Liars and Saints

 James Taylor turns himself into a literary character; he is an interesting mess, over and over again. Every now and then, the things I lean on lose their meaning. And I find myself careening--into places where I should not let me go. She has the power to go where no one else can find me-- Yes, and to silently remind me of the happiness and good times that I know. Even in a celebratory mood, as he considers his baby daughter, Taylor mocks himself: Isn't it amazing a man *like me* can feel this way? Tell me how much longer--it can grow stronger--everyday...? At times, Taylor has been an addict, close to death--and yet he has a writer's coolness, a way of dissecting a thing that others wouldn't want to touch: Won't you look down upon me, Jesus? You gotta help me make a stand. You just got to see me through another day. My body's aching, and my time is at hand. I won't make it any other way. Taylor senses how lost we all are--and he has some fun with this situation...

 Somewhere around the 1950s, a young woman fought her way out of obscurity; she changed her name, her style, and her manner of speaking; she studied Joan Crawford; she studied Joan Crawford's movies. She married a wealthy, closeted man, and she took charge of a mansion in Long Island. The woman--Ann Woodward--didn't really fit in. Her outfits were too revealing, and she didn't have an acceptable past to talk about; she lied about her father (she said he was dead when he wasn't). Ann's husband grew bored with her, and he threatened a divorce; he could point to Ann's lies as a reason for ending the union. And Ann took out a shotgun and murdered Mr. Woodward. She claimed she had thought he was a prowler, but the claim seemed sketchy. After all, Mr. Woodward was emerging from the shower, and he wasn't wearing any clothing, when his wife slaughtered him. This material seemed riveting to Truman Capote, who knew what it was like to be an outsider. Capote invented h...

 I try to read to Susie the spooky Catholic tale of "Old Befana"--a Sicilian crone who learns of the Three Kings, bakes warm bread for "the Christ child," and then promptly, tragically dies.  This is not Tomie dePaola's best effort, and Susie becomes impatient in Act One. She begins shouting DAH-DAH-DAH over my voice, then she launches herself out of my lap; she wanders off as my narration grows increasingly desperate. Susie does have more patience for "Peanuts," maybe because she thinks it's odd that her father sits alone and watches this clunky cartoon during working hours. If I have the Peanuts special on, Susie will look at the screen, and look at me, and, I swear, she'll smirk. She'll also study the unfolding story for at least two consecutive minutes, and this seems like it might be a world record? Something to report to the Baby Hall of Fame? Mostly, though, Susie's preferred hobbies remain non-denominational. If she has a choice...

 A speech tag is a controversial item: Many writers feel that it's best to use "said," but teachers often ask students to use "whispered," "sneered," "hinted," "bellowed." I'm with the writers--not the teachers. I think that when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey wrote about Miramax, they found themselves repeatedly using the words "she said." And a bulb went on. Both words have mighty significance. "She" has weight because the people who took down Harvey Weinstein were women--around eighty women. "Said" has weight because one of Weinstein's crimes was to rob women of a voice. One of his victims actually says, on record, "Weinstein took my voice from me, and I was in my early twenties; I was just *finding* that voice." Weinstein didn't just assault women; he pushed them into (metaphorical) closets. You couldn't talk after your encounter; if you talked, you would lose your footing in...

 My son has started counting; I'm not sure he is aware of the meanings of the words, but he loves them.  He will also lend his full attention to "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" He'll sit for this at any time; it's the book of choice in his Pre-K class, and he gives it the reverence that you might normally reserve for the Bible. (Do I think that "Brown Bear" is a half-assed heap of blather paired with some great illustrations? I keep my own thoughts to myself.) Josh has earned the title "Mr. Mayor" at his school, and he greets strangers with open arms. Literally. I'm stunned by his political skills, and I sometimes think I should be taking notes.  The speech therapist wants me to withhold snacks until Josh articulates the words "Help me." There is an affiliated pantomime: You breathe into your hand, for "Hhhhelp," and you tap your own chest, for "mmmmeeee." Josh rolls his eyes when I attempt this; he ...

