Liars and Saints

 I'm thrilled about Anthony Hopkins's second Oscar--I thought he was really a genius in "The Father"--but the news does mean that my guy, Christopher Plummer, is no longer the Oldest Actor-Win in history. I can accept this, but....coming so soon after Plummer's death.....it's a lot..... To tip a hat one more time, to Mr. Plummer, I just re-watched one of his last performances, in "Knives Out." This is among the best movies in recent years.  Christopher Plummer gets one big scene, and it's the realization that his beloved nurse has accidentally (maybe) given him a wrong injection. Plummer knows that he has just a few minutes to live. The nurse--the saintly Marta--flips her shit. But Plummer's character--Harlan Thrombey--is old and subversive and wise, and he knows that the important thing is to make intelligent use of the little time he has. Thrombey is a writer of brilliant crime novels, so he has many ideas for ensuring that Marta won't ...

 I really liked Katherine Heiny's new book, "Early Morning Riser," which is like a sexier, raunchier version of Anne Tyler. Heiny is interested in human behavior, in absurd moments that could happen in Jane Austen or happen in Curtis Sittenfeld; her work has a timeless quality.  Here, Heiny describes a married couple. The man was famously promiscuous before settling down. This creates an issue when the couple gets pregnant: What would they name the baby? Girls' names were problematic because Jane didn't want to give the baby the name of any of Duncan's old girlfriends, which meant they couldn't choose Ann, Annabel, Angela, Barbara, Brandy, Candy, Mandy, Mindy, Lindy, Cindy, Trudy, Judy, Jody, Jill, Jessica, Julie, Jennifer, Gina, Christina, Irina, Regina, Sabrina, Susan, Suzanne, Susannah, Sherry, Barrie, Carrie, Kerry, Mary, Michelle, Isabelle, Noelle, Gabrielle, Janelle, Danielle, Debbie, Denise, Darlene, Darcy, Marcy, or Vicki. And those were only the n...

 Jerry Pinkney removes the romance from "The Little Mermaid," and he doesn't really land the ending. (The mermaid gets separated from her terrestrial friend forever, which seems problematic.) But, anyway, I'm including some images here from Pinkney's book, because they're so stunning. The mermaid breaks the surface of the water--surrounded by flying fish, living exclamation points. A taskmaster turtle leads a reluctant girl to her chores. The sun seems to set the waves on fire. An undersea kingdom peaks out from behind a mess of bright coral and fish. "God is in the details"--and Pinkney clearly takes such care to invent all of the wrinkles on his weary turtle's neck. "Let form match content": The yellows surrounding the mermaid seem to suggest an explosion, when the mermaid pushes out of the water, up toward land. I still recommend this book, even if there are some choices I--as "storyteller"--wouldn't make.

What does it mean to move to suburbia? It means that suddenly Natalie Merchant becomes a big part of your life. If you're in NYC, then your local CVS is going to play up-to-date pop tunes; you may hear Cardi B, or new-ish Beyonce, or the Weeknd. But, here in Maplewood, it's often a trip back to my middle-school years. Trouble me.... Disturb me.... With all your cares....and your worries..... Speak to me.... Sometimes, when my new CVS is feeling especially progressive, we'll all take a bold leap forward to 2012, when Phillip Phillips won "American Idol." I'll be here! Don't pay no mind to the demons.... They fill you with fear! I'm willing to say, with confidence, that we never actually make it *past* 2012. On one level, I'm always happy to hear Natalie Merchant (I'm human!) ..... but I also feel a bit disheartened and embarrassed for Maplewood. I want us to try a bit harder. I feel like the heroine of a Penelope Fitzgerald novel, Florence Green...

 A new book on Hitchcock, "The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock," points out a problem in current critical writing. There's a habit of calling any suspense film "Hitchcockian." So SPLIT can be called "Hitchcockian." THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN can be called "Hitchcockian." The new book argues that something is very wrong here. SPLIT is *not* Hitchcockian because it's not funny. If you take away the humor, you lose the comparison. "Hitchcockian" must mean BOTH suspenseful AND funny. I think it's this unique blend that makes Hitchcock special; it's why viewers today will happily watch a Hitchock film, while rolling their eyes at many other proposed classics (according to Roger Ebert). Yesterday, Marc and I watched DIAL M FOR MURDER--not in Hitchcock's top tier, but still so much fun. The story is gripping. A sociopath worries his wife will leave him--and take her money--so he arranges for a killing. He finds a thug and black...

