Liars and Saints

One of my all time favorite story songs is: "I Had Myself a True Love," by Johnny Mercer. Mercer ranks among the great American songwriters. In "I Had Myself a True Love," the speaker, who has lost her man to a gal in "that damn old saloon," tells us a bit about coping with despair. https://www.google.com/search?q=audra+mcdonald+i+had+myself&oq=audra+mcdonald+i+had+myself&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60.2947j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 The speaker informs us, casually, that this guy was a looker, "something to see." The speaker spends her days plotting ways in which she might get this guy back. Meanwhile, cruel tongues wag; everyone in town indulges in spiteful gossip about the speaker's sorrow; "the Lord knows I done heard those backyard whispers goin' round the neighborhood." The song--which started with a reference to "the first thing in the morning"--builds to a climactic dinner scenario. "In th...

We found a house. It's at 67 Maplewood. This is where I imagine I will be for at least the next eighteen years. Maplewood, NJ, has a charming downtown with a functional bookstore; the new releases aren't immediately available, as they would be at the Strand, but if you wait a few days, then they're available. You purchase two hundred dollars in reading, and you get a free book. This is a store that feels no need to carry Anita Brookner--not one Brookner!--and it's also pretty skimpy in the Philip Roth department. But I'm coming. (Actually, I don't plan to complain about the Brookner or Roth issue.) Joshua now sleeps in a crib with a small central "nest." If you poke your tongue out at him, he will reciprocate, but he seems to need to open his mouth wide to get the tongue out, and the tongue will be visible for maybe half a second. Just a tiny slice of tongue. Joshua can also smile. The musical finale of "Transparent"--a widely-panned ...

I don't always love "The Crown." It's not as tight as "The Queen." (Also, could Peter Morgan work on his titles?) "The Crown" sometimes wants to tie things together in a way that feels hammy. There is excessive tidiness. I felt this way in an early episode about smog and a later one about a visit from JFK. And--as in many other Netflix series--there's often a sense of bagginess. You sometimes want to ram your head into a wall and ask, "Did this episode really need to be SIXTY MINUTES long?" I wanted to say that because there's so much "The Crown" does well, the reverence it inspires can be "too much." We should hold "The Crown" to higher standards, for the sake of "The Crown." The new teaser trailer is what you would expect. The writers need to acknowledge that Olivia Colman has replaced Claire Foy. They show Colman scrutinizing a formal portrait. (We're reminded of the famous ...

Here is the thing that Ann Patchett does extraordinarily well. It's a contrarian thing. Writing about owning a dog, Patchett recalls all the people who approached her and said, "That's just a surrogate! You really are rehearsing for having a baby!" Coolly, Patchett observes, "This is incorrect." She leaves unstated: "Take your sexist laziness and shove it up your ass." There's a tension required for that kind of understatement--and the tension is the thing that keeps you glued to the page. How to get married: Make a mess of your first marriage. Find yourself shaking and permanently scarred. Next: Date a man for eleven years. Be sure he is fifteen years older than you. Insist that you will never, never marry. When your boyfriend has a life-threatening heart incident, find yourself getting married. In her new novel, "The Dutch House," Patchett has two main characters disinherited. They have access only to a trust-for-education. So...

For most of my life, I've been drawn to scary stories, and so the Broadway musical has been home for me. Even in shows that are not overtly or consistently scary, ghosts tend to play a role: *Fiddler on the Roof (the "Dream" sequence) *Next to Normal (the entire show) *Les Miserables (Fantine jumps back from the Land of the Dead, among others) *Miss Saigon (You thought Thuy was *fully* dead?) *Carousel (See Act Two) *Into the Woods (Keep an eye on the Baker's Wife) *Sunday in the Park with George (Keep an eye on Dot) *Hamilton (See the finale, which borrows from "Les Miserables") *Caroline, or Change (I'd argue that the talking statue of the Confederate soldier functions as a ghost) *Dear Evan Hansen (See the entirety of the show) *Ragtime (See "Sarah Brown Eyes") *Once on This Island (I'd argue that Daniel--right after the car accident--is a kind of ghost for Ti Moune, even though Daniel does also eventually wake up, in a prop...