  I tend to have mixed feelings about the NYT Best Books list; there are always omissions that startle me. This year, "Raising Raffi" absolutely deserves to be included; "What's So Funny," by Sipress, also needs a spot.  I thought Anthony Horowitz published not one, but two, terrific 2022 novels--"With a Mind to Kill" and "The Twist of a Knife"--and these were among the most entertaining books I bought this year. Finally, I loved "Magic to Do," a thorough history of the creation of "Pippin." It's really about the battle between Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwartz--and about how this battle seemed to *help* the show that Schwartz had drafted. The book corrects Ryan Murphy's sloppy portrait of Fosse, and it has juicy anecdotes about Ann Reinking, Betty Buckley, and Patina Miller. If you love Broadway, how could you resist? My favorite book right now is actually not a new one; it's the picture book "Boo, Baa, La L...

 I promise I'll limit myself to one Sondheim post in the anniversary week of his death. I've been thinking about Sondheim's love of the present participle: "Losing My Mind," "Finishing the Hat," "Putting It Together," "Being Alive," "Everything's Coming Up Roses," "Waiting for the Girls," "Good Thing Going," "Something's Coming," "Someone's Waiting," "Not Getting Married," "Loving You." The present participle suggests a transition. I *was* single. I now have a good thing going. At some point, the good thing will be gone. "Finishing the Hat" is famously about the kind of illness you contend with as you're creating something; the song isn't about being finished, but about struggling *toward* the finish line. A shift in syntax lines up with the end of the song: We go from "Finishing the Hat" to "Look, I *Made* a Hat." (...

 My husband is in love with Taylor Swift. "Some tickets," he says, "are around $20,000. The Maplewood Moms, in my Facebook group...They're all fuming." I cluck--in sympathy, I guess? Taylor seems to be a source of diminishing returns for me. I listen to "Anti-Hero," but I don't know what she is talking about when she claims to dream about her own funeral, and about the in-laws who don't exist. I'm lost in that part. News arrives from Western New York: My brother has spent twelve hours on a dysfunctional TayTay site, attempting to buy seats for his teen daughter. This makes me think of "Little House on the Prairie," when tales of winter hardship are traded around the campfire. "Uncle Jethro saw a bobcat when he was out hauling logs...." My District-of-Columbia niece shudders as she recalls her own Taylor ticket odyssey. "I hired a deputy to monitor the vendors' website, because I needed to attend meetings all day...

 I've often said that Arnold Lobel wrote several books about Daniel Barrett; Toad is just the author of this particular blog, by another name. Toad invents problems where others see a grassy meadow; Toad needs very little before he can find a way to tie himself in knots. In "The Hat," Frog presents Toad with a gift, a hat. (Arnold Lobel and his friend James Marshall were interested in gift-giving, because it's such a fraught moment, and it's a thing that any kid can understand.) The problem with the hat is that it's too big for Toad's head. Toad works hard to adjust--because he loves this special gift from his friend. But the mission is hopeless; Toad can't see when the hat is low and smooshing his nose. An exchange would be impossible--because neurotic Toad feels that a new hat would not have the special power of the object that Frog has carefully selected. Frog--aware that he has pledged himself to a lunatic--urges Toad to think big thoughts, overnig...

 My favorite novel I've read in a while is "Desert Star," which is currently at the top of various sales lists in America. "Desert Star" is ostensibly about two puzzling murder cases, but really it's about people. It's a large gallery of bizarre, compelling characters. You have a politician whose team calls the police thirty minutes before a "surprise pop-in," so a photo shoot can be arranged. You have an "empath" who annoys her colleagues with inane chatter about "psychic auras," but who also may be indispensable to various cold-case investigation efforts. You have a bull-headed star, Bosch, who can't force himself to pay attention to his employer's agenda, and who insists on covertly photocopying private workplace papers. (The fights over photocopy privileges are such a treat, and they quickly bring Bosch to life. One thing that makes the writer Michael Connelly special is that he is *simultaneously* interested in ...