 This week's SVU explored--in several ways--the idea of empathy, the idea of listening. The first swift, brutal montage made me think of the famous opening of Pixar's "Up." A woman runs a successful restaurant in Tribeca; Covid hits. Cancellations filter in. The need for layoffs pops up. Demands for outdoor seating increase; our avatar can't afford the construction project, but she also can't leave things as they are. Mom gets sick. An in-law gets sick. Demands for rent pile up. An adolescent son won't listen to mask warnings; he goes out and parties. Death happens in a nursing home; final conversations happen via FaceTime. Blame gets passed around. A marriage cracks open. Our avatar pulls out a gun. All of this happens before the opening credits! The bulk of the hour is Oliva Benson's'; Benson needs to talk down the crazed restaurant-owner, Vanessa....down from "the ledge." This mostly involves being still. Vanessa makes her confessions:...

 "Yummers," a book by a gay man "about" dieting....strikes a chord with me. I'm not sure that James Marshall would write this book if he were just starting out today, because there is so much sensitivity around food, a sensitivity that maybe hadn't fully flowered back in the 1970s. Fine. But the book isn't *truly* about food. It's about self-deception. Emily Pig isn't feeling fully buoyant, so her friend Eugene Turtle suggests a nice, long, restorative walk. On the walk, however, Emily must stop every few yards for an ice cream sundae, a candied apple, an Eskimo pie, and so on. At one point, she says, "I feel awful. I can hardly finish my fried Oreo." Then she finishes her fried Oreo. The "health jaunt" ends with Emily confessing that she can't actually make the return trip home on two feet. "I'll take a cab," she says. "I'm just exhausted. It must have been all that walking." I like the turtle ...

 Some writers just "speak your language." I think Michael Connelly is almost incapable of being dull. "The Late Show," a novel from a few years ago, has three crazy stories. In one, a car salesman assaults a victim in his "upside-down house," a house with the bedrooms in the lower levels, below the kitchen and dining room. It's the phrase "upside-down house" that leads to a break in the case. In a second story, a bad cop murders an informant who is wearing a wire. An observer understands that a wire was involved--because of the particular scar on the corpse's chest. This is a scar you get only when the battery from your "wire contraption" becomes overheated. And--third--a man commits robberies with a stolen gun. The theft of the gun was never reported because--earlier--that same gun had been used in a double-murder. A thief is bad; a two-time killer is worse. It's the thief who "saves the day." Michael Connelly is ...

 I'm not sure a toddler haircut is ever easy, but the pandemic adds a special twist. How strange life is. I was on the phone with my grandmother, who was telling me about her first job. She had worked for a Buffalo mobster who owned a cab company. "He was kind, he often bought me lunch, and I worked there for years." As Grams and I pondered this--the cheery employer who was also maybe a murderer--I found my son was getting summoned to our back porch. Our visiting barber, a friendly, steely lady from Croatia, began her work. It was raining, so Josh, Marc, Mila, and I all tried to crowd under a semi-functional "sun umbrella," which soon became fully *dys* functional. It flapped around uselessly, as Josh screamed and kicked his little feet.  My response to a tantrum is to dissociate, and you can tell I'm doing this when I begin singing Audra McDonald tunes. These tunes will ostensibly "calm" Joshua--but he tends not to notice, or tends just to get lou...

 I raced through Kevin Henkes's new book yesterday, so these are just some first impressions. This is a subversive masterpiece. It's about ordinary life. No dragons appear. No geopolitical crises take shape. The book is about a kid awaiting third grade, living in an ordinary town, somewhere in the middle zones of the middle class. The book seems to be a response to Beverly Cleary; Henkes, who has been compared to the great master, seems to be talking with Ramona, and Willa Jean, and Mrs. Quimby. For example, as Ramona must care for the obnoxious Willa Jean, so Billy must care for his difficult little sister, Sal. As the later Ramona books are about a third child entering the family, so this new Billy book is about a third child entering the family. Like Cleary, Henkes mixes "inner" moments with striking scenes. Billy makes a wish for something interesting to happen, then guiltily feels he may have willed his neighbor to die. (The neighbor was 93.) Billy gets bored whe...

