Liars and Saints

 A young man surprises a woman with a flower. In the background, water rushes into the base of a fountain, as semen rushes into the womb. The fountain depicts cherubs in the act of chasing a trapped dolphin, as the man "chases" the woman below. Next, the man and woman meet in secret; they seem to be evading capture. (Maybe an overbearing parent is standing off in the wings.) A kind of marriage ceremony: The woman crowns the man, as a journalist/witness makes a record. Finally, the couple reflects on their love, reviewing old love letters. A statue of Venus represents Friendship--unlike Cupid, Venus is mature, unlikely to throw herself into a patch of brambles while pursuing a hot date. Fragonard's "Progress of Love" has spawned other works. Alice Munro tips her hat to Fragonard with a collection called--you guessed it--"The Progress of Love." A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters" seems to be a response to Fragonard's fourth panel. And Nancy Mi...

  I spent a part of my weekend rereading Elinor Lipman's essays, and there aren't enough words for how much I love this work.  Lipman is reliably unpretentious; often, she has written for "Good Housekeeping." She has strong feelings about Carrie Bradshaw. She comments on ketchup--and on the wisdom of mixing ketchup with your brisket. At the same time, she is contrarian in a sneaky way; she is in favor of keeping (and examining) various grudges, looking closely, in an unguarded manner, at moments of personal failure. I feel better after I've read a few pages by Elinor Lipman--what a gift she has. A standout among her essays is an observation about the Corner Bookstore, on the Upper East Side. Lipman is trying to recall why she started watching "Sex and the City" on HBO. It's because of the Corner Bookstore. "Charlotte" is living near 92nd and Madison--this is mid-series. At the same time, Lipman is walking up Madison to give a reading. She s...

 The stingray, or manta ray, is a crucial part of "Moana." An elderly ally--Grandma--informs Moana of her wish to become a stingray. "When I die, and I resurface, I want to be a manta ray...." In Polynesian culture, the manta ray represents wisdom, grace, and protection. And that's how Grandma is characterized; she lets Moana grow at her own pace. No need to rush Moana or make assertions--even when Grandma "knows better." My daughter is obsessed with the stingrays at the zoo. Nearby, there are majestic creatures--snow leopards, panthers, gray wolves--but the stingrays take top honors. This is because Susie can touch them in their "Touch Tank"; sight and sound have minimal appeal, but touch reigns supreme. Susie considers both what is alien and what is familiar about the stingray. Alien: "Is that piece on the tail the stinger?" Familiar: "The guy in the corner--that one. Is that one asleep?" At the Met, for several weeks re...

  Roz Chast just wrote a book about the bizarreness of her kitchen. Many of us choose not to talk about "the chipped mugs, the poison under the sink, the freon tubes" -- but Chast puts this stuff front and center in a memoir. The book is not just about kitchen-focused revulsion, but also about the difficulty of "swimming upstream." Many people feel *fond* of their kitchens -- they use the room for a casual cocktail hour, or they publish essays about their joyful cooking memories. (In "Still Alice," the well-groomed Julianne Moore wrestles with her early-stages dementia while also preparing an elaborate Christmas meal in her immaculate kitchen.) ....If you are at odds with your kitchen, you are also at odds with American culture; you can't participate when people chat about food preparation as "the heart of the home." I'm grateful for this weirdness -- I "feel seen" -- and I hope we will get more from Chast before she retires.

 To me, Amanda Seyfried is immortal for "Mean Girls." She has had a fabulous career, though she has never topped that Tina Fey/Rachel McAdams masterpiece. For "Law and Order: SVU," Seyfried did terrific work as a kind of Elizabeth Smart stand-in. (Seyfried's guest appearance is legendary, and you have to do quite a bit to boost yourself above nearly thirty seasons of colleagues' SVU performances.) I also recommend Seyfried in "The Housemaid." Finally, "The Dropout" is entertaining, but, like others, I wonder if it's morally questionable. I wonder, if you're going to fictionalize very recent events, why would you not change the names of the real-world people you're thinking about? (Seyfried is taken to task about this--but shouldn't the focus also include the "Dropout" scriptwriter, Liz Meriwether?) Watching Nathan Fielder's clever "You Can See Everything," I admired several choices. First, I admired...

 The other video I constantly watch is for Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much." I'm not a Jackson scholar; I'm just an enthusiastic amateur. But I do love her. In her youth, Janet is positioned as a girl next door. So, in "Miss You Much," we see her hanging out with peers at a billiard parlor--she is deflecting gossip about a possible crush. (It's difficult to imagine that--at any point in her life--Janet has traveled *anywhere, to any location* without a retinue of professional handlers.) ....The "girl next door" phase also involves one of my favorite lines in any verse of any song--Janet describes having worked hard all week, having just cashed her paycheck. The idea of Janet Jackson living paycheck to paycheck is something that makes me giggle. For a while, Janet is so successful, you just need to pick a common phrase and set it to music, and it becomes a hit. "Miss You Much" grows out of someone, a writer, noticing that he often b...