Liars and Saints

  In "Wants," Grace Paley makes several odd choices. She decides to return some overdue books but then parks herself on the steps leading to the library's entrance--she seems to be a daydreamer. When she spots her ex, she refers to him as "my life." (Could this be deliberately antagonistic?) The ex says that the marriage died because "you never invited the Bertrams to dinner"--and instead of calling the accusation absurd, Grace shrugs and says, "That's possible." We can imagine that Grace may be simmering with rage; her way of managing life is to detach. The story never *tells* us to reach that conclusion. One of the smartest touches is to show Grace observing the librarian. This minor character reveals that Grace has been a "person of interest" for eighteen years. The librarian has "more to tell"--but the ex ploughs ahead with a disruption. In this moment, Grace seems to identify with the librarian--she knows how it f...

 This is an amazingly shallow movie -- it makes the Bobby Darrin musical look like Shakespeare. If you choose to make a film about a monster but overlook all the evidence of monstrosity, then you're severely limited on the job. The Ebert site's one-star rating seems generous. (That said, because the movie reproduces several of Michael's dance routines, the experience is ridiculously entertaining.) Generally, a coming-of-age story involves the discovery of sex; it's the exploration of sex that lets the protagonist begin to form an adult identity. Janet Jackson is a sturdy example; her recorded works are like a Bildungsroman. She is energetic and charming in "Escapade"--but it's "Love Will Never Do" that throws on all the lights. You put Djimon Hounsou in a little white Speedo, and there's no turning back. Janet's adult entanglements with heartache, death, disappointment, mental illness, cheating--all these feel "relatable." Janet...

 Yesterday, I had a sitter who arrived quite late. This sitter is a teenager--she isn't amazing. Her lateness interfered with a client appointment I had; nothing annoys me more. Essentially all I ask of a sitter is that she will arrive when she says she will arrive. It's stunning to me how difficult this is for so many people--and now *I* am one of those people because I did not hire a notably professional sitter. This was a minor event, but it raised some questions: How kind can I be as an employer? What role does a "power differential" play? (It's easy to take out frustration on a teenager.) If I'm openly impatient, am I giving the impression that I myself have never screwed up at work? (This would be a false impression.) In Season One, the best move of "The Pitt" was to give us Dr. Langdon, a white, handsome, confident man. Langdon was challenged by a new hire, an abrasive, non-white, sometimes foolish woman. Here, "The Pitt" was playing...

 My husband sometimes meets celebrities, but really the only one who has excited him is Jeni, owner of Jeni's Ice Cream. Certain stories from this encounter have become a kind of Biblical text in my house. Each time I hear one of the stories, I act like I'm hearing it for the first time. This teenager was working at the counter, and he said, "If you come back tomorrow, be sure to note that we close at 8...." And Jeni gave him a deadpan look and said, "Who do you think *I* am?" Also: Jeni invented salted caramel. Before her, it truly did not exist. (I have some doubts about that factoid, but I keep quiet.) Also: Jeni is a close friend of Joe Biden's. Of course, one thing we know about Joe is this: The man loves his ice cream..... In my house, there is a partial ban on fruit-flavored ice creams; like the writer Anne Fadiman, I feel there shouldn't even be a hint of anything "healthy" in an ice-cream flavor. The only legitimate options are the...

 Joshua Henry's impending Tony win has me thinking about "Violet"--the one and only show to place Henry next to Sutton Foster. In "Violet," Henry plays Flick, a somewhat conflicted young sergeant traveling through North Carolina on a Greyhound bus. It's the 1960s; several people on the bus are praying. One hopes for domestic harmony; another wants a "successful" visit to a faith healer. By contrast, Flick *argues* with God. Too bad we don't see eye to eye, Lord-- We could pass the time of day. Flick befriends the titular character, who claims that her faith healer will repair her damaged face. (Violet has suffered a terrible accident involving an axe.) Flick--having grown up impoverished and Black in the 1950s--immediately understands Violet's anger. He offers advice (and we suspect that, on some level, he is really advising himself): My family never had too much-- Made the best of every day. Ate what's on our plate, you know-- Never th...

  Tom Perrotta is a name I'll always notice; among his novels, "The Wishbones," "Election," "The Leftovers," and "Joe College" are my favorites.  Perrotta's special skill is his ability to describe moments of mundane discomfort. We all live through these moments; we just don't commit them to the blank page. In the new novel, "Ghost Town," a young man, Jimmy, meets a stranger and bluntly concedes that his mother has just died. But then he thinks he sounds glib, so he offers a few sentences about his mourning. And he realizes that the sentences might be what they (in fact) are: nervous, meaningless throat-clearing. Life goes on. "Ghost Town" is set in Garwood (called "Creamwood"), NJ, in the 1970s. Everyone is white; everyone smokes cigarettes. A dispute might involve a schoolteacher and a hippie at the local McDonald's. "I understand your  flat feet  kept you out of Vietnam...." In this small...