 It's National Poetry Month, so here's a poem Sondheim once wrote; the speaker is about to be married. Pardon me, is everybody here? Because if everybody's here I'd like to thank you all For coming to the wedding. I'd appreciate you going even more-- I mean, you must have lots of better things to do-- And not a word of it to Paul. Remember Paul? You know, the man I'm going to marry But I'm not, because I wouldn't ruin anything As wonderful as he is. Thank you all for the gifts and the flowers, Thank you all; now it's back to the showers..... Don't tell Paul, but I'm not getting married today. The speaker is a mess and thinks she is not entitled to marry. ("I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.") Though she would like to be courteous to her guests ("I'd like to thank you all for coming"), the speaker (Amy) also wants to clear the decks. This is a source of humor; Amy actually suggests...

 A great hero in kids' books is the titular hat, in Tomi Ungerer's "The Hat." This magical hat lands on the head of a sad man, down on his luck. The hat can't waste time on sadness. It begins performing tricks. It scoops up a falling cactus, thus sparing a wealthy duke under a high-rise window.  The hat rescues a purple puffbird, who has escaped from the zoo. The hat then blocks up a certain chimney, so that brigands are smoked out of a safe house. Without resting, the hat fills itself with water and puts out a small fire that has threatened to engulf a baby carriage. Our avatar, Badoglio, rewarded all over town for the feats of his hat, now hopes to find a lady love. His hat spots a wild horse, briefly blinds the horse, and allows Badoglio to rescue a carriage-passenger, a contessa. Love blossoms. The hat moves on to other adventures, possibly in Venice? The End. Leave it to Ungerer to get you rooting for the magic hat. I love the pacing, the cast of characters, ...

 I had mixed feelings about the "Younger" premier last night. I don't love the character Lauren, and I'm sad to see she is going to be claiming center stage (apparently). Lauren seems less like a character than like a billboard. She seems to be always saying, "I'm outrageous!" ....But what does she do that is outrageous? She dresses as an astronaut on her birthday....? That said, I loved seeing Laura Benanti as the villainess. "You're taking a role in that company? Good luck. Remember, I ran it once. Try dividing zero by zero...." I also enjoyed Benanti's bullying-by-fortune-cookie. "A fool follows her heart....There you have it." When Benanti's nemesis cracks a cookie and finds that it's empty, Benanti says, "This means you make your own fortune....Or you die young....I can't remember which!" She smiles. "Either way, you'll find out soon enough." Finally, I'm a fan of "Little Women...

 Howard Ashman's greatest achievement is possibly "Belle," the opening of "Beauty and the Beast." Disney would never create a song like this again--though the creative forces certainly *tried* to do just that, with "One Jump Ahead," from "Aladdin." Really, the only song I can recall that rivals "Belle" is *another* Ashman opener, "Skid Row," from "Little Shop." In "Skid Row," we meet two of the stars, and we hear of their issues, and at the same time we get a lively discussion of life in a depressed city. ("Downtown....where the cabs don't stop....downtown....where the food is slop....." "Where the guys are drips...." "Where they rip your slips....") "Belle" does three things quite well. First, it sets up Belle's story in a "meta" way. Belle tells us what will happen to her--and she does this through a discussion of a fairy tale she loves.......

 We're trying to introduce Josh to show tunes. For example, we've spent some time with a YouTube tribute to Jerry Herman. Josh will sometimes half-watch the tunes, and he will even drum on his chest in a rhythmic way. Mostly, though, he enjoys chewing on the corner of a cell-phone case, or ripping pages out of pop-up books. Our reading this week: *"Fog Island." Can you think of a better story? A crazed old man on an island has drilled a hole to the center of the Earth. Our planet's molten core meets and vaporizes little drops of sea-water--and this is why we have fog. *"A Swim." Lobel's masterpiece, about planning poorly and being mortified. Subversive and haunting moment for Frog and Toad. *"Snow White in New York." Fun with the colorful images, but also with the poisoned Cosmo, the seven "jazz-men," the Queen of the Underworld, the "Daily Mirror" ...... We (cautiously) look forward to "The Octopus Escapes," c...

 I'll look for any distraction I can find, at present, so here are three final bits about the Oscars (2021 edition): *Bizarre Oscar trivia delights me. For example, this year, we're celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Marcia Gay Harden's win. This is literally the only time in history that something like this happened. Harden didn't get a SAG nomination; she didn't get a Globe nomination. She went on to win the Oscar. Everyone thought Kate Hudson would get the prize. Harden thinks that Judi Dench was really pissed about the results. (Dench hasn't commented.) *I recognize the value of several of the nominees, but a big part of me continues to think that the year's best film was "The Invisible Man," and that the year's best performance was Elisabeth Moss, in "The Invisible Man." I watched this movie twice, with pleasure, and I really don't want to rewatch the Best Picture nominees (despite liking a few). Also, no screenwriting ...

