Liars and Saints

 Many picture books I like feature just one eccentric character as a source of comedy: Toad, Rotten Ralph, some cantankerous Jon Klassen protagonists, and Sal in "Blueberries for Sal." Roz Chast belongs in this group. The figure she makes of herself--"Roz"--is as absurd as Arnold Lobel's Toad. In a new book, "I Must Be Dreaming," Roz lives with various dirty secrets. For example: She steals a sock display, and though her conscience requires her to return the display, she keeps one pair of forbidden socks. Also, she talks Danny DeVito into a marriage, and though she doesn't love him, she secretly believes she can live off "the pleasant feeling of being adored." Finally, Roz sneaks into a "ladies only" pool party, for a famous actress, and she interrupts a high-stakes conversation to talk about her home-made shoe. I love this woman--I think she is the product of a brilliant mind--and she makes me feel just a bit less alone in the ...

  A few thoughts on Matthew Perry and/or "Friends": *This show was billed as "a chronicle of that special time in your life, your twenties, when your friends ARE your family." Although I'm not sure Lena Dunham has specifically acknowledged this, it occurs to me that "Girls" owes an obvious debt to "Friends." Even the title--"Girls"--seems to be an echo of Marta Kauffman's own title. *Nora Ephron says, if you slip on a banana peel, it's awkward. But if you then tell a story about having slipped, you claim ownership. You are the (warm, inviting) author of your own story. Matthew Perry understood this, and he confronted a taboo (his own addiction) in writing. That's inspiring to me. Another fine Matthew Perry moment: "I think you actually have to have all of your dreams come true to realize they are the wrong dreams." *"Friends" draws fire (understandably) for being so white. At the same time, look, it...

  If I'm not reading crime fiction, I like stories about families: Anne Tyler novels, Nicole Holofcener movies, short fiction by Katherine Heiny. It's a special gift to be able to pay close attention to domestic life, and to find suspense in a breakfast encounter, or a discussion about car-pooling. Rebecca Stead has many admirers, and they are heavy-hitters: Maile Meloy, Patricia Reilly Giff, Meg Wolitzer. Stead's trick is to write about characters, not issues; if you do this well, you can reach children *and* adults (even if you're ostensibly focused on the non-adult world of third-grade lunches and sleepovers). Bea, one of Stead's heroines, is excited to churn butter for the colonial fair at her school. But her feelings get the best of her, and she foolishly kicks a shard of glass (while wearing open-toed sandals). Impulsivity is an issue for Bea. Distressed by a game of Musical Chairs, she half-shoves a friend off his seat; later, she gets pissed at the party...

  I like the personal essay because it's accessible to anyone; you do not need a talent for inventing characters or finding clever rhymes. You can look out your window, or make a list of your grudges--and, suddenly, you have an essay. To me, the exciting moment in a personal essay is the space between paragraphs. It's here where eccentricity pops up. If you're writing, a certain word or image can lead you on a bizarre, digressive path--a path no one else would take--and that's the fun of the essay. A great example is Yiyun Li's recent piece for the NY Times. I have no idea how she achieves what she achieves. She begins by talking about her teaching life--how she is drawn to one story, by Amy Bloom--but the discussion of the story paves the way for a surprising tour of crazy people in the world. We see Li's mother, making an accusation: "You love your children more than you love me." We see Li's despondent child, with a question: "If you unders...

  My spouse likes to weave a strand of gay-rights advocacy into many, many normal events; if he acts as "mystery reader" in a PK class, he is likely to choose "The Sissy Duckling." If he goes to see the "Barbie" movie, he tells everyone--including the waitress at our local diner, and the strangers in the AMC parking lot. Last week, we greeted our favorite babysitter, who knows almost nothing about us. "Thanks for coming," said Marc. "We're off to see the Taylor Swift film." The sitter chuckled, in a hearty way; I myself have used that chuckle when a tutoring client has volunteered unneeded information. At the concessions stand, Marc weighed his options. "You're saying that the commemorative Eras plastic cup is only eight additional dollars? Let's take it. It can double as a vase." During the concert, I watched quietly. Also, I watched my spouse, who seemed to have five or six mood swings, as usual: One part of his ...

  Kitty Green made waves with "The Assistant," about a young woman working for a tyrant who resembles Harvey Weinstein. Green is back with "The Royal Hotel," a new variation on the sinister-workplace theme. A woman is traveling through Sydney with a friend when she runs out of money; she is reckless and naive. She accepts work at a bar in a rural part of the country, an area crawling with rowdy miners. But this is hell; soon, she is fighting for her life, and she has no special equipment (and only half of one ally) for approximately ninety minutes. Green makes use of ambiguity (whereas many filmmakers like to use clear, bold lines). If someone orders a "Dickens Cider" (dick-inside-her), should I immediately leave the bar? An associate bans an aboriginal employee from stopping for a drink. Is this racism, or is the associate really worried about the employee's "long drive ahead"? If a date becomes aggressive--then blames all the beers he has d...

  The great gift of Bernadette Peters is to seem shredded by lost love; she conveys this feeling in her trio of sad songs, "Faithless Love," "Time Heals Everything," and "Not a Day Goes By." Bernadette's rendition of "Not a Day Goes By" is definitive; she has made such a mark on this song, if you see a different version, you inevitably feel puzzled. ("Wait....where's Bernadette?") In this song, the speaker addresses an ex; the post-breakup wreckage is so bad, life has become hell. Sondheim's "run-on" syntax shows (rather than telling) what it is like to be trapped in a cycle of rumination: I keep thinking, when does it end? Where's the day I'll have started forgetting? But I just go on thinking and sweating And cursing and crying And turning and reaching And waking and dying.... People speak about Sondheim's love of puzzles; for example, why include the word "day" seven times in one sentence? ...

  For my fifth wedding anniversary, I would like to see a filmed performance of Maury Yeston's "Titanic," in which the captain sings of his nightmare vision: The ship will start to plunge beneath the surface. The water lapping at our feet! The panicked people in retreat.... They'll cling here desperately like bees to a hive. They'll hold fast... Doomed to the last.  Lost and abandoned and  all still alive! My husband gives me a skeptical look. "That doesn't sound very romantic." It's said that you should marry a person *because* of his flaws, not in spite of them, and I'm relieved that my spouse generally approves of my dour side. His dream is that I will write a Broadway musical about a particular neighbor I dislike; I will cast Andrew Rannells, and I'll call the show "Frenemies." Sometimes, he sends me material (neighborhood gossip) that he wishes for me to exploit, in writing. It is startling to me that I have married a man w...

 Marc and I have really enjoyed "Billions" this season--after having strayed from the fold, for several episodes. A show succeeds or fails because of its characters. The current run of "Billions" has Corey Stoll as Mike Prince, who seems sort of eager to detonate a nuclear bomb. (A  literally  nuclear bomb.) Prince has an open marriage--but he doesn't want the details leaked to the press, so he arranges to have his spouse's boyfriend kidnapped off the side of a mountain by Chinese baddies. At the same time, Prince is squaring off against a man who will grease palms to have a hurricane downgraded to "tropical storm" level--and will heavily imply that this is a "business" move, via Prince, to protect certain financial interests in Florida--all as a way of portraying Prince as unscrupulous (and thus ruining Prince's shot at the presidency). Prince's nemesis also enjoys watching his girlfriend eat melted chocolate out of a diaper--and...

 Many, many Americans can quote Taylor Swift's references to freshman year. "She's cheer captain, and I'm on the bleachers...." "Betty, I won't make assumptions about why you switched your homeroom..." "And your mama's waiting up, and you're thinking he's the one, when the night ends...." The brilliance of Olivia Rodrigo is to "take the ball and run with it." Rodrigo identifies two rites of passage--obtaining a driver's license, and suffering your first heartbreak--and she weaves these together in one song. Getting dumped is like obtaining a license; you are now "authorized" to navigate the messy world of adult affairs. "Rolling Stone" voted Rodrigo's climactic lines "the third greatest song bridge of this century," and with reason. Red lights, stop signs.... I still see your face in the white cars, front yards... Can't drive past the places we used to go to.... Cuz I still fuc...

  The schools in my town have banned Halloween; there is a concern that Jehovah's Witnesses feel this is a day centered on summoning evil spirits, and no one wants to cause discomfort to a Jehovah's Witness. I understand the argument, but I wonder, is it ever possible to remove the threat of discomfort from someone's day? I think, if I could cite the possibility of discomfort as a reason for disengaging, I would do literally nothing--all day, every day. In my new-found Lexapro fizzy-ness, I see I'm able to take an interest (once again) in the holiday. Mainly, I've been thinking about "Treehouse of Horror XX," in which Bart and Lisa Simpson plot a murder. This one shows Lisa tossing a knife at Bart's head, on a playground, and it also features Mrs. Krabappel as a Hitchcockian villainess. Finally, in Act III, Moe the bartender imprisons Homer in a basement dungeon, then persuades Marge that her spouse has abandoned her in favor of male companionship. Moe...

  Tomi Ungerer urged aspiring picture-book writers to avoid collaboration; he thought something special could happen when your own words matched your own images. I think of this when I read Robert McCloskey. It seems that McCloskey was an artist first; his images are sensational. He may have struggled a bit with storytelling; the tales don't seem as effortless as a James Marshall book. Still, he had a vision--his own vision--and this is charming (again and again). McCloskey's first major book was "Lentil," about a little boy in Alto, Ohio. The boy (Lentil) loves music but can't sing, and can't pucker his lips (so whistling is out of the question). To compensate, he develops a fondness for the harmonica. His nemesis, Old Sneep, hates the music, and does what he can to crush the spirits of all little boys. Guess who wins in this battle? It's a pleasure to look at any McCloskey sketch--and the sketches here are paired with a text that is tightly plotted and s...

  Taylor Swift is not a dancer, not an actor, and not much of a singer. She is a writer, and she makes this point at the start of her recent touring show, by calling attention to her own words. "We've reached the first bridge of the evening. Do you know this one? Do you think you want to sing with me?" I'm drunk in the back of the car-- And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar. Said, I'M FINE... but it wasn't true. I don't want to keep secrets just to keep you! And I snuck in through the garden gate-- Every night that summer--just to seal my fate. And I screamed, for whatever it's worth, I love you--ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard? He looks up, grinning like a devil.... Here is what TS achieves in this bridge. She finds a new way to use zeugma--the striking deployment and redeployment of one verb within one sentence ("I just have room to lay my things and a few friends," "I keep secrets just to keep you"...

 When babies are very tiny, a fair portion of the day is just napping/cuddling. But if your charges are two and four, things become sort of acrobatic. A big influence for me is Roz Chast, who has written extensively about her experience as a parent. She says that her own mother would often report, "I'm not your friend." And this drove her batty, such that she took on a different motto with her own kids: "I'm both your parent and your friend." It's a tricky sentence. You have to commit to one role over the other--at times. It's so wearying to say, "We don't eat a cupcake at 2:30 PM," just knowing your sentence is going to land on deaf ears, and that there will be tears, tears, and more tears. Another source of help for me is the Roz Chast set of "Bad Mom Trading Cards." She has taken her worst parenting moments and turned them into "collectibles." One example: "The day you run out of orange juice, so you offer or...

 Around twenty years ago, Michael Connelly was inspired by a news story involving the La Brea tar pits. Bones had emerged from the Earth; these were human, and they pointed toward a homicide. This was evidence of one of Earth's oldest homicides--if not the oldest on record. Connelly imagined a story involving his main hero, Bosch. One day, a Los Angeles doctor is walking with his dog, and the dog unearths human bones; they're in a shallow grave. This is way up high in some hills; it would be an odd spot for a premeditated murder. And yet the bones also carry "scars" -- suggesting that the victim endured severe, prolonged, physical abuse. Additionally, these are, or were, the bones of a child. It's soon clear that a convicted pedophile lives nearby. End of story? The former pedophile seems innocent, but he is a professional "set-dresser," he adds details to TV sets, to create a sense of verisimilitude, and he has in his possession a child's skateboard...

  At the age of fourteen, Olivia Rodrigo understood that she could be a professional songwriter. She was writing all the time, and she wrote one particular song that made her think,  This could be what I do with my life. You can't teach someone to be talented. I see a few "hallmarks" in Rodrigo's writing: a smart use of images, a sense of humor, and especially a gift for self-deprecation. Here, she addresses an older man who has used her and lied to her: Hate to give the satisfaction, asking how you're doing now. How's the castle built off people you pretend to care about? Just what you wanted. Look at you, cool guy, you got it. What follows is a kind of wry line that I'd expect from someone ten years older: I loved you truly: Gotta laugh at the stupidity. Rodrigo continues to put herself under a microscope: I used to think I was smart, But you made me look so naive... The way you sold me for parts, As you sunk your teeth into me... Oh, bloodsucker, fame-f...