My understanding about Kate DiCamillo is that she moved to the midwest at some point in adulthood--and, bored, wrote a novel to begin entertaining herself. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I think--also--that that novel was "Because of Winn Dixie," which won awards and launched DiCamillo on her career. Gripes first. DiCamillo is a bit sugary. She is not the master of subtlety that Kevin Henkes is. She has never made me laugh, as far as I recall, and so she is not Beverly Cleary. But there are several things DiCamillo does very well: *She underlines life's randomness. In "Winn Dixie," a little girl meets a stray dog at a grocery store; store name becomes dog name; the story begins. In a somewhat hackneyed way, Winn Dixie's travels through a new town help the girl to meet a ragtag group of friends, and the struggles of these friends become the novel. *DiCamillo makes lively characters and gives them high-stakes situations. The narrator of "Winn Dix...

There is a book entitled "Everyone Brave Is Forgiven." This makes me think of Fleabag. She is a wreck, yes, but she is brave. A wreck? She shtups her best friend's boyfriend. That friend then ends up dead--so "resolution" isn't a possibility. (Maybe resolution isn't often a possibility.) Brave? Fleabag tries to rebuild her life. She pursues funding for her little cafe. (This doesn't end well; Fleabag actually flashes her bra at her interviewer, and she is promptly dismissed.) Fleabag enters therapy; she reads the Bible (her jaw drops, frequently); she visits some kind of "healing commune"; she begins refusing offers of empty sex (though you can see the pain this refusal causes her, written across her face). All the while, Fleabag is able to laugh at herself, and so she is different from many people. Aware of Fleabag's spotty past, one friend says, "I thought you'd be in prison by now." Chuckling, Fleabag says, "...

*TimeOut London says that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s greatest musical is “Evita.” I disagree. I’d put “Joseph” at number one. I’d go that route even though TimeOut says “Joseph” is number three. *”Joseph” just seems to have better material. Heaven knows that the Old and New Testaments are inconsistent—in terms of storytelling skill—but who could fail to get excited by Joseph? Fraternal rage! Rising from the ashes! Shadowy conspiracy! Meetings with Pharaoh! Dream interpretation! Tense reunions! *”Joseph” also has the bounciest Tim Rice couplets, which sometimes make me think of Dorothy Parker. “And when Joseph graced the scene, his brothers turned a shade of green!” “I look handsome; I look smart. I am a walking work of art!” “After that, the future doesn’t look so bright….Egypt’s luck will change completely overnight…” *All that said, it seems worth tipping a hat to “Evita” right now, because Patti LuPone is returning to Broadway this year, and she is almost certain ...

My neighbor--a three-year-old--visits. She hands my son a polite missive: "HELLO BABY JOSHUA I AM NORA." My son sits quietly; his expression is neutral. And this seems OK with Nora; she decides to head home. *** At the bookstore, a woman points to the contents of my Bjorn. "That's a tiny baby!" she says. "I hope his mom is home napping!" Startled, I search for a response. Should I insist that I *am* the mother? Should I give a speech about gay history in America? Instead, I murmur, "Mom's at work...." Clearly concerned that I needed so long to form a simple sentence, the woman nevertheless smiles at me. "Good luck to you!" she says. She wanders off. *** At the hospital, after the delivery, a midwestern nurse approaches us. I'm on-guard; where and when will I detect homophobia? Am I ready for combat? The nurse beams. "You know," she says. "My son is gay. He is fifteen." My husband and I a...

In Cathleen Schine's new novel, "The Grammarians," one of the main characters admits she has very little interest in finding a job. Her main wish is to go jogging and then barricade herself indoors with a novel. I can relate. Here are some books currently generating interest, for me: *"Red at the Bone" (Woodson) *"My Name Is Lucy Barton" (Strout) *"The Comforters" (Spark) *"Because of Winn-Dixie" (DiCamillo) *"She Said" (Kantor, Twohey) *"Coventry" (Cusk) *"My Antonia" (Cather) *"He Knew He Was Right" (Trollope) *"At Weddings and Wakes" (McDermott) Who knows if I'll get to many of these before my work resumes. But: Are you looking for story ideas? Humbly submitted....Happy reading!