 Taking my family to the zoo is really an adventure; it can involve tears, physical assault, acute attacks of retail-therapy bingeing. The adults don't assault the children, but sometimes my older child claws my glasses off my face and throws them to the ground. I become visibly flustered, and the reaction is like a stimulus; my son just has to see that turbulent look in my eyes again, and again, and again. My husband is the main zoo-lover in the family; at a certain point, I will ask, "Would you like to ride the carousel today?" ....and this question isn't intended for any non-verbal members of the group. It's intended for the guy with a graduate degree from Harvard. My husband shrugs. "I guess I should," he says. "It's only two dollars." Later, we stand before the prairie dogs, and Marc assigns a first name to each one of them. Susie demands to be hoisted from her stroller, not so she can study the wildlife, but so she can walk off into a...

 A song I've always loved is "Have a Heart," by Bonnie Hayes, performed by Bonnie Raitt. The "plot" is like Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Getting Back Together." A cad has one foot out the door, but he wants to keep Bonnie Raitt in limbo, just in case "the winds change." And, memorably, Bonnie says: Hey!  Shut up. Don't lie to me. You think I'm blind, but I've got eyes to see. Hey! Mister! How do you do? Oh, pardon me. I thought I knew you. This is an arresting and funny start. Raitt asks that her chatty, faithless lover just consider the option of "zipping your lips." Oh, darling. I love you so. I told you yes, and then you told me no. Baby, how can you say-- You should be free, and I should pay and pay? Too much taking, inadequate giving. ("We hadn't seen each other for a month--when you said you needed space....") Money becomes a symbol: If one person is fully "free," then the other person h...

  I was really touched by "The Fabelmans," a big-budget movie about a family. How strange to see people talking to their children on a big screen. So many Hollywood films now seem to be about male colleagues joining forces to defeat Ultron; it's radical to get stars together in one house, and radical to write dialogue about Hanukkah presents, kosher kitchens, rubber spiders underneath the dinnerware. (Tony Kushner is, as always, on a wavelength that the rest of us can't approach.) Kushner collaborated with Steven Spielberg to write what seems to be a love letter to Spielberg's mother. Since the movie is Spielberg's work of autobiography, its subplot is all about the nature of movie-making; a story about storytelling inevitably has a "meta" quality. So--for example--when a girl says to the little boy Sammy Fabelman, "You never make movies about women," Spielberg is of course winking at us. He is saying, "I hear what you say about my wor...

  My son discovered how to moo like a cow and meow like a cat, and this has been a big event in my house. Each time it happens, all relevant parties skip through the yard, in a celebratory dance. Josh then becomes demonic, and shouts YEAH YEAH! YEAH YEAH! YEAH YEAH! ....And he slides down onto his knees, as if dodging the catcher at home plate. He has a look of total seriousness when he performs the slide; it's a matter of great pride, and I think it must be something that generates attention and commentary at the Montrose Pre-K playground (South Orange). We are reading "How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?" It's a solid, plotless offering from Jane Yolen. Yolen knows her strengths; she doesn't try to develop characters. She finds one quirky metaphor, and she beats it into the ground. "How does a dino say good night.... when Mama comes in to turn out the light? Does he sulk, does he pout, does he moan, does he sigh? Does he fall on top of the covers and cry?...

  Restless, endlessly creative, Tomie dePaola would sometimes borrow from relig ion to tell a new story. His mother, an Irish Catholic, urged Tomie to write about Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, and this ultimately became a major assignment for Tomie. Many of us think of Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, but dePaola gives us more. His little drama has Patrick kidnapped from the mainland and taken off to Ireland -- to live as an enslaved person. One day, Patrick spots a boat that could transport him back to his family. The captain rejects Patrick -- too dangerous! -- but a group of baying hounds won't allow the ship to leave. "We like that human over there." Patrick wins a victory through the intercession of the hounds. In later life, Patrick attempts to convert various Irish people to Christianity. "If your God is so great," says a compatriot, "why are we all starving?" And Patrick's God instantly produces a large heap of succulent h...

