Liars and Saints

 How to teach about Black History Month? At my son's school, the answer is this: Choose three or four Black people, from history, and sing a few tunes that are tangentially linked with the biographies in question. It's a logical answer, I guess, but I keep imagining an analogy. Let's say there were a "Gay History Month," and the teacher spoke at length about Alan Turing. And then the kids performed a song about codes and code-breaking, e.g. Justin Bieber's "What Do You Mean?" ....I wonder, would this leave something to be desired? My child sings about peanuts, and about traffic lights, and then all the kids dance to a Michael Jackson song. It's moments like these that make me feel like a space alien. I try to draft the lesson plan, in my head: "Mr. Jackson raped kids, and sometimes he would stage a secret wedding ceremony. He would force the children to wear a ring, and he'd say, this is just between us....No one has to know...." I ...

 "Leaving" is the story of Sarah, who wonders if she can "start over" in her sixties. She becomes involved with a man from her past--a guy she dated in college. He is married, with a daughter, but maybe this fact isn't insurmountable? Sarah tries to stay patient. Her covert boyfriend, Warren, has issues with his "heir apparent." If Warren leaves his marriage, his adult daughter, Kat, will sever all ties. Warren will have no contact with (potential) grandkids, no access to graduations, weddings. Sarah finds Kat exasperating--but a part of her also respects Kat. She sees that Kat is defending her mother. Maybe a four-decade bond shouldn't be easily dissoluble. As Sarah "half-lobbies" for a change in the status quo, she considers her relationship with her own child. When kids are little, they depend on you. But if you're in your sixties, you may start to think about the moment when you will depend on your kids. Sarah's daughter, Meg,...

  Nan Goldin grew up in a suburb near Boston; her sister was gay, and thus she was institutionalized. (Yes, she was institutionalized!) The sister responded by placing her body in front of a commuter train; she was dead at the age of eighteen. Nan overheard a report on the death, and then she overheard her own mother crafting a lie. ("We'll say this was an accident.") This was a formative moment; disgusted with the suburbs, disgusted with fear and hypocrisy, Nan seemed to choose a policy of truth-telling. She spent years in foster homes, and discovered the camera; it seems like photography kept her alive. All this makes Nan such an interesting foil for the Sackler family. By taking on drug dealers, Nan understands that she is possibly sacrificing her career; powerful people like to protect other powerful people. It would be difficult to find an American fortune that has not grown out of oppression, destruction, monomania. If we're going to sniff around the Sacklers......

  Last year's principal had a bad habit of allowing teachers to injure children; she was placed on "temporary" leave, then she sort of disappeared. No update seems to be forthcoming. The "interim" principal is a charming narcissist; he makes me think of the irascible mayor in Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Let's say his name is Dennis. He recently hosted a winter concert.  "When I, Dennis, first entered this building," he said, "we were all looking at a different landscape. No one had ever used the auditorium. I am humbled to present the first--first of many!--Maplewood multimedia events in this space." Katy Perry drifted in, from the wings.  Do you ever feel....like a plastic bag? You just gotta ignite....the night....and let it shine! "I want you to know," said Dennis, "that all seats are meant to be filled. If there is a lone empty seat separating you from your neighbor, I ask you to slide d...

  In "Ordinary Angels," Hilary Swank is Sharon Stevens, an addict. When she is under the influence, she hears the voice of her mother ("a mean drunk"), and she begins to berate herself. This happens even in public. She injures herself, then blames the "nasty furniture" for having been aggressive. Sharon happens to meet a local dad--Alan--who is facing "Job-level" experiences of suffering. With an addict's mania and ferocity, Sharon decides to "fix" Alan. If the solution to a drug problem is the discovery of something "bigger than oneself," Sharon decides she will turn Alan into her discovery. She repairs his business. She creates a media campaign to help with his medical bills. She arranges for private planes and a helicopter (this concerns a crucial liver transplant); she squares off against greedy collection agencies. There are always high heels in the frame; the clicking of Sharon's heels becomes something like a dr...

  Often, picture books are plotless or predictable. Things get resolved; love wins. That's why I enjoy "The Misunderstanding," by James Marshall. The two hippos misread each other--and you expect that all will be well, eventually--and then the tension grows and grows, until the curtain abruptly drops. Mac Barnett does something similar in "Square." The protagonist, Square, spends his days pushing square-shaped rocks up a hill. His friend, Circle, observes the work, and she wrongly concludes that Square is a sculptor; he is making brilliant self-portraits. Circle says, "Since you're such a genius, you must make an image of me." Square could correct the error--but he is flattered, and a bit passive--so he sentences himself to hell. For hours and hours, he works on a "Circle" effigy, but of course he can't reach his goal. The ending is a shocker, and it's just as absurd as the previous chapters. It's so difficult to tell an origi...

