Liars and Saints

  It's a cliche about university professors that they tend to show signs of arrested development--they can behave in dramatic, adolescent ways, and that's fun to observe. At Yale, I had a professor whose Chaucer-expert spouse had recently started a high-profile affair with a grad student. So my professor began wearing thigh-high leather boots and speaking publicly about the dalliance she was enjoying with her new house-painter. (She also began teaching a course called "Doomed Love.") One of my other teachers was Amy Bloom, who has just now released an academic satire disguised as a murder mystery. Bloom's protagonist is Dell, a failed scholar. (Dell's work deteriorated after her mother died. "I did all the things you're not supposed to do. I yelled at students. I arrived late. Cried for most of the ninety minutes." Then, she adds proudly, "I did NOT have sex with undergraduates...only because depression made it unappealing and Prozac made it...

 My family has a tradition of watching the Betty Buckley Tonys performance from "Cats." My daughter calls this "the CAT Ballet," and both of us pretend to groom our fur by licking our forearms. "Cats" is so strange, and the backstage stories are the weirdest of all. Judi Dench was going to debut the song "Memory"--how could that be? Some kind of health emergency interfered. On Broadway, Buckley was almost fired. No one behind the ad campaign understood the relevance of the words "Now and Forever." But *someone* knew that these words would sell tickets. Victoria Clark (more or less) started her career with her role as "the opera cat." My favorite line is the following: "Can you--as cats do--begin with a C?" This is followed by a sustained high C. It's a "meta" moment. It's like the famous interlude in "Hamilton," in which King George signals his own madness by *ascending* the scale even as ...

  As the big night approaches, here are a few somewhat neglected Tony performances (plus an explanation of why they are historic): *"Kiss of the Spider-Woman." Chita Rivera was in her sixties, and she had recently survived a traumatic car crash. Of course her dancing was wonderful. But she also *sounded* great. Special extra credit for the particular way she alluded to Molina's "slice of hell." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf16i0OT5xA *"Everyday Rapture." This show was not supposed to make it to Broadway, but it became something like the little engine that could. So many cabaret acts are forgettable. But Sherie Rene Scott proved to be a true artist, digging into the story of her abortion, her sexual attraction to Mister Rogers, her strange Internet feud with a little gay prepubescent theater critic. Scott had never found material worthy of her intellect--so she eventually wrote the material on her own. A terrific literary work. https://www.youtube.c...

  As school wraps up, I'm thinking of my favorite commencement speech (a speech by Ann Patchett). Patchett recalls being an undergrad at Sarah Lawrence. She is utterly alone. She has traveled from Tennessee. She has no idea how to spend her time--so she decides to bake cookies for her advisor (who seems like a friendly person). This is--subtly--a metaphor for a writer's life. A writer (or any artist) is someone who feels a weird compulsion to make, make, make. Here, the story becomes something like a fable. Patchett assembles the cookies--but the oven doesn't work. Desperate, she wanders across the road, where she spots a fabulous house. And she asks the owner if she can borrow the oven. The owner happens to be the new president of the college, who has a small family. "And--because I spent time playing with the kids--I was invited back to babysit. And eventually (quickly) I helped to create a little tribe." On some level, Patchett had understood that a tribe was w...

  In the conditional love song, two people have to pair off *without* pairing off. We in the audience see their chemistry--even if they themselves do *not* see their chemistry. The two halves of the song can be mildly antagonistic ("People Will Say We're in Love"). Or the duet can be reasonably peaceful--but with a "this-is-just-pretend" theme ("They Say It's Wonderful"). It's worth noting that Oscar Hammerstein wrote a disproportionately large number of conditional love songs. And--though Irving Berlin *apparently* wrote "Annie, Get Your Gun"--there is a persistent rumor that Hammerstein was "Gun"'s ghostwriter. My own favorite conditional love song is "I'll Know," from "Guys and Dolls." Ostensibly, the two leads are arguing. Sarah Brown insists that her lover will be a version of Ned Flanders. Sky suggests that love should be a bit less predictable. Sky quietly mocks Sarah, making reference to a...

 My friend tends to "fight back" -- which is a difference between her and me. I have waded into the toxic seas of Facebook -- and the moment someone crazily yells at me, I just delete the post. My friend (by contrast) will calmly type a reply. Or here's another example. It's the Saga of the Lice Comb. My friend's daughter had lice; the lice case was treated; a month went by. A sitter was hired. The sitter uncovered the still-extant lice comb, then made allegations by text message. My friend wrote, "No one in the house has lice." The sitter said, "Still, I'm uncomfortable. You need to come back from New York right now." Next -- however -- my friend retaliated by withholding payment for the evening. "You were hired to do a job, and (without citing a reasonable excuse) you did not do your job. So I am not paying you." I can't help but recall the time that a bus aide had an iPhone out (inappropriately) at work, and my (special-nee...