Liars and Saints

  Ghost stories are crucial at my house--not just at Halloween, but also at Christmas. There is a great tradition of mixing thriller vibes with a Christmas setting; Peter Swanson, Val McDermid, Agatha Christie, Reginald Hill, and PD James have all set various "murder tales" at or near the central table during a Christmas feast, a Christmas breakfast, etc. Both my son and daughter love "The Bump in the Night," a picture book about a haunted castle. At night, you can hear howling; you can hear bumps. A young artist, Toby the Tinker, moves in. He spends his days mending and building things; he "tinkers." The bumps in the night annoy him--until a severed leg falls through the chimney. "You must be the source of the bumps," says Toby. "Just don't disturb my dinner plate." Eventually, other limbs appear; a rotting arm, a second leg. Finally, the oozing head descends from the sky. Blithely, Toby says, "Now I can mend you." Upon h...

  It's strange to see an original idea in a movie. "Wicker" is not a new plot--but it has the good sense to borrow its plot from a bizarre story. I'm happy to see oddness, any form of oddness, at the multiplex. Olivia Colman lives in a feudal village; when a man marries a woman, he attaches a ceremonial dog collar to her neck. Because Colman sells fish, she has become the butt of jokes. She is an outcast. But she doesn't see herself this way. She'd like to have an interesting sex life--and the proximal options are discouraging--so she goes to a basket-maker and offers to pay for a wicker husband. A different actor might have played the Fish Market Lady as meek, pitiable--but that's not Colman's choice. Colman is eminently practical; though a part of her seems to be aware that she is doing a difficult thing, another part of her says, "I'm not going to demand the spotlight. I'm just a person with a wish. Life goes on." What follows--and...

  Did you think I'd rant about autism today? I will not. It's a wild card week. I write from Mexico City, where my spouse is celebrating a significant birthday. But that birthday is not my main topic here. It's time to talk about the quetzal-butterfly. Long before the time of the Aztecs, in an era that coincided with the start of the Roman Empire, people in a portion of the world that would later become Mexico seemed to develop an interest in a mythical being, half-bird, half-butterfly. They carved this being into pillars. These were part of a vast palace, which was itself part of an enormous complex with two pyramids. Then history unfolded, there were winds of change, etc. Three hundred years passed, and the Aztecs discovered the ruins that honored the quetzal-butterfly--and these ruins have remained a source of fascination all the way to the present. Beneath the space devoted to the quetzal-butterfly, you find a subterranean chamber whose focus is "the jaguar." ...

  "Falsettos" is about the catastrophe of sex. How sex disrupts a life. The writer--William Finn--sits on a knife's edge. He is somewhere between compassion and disdain. His shifting attitude toward his own characters is a part of the drama. The song "This Had Better Come to a Stop" describes a collective emotional breakdown. Marvin has left his wife, Trina, and moved in with a young man, Whizzer. Marvin expects Whizzer to behave as a housewife: make the dinner, check the little boy's face for acne. Whizzer resents the new set of expectations--and he voices his discomfort in a passive-aggressive way, by being routinely late. Meanwhile, Trina is caught in the past; she continues to litigate old disputes, even as her new partner encourages her to "move on" (whatever that may mean). Sometimes, writers (particularly musical-theater writers) feel that they need to spoon-feed an audience. The writer has arrived at some simplistic conclusions--and the job...

  Lisa Hanawalt's astonishing memoir has a simple premise: Hanawalt feels that she is "bad" at both horse-riding and sex. But she keeps returning to both activities. That's the story. Hanawalt purchases a horse because she suspects she is not going to have a child. Her friends say, "Go for it! Get the horse. It's self-care." Around the same time, Hanawalt begins to ask questions about her romance of two decades. She and her partner start sharing details about their "crushes." The arrangement becomes an open relationship (though she is oddly reluctant w/r/t using this term). Then--you guessed it--Hanawalt finds herself officially unattached. As Hanawalt wanders through her dating odyssey, she makes a confession. She really likes fat men. Fat, middle-aged. And she enjoys the "reverse cowgirl" option. She wishes that her friends would stop buying her tee shirts that say the following: "My Other Horse Is a Prius." Then again, sh...

I bought a used Svaha dress for my daughter. It celebrates women in science--it is covered in images of beakers and vials, potions, hot plates. But I failed to distinguish between "adult" sizing and "girl" sizing. "Size 6" does not mean "wear this if you are six years old." In my desperation to make something of my misguided purchase, I considered going in drag for Halloween. *I* would be a woman in science. As I yanked the dress over my head, I created a small tear in the fabric. My husband watched in confusion, asking, "Why don't you just do an exchange?" I write all this in solidarity with Martha Stewart. I know how a bad idea can consume you, so that you are momentarily blinded. Stewart spilled chocolate on her sweater--in a fit of insanity, she realized that she could dress as a struggling civilian for Halloween. All of America would understand her intention. All thoughtful, compassionate, literate suburbanites would read up on...