 Michael Jackson was a once-in-a-century cultural force--inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame (twice), the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Dance Hall of Fame. He is the first and (to date) the only figure from the world of rock/pop to earn that last distinction. We might not tend to think of Jackson as a "singer-songwriter," but some of his best songs came from his own brain. "Smooth Criminal," "Billie Jean," "Bad"--all these were products of MJ's pen. ("Bad" was to be a duet with Prince. But Prince said, "The first line is your butt is mine . I'm not singing that to you. You're not singing that to me. So....") MJ was a pedophile and a monster; the NYTimes has suggested that the strange deterioration of MJ's face may have mirrored some kind of inner, spiritual deterioration. This makes sense to me; if you look at the Golden State Killer, you just think, that's the face of a man who is unwell. Not that this exc...

  I spent time in a Starbucks yesterday, and I noticed a "Christmas cookie latte" and a "gingerbread tea." And I'm all for this; you're not going to see, here, a trite complaint about how "Christmas starts too early." The day after Halloween, I had Kirstin Chenoweth on the small screen, belting out "O Holy Night" with the Mormons in their big choir. I won't put the tree up this weekend, but I might put it up seven days later, on November 18. That would be a triumph of self-restraint. I was raised on Christmas carols--I performed them in a little greenhouse, every year--so I'm proud to have "verse two" filed away, in many cases; I know about the Godhead veiled in flesh, the slave who is our brother. I'm especially fond of "Winter Wonderland," which actually isn't a Christmas song; I admire the two snowmen, igniting the sparks of two separate mini-stories, in two separate bridges. In this particular house...

 When Arnold Lobel was finding his footing as a writer, he had a little daughter. She was naughty; she was just five. The naughtiness inspired Lobel to create one of his first books--"Prince Bertram the Bad"--and any new parent will recognize the truth of the opening pages. The little boy Bertram cries excessively, tears roses from rosebeds, and swats at other babies. (Each of these problems is, literally, a problem that I now face in my daily life. Who knew that I would be giving so much thought to rosebeds?) One day, Bertram is antagonizing birds with his slingshot--when, by accident, he hits a witch. The ensuing punishment is that Bertram must live life as a dragon, and the townspeople see the suffering as a joke: "Bertram has been a beast for so long, he has actually now assumed the *shape* of a beast!" Forced to have a taste of his own medicine, Bertram changes. He becomes kind. He demonstrates compassion by "thawing" the witch--with his fiery breath-...

 Mike White's strange, mesmerizing voice still works; he's still "got it." One theme he likes is addiction. In "Enlightened," the Luke Wilson character asks not to be saved. "I'm sad. My dog died, my marriage ended. Let me have my drugs." Similarly, Laura Dern's character has a history with drug abuse--and she has a kind of addiction to her married colleague, who has abandoned her. You can draw a line from these people to Michael Imperioli, in "The White Lotus"; here, we have a guy who says, "Sex has ruined me," and who then (once again) chooses sex. Imperioli's sadness is wonderful. Also, we have a sense of why he is who he is; this guy's father will blithely borrow moral lessons from Greek myths. "Hades raped Persephone, and Demeter forgave everything. A transgression isn't bad; you just have to be sure you get away with it ." Another favorite Mike White topic is uncertainty. He loves to have one ...

 I know that teachers are saints, but I truly dislike my child's music teacher. Can I say that here? This person gives her life away for the education of small kids, and I'd rather get a root canal than sit with her. So much of my job is pretending that crazy utterances aren't crazy. The music teacher begins one class by saying, "Hello, we are here to work! Parents, I'm not just entertaining your children; I need you to be an active part of the mission to  enrich their lives !" I'd very much like to say, "I put socks on my feet this morning, and you are getting nothing more from me. Just play Ricky Martin tunes for an hour, and we'll write you a check." My daughter doesn't understand boundaries, so she just throws herself at the teacher. And the teacher has turned this tic into a beautiful story about Covid: "Now that the pandemic has changed shape, the little ones are learning they may embrace me once more." I bite my tongue; I...

 "Small Things Like These" is an unusual story with links to "Spotlight" and "Philomena." It's about how an entire town can be complicit in the evils of the Catholic Church. Bill Furlong works with coal, in Ireland, in the 1980s; he delivers coal to various businesses and houses. One of his clients is a local convent, which is also a Magdalene laundry. These laundries existed from the 1700s all the way through the 1990s, in Ireland; unwed mothers were sometimes incarcerated, separated from their children, forced to contribute labor, made to fear early deaths. (Some died very young; infants were also allowed to die.) Bill visits the convent once and meets a woman who asks to be escorted to the river, "just so I could drown myself." Women plead to know anything about their babies, whom they can't see. But routines are routines; the laundry does a really nice job with bedclothes and with shirts. Also, it's rumored that the nuns at the la...

  "Together Again" is a gay anthem for a few reasons: (1) it has a disco beat, (2) it's a letter to a friend who died from AIDS, in an era when pop stars didn't really "go there," and (3) it uses the words "loud and proud," which seem to evoke pride, gay pride. There are times when I look above and beyond-- There are times when I feel your love around me, baby. I'll never forget my baby. When I feel that I don't belong-- Draw my strength from the words-- When you said,  Hey, it's about you, baby. Look deeper inside you, baby. Janet's friend is dead, but the two are still talking; specifically, the friend's ghost helps Janet through moments of self-loathing. "You'll never share real love until you love yourself." Always been a true angel to me, now above. I can't wait for you to wrap your wings around me, baby.  Wrap them around me, baby. Sometimes hear you whispering,  No more pain. No worries will you ever see...

 It's a prolonged battle to get outside each morning. My son sleeps late; he is worn out from school, and he isn't thrilled when I pluck him from the crib. Each "act" in the dressing process is something like an operatic tragedy. Removing yesterday's tee shirt is an invitation to a first tantrum. The new tee shirt is also an antagonist. Socks and shoes are sore spots; the wrestling of arms into jacket sleeves is like a D-Day tactical nightmare. On certain days, Josh draws on immense inner strength and looks on the bright side; he is happy to spend time with his George and Martha stories, and he soothes himself with milk. On other days, the clothing war is just the beginning; Josh's face says, "I'm not doing any of this," and he plants himself on the floor, as if attempting his own "die-in," as if in protest against opioids and the Sackler family. Sometimes--twice, actually!--the nurse calls at 8:45 and says, "I'm overriding you...

 Season Two of "The White Lotus" takes us to Sicily; we have three odd groupings, and we suspect one might include a murderer. The first group is a bizarre threesome; Jennifer Coolidge, deteriorating, has brought along her personal assistant, but her husband is unhappy with this arrangement. We know Coolidge enjoys paying people to be around; this was a theme with Natasha Rothwell one year ago. There's no clear reason why Mr. Coolidge objects to Jennifer's behavior--except that Mr. Coolidge seems to be a controlling asshole. Jennifer cannot manage her life, so she barks at the assistant to remain hidden in a small room for the duration of the trip--then she pleads with her husband to acknowledge that a moment of indulgence has involved just three macarons, not five. ("Fine. You ate the whole damn dish of panna cotta at dinner.") All of this is immediately mesmerizing. In another wing of the hotel, we have two couples; maybe one couple has attached itself to ...

 I've avoided writing about James Marshall for so long, and now please just bear with me. I have to describe one story that I can't stop thinking about. It's "The Fibber." How can you go wrong after that succinct, enticing title? It's George the hippo doing that thing we all do -- puffing himself up to impress another citizen. George casually mentions that he has been a champion snake tamer, and that he has smashed records in "the high jump." Martha grows weary, and she foists a stuffed snake on George. And George can't take this; he admits, "I told some fibs." And Martha gently says, "For shame" -- we can imagine that these words have a "loving" tone. I enjoy this because George behaves so outrageously -- and because Martha is a cool customer. I feel I have *been* both of these hippos. And I love the suspense; a lie is a transgression, and for a long while, we're just not sure if George will be "caught....