Liars and Saints

 "The Amateur" is the story of Mira, who will almost certainly be a character on the big screen within the next few years. Like Christina Ricci in "The Ice Storm," Mira is a teen in an affluent suburb in the 1970s. No one watches her very closely (and this is a problem). Having survived an attempted assault, Mira goes after her attacker. She is a skilled golfer; she destroys the guy's car with a 9-iron. She does not explain the context surrounding her behavior--the world has never been very welcoming to victims of assault, and the world of the 1970s is especially problematic. So Mira acquires a reputation for being "troubled." Then the story takes a turn unlike any other turn I've seen in any novel. Mira is practicing her swing in one of those enormous "golf tents" you see here and there--next to a row of batting cages. The owner of the tent has not followed instructions. A tent should be installed in an area that adjoins a wall; instead,...

  There is that peculiar strain of masochism -- the strain that leads parents to host kiddo parties free of alcohol, free of sunlight, free of food. Last weekend, my family went to "the Funplex," a kind of dungeon in which small children assault one another with foam bricks. "You can tell times have changed," said one dad. "Now, all the arcade games are, like, virtual reality games." I would rather eat glass than participate in this conversation. "So crazy!" I said. "Times change!" What a relief it is to have pop music. At some point, Carly Rae Jepsen's breakout hit began to play. Really charming. What people fail to note is that the music video is icing on the cake -- Carly Rae falls for a local guitarist but discovers, in the climactic moments, that he is gay. I would cross a lake of fire for Carly Rae Jepsen. She is now working on a musical with Lena Dunham. At the party, Sunday, there were exactly zero dads who could discuss thi...

  Nothing matters except character development. In "The Widow's Broom," an actual broom takes center stage. It once belonged to a witch. But it lost its power to fly. That doesn't mean it has fully lost its magic--it can still sweep on its own, play the piano, and chop wood. It can also feed the chickens. At least from Salem onward, stories involving witches have tended to touch on gender politics. In "The Widow's Broom," the men among the townspeople despise the broom. They find it unnerving. By contrast, the women notice that the broom is quite helpful with domestic chores. The broom's new owner--Minna, a widow--becomes inspired by the broom's resourcefulness. She plays a "witchy" trick to ensure that she will have the future that she actually wants. I live in a small town, and I sometimes deal with meanness and stupidity (and this is often when I'm communicating with someone who works within my son's school district). To me, ...

  The Times had a terrific piece about Madonna's dance career this weekend. A friend of Madonna's--Stephen Sondheim--was especially fond of Madonna's sense of self-discipline. The NYT supports Sondheim's verdict. For me, the Times helped to "reposition" one of the classic Madonna numbers, "Express Yourself." (It's stunning to me that--for four music videos--Madonna's team selected a director who would go on to make "Panic Room," "Mindhunter," and "Zodiac." Can any other pop star claim anything like that?) The film for "Express Yourself" was--in its day--among the most expensive music videos ever made. It is a "dystopian industrial pop epic influenced by Fritz Lang." On its surface, the song seems to borrow from Merry Clayton: "If you wanna know if he loves you so...it's in his kiss." But it's a bit less passive than Merry Clayton. "He" has to express himself--but ...

I love this painting at the Met. I know nothing about Georges de La Tour. I do know that this painting was completed sometime around 1630. The reason I love it is that it is a narrative about transgression. Like the writer Patrick Radden Keefe, I think a story is useless unless it involves a crime. (Maybe that's overly dramatic, but it's pretty close to what I think.) A crime involves role-playing--you have to feign being someone you're not, if you want to stage a coverup--and role-playing leads to odd behaviors. I will always have fond memories of "Better Call Saul" because of Kim Wexler. Wexler's criminal ambition takes her farther and farther from "the truth"--then, after a massacre, she has to try to atone for what she has done. Georges de La Tour's "Fortune Teller" has a straightforward story. An elderly woman offers to read a palm. While the "mark" is distracted, a band of thieves gets to work on a pocket-picking mission...

  Arthur Miller wrote "Death of a Salesman" in a kind of dream-state; the play seemed to spill out of him. This was *not* a product of years and years of toil. Charley's famous speech is an analysis of Willy's career. A salesman doesn't have a practical skill--a salesman is really selling himself. In a superficial world, appearance and youth have great weight. There can be a moment when the world decides it does not want you; you become invisible. (This seemed to happen to a neighbor of mine--who could no longer afford the house she grew up in. She was falling behind with her taxes; the town chose to drum her out of her home, and she attempted suicide. It's still strange to me that there was no other "solution" to the problem.) Oddly, Charley's speech seems to be about Arthur Miller himself. After the Marilyn Monroe fiasco, Miller lost his standing in American culture. "The Crucible" and "A View From the Bridge" found some Ame...