  The fun thing about Lexapro is that it is utterly banal; the experience of getting it, and taking it, is "fully average." I know this, because I have a friend who made me laugh a few weeks ago. We were talking about Ozempic, and I was disclosing the news that this new weight-loss drug might make you want to kill yourself. "Oh, fuck," said my friend. "Well, I still want it. I'm drowning in so much Klonopin, and Zoloft, and Aderall, I think all that stuff can just silence the 'pro-suicide' buzz ....." This was the best sentence I'd heard in weeks. One guiding light for me is the writer Julia Wertz, who discovered that she was depressed when a friend made a comment about her wardrobe. "Do you realize you dress in black sweatsuits all the time, and they're heavily stained?" This struck a chord with me--because I once ran an errand to my child's school, and I was coated in spit-up, and I had just thrown sandals over my socks....

  One trick for songwriting is to imagine you're addressing the person you have left; the song is a way to say the unsayable. This is the device in "The Heart of the Matter" (Don Henley), "Dear John" (Taylor Swift), "Fire and Rain" (James Taylor). But my favorite example is from Sondheim. A woman is conversing, in her head, with her ex-boyfriend: Hello, Georges... I do not wish to be remembered like this, Georges... With them, Georges... My hem, Georges: Three inches off the ground? And then this monkey? And these people, Georges... They'll argue till they fade. And whisper things, and grunt. But thank you for the shade-- And putting me in front. Yes, thank you, Georges, for that. And for the hat.... It's the brilliance of Sondheim to recognize that *almost anything* can be an expression of ambivalence; the artist, Georges Seurat, may have "punished" his ex by depicting her with a monkey, on a leash. He felt his ex was too conventiona...

 It's rare for me to gasp in a movie theater, but "Fair Play" did the trick. I also audibly groaned--as in, "God, no, don't open that door"--more than once. Luke and Emily work together at a hedge fund. Secretly, they're dating. A position becomes available--and it's rumored that Luke is in the running. But, in fact, he isn't; after he celebrates (prematurely), he learns that the job has gone to his girlfriend. Luke and Emily think they can withstand this news--but are they being rational? Luke begins reading self-help--"Habits of Highly Effective People"-ish books--and Emily mocks him. Luke then says, quietly, "People don't take you seriously at the office because you dress like a fucking cupcake." Emily's social habits become a problem. She joins several male colleagues at a strip club, then tries to "charm" Luke with a tasteless joke she has learned. ("At this one fraternity, the new recruits had to f...

  I went to the psychiatrist, and it was a bit like confessing to a priest; everything spilled out. The agitation, the sense of walking through a weird, pervasive fog. The subject of sleep arose, and I admitted that I sometimes will pop an Amazon "sleep aid" -- and send it "down the hatch" -- around 3:30 am. The doctor gave me a mild, pitying look, and said, "I'd stop that. 3:30 am is not advisable." (There was subtext-- use your brain, you moron-- but we just moved on.) I have a baseline of anxiety--with a little sprinkling of depression on top. The anxiety is like the vamp at the start of the musical  Chicago , and the depression is Bebe Neuwirth's short, flashy solo. That's how I think of this. Lexapro can silence the Bebe Neuwirth solo--even if it can't silence "the vamp." My husband is all for this, and he sends encouraging text messages. "You will always be my Lexa-PRO!" To be continued.

  In college, the teacher who shaped me the most was Amy Bloom, and her "blockbuster" story was "Silver Water." Bloom made fiction slightly less mysterious by explaining, "A story is just an account of a stranger coming to town." For example, that stranger could be: psychosis.  As an undergrad, I thought "Silver Water" was sort of bizarre, but now its events seem almost "normal" to me. Where is the family whose members haven't endured something like this (maybe something in a milder form)? A girl, Rose, has a talent for singing. But, also, she has issues. At fifteen, she becomes moody and tearful, then she stops coming home. This leads to a tense exchange between her parents, something for the Dialogue Hall of Fame: After three weeks, my mother said to my father, "She's going off." "What is that, your professional opinion?" He picked up the newspaper and put it down again, sighing. "I'm sorry. I didn...

  I like to quote Curtis Sittenfeld: "The greatest of literary characters is Arnold Lobel's Toad, who is almost always the author of his own problems. He cannot get out of his head." The famous example: Toad has a ridiculous bathing suit. Instead of laughing at himself, and moving on, he attempts to design a setting in which *no one* will look at the bathing suit. This elaborate plot only helps to make the suit seem more and more hilariously awful--and Toad sputters with rage. The End. Lobel's heir is Jon Klassen, who wrote "The Fall." In this story, a turtle climbs up on a rock, then stumbles to the ground, landing on his shell. He is mortified. A friendly armadillo asks if an accident has occurred--and the turtle denies the obvious. He then rejects an offer of help. He can't manage his own sense of chagrin, so he directs all of his frustration at the armadillo. "Will you nap with me?" asks the armadillo, and the turtle says, NO. I NEVER NAP. ...

  While calling the psychiatrist, I begin reviewing the evidence, the signs that I'm less than well: *Death of my attention span. I can do approximately ten minutes of editing work before I need to stop and research a Broadway question. Did Becky Ann Baker team up with Sondheim before or *after* her first major TV show? This isn't normal. *Loss of interest in many things. Halloween has been my big day, for years and years, but the task of removing paper pumpkins from the closet seems insurmountable. *General agitation. One rainy day, I walked down the street to get my haircut, and I found myself scolding the cars that failed to avoid puddles. As if this "dialog" could accomplish something. I was alert enough to think,  Hmmmm... You'd see this in a Julianne Moore film, right before her thrilling breakdown. My shrink has a word for this-- tsuris-- which is also a favorite of mine. I think it would be useful for Carefirst BlueCross/BlueShield; how poetic to write  ts...

  Victoria Clark had no intention of becoming an actor; she wanted to direct. But certain colleagues recognized a talent. And, like George Washington, reluctantly accepting the calling, Clark did what she had to do. Early in her career, Clark was known as a clown. (Clowning is still something she makes use of. She has an irreverent attitude toward "The Light in the Piazza," which, after all, is about getting kicked in the head by a horse. Once, during an improvised moment in "Kimberly Akimbo," Clark turned to her co-star and said, almost inaudibly, "I can't give you my address, because I don't remember it. I was kicked in the head by a horse, at a child's tenth birthday party....") It seems to me that Clark's career really began to change during "Titanic." (This is when I "discovered" her.) Her character, Alice, does have clownish qualities. Like a fan of  People Magazine , she whispers about moneyed Americans: He's ...

 Maybe the most celebrated "I Want" song, among theater nerds, is "Little Lamb." It's when a child, Louise, reflects on her birthday, in "Gypsy." She gathers her toy animals around her: Little cat, little cat, Oh, why do you look so blue? Did somebody paint you like that? Or is it your birthday, too? Little fish, little fish-- Do you think that I'll get my wish? Little lamb, little lamb... I wonder how old I am? I wonder how old I am. Louise has one great wish--independence from her mother--but the thought of saying the words is unbearable. Also, Louise is just guarded and secretive; the evasiveness in the song helps to flesh out Louise's character. Sondheim trusts the audience to make some inferences. And he ends with a great, chilling line, worth thousands (or millions) of "Tim Rice words":  I wonder how old I am. "Kimberly Akimbo" plays a similar trick. The heroine is dying, so she addresses the "Make a Wish" Fo...

 I do not think my friend Vanya actually emigrated from Russia, but she does evoke thoughts of Chekhov, each time she speaks. "Why do I dress in black? I am  in mourning for my life ." I find this so refreshing, because there can be a maddening sunniness, here in the suburbs, and it makes me want to claw at my own skin. When I mention that I'm now in my forties, and feeling clueless about pursuing a job, there is a kind of knee-jerk "GURL YOU GOT THIS!" mentality. "Just find that special switch that  turns on all your lights !!!" And I smell bullshit. By contrast, when I explain to Vanya that both of my children have entered school, she gives me a sober look. "I believe," she says, "that you will struggle, alone, with PTSD, for approximately six months. Then we'll see what happens." Vanya's five-year-old child is equally wonderful; he sometimes corrects me. I try to explain to another child what sausage tastes like. I sugges...