  I have no political skills; I believe I'm constantly at war with my son's school system, and I make no effort to disguise my profound irritation. I'm like a Paul Giamatti character--in every phone call, every meeting. By contrast, my spouse is Eleanor Roosevelt; he finds a way to build consensus. He wears a charming mask. He is just as annoyed as yours truly, on a regular basis, but you would never, never guess. When I send a tart, terse note to the "child study team," my spouse immediately follows up: "So excited for the winter concert! Icy toes...chilly nose....Wintertime is here!" When we are asked to purchase a "supplementary" hearing test, my blood boils. ("Your child wouldn't sit still, so you really need to confer with a specialist....") But my spouse takes Josh to the hearing test, and when things inevitably devolve, he invents a solution. "Look, just sign the form," he says to the doctor. "Josh can hear. ...

 In my daughter's swim class, you, the parent, are asked (commanded) to get in the pool. But the instructor is twelve years old, and she can't stand up to lazy parents. So one mom has simply refused to get in the pool--which means that the instructor has to work one-on-one with the kid in question, and the other kids are ignored.  Thus the rule-breaking mom is rewarded for breaking the rules. Because I'm immature, I do not address this matter with a direct, rational conversation; instead, I loudly narrate the outrageousness, to my husband, and just hope that the naughty mom might overhear me. My spouse is slightly more reasonable, so he did attempt to engage the twelve-year-old in a conversation. This poor kid. I could sense that she wanted to get back to YouTube. "A parent *is* meant to be in the pool," she said, "but only if the kid is a tadpole. Felicity's son has advanced beyond tadpole status, so Felicity can be on the bench." "So," sa...

  Ed Zwick attended Harvard, then he worked for Woody Allen on the set of "Love and Death." At this time, Allen was drafting the screenplay for "Annie Hall"; Zwick read one version, and he admired the skill with which Allen had transformed his own rocky Diane Keaton years into a work of fiction, something that could reach people all over the world. Shortly thereafter, Zwick lost his mother in a car accident, proposed marriage to a feisty screenwriter, became a dad, and almost torpedoed his own little nuclear family (and then staged yet more "near-miss" moments, again and again). The insanity of this phase became the raw material for "Thirtysomething." Zwick soon took a risk with something more ambitious--"Glory"--which helped Denzel Washington to earn his first Oscar, and which allowed Zwick to start a substantial career in films. Zwick is a captivating narrator. He rakes himself over the coals--especially while describing his marriage....

We had sitter coverage, but I didn't want to watch the game, so I went to Broadway. Alton Fitzgerald White grew up in the projects of Cincinnati ("yes, there are Cincinnati projects"). He was one of seven children. Somehow, he discovered the theater, and he became New York City's most-committed Mufasa. He played Mufasa at the Minskoff Theater for over 4,000 performances.  When she made "The Lion King," Julie Taymor just wanted to cripple her performers; she didn't attempt to murder anyone, as she would in the run of "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark." I'd heard stories of Simba's back injuries, Rafiki's swollen ankles--but Alton Fitzgerald White taught me something new. The Mufasa eye makeup has left him with something like a permanent stye. This particular Sunday night, Alton White chose to sing about the many facets of love, and he did this via the Disney songbook. Why not? He paused to wonder aloud why the Emma Watson "Beauty a...

 David Milch grew up in Buffalo; his father was a surgeon and a high-functioning addict. Milch was repeatedly raped by a camp counselor, in childhood, then he made his way to Yale. Having graduated summa cum laude, Milch found himself at Yale Law School. But some issues arose. Milch had started using drugs, and he did not know who or where he was. He once showed up at a final exam on torts--and his instructor laughed at him. "You don't actually know what a tort is, do you?" The final crisis: Milch took out a shotgun, one evening, and fired several rounds at the traffic lights of New Haven. Cops surrounded him and--because he was white--he was released after a mild slap on the wrist. He eventually became a TA (!) in Yale's English department. I have no idea how we get from here to "NYPD Blue"--and that is partly because Milch wrote his memoir while also struggling against dementia. Have you recently watched the pilot of "NYPD Blue"? It's extraor...

