Liars and Saints

  In my town, there is a great deal of virtue-signaling around coffee. There is a desire for "coffee purity," which means that you can be judged for visiting Starbucks. In fact, the workers at the rival shop, "Village Cafe," wear tee shirts that say, "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Starbucks." (This is the closest to overt nastiness that anyone gets--anyone in Maplewood.) People were ecstatic when a new local option opened--the option was called "Elitist Coffee." It's really called that. Not "Elite Coffee," which would also be absurd. "Elitist." People wanted to pretend to love this local shop--though its hours (W-Sunday only) were bizarre, its seats were uncomfortable, and its counter was unequipped for accepting non-cash payments. This sort of situation breeds cognitive dissonance within a Maplewood citizen. The citizen wants to (loudly) proclaim his or her love for Elitist Coffee--but you can only tolerate so many ...

  A "heat check" is a moment when an actor hijacks a film or show for three or four minutes--the actor becomes something like an MVP in just a very short span of time. On "The Pitt," occasional heat checks come from the student doctors. These students are young and dumb; they say tasteless things. The awkwardness is compelling. For example, one student doctor recently concluded that a mother was a psychopath, because her "stressful-situation face" did not seem adequately "agonized." The other student-doctor--Ogilvie--cannot tolerate when patients reveal themselves to be flawed. I think this intolerance is fairly typical for people in their twenties. Ogilvie joins Dr. McKay on an "outreach trip." (It seems clear that McKay has selected Ogilvie *because* of his frequent discomfort. At least on a subconscious level, McKay wants to give Ogilvie a trial-by-fire.) Within one minute of meeting his new patient, Ogilvie falsely concludes that an...

  No writer alive today is more fun for me than Anthony Horowitz. As he has said in interviews, Horowitz writes just for himself. He is not concerned with market trends. He is not looking for Netflix deals. He writes because he has to write. There is a well-populated world inside his head; he knows how to describe that world. His sentences are elegant, and his stories are surprising, well-structured, and weirdly plausible. The Horowitz/Hawthorne series uses a grammatical or writerly term in each title: "The Word Is Murder," "The Sentence Is Death," "A Line to Kill," "The Twist of a Knife," "Close to Death," "A Deadly Episode." In the newest novel, "Episode," Horowitz is filming a series based on his own books. There is an actor to play Horowitz's detective buddy, Daniel Hawthorne. When the actor is murdered, it looks like a case of professional jealousy "run amok." Is the killer a costar? An agent? A sc...

 It's a standard refrain--how inadequate so many doctors are, how chaotic their offices can be. I've read the explanations about being overtaxed. I empathize. As a tutor, I sometimes do not want to show up. My bedside manner can be "terse." I can be slightly--or significantly--distracted. My child's neurologist is well-intentioned, but she tends to be forty minutes late. Each time this happens, she appears stunned--as if she herself cannot believe she is so tardy. But I've stopped "buying" the act, since the lateness is now a ritual. It's like if you let your dog shit on your neighbor's garden sculpture every single morning. Eventually, your neighbor is going to suspect that your "surprised face" is just a kind of pantomime. The neurologist had a nurse call to say that my child's potassium level was high. What followed was a startling nonsense word salad. "Maybe it's high because he didn't fast before the blood work...

 Lisa Kudrow gave an interview recently about auditioning. She said that auditions are frequently brutal for actors, because the actors are focused on the director. ("Does he like me? What does she think of me?") Kudrow's suggestion is simple: Just do the job. Forget that anyone is observing you. When I was in high school, I was puzzled by Charley's observation in "Death of a Salesman." Having sent his son to argue before the Supreme Court, Charley says, "I never cared about anything. That was my ticket to success." Now I understand what Charley means. He has removed his ego from his work. He has shown up and done his job in an efficient way--and he has used his actual mental and emotional energy to pursue his hobbies. Missteps at work have not had a seismic impact on Charley--because work is just work. Charley's sense of self-worth is not linked with the things that occur at the office. The elegant plot of "Death of a Salesman" build...

  I'm getting ready to see "Death of a Salesman" tonight--my sole source of interest is Laurie Metcalf. Recently named one of the theater actors "you must see," Metcalf is always mesmerizing. Here are my three favorite Metcalf memories: *"The Other Place." I think this was toward the start of Metcalf's Broadway reign. All I remember is that it begins with a monologue and that Metcalf's character is losing her mind. A theater actor has to command a cavernous space; there has to be a sense of "layering," a sense of mystery. I remember feeling that right away from Metcalf. She was the center of a force field--that's the only way I can describe it. *"Little Bear Ridge Road." By this point, Metcalf had become something like Broadway's Mozart. In my favorite scene, she was near comatose--she was listening to a story that her troubled nephew had written. Because she had invested so much in her character, because her perform...