Liars and Saints

"Anastasia," our heroine, makes us think of the fabled long lost Romanov, who might have wandered America after the Russian Revolution. (Indeed, Anastasia Steele does seem like a former princess, rediscovering her own greatness in the course of the story. She goes from a frumpy, clumsy bookworm to a polished multi-trillionaire mistress of a vast domain. That last name--"Steele"--points to the strength of her character, and Johnson does play her as a kind of superhero.) The name "Christian" gives to the franchise's hero an aura of otherworldliness. And then the last name "Grey" suggests shadows, mysteries, skeletons in the closet, "grey areas." (Say what you will about E.L. James: There's a reason she now has enough money to purchase your soul, and several small islands, and still have heaps of gold in the bank.) The first "Fifty Shades" movie told a smart, diverting Hero's-Journey tale. Anastasia leaves her Ord...

The affairs-in-on-the-market- housing plot feels trite; it doesn't go anywhere. The rude-behavior-at-a-funeral bit also feels a bit tired; Larry David covered this terrain, and covered it more memorably, when he had "Seinfeld" characters making out during "Schindler's List." But for every misfire there are so many successes. Who but Larry David would think to dramatize that moment when you make an assumption about a lesbian couple, w/r/t which is the "bride," which is the "groom"--? A certain high-minded publication found this subplot dated, but good grief. That's absurd. Who but LD would notice the special indignation you feel when your ex-wife calls her new boyfriend "T," instead of "Ted"? (This leads to the very funny section in which Elizabeth Banks begins calling Larry "Elvid," an--intentionally--unfortunate play on "J-Law," or "J-Lo.") Who among us hasn't wondered, in pa...

Almost every conversation about, or pertaining to, the two young men involves misdirection and/or subtext. When the father- Michael Stuhlbarg- wants to comfort his son post-affair, he can't bring up the affair explicitly, and that bit of delicacy makes the scene that much weirder, more tender, and more heartbreaking. Elio relishes an early moment when he has power over Oliver; Oliver has requested a certain song on the piano, and Elio won't play it, or won't play it in the manner Oliver has requested. The song is meant to be soothing; Elio plays it abrasively, in a jumpy way, partly because that's the state he's in, and then partly because there's power in not giving someone what that someone wants. The frustration means increased attention from the frustrated person. In place of a straightforward declaration of love, Oliver will eat the semen out of Elio's  "violated" peach. (Elio has been listlessly half-reading "Heart of Darkness"...

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the "Little House" series late in life. Among other things, it's an expression of longing for all she had lost. It's also a civics lesson: Wilder felt that children needed a tale about stoicism, courage, and honesty. ("You think you have it bad here in the twentieth century? At times, in my childhood, I lived in a hut.") Wilder channeled her father's spirit to write the books; Papa Ingalls had been a natural storyteller. The stories skip over much that is painful and make Papa Ingalls into more of a paragon than he really was. Laura Ingalls Wilder, so scornful of the New Deal, so insistent on doing-it-yourself, did not dwell on the many occasions when her father gratefully accepted (and did not repay) assistance from neighbors, and when he skipped out on a debt. The novels are "Little House on the Big Woods" (the move happens when Laura is five, though in real life, she was three; oddly, LIW would say, "Everythin...

Marc has been reading all about doggie smells. He is considering getting on all fours to smell alongside Salvy--to experience the world as Salvy smells it. (A dog's olfactory talent is supreme, such that one cinnamon bun is like ten trillion cinnamon buns, for the nose of a dog.) Marc learned that dogs wag their tails, perhaps subconsciously, to circulate their own scent; they want to send their anal odors out into the universe. This, I guess, is like a bird singing; when you're excited or happy, you want to make your presence known. You can do that with sound. You can do that with chemical emissions. I don't know how you'd prove that that's what a dog is up to, when he is wagging his tail. But I did think about "the smell book" as Salvy wagged--and wagged and wagged--this morning. *** On to Taylor Swift. Taylor's "Kanye West" storytelling is such a well-oiled machine, the work almost seems facile. "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice...

A few other reasons to praise Val McDermid: 1. The descriptive writing. Sometimes Karen's need to walk herself to sleep was thwarted by the weather. This was one of those nights. A sharp east wind drove in from the Baltic, cutting through clothes like a skinner's knife, carrying bitter gouts of rain that stung the skin like flying nettles. She could have quartered the city on the night buses, but she'd learned from experience that that didn't satisfy her need for movement. Instead, she made a cup of tea and settled down at her laptop. It was a picture of warmth and cosiness. But if she got too comfortable, a turn of her head would bring the sea into sight, white horses topping the heavy swell that hit the sea wall with jagged towers of spray. You could build walls against the wild, but you could never ignore its presence. The "white horses," the "jagged towers of spray," "gouts of rain," "flying nettles," "skinner's...

Val McDermid has written thirty novels. Thirty! She's still chugging along. At some point around five or ten years ago, she realized her time was limited, and she had a great burst of productivity; recently, there has been non-fiction ("Forensics"), a brisk re-telling of a Jane Austen story ("Northanger Abbey"), and at least one new Tony Hill/Carol Jordan saga. (Like her hero, PD James, McDermid is obsessed with Austen. And did you see there is yet another posthumous PD James volume out now? It's a collection of stories, not to be confused with the other excellent posthumous collection, "The Mistletoe Murder." My cup runneth over!) People say your adolescent obsessions are the things you'll write about with the most fervor, throughout the entirety of your life, and that's true for me; at sixteen, I was delighted by murder mysteries, and at thirty-five, I'm still delighted. Notice how much McDermid has happening within the first forty ...

"There is only sex, love, and death." Someone said that once, in reference to storytelling, and do you see how much mileage "Insecure" gets out of sex? A big twist, in Season Two, is Issa growing tired of her own "ho-tation." She has learned some new oral sex moves in the "Sexplosion" sex-toy party, and they're just a bit too effective. Daniel, in the midst of receiving a blow job, sprays his ejaculate all over Issa's face. (Comedy writer Jessi Klein says that sex in the age of internet porn is very different from sex in the mid nineties. In the mid nineties, you were unlikely to get semen dumped on your head. She says, when you encounter this phenomenon, as you are toweling off, you might ask, "What made you want to do that? Where did you get the idea? How do you think I feel?" And the answer to the first two questions is "porn." And the answer to number three is generally: "I don't know or care.") Mol...

One day, a stranger allowed his dog to get too rough with Salvy, and Marc shouted some harsh words. And the stranger said, "Good God! He's only playing! Don't you know what rough-housing is?" And Marc walked away, though the exchange clearly continued to plague him. How do you move on briskly--when something awkward has happened, and neither party is left "covered in glory"? (I would get especially irritated at the timid strangers who would seem to half-encourage Salvy to get playful, and then would feign terror when Salvy got a bit jumpy. "Relax! He's a harmless puppy," I'd mumble, and then, more quietly: "Fuck off." Adult humans can exist in a kind of self-obsessed fog; even when they're talking to each other, a certain invisible mist will erase the possibility of a real connection. Puppies won't tolerate that. They will get into your space. They will lick your chin--whether or not you're prepared or even awake. At ...

Sondheim has mixed feelings about the work he did for "West Side Story" (famously vanquished by "The Music Man" at the Tony Awards), but he's fond of "Something's Coming": Could be!  Who knows?  There's something due any day;  I will know right away,  Soon as it shows.  It may come cannonballing down through the sky,  Gleam in its eye,  Bright as a rose!  Who knows?  It's only just out of reach,  Down the block, on a beach,  Under a tree.  I got a feeling there's a miracle due,  Gonna come true,  Coming to me!  Could it be? Yes, it could.  Something's coming, something good,  If I can wait!  Something's coming, I don't know what it is,  But it is  Gonna be great!  With a click, with a shock,  Phone'll jingle, door'll knock,  Open the latch!  Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon;  Catch the moon,  One-handed catch!...

The last song on "Reputation" is justly praised: There's glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me from the night before, but Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared And you're turning away I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi I can tell that it's gonna be a long road I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe Or if you strike out and you're crawling home Don't read the last page But I stay when it's hard, or it's wrong Or we're making mistakes I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you Hold on to the memories, they ...

The big revelations from the new Woody Allen book: -Several experts have dismissed Dylan's story about having been abused. One of the Farrow children suggests that Dylan was coached by Mia in her story; this man recalls similar incidents in his own dealings with Mia. He suggests that Mia was unhinged, and that she established a climate of terror in her home. Regarding Soon Yi: Woody says, "I would run away with her again. It has been worth the attacks." (When actors such as Kate Winslet and Kristen Stewart say, "I work with him because of course I don't know whether he is guilty of molestation," I wonder why they don't say, "I work with him because there's a good deal of evidence to suggest he is *not* guilty of molestation"--? And I wonder if Lena Dunham has read "Start to Finish.") -Woody has multiple ideas going at once. He wrote "Magic in the Moonlight" and "Irrational Man" basically at the same time; h...