Liars and Saints

I don't like your little games Don't like your tilted stage The role you made me play Of the fool, no, I don't like you I don't like your perfect crime How you laugh when you lie You said the gun was mine Isn't cool, no, I don't like you (oh!) But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time I've got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined I check it once, then I check it twice, oh! Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do I don't like your kingdom keys They once belonged to me You asked me for a place to sleep Locked me out and threw a feast (what?) The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma And then the world mov...

"I am not a pest," Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.  "Then stop acting like a pest," said Beezus, whose real name was Beatrice. She was standing by the front window waiting for her friend Mary Jane to walk to school with her. (It’s like “Antigone”! The definition of a tragedy is a fight in which both sides are correct. Re-reading the opening of “Ramona the Pest” is so therapeutic for me, because people in my workplace behave like children and create melodramas on an hourly basis. I think Katy Perry and Taylor Swift would also benefit from a re-reading of "Ramona.") "I'm not acting like a pest. I'm singing and skipping," said Ramona, who had only recently learned to skip with both feet. Ramona did not think she was a pest. No matter what others said, she never thought she was a pest. The people who called her a pest were always bigger and so they could be unfair. Ramona went on with her singing and skipping. "This i...

Hey, I was doing just fine before I met you I drink too much and that's an issue but I'm okay Hey, you tell your friends it was nice to meet them But I hope I never see them again I know it breaks your heart Moved to the city in a broke down car And four years, no calls Now you're looking pretty in a hotel bar And I can't stop No, I can't stop So baby pull me closer in the backseat of your Rover That I know you can't afford Bite that tattoo on your shoulder Pull the sheets right off the corner Of the mattress that you stole From your roommate back in Boulder We ain't ever getting older We ain't ever getting older We ain't ever getting older You look as good as the day I met you I forget just why I left you, I was insane Stay and play that Blink-182 song That we beat to death in Tuscon, okay I know it breaks your heart Moved to the city in a broke down car And four years, no call Now I'm looking pretty in a hotel ba...

A main thing I get to do in this blog is to persuade you to see big cultural touchstones in new ways. So, for example, that's what I hope I did with "I Will Always Love You" and "Annabelle: Creation." But then I also sometimes want to evangelize on behalf of a movie no one has seen. Here, my job is a little easier. I don't have to advance a bold new interpretation of the movie "Columbus" because I feel certain no one reading this post has seen the movie "Columbus." I can simply tell you about it, and the telling will feel new. When I was a senior in high school, I was weird and curious. I knew a great deal of data about theater. I didn't have an intense desire to go away to college, and actually the one and only college I looked at was a distraction; it was a detour on a trip to see "Miss Saigon" in New York City. Mainly, I wanted to see "Miss Saigon." The college I chose was a college I'd never visited; I ha...

A brutal war between a cat and a fish. The cat intrudes on the ordinary world--a rainy day, too wet for running around, too cold for a game of catch. Two children sit and stare at the rain; their mother has inexplicably abandoned them for the day. (These were simpler times.) The cat in the hat generally wants to be excitable and annoying; he balances rakes and cakes and fans on his various appendages while bouncing on a ball. (The cat might represent a child's id. Also, Seuss is working with a twist on the language of primers. Dull learn-to-read books might say, "Pat the cat." But Seuss says: "I can work with monosyllabic words and *still* make a gripping story. I'm going to put the cat in a fucking hat." As far as I know, there is one main two-syllable word in the duration of the "The Cat in the Hat." That word is "Mother.") The fish--the superego--does not really like this cat. (My sympathies are with the fish.) The abusive cat dangle...