Liars and Saints

 The strange thing about any kind of good family counseling is that little asides can have more weight than the "big declamatory" moments. I was flustered at the start of a session because I had just finished an hour of tutoring, and my student's "absolute value" chapter did not match my own "absolute value" chapter. I had prepared certain material--and I then had to observe, in real time, that I'd made an error and I'd created a need for on-the-spot course correction. I happen to be weirdly insecure about absolute value, and I had to say, in a faux-calm voice, "We'll start here next week." The counselor I talk to rummaged around in her "cognitive-behavioral" toolbox. Apparently, if something small is bothering you, you have to "drill down" to a core belief, the real source of the distress. Then you have to try to "tell a different story" about yourself. So--for example--if you flub a question about a...

  A Gothic novel tends to be built on family secrets and a hint of the supernatural. "A Beautiful Family"--the recent debut novel by Jennifer Trevelyan--fits the bill. It's c. 1985. Vanessa, a teen girl, seems drawn to the ocean waves. When she almost drowns, she describes a feeling of having been summoned, as if by the gods of the ocean. Could this be possible? Or is Vanessa making up the story to conceal the fact that she just wanted to be rescued by a hunky lifeguard? The question is left unanswered. Vanessa's family is rotting away; the "parasites" in question are just a series of lies. Vanessa's mother is lying about her rapport with a vacationing neighbor. Vanessa is lying about her extracurricular activities. The narrator--ten-year-old Alix--is committing multiple sins of omission. For example, she has suspicions about a missing Walkman--but if she shares what she knows, she will be disciplined. The short-term misery seems to outweigh the long-ter...

 One thing Sia handles particularly well is storytelling. A pop song can easily fail to seem rooted in the "here and now"--we don't know which room the speaker is in. But Sia's speakers have a way of looking around and noticing the weather: Sun is up; I'm a mess. Gotta get out now, gotta run from this. Here comes the shame. Here comes the shame. To show that the speaker is troubled, Sia has her recall some recent events: Help, I have done it again. I have been here many times before. Hurt myself again today. And the worst part is there's no one else to blame. I always admire Sia's candor. When working with Disney, Sia chooses to be slightly sunnier--but the result is *not* cloying. I messed up tonight. I lost another fight. Lost to myself--but I'll just start again. I keep falling down. I keep on hitting the ground. I always get up now to see what's next. It's impossible not to find this protagonist charming--and Shakira's buoyant performan...

 I felt that "The Pitt" became slightly preachy and monotonous toward the end of the first season, but I was still engaged. What interested me was the choice to focus on doctors' moments of insanity--we all know that many of the patients are kooky, but the human frailty of the caretakers is sometimes (elsewhere) overlooked. Dr. Samira Mohan seems "high on life"--she wants to keep on picking up cases even as she enters her fifteenth hour of work. A colleague observes that she is just feeling a surge of adrenaline and she will very quickly crash. We next see Dr. Mohan crying, alone, in the bathroom--then scrubbing away the tears and leaving the workplace. This was a subtle, insightful story. It resisted the siren song of melodrama. It also seemed to have been lifted from a doctor's actual testimony--like one of the monologues in Studs Terkel's "Working." The protagonist--Dr. Robby--cannot tolerate the "vax denial" tics of a particular f...

 I find deep pleasure in disliking something I'm "supposed to" like -- and that's how I feel about the current revival of "Ragtime." Everything about this effort seems misguided. It's a resuscitation of a mediocre show that does not need to be resuscitated. Also, the "bold vision" seems to be this: "We've taken everything from the original production and made it  slightly worse !" It's like the 1990s "Ragtime" -- but without a set. It's like the 1990s "Ragtime" -- but without Audra McDonald. It's like the 1990s "Ragtime" -- but without an effective publicity team. (It seemed especially unfortunate that the production announced a "first choice" Sarah, only to lose her. The team then announced a "second choice" Sarah, only to lose her. "Grab your wallet and come on out for.... our *third* choice !") "Why look for answers where none occur?" The earnest,...

 A personal essay should be iconoclastic. "Against Love." "Against Nature." If the essay just wants to affirm "received truth," it's going to be boring, like a bad watercolor on a coffee mug in an airport gift shop. Alice McDermott knows the rules, so she opens her essay by deflating Emerson. She suggests that, when Emerson told Whitman, "I greet you at the start of a long career," he was being silly. There is no "start" to a writer's career. A writer does not "make progress" -- everyday is square one. Every laptop screen can be a source of "rookie anxiety." McDermott has a talent for surprise. She next tells a tale about having been nominated for a National Book Award for "That Night." There was a sense of calm in the room, because everyone *knew* the prize would go to Toni Morrison for "Beloved."  The winner's name was called. It was an obscure novelist -- for a book that is (now) ut...