Two of my favorite characters in world literature are James Marshall's Hansel and Gretel. These two are crafty and resilient. Their greedy stepmother wants to kill them. Do the two kids give up? They do not. They use pebbles to find their way home. When Stepmom tries again, H and G use bread crumbs. When squirrels eat the bread crumbs, and when an evil witch intervenes, H and G persist. G decodes the witch's plot, uses her wiles, distracts the witch, saves her brother, and roasts her nemesis. Just constant badass-ery--start to finish. James Marshall--a gay man--seemed especially interested in subtext, secrets meanings, codes. Continuously, in "Hansel and Gretel," people are saying what they don't quite mean. "Come, little children, let's take a walk" -- in fact means, Your days are numbered. "Father, I'm just looking at my pigeon" -- in fact means, I'm checking on my own plot so that I don't get f**ed over . "You need t...

A few things transpired and pushed me to start a diary recently. It was necessary to note when my baby was eating, and in what quantities, and the habit of logging all that led me to start thinking. Also, I was remembering Glenn Close's mother. Apparently, when this person was dying, she said to her daughter--to Glenn--"I didn't do anything with my life." And, also, because of paternity leave, I just had a great deal of time on my hands. Because I like rules, and especially arbitrary rules, I decided that each entry had to fill two pages. Thoughts could be as banal as: "The sky is blue." I would try to include some observations about the baby every morning. The writing is really bad; it's sometimes as dull as dishwater; it's often just sentence fragments. But a great deal is growing out of it. When I keep a diary, I remind myself of things I need to do. Writing a diary somehow led me to recall that my child didn't have a Halloween costu...

If you have a baby, your entertainment options are limited. You can't really go to the movies. You could *try* the movies; you could try, say, Richard Linklater's sloppy adaptation of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette." But your baby will revolt; your baby will know that the thing on-screen is *not* worth a ticket-holder's time. Your baby will poop halfway through--in a loud, obvious way--and the poop will seem to be a commentary on the story Linklater is halfheartedly telling. There won't be a changing table in the men's room, so you and your spouse will improvise with the hard (mostly clean?) countertop surrounding the sinks. You can take your infant to the Newark Museum--rich in history, oddly empty. But how many hours can you spend in the Newark Museum? My advice--whether you're looking for a house or not--is to go house-hunting. Your baby will enjoy this. If it's just a charade, then make up a name for yourself and don't think twice....

Cathleen Schine is often too clever, too cute, by half. Even her titles are irritating. They’re puns. “Alice in Bed” borrows from “Alice in Wonderland.” “The Three Weissmans of Westport” borrows from “The Three Wise Men.” “To the Birdhouse” borrows from “To the Lighthouse.” The new novel--“The Grammarians”--seems to borrow from Henry James, specifically “The Ambassadors,” “The Bostonians,” “The Americans.” (James is mentioned in the story.) But it’s possible Schine is thinking of Muriel Spark: “The Comforters,” “The Bachelors.” (Schine has said that she reads Spark--icy, relentless Spark--when she feels she is in danger of becoming sentimental.) “The Grammarians” follows twin sisters who have an obsessive love of language. They grow up; one becomes a Kindergarten teacher, and the other becomes a copy editor. Their love of words leads to surprising further developments. The copy editor morphs into an Ann Landers-esque columnist, whose focus is words and how to use them. This edito...

A great thrill of fatherhood has been using the Amazon gift card to splurge on picture books. Here is what I went with, and I guess it's my canon (though I hadn't realized this, earlier): *Henkes: "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" *Lobel: "The Complete Frog and Toad" *Waber: "The Complete Lyle Lyle Crocodile" *Ungerer: "Eight Picture Books" (including "The Three Robbers") *Keats: "The Snowy Day" *Van Allsburg: "Two Bad Ants" *Marshall: "The Complete George and Martha" *Dr. Seuss: "The Cat in the Hat" *De Paola: "Strega Nona" *Steig: "Dr. De Soto" It's especially fun to buy books for a baby, because there's none of the guilt generally attached to a spending spree. You don't have to worry about being overly self-indulgent. You can say to yourself: " I'm buying these for my child ." My adult love of picture books began with the wri...