 What a sick, twisted, interesting hour "SVU" produced--this past Thursday. The episode--"Welcome to the Pedo Motel"--touched on something that many people think about. (The topic was also the topic of a Russell Banks novel a few years ago.) Here's the question. What kind of life should be possible for a convicted pedophile? As Banks (I think) noted, the laws are so severe, the housing options are so limited, that many people convicted of this particular crime end up homeless, sleeping within the shadows of an overpass. SVU boldly observes that recidivism rates, in this context, are really quite low, much lower than people think. (Olivia Benson shrugs. "No one pays attention to that fact.") At its best, SVU makes us aware of complexity. So, in the "Pedo Motel," there is one guy who clearly doesn't deserve the hardships that have been dumped on him. At the same time, there's another guy, a creep, who spends his evenings watching "...

 I tend not to love Louise Penny books, and I thought the most recent one ("All the Devils Are Here") was particularly distasteful and irritating. I thought this because I found Gamache so tiresome; so relentlessly "correct"; so obviously superior to his son. Enough already. It was a relief to move on to Stephen King, who is a bit less pious. (I'm talking about King's new-ish novel, "Later.") Trust Stephen King to feature vomit, a grotesque reference to human-torture-by-means-of-blow-torch, ghosts wandering around with just half-a-head, OxyContin, bayou threesomes, drug-running evil cops, and a splash of incest. You don't really need to know the plot of "Later." Just trust that it has a wondrous, childlike quality, the way Stephen King's best writing does. And it's under 300 pages. Hurray! Finally, know that this one is set mostly in Manhattan, and it's a treat to see King wandering around this terrain. (I don't think ...

 A movie I love is Kenneth Longergan's "Margaret." After "You Can Count on Me," Lonergan was clearly able to do whatever he liked. He had so much support. The cast of "Margaret" is ridiculously starry: Oscar winner Anna Paquin, Oscar winner Matt Damon, Oscar winner Allison Janney, Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo, Tony winner John Gallagher, Tony winner Matthew Broderick, Oscar nominee Jeannie Berlin, Globes nominee Kieran Culkin, indie darling Rosemarie DeWitt. Martin Scorsese chipped in.  Here's the story. Lisa, a volatile teenager, is walking down a Manhattan street. She sees a bus driver, Mark Ruffalo, in a fun hat; she wants to chat with him about the hat. Ruffalo--clearly flattered and aroused by a young person's interest--takes his eyes off the road. And a pedestrian ends up dead. This is too much for Lisa to handle. Really, how could anyone cope? She has some culpability here. And what should she say to the police? If she tells the truth abou...

The world recently celebrated International Children's Book Day--and, in honor of that, I'm spotlighting three books we love in this house: *"Rufus." I've discussed this one. A bat stumbles on a drive-in technicolor movie, and realizes that he has been missing out on the colors of the rainbow. What follows is a strange, dramatic, unpredictable journey, as Rufus sets out to forge his own path. *"Penny and Her Song." It's been said--in the NY Times, for example--that Kevin Henkes is a genius. For evidence, look no further than this book. It's about the rhythms of family life; it's a chance for Henkes to notice little details that no one else would ever notice or record. (I'm very fond of the "better/wetter" rhyme, and the moment when Penny tries to entertain herself in the mirror. Penny, c'est moi.) *"Goldilocks." The only time James Marshall won a Caldecott Honor--four years before his death. You can sense his spiri...

 I had a great triumph just now. I didn't bludgeon someone with unsolicited help. Oh, I wanted to. I had a student; she scored well on a standardized test; she expressed happiness about her score. I very much wanted to write: "AND IF YOU DECIDE TO RE-TAKE THIS....WHICH IS SOMETHING PEOPLE DO....BE SURE YOU STUDY *ALL* SECTIONS.....BECAUSE SOMETIMES ONE-FOURTH OF YOUR PERFORMANCE CAN SLIP WHILE YOU'RE CONCENTRATING ON A *DIFFERENT* FOURTH!!!!" I reviewed this with my husband, who gently said: "Why don't you just write..... Great job .....?" These were words of wisdom. At times, my inner, seething cauldron of control freakishness is almost too much to bear. I want to march around my neighborhood, telling one person not to park where she parks, offering "guidance" to a married couple about the color they've used on their front door. I want to advise an adolescent acquaintance to "talk less" (I want to be Aaron Burr!) ....and I very m...

