Liars and Saints

 "Down Time"--by a writer I love, Andrew Martin--is a novel in which very little happens. It's almost shocking that something so "unresolved" still found a publisher. On the website "Book Marks," literary novels rarely earn a "pan" designation. But one magazine did actually "pan" this book. And yet I really liked "Down Time." The center is Aaron, a gifted writer of short stories who is drinking himself to death. "I think I might need to go back to a place," he says to his spouse, Cassandra, after having thrown himself into a bonfire at a party. But, in rehab, Aaron meets a troubled young man, Xavier, and discovers that he (Aaron) enjoys gay sex (first exclusively on the top, but ultimately in every possible position). In the months after rehab, Aaron continues to see Xavier but keeps this a secret from Cassandra. The disturbed marriage endures several months in a "pandemic pod" with Aaron's stepmoth...

 We went to the Museum of the American Indian, in Bowling Green. It's not great. There is far too much text; also, the announcement that my child's small stuffed dinosaur required an anti-terrorism X-ray scan struck me as just slightly silly. But the museum is free. My son was mostly intrigued by the bathrooms; he is deeply interested in the "men/women" distinction. By contrast, I did what I always do at museums; I pretended I owned all of the square acreage. "Welcome to my drawing room," I murmured, as I wandered through the rotunda. Perhaps I had not fully learned the lessons of Disney's "Pocahontas." ("You think you own whatever land you land on...The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim!") I see so many parents struggling to make this sort of experience "kid-friendly." How often I hear someone say, "You're going to notice something in this room! Put down that phone and notice something!" ...This always ...

 Like James Marshall, Tomie dePaola enjoyed fairy tales, nursery tales. DePaola gathered many of these into anthologies. (DePaola's attention span seemed limited, at least in this way.) An exception is the Cinderella story, which dePaola uses for a full-length book. His twist is to move the story to Mexico. Mexican talavera-style tiles frame the pictures. Instead of a slipper, Cinderella has a rebozo, an important shawl. "Once upon a time" becomes "hace mucho tiempo...." DePaola--throughout his career--shows deep curiosity about the world's cultures; his works include explorations of Passover, the St. Patrick legend, Las Posadas, Hanukkah, the Queen Esther legend, the legend of the Persian carpet, the legend of the Indian paintbrush. It's easy to imagine why he chose Cinderella; like "Bluebonnet" or "Indian Paintbrush," "Adelita" features an oddball character who endures hardship without a loss of morale. I'm especially ...

 "Guys and Dolls" is so masterful, it's able to break the rules. Famously, it assigns its 11:00 number to a minor character. This is not "Rose's Turn." It's just a high-energy diversion shortly before the conclusion of the evening. Nicely-Nicely Johnson, an unreformed thug, needs to find a stalling tactic at a prayer meeting. So he imagines what a conversion experience *might* look like. And he does some playacting. I dreamed last night I got on the boat to Heaven-- And, by some chance, I had brought my dice along. And there I stood, and I hollered, "Someone, fade me." But the passengers, they knew right from wrong. This show is a celebration of language: "So nu?" "I got the horse right here," "Luck, be a lady tonight," "Take back your mink," "If I were a banner, I'd wave." I imagine Frank Loesser did a little dance of joy when he landed on the following: "Someone, fade me." And it...

 Curtis Sittenfeld made the ultimate pitch for "The Americans": You think it might be about geopolitics. Really, it's about marriage. This show has the great luck of enlisting two astonishing actors--Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys--who create a plausible version of a partnership under stress. She really believes in the Soviet cause; he has doubts. She wants to recruit her daughter for the family business; he does not. She has very little trouble toying with American lives; he seems (at least sometimes) haunted by the ethical implications of his bad behavior. A brilliant decision behind the show is this: Choose a foundational belief so deep, it would seem to justify evil. If you fully believed that the Soviet philosophy was "the only way," then wouldn't you do all you could to defeat the decadent American empire? Another thing I like is that no one cares whether we fall in love with the main characters. These two suburbanites are amazingly terrible; they are l...

 My son is learning to survive on the basketball court. This is entirely my husband's project; the effort sounds exhausting, and I admire the commitment of both gentlemen (Marc and Josh). Here is my limited understanding of basketball. It's potentially fun if you have the ball. (That said, I have vivid memories of being mocked for my effeminate approach to the "bank shot"--and I'm so, so happy that I never have to play this game again.) Basketball is *not* fun when you are *waiting* for the ball--and this is where Josh stumbles. He grows bored. He tries to steal the ball even when it is in the hands of a teammate. Josh's cleverness is such that he chooses the exact behavior to make the most people upset in the shortest amount of time. The other day at the Newark Museum, he had grown tired, and he knew he would have trouble competing with the fabulous artifacts of the Ballantine House. So he said, "Look, I took my pants off." And--yes--that *did* catc...