People are complaining about "It: Chapter Two"--easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen--and they're specifically complaining about the murder scene at the start. Here's what happens. A gay couple--one-half of which is played by the celebrated young French filmmaker Xavier Dolan, actually gay--has some fun at a county fair. One guy wins a stuffed animal, then immediately gives it to the little girl standing nearby (signaling to us, in the audience, that he is a good person and certainly doesn't deserve to be assaulted by hoodlums). There's a gay kiss; local hoodlums object; Xavier Dolan is too outspoken and sassy in his response; Xavier Dolan ends up murdered (and actually half-eaten by an evil alien-clown, who appears in the final seconds of the vignette). The main objection is that all of this is gratuitous; it feels like the filmmaker is exploiting real-world tragedies for a cheap scare; there's certainly very little interest in the two ...

Of all the books we received, only one came in duplicate. My husband and I received two copies of "The Giving Tree." This book has a vexed history. Shel Silverstein, a real weirdo and a strong critic of tales-with-morals, might really have wanted to depict sadism and masochism. He might have wanted just to show two odd ducks who find each other, and who get off on giving and taking. He might not have wanted to deliver a lecture to parents. But "The Giving Tree" has been co-opted. There's now an idea that you, as the parent, should be the relentlessly martyred tree; you should offer your branches, your leaves, your apples, your trunk to the rapacious child, until there's only a little nub of you left. This is why "The Giving Tree"--beloved in some corners--is also one of the most hated books in America. I have, also, a book where the mother bear continuously deprives herself for the baby. "I am your wait," she says to her baby. ...

It's fall. Here's what is happening at 16 Walnut Court. *I pitched an editor at "Out." I have some "gay ideas." A piece on the legend Val McDermid, who is publishing *both* fiction *and* a book of essays ("My Scotland") this year. A piece on Judy Garland, and on Judy-by-way-of-Renee-Zellweger. A collection of musings on gay-dad-hood. These are good ideas. We'll see. *Baby Joshua is making tentative steps toward sleep-training. Right now, he wakes up around 3:30 am, fusses for approximately five minutes, then wins his reward for having (briefly) delayed gratification. Go, Joshua! *My husband and I are plunging into the house-hunting world. Sort of. It's difficult to envision packing boxes and hauling ourselves elsewhere, around Christmas, when we have a small human chatting in the background. But the visions are coming. They are starting to form. In the world of entertainment, I'm most excited by: *Books: The Reign of the Middl...

How to see a job through to completion. Dear Baby: A friend of ours is entering the first grade. He hates it. He has a hard time leaving his mom everyday. I understand. I don't love going to work. At best, it's mildly diverting. Most of the time: It's dull. But I've collected some thoughts on work, and these thoughts have helped me for years, and here they are: * Sometimes, you just have to do the tap-dance. I assisted a second-grade teacher who did not believe that learning needed to be a continual source of amazement. This second-grade teacher would look a kid straight in the eye and say: "Occasionally, life requires you to learn and perform a tap-dance, whether you want that or not. Just do the tap-dance." Truer words man never speak. * It's important to bribe yourself. Entire tomes have been written about the importance of "intrinsic motivation." Earnest tomes--with PhDs in the offing. When this is the case, you know the movement ...

Her Hits, Ranked (Weakest to Greatest) (4) "The Man That Got Away." I think this song would not fare well if it were released today, because it really isn't a self-empowerment anthem. But I love how desperate the heroine is. She just wants her man back! Who could fail to relate? I particularly like when the heroine attempts self-delusion: "Good riddance! Goodbye! Every trick of his you're on to... But fools will be fools. And WHERE'S HE GONE TO? I also love the repetition of "up." "With hope you burn up....tomorrow, he might turn up...THERE'S JUST NO LET-UP...!" Take THAT, Cardi B! (3) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I'm no great fan of Oz. And heaven knows this song is over-used. Also, how serious is the speaker? Does Dorothy really think there's a land "above the chimney tops"? In other words, is she struggling with lunacy? In any case, I like the troubles "melting like lemon-drops." And ...

We tend to create our own problems--and no one makes this point better than Lilly, maybe my favorite character in all of children's literature. (Certainly up there with Ramona.) Lilly the mouse gets a purple plastic purse and brings it to school, and the purse, once a great gift, soon becomes a nemesis. Lilly feels her purse isn't winning adequate attention, so she becomes more and more desperate in her spotlight-seeking efforts. Disciplinary action is required. "Lilly's Big Day"--which counts as Kevin Henkes's magnum opus--has Lilly's teacher getting married off. Lilly believes she is entitled to a role as flower girl, and when she learns she has been shafted, she struggles mightily. Who could fail to empathize with a child learning that she is not the center of the universe? A child learning that a crushed desire is not the end of the world? And why hadn't someone--before Henkes--thought to make this particular problem the subject of a story? B...

*If you're working with tomato paste, there's an easy way to get it out of the can. I didn't invent this. You remove *both* the top *and* the bottom of the can, then you use the detached top as a kind of broom: The top sweeps the paste out of the cylinder, directly into your Crock Pot! This is among the greatest things I've ever learned. *There's nothing more therapeutic than a crime-story podcast and a bit of food prep. Something about the sinister-music and spice-measuring combo is deeply satisfying. *An entire world exists in which people write short essays about "kooky memories with broccoli," and then at the end of the essay, there's a recipe. I'm not sure everyone should be doing this. Not everyone writes like Ruth Reichl. But you can almost always skip the essay; there's generally a "jump to recipe" button. *People also go online to publish their guilty thoughts about paternity leave/maternity leave. Many people write, ...

"Killings" -- Andre Dubus -- On the August morning when Matt Fowler buried his youngest son, Frank, who had lived for twenty-one years, eight months, and four days, Matt’s older son, Steve, turned to him as the family left the grave and walked between their friends, and said: “I should kill him.” He was twenty-eight, his brown hair starting to thin in front where he used to have a cowlick. He bit his lower lip, wiped his eyes, then said it again. Ruth’s arm, linked with Matt’s, tightened; he looked at her. Beneath her eyes there was swelling from the three days she had suffered. At the limousine Matt stopped and looked back at the grave, the casket, and the Congregationalist minister who he thought had probably had a difficult job with the eulogy though he hadn’t seemed to, and the old funeral director who was saying something to the six young pallbearers. The grave was on a hill and overlooked the Merrimack, which he could not see from where he stood; he looked at the oppo...

How to set the table. Brace yourself. We're not great at this one. Here's what I'll say to you, Joshua. Let's imagine you've been home with your husband for one full month: You're both on paternity leave. Let's say you're both a bit anxious. This means your conversations might begin to resemble the following: DADDY: Do you think it's safe to take a family trip to the beach? PAPA: Do you think the night nurse will murder our baby? In this context, you're maybe going to need an intermission from conversation. So dinner maybe doesn't need to be a Victorian affair, with salad forks and swan-shape napkin-folding. No. Dinner needs to be a hasty moment of carnage, and it needs to occur with the Paul Giamatti soap opera BILLIONS playing in the background. You're sitting on a couch with a paper plate, and maybe--MAYBE--one item of silverware is involved. Or maybe you're using your fingers. Your spouse believes that the dog can be ...

Slate ran a piece on Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and weight loss. You can find it here: https://slate.com/culture/2019/08/taylor-swift-diary-entries-body-image-beyonce-diet.html The piece complains about certain interviews and written statements. In these statements, both Beyonce and Swift have confessed to worrying about their bodies. The writer wonders if these confessions are calculated: Are Beyonce and Swift publicly wringing their hands over calories in a capitalist effort to seem more relatable? Then, the writer says, even though she can't be sure that this is what is happening, she finds the possibility saddening. End of piece. One thing that bugs me: The writer doesn't really make a distinction between Beyonce and Swift. Beyonce apparently says, in a recent documentary, that re-attaining a certain ideal weight after a pregnancy is a huge achievement (for her--for Beyonce, personally). I do find this irritating. I find it irritating because there doesn't seem to be ...