 This year, we'll celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Howard Ashman's "Beauty and the Beast." (The release date was in September 1991.) As September approaches, you'll surely hear this observation: A few animated movies have earned Best Picture Oscar nods. (For example: "Toy Story 3.") A few musicals have earned Best Picture Oscar nods. (For example: "Moulin Rouge.") BUT there is only one Best Picture nominee in history that has fallen splat in the middle of the Venn diagram--one nominee that is *both* an animated film *and* a musical. That nominee is "Beauty and the Beast." So many lines deserve to be immortalized: "As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating....I'm especially good at expectorating...." "When I was a lad, I'd eat four dozen eggs...every day...to help me get large....And now that I'm grown, I eat FIVE dozen eggs....so I'm roughly the size of a barge...." "I thought I saw....tha...

A writer I like, Katherine Heiny, has a new novel coming out tomorrow ("Early Morning Riser"). The buzz is substantial. Heiny writes in a playful, smart way about people whose lives are messy. For example, here is how Heiny once began a short story, "The Dive Bar": So picture Sasha innocently sitting alone in her apartment on a hot summer afternoon and the phone rings. She answers and a woman says, “This is Anne.” “Who?” says Sasha. “I think you know,” Anne says. “Well, I don’t.” Sasha is not trying to be difficult. She honestly doesn’t know. She is trying to think of possible Annes whose voices she should recognize. Is it someone she missed an appointment with? Is this the owner of that camera she found in a cab last month and kept— “I’m Carson’s wife,” Anne says. Sasha says, “Oh!” And even if she sat around from now until eternity saying Oh! every few seconds, she would never be able to inject it with as many layers of significance and wonder again. “I was thinkin...

 We're a few days away from Kevin Henkes's next new book--"Billy Miller Makes a Wish"--so my thoughts have turned to "Penny and Her Sled." Sometimes, a book simply tells the truth; you read it, and think, this is life as I understand it. That's the case with Henkes's work. "Penny and Her Sled" has Penny, a small mouse, awaiting snow. She waits and waits. She wants the snow so much, she dreams of it falling and turning into marshmallow pops. She eats the pops; she becomes one with the snow. Back in the real world, the snow refuses to fall. Penny entertains herself as she waits. Her sled becomes "a bridge for glass animals," a "roof for a hut," a "small cradle for Rose, a doll." (The cradle is a bridge too far. Penny becomes lonely as she tries to go to sleep, so she grabs Rose and says, "You'll never have to sleep alone again....") Ultimately, the seasons change without a single snowfall--subversiv...

 "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" is like a Greatest Hits album for American literature. I think literally every scene is iconic. Ramona has entered third grade, and her devil-may-care teacher says "Hey guys" -- and not "I wonder why I'm hearing so much noise...." This teacher also uses Sustained Silent Reading--which becomes a life-changer for Ramona. But all isn't well. The Quimbys must economize, so that Mr. Quimby can return to school to become an art teacher. (No more thick socks for hours of work in the freezer section of the grocery store. No more memorizing of the price-change list.) Cutting corners means serving "tongue" -- and lying to your children about what's on their plate. Mrs. Quimby has so much worry at this stage, she accidentally grabs a raw egg and stuffs it in Ramona's lunch-bag. This leads to the canonical moment: Ramona ends up spilling raw yolk all over her head. Cutting costs also means ignoring a deteriorating car-...

 Well, we liked "The Father." It's unusual. It's about a man who requires regular care (at least according to his daughter). The man has become forgetful; he is always misplacing his watch; he can't remember which country a loved one lives in; he sometimes feels that his dead mother is alive. A new, young aide arrives; the father is moved by her beauty and becomes flirtatious. He claims to have once been a professional tap dancer. He wants a glass of whiskey. But, also, the young aide reminds the father of another relative, who is clearly dead. ("Where is she?") This memory seems to trigger some anger--and the father lashes out. ("What's with your inane little laugh?") Meanwhile, the father's advocate, Olivia Colman, smiles bravely through tears. No one on the planet is better at feigning the-brave-smile-through-tears. Anthony Hopkins is so brilliant in this movie: difficult, charming, vulnerable, frightening, savvy, calculating. He fin...