Liars and Saints

  "Miss You, Love You" follows a He and a She -- but it's not a love story. In a way, it's like "Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York." Diane is a grieving widow in the Southwest. She is estranged from her son, but she hopes that he might attend his stepfather's funeral. Instead, he sends his assistant, Jamie. (The estranged son *might* materialize, but he is doing important journalistic work in Lebanon, and there are apparently complex timing/safety issues.) Diane is furious, and she doesn't "buy" her son's narrative. But she also understands that retaining Jamie is a way to dig up information about her son. So she plays host to Jamie. She probes him for details. She spies on his texting behavior. And Jamie has his own problems. He never really had an authentic relationship with the people in his immediate family--they died too soon. He envies Diane, because she truly knew her son. Before the estrangement, Diane and her son were ...

 Ten years ago, Brock Turner encountered Chanel Miller at a frat party at Stanford. Turner dragged Miller to a clearing behind a dumpster; while Miller was unconscious, Turner assaulted her. When witnesses approached, Turner tried to run away. An undergrad victim might have kept quiet; it is exhausting and stressful to try to pursue justice. Chanel Miller was not an undergrad; she had finished her schooling, and she had a full-time job. She also had a kind of otherworldly confidence--or at least she was able to feign confidence when others might have conceded defeat. The evidence was clear enough that a jury found Turner guilty of his crimes. Unanimous verdict. The extraordinary part of the story is Chanel Miller's impact statement. As others have noted, Miller is a born writer. This means she has a talent for saying the unsayable. She thought a great deal about her statement. She consulted Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird"; she actually began a written correspondence with...

  "You have to be controlling and obnoxious. People who are  nice  with the school district do not get what they need." This is advice from the neurologist. And I have very little difficulty being controlling and obnoxious. In Zoom meetings, I have been described--by my spouse--as "frightening." My child's teacher has just quit her job. This is the third time it's happened to my son. Now, cosmically, this is not a big deal. I like to think of the Ruthie Ann Miles Test. Ruthie Ann Miles is an actor who was walking with her family in Park Slope one day. A car jumped the curb--struck Miles's daughter--murdered the child (and also aborted Miles's pregnancy, because Miles herself was additionally within the impact zone). And Miles brushed off the dust and continued with her life. I think, if you're Ruthie Ann Miles, you can complain. Otherwise, things are essentially fine. But the district doesn't need to know that I have this philosophy. The dist...

 I admire the precision of Andre Dubus III. He uses words I know very little about. "Motor oil," "oarlock," "roadhouse," "chicken wire." He pays attention to sensory detail. At the bar, a face appears just inches from the side of my own. Dark whiskers and crooked teeth. Narrow eyes and waxy skin, though in the dim neon of this roadhouse it's hard to see clearly. He's staring at what I'm wearing, which is a cheap Bermuda shirt, black with bright tiny oarlocks. I am sunburned and windblown. I am wearing eyeglasses. Maybe I look to him like some lawyer on vacation, or some other man whose profession allows him to rent boats, then come to this bar in a clearing up the hill from town where the tourists are not supposed to go.... The man's face is in a sneer and I can smell him--cigarette smoke and motor oil. He's leaning so close that his shoulder is just beginning to touch mine. He says, "Nice fuckin' shirt." He is c...

 A third music video I enjoy is for Beyonce's "Love on Top."  The words in this song are every bit as inane as the material for Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much." Beyonce is expressing joy because she realizes she has become someone's number one priority. "You're the one I NEED! You're the only one I see." That's all. *If this is in dialogue with Janet Jackson--and most pop writing *is* a response to Janet Jackson--then there are important shifts to consider. Janet, in "Miss You Much," is somewhat childlike. By contrast, Beyonce is imagined as someone in control. It's Beyonce who says, "Bring the beat in." It's Beyonce who says, absurdly, "Cut!" (She starts and ends the video.) *It's interesting to me that this song--a love song--has a video that never shows the "love object." We don't see the love story unfolding. Instead, in the video, the main drama comes from the way that Bey...

  This week, I've been thinking about Jane Austen--which led me to Nicole Holofcener. It seems to me that Holofcener's career is a response to Austen. Holofcener asks, "What if I extended Austen's sympathy to include Austen's villains? What if I took a villain--e.g., Fanny, Elinor Dashwood's nemesis--and made her the center of the story?" "Lovely and Amazing" is a tale of multiple Fanny figures. Vain, weak, childish people. It's an act of bravery to take on one of these roles. Catherine Keener ranks among the bravest actors in movie history. Keener plays Michelle, who hasn't had the life she once dreamed of. Michelle is a recovering homecoming queen. In her mid-thirties, she finds herself floundering. Long ago, she promised her spouse she would find work as soon as her daughter entered Kindergarten. But that day has come and gone. Michelle builds tiny wooden chairs for plastic superhero figurines. But no store wishes to purchase the chair...