  One thing I love about Sondheim is that he isn't afraid of nastiness; he does not need to make his characters meek and charming. Mary, in "Merrily We Roll Along," is like a new version of Sally, from "Follies." We may feel for Sally, but she isn't a little lamb. She would gladly toss her husband under a bus--if this means a shot at the guy she is really pining for. On her wedding night, she makes a shocking observation, in the company of her spouse: "Love will see us through till something better comes along...." Mary has Sally-esque qualities. Trapped in her unrequited love for a worthless man, she makes bitter jokes about the people who actually do clear their schedules for her. ("I lost 180 pounds....but he still calls....") Mary's ugliness is especially flagrant at a party, where a friendly stranger compliments her book: "I've read it and re-read it." Instead of accepting the compliment, Mary offers this gratuitous...

  If I were to write a TV series, my model would be "Melrose Place," and my title would be "Back Road." I share a Back Road with approximately forty families; the dramas do not concern adultery, murder, evil secret twins.....but the dramas exist, and they evoke thoughts for me....and one thought I have is: "seething cauldron of resentment." In Maplewood, it's illegal to leave your sidewalk unshoveled, after snow, but if you complain in a public way about neighbors who have shirked their duty, you get a self-righteous reply: "Not everyone is physically capable of shoveling snow. Before you judge, you might just want to offer thanks for your own health, and to recall that nothing is a given, in this world...." All this happens like clockwork, but recently an unanticipated Third Act unfolded, on Facebook: "To the neighbors who scold me for judging lazy-snow-hoarders: I have photos of residents who took time to shovel their own driveways, bu...

 Maurice Sendak's posthumous book is about a little boy, Mino, who puts on a magic show. He summons rabbits from his hat. Eventually, the chaos becomes problematic, and Mino sends the rabbits back to the Netherworld--and that's the end of the story. One of Sendak's gifts is his belief in a fantasy land; reality bleeds into a dream. The nameless speaker in "Chicken Soup" becomes a bauble on a Christmas tree--and, at other times, he sips hot soup while sitting on the ocean floor. Max in "Wild Things" can simply remove the roof of his house to gain access to a mystical ocean. Mino makes rabbits from thin air. "Ten Little Rabbits" looks easy; there is so little text. But it takes time to make an illusion of effortlessness. I especially like the child-sized tuxedo that Sendak has invented--for Mino.

 The other day, I went to a restaurant and listened as the waitress complained, in detail, about red meat. "It's bad for you, and it's bad for the planet."  This seemed so odd and unprofessional, because no one had asked for an opinion--and, also, red meat had a starring role on the menu. Later, the waitress took ages to present me with a check--which was fine, except that she lied about having been delayed by a needy colleague. This was blatant; I had observed her chatting at length with guests at another table (chatting about red meat?) ....It's not the delay; it's the lie that seems so strange to me. I often have nowhere to go with these feelings, so I'm glad that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is back. I really think that Larry David writes to entertain himself. Recently, he built an entire script on the problem of "recovery"; if your fragile, obnoxious girlfriend can't handle emotional turmoil for six months, how do you manage? How do ...

 Valentine's Day: I'm at a loss. What are children celebrating, on this day? It's strange to me that it occurs in my kids' local schools; if Halloween is an unacceptably pseudo-religious day, can't someone make this case about February 14? Parents in my town were told to sit with their children and have a Valentine-making session. Each child could write his name on twenty Valentines; the papers were not to be addressed to anyone, I suppose because errors and omissions could lead to heartache. My son held his pen incorrectly, and--though others have encouraged me to have a battle about this, each time--I just let the mistake happen. Tears over Valentine's Day seemed like a bridge too far. I do think--to mark the occasion--I'll share "The Tooth," which is one of the most romantic stories I know of. George the hippo chips his tooth and becomes upset, and Martha does not bully him into a false sense of cheerfulness. She sits with him, finds him a blank...

 Leonard Bernstein worked with Mary Rodgers on the "NYP Young People's Concerts." Rodgers said that she was generally not crazy about Bernstein's musical compositions--but that his gifts as a teacher were astounding. Additionally, Bernstein had an intriguing rivalry with his friend, Stephen Sondheim. Bernstein felt so distressed by the success of "Sweeney Todd," he became a pain in the ass. His daughter recalls, "We went to see SