!!!!" But, at the same time, how do you resist a movie like this? A young woman (Rose) feels she must follow a certain script to save her family from financial ruin. She is pissed. The only real option she spots is suicide (just fling yourself from a ship). But a guy intervenes. He tells her that the water is brutally cold. ("Have you ever been ice-fishing in Wisconsin?") This young man, Jack, indicates that he will dive in after Rose jumps--so, regardless, Rose is going to have company. At this point, the movie briefly becomes a rom-com. Rose is drawn to Jack, and can't accept this, so she becomes snide. But Jack gets the girl because he is (apparently)

 The song "Cabaret" is like "And I'm Telling You...." People sometimes miss the meaning. "Cabaret" is not actually a triumphant invitation to "love life." It's the desperate half-protest of a bad actress, a bad singer, who is "giving up." Sally Bowles understands that the Nazis are about to take over Germany, but she is opting not to resist. "No use permitting some prophet of doom--to wipe every smile away!" This is how Sally is asking to be remembered; it's uncomfortable for everyone in the audience. I think "Cabaret" has one of the great bridges in musical-theater history, and it's meant to be an instructive story: I used to have a girlfriend known as Elsie.... With whom I shared four sordid rooms in Chelsea. She wasn't what you'd call a blushing flower. As a matter of fact, she rented by the hour! The day she died, the neighbors came to snicker. Well, that's what comes of too much pills

  One of Anne Tyler's major themes is ambivalence (and no wonder I love her). Tyler's new novel, "French Braid," has a memorable protagonist, Mercy, who half-abandons her art career. But later, after the kids are grown, Mercy does something audacious; she buys herself a little painting studio, and she quietly moves all of her possessions into the studio. She never informs her husband--Robin--that she intends to make a new home. In fact, she continues to return to Robin, to prepare and freeze a lasagna, or to observe an important anniversary. Mercy is caught between two worlds--and not quite satisfied. It's easy enough to lose yourself within her story. Or consider her granddaughter, Candle. Candle is, in fact, "Kendall," but she has the nickname because, in early childhood, she confused a few of her vowel sounds. ("I am KAN-DELLLL!") Candle is delighted that her grandma calls her by her real name--and she even begins to insist that she herself

 The back road I live on is like a large family -- a family where everyone hates one another. Do you know the scene in "Footloose" where it's revealed that no one in the town can opt to dance -- because the old meanies have legally banned dancing? I have one of those meanies in my life. She is a dinosaur, and she writes to the back road to complain that our road-maintenance funds are misused as "a party war-chest." Too many parties! No one responds to this puzzling screed, so then the screed gets reissued, and no one responds, and all of this occurs once again. I don't know where these parties are happening; if they're happening, I'm not invited.  Another source of tension is the "put-up-a-sign" camp. We have a group of Pollyannas who believe that any big problem can meet its match through a well-placed sign. "Don't Speed." "Don't Drive Over Leo's Garden." "Don't Visit Here If You're a Large Truc

 There are three "enshrined" Dolly numbers: "I Will Always Love You," "Jolene," and "Coat of Many Colors." I've covered the first two, and now it's time for Number Three. "Many Colors" is an origin story. It's like Dolly's version of "X-Men: First Class." Dolly, a poor girl, needs a coat in the depths of a cold, cold autumn. Mom doesn't have cash--but she has several colored scraps. So, like an artist, Mom does some fancy stitchwork, and she talks about the Bible, and then Dolly is ready for the bad weather. Dolly skips to school where, of course, she is not greeted warmly. The twits around her mock her rags. And the song steers toward its Third Act: Dolly serenely tries to educate her tormentors. "You're poor only if you choose to be." The small-minded kids can't understand, and Dolly feels pity. She wanders off on her own, and she enjoys her coat. This looks so simple, but I'm obsess

  A book I love is "A Place to Land," which is the history of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech. The book seems to be targeted at middle-school students--students who certainly know what it's like to be unable to complete a writing assignment. We begin with MLK fighting to draft words for the March on Washington (1963). It's not difficult to *start* a draft, but it's difficult to end. "You're circling above the trees, and you're searching, searching for a place to land." MLK gathers many advisors, and he listens--"one mark of a great person is the ability to listen"--and some ideas pop out.  Talk about jobs. Talk about how we have been handed a bad check; America has given us a bad check. Talk about economic justice . The book shows how MLK looked for alliteration and for rhyming *within* words--these grace notes made simple sentences memorable. But the big surprise is this. MLK stood before the Lincoln Monument, and he actual

 Thieves fall out. There is no honor among thieves. I'm writing in praise of my old classmate, Liz Meriwether, who oversaw "The Dropout," and who wrote its terrific final hour. I wasn't always a fan of this series--especially toward the beginning--because I found Ms. Holmes so tiresome. Also, I'm sure I envy Liz Meriwether. Some of my college classmates have surprised me with their achievements; Meriwether's career is *not* a surprise to me. She seemed sort of otherworldly and impressive as a college freshman--and she has remained dazzling from her undergraduate "Hedda Gabler" onward to the present. The end of "The Dropout" is an exploration of subtext. Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani have imploded; they're trying to escape from their mess. They are like the Witch and the Baker toward the end of "Into the Woods." ( It's your father's fault that the curse got placed and the place got cursed in the first place.... ) 

 My entire family has become attached to "Mr. Elephant," a small, rag-like doll who follows Josh on most of his daily adventures. When the cleaning person tossed Mr. Elephant onto a pile of less-special stuffed animals, I had a surreal moment; I felt as if I'd just found my own child in a dumpster. I had to stop myself to recall that Mr. Elephant is not really a living thing. Sometimes, I think the adults here care more for Mr. Elephant than the actual doll-owner cares (and that doll-owner is Josh). When I left Mr. E at home, recently, and I arrived at the airport, my heart stopped. My husband considered a drive back to Maplewood: How could our kid sleep without his animal? Josh observed this drama with a cool eye, and he later pointed emphatically at a patriotic teddy bear, in a Hudson News window. "You want me to go to sleep and to overlook your mistake?" he said, silently. "Buy me that bear, and we'll call it even." Or perhaps I'm making too

 David Sipress often uses his own life in his art. ( When it's bad for one's life, it's good for one's art. ) In early adulthood, Sipress was studying at Harvard to obtain a doctoral degree in Russian history. He knew this was a wrong move; he knew his destiny was to draw cartoons. When he finally found the courage to quit school, he called his father, who actually placed a curse over the phone. The trauma of the call was so great, Sipress sort of attempted suicide. Then he avoided not just his father, but also his father's city (New York), for many years. I think most people would respond to this moment by burying the memory, or by speaking only in a self-pitying way. But Sipress's gift is for counterintuitive moves. In one cartoon, he seems to empathize with his father: OF COURSE his father had a valid point. The cartoon in question shows a man on a date. Bluntly, the man says, "I thought I was a writer, but it turned out to be a chemical imbalance."

 Months ago, Anne Lamott wrote a memorable attack on Mother's Day; one of Lamott's observations was that the day randomly puts a mom on a pedestal, "when, in fact, I was mostly raised by my neighborhood's gay men." I think of this in relation to "Better Things"; it's not that Mom has disappeared, but Dad clearly has, and a great deal of parenting work gets shifted to Sam Fox's "gay husband," Rich.  I didn't realize, early on, that Rich would have a major role. I recall that he dates a very young man at one point, and he has his heart broken, and he fights with Sam because Frankie's disappearance requires too much "emotional energy." In happier moments, Sam urges Rich to "go back to writing." Then, when the show really confronts the issue of the missing dad, Rich assumes a lead-character status. One wonderful scene has the actual dad forgetting Rich's name; Rich smiles, with rage, and says, "I just wa

 "Dog" starts well and ends well, and it has some smart moments in the middle. What more could we want? Channing Tatum is working at a Subway, stuffing lettuce in buns. A young patron becomes enraged because the toppings are wrong: We sense Tatum's repressed anger at the patron's entitlement, and we also sense that Tatum's mind is very, very far away. Soon enough, Tatum is calling his military advisory board, asking (pleading) to be re-deployed to Afghanistan. Then the script gives us a new twist on Homer's Odyssey--something I haven't seen before. Tatum can get the clearance letter he needs--but only if he does a favor for his captain. A friend--gunned down--has left behind a traumatized dog. The dog can't get on an airplane. Tatum needs to drive the dog across the country, to be present at a military funeral; if this drive occurs, then a clearance letter could pop up. You don't need to be Cassandra to make some predictions. Tatum is, at first, a

  One funny moment in "Neighbors" has Rose Byrne coping with new-parenthood boredom. "I guess we'll go by the shops," she says to her infant, "then we'll stop by Mommy Group, to see what all those bitches are up to...." I've avoided Mommy Group--mostly--but, this past Saturday, I wandered into a "de facto" group. Oddly, my neighbors all have two-year-olds, and they were all gathered by one particular garage--for a drink. In some ways, the Mommy Group was helpful. My neighbors and I commisserated about unsolicited advice. My favorite neighbor revealed that her mother has a Trumpian way of slipping unwanted feedback into a chat: " They say that  little girls should never wear nail polish....for health reasons...." My neighbor's standard response is to rip out chunks of her own hair while screaming: "WHO???? Who are THEY??????" On the other hand, I can see how a Mommy Group isn't ideal. The topic shifted to po

 I remain irritated by "Don't Say Gay," so I'll use the anger for something constructive, and I'll spotlight the history of gays at the Academy Awards.   Here are the LGBT performer-winners I can think of: Angelina Jolie, John Gielgud, Marlon Brando, Jodie Foster, Joel Grey, Ariana DeBose. Way back in the seventies, we might have had another winner: Leonard Frey. Frey had been nominated for "Fiddler on the Roof"; he did "Miracle of Miracles," a perfect song. (The writers--Bock and Harnick--are titans of the theater, idols of Stephen Sondheim. In a musical, you have an "I WANT" song, and you have an "I AM" song, and "Miracle of Miracles" is the latter. It's a simple declaration of happiness. Being a devout person, the singer uses biblical language to describe his joy; we hear of "manna in the wilderness," "the Promised Land," Daniel in the lion's den, David and Goliath, the waters of the

 As I've hinted, one preoccupation of the cartoonist David Sipress is: money. There is always tension right under the surface, and Sipress loves this. He makes room for the tension. A man presents an allowance to his son, but the stern Norman Rockwell talk goes missing. Instead, the dad says: "This is cash. Get ready to worry about this for the rest of your life." We all think we can put off financial catastrophe by wary behavior, but Sipress knows better: "The thing to do is just...invent a time machine, go back sixteen months, and convert all your investments to cash!" And we worry about money *at the cost of* enjoying the thing that is actually valuable in our life, the person next to us on the sofa. As one spouse says to another: "I'll give you a million dollars if you can tell me whether I've just been talking about my mother, my ballot, or my job...." Sipress says he likes to use a certain kind of pen because it produces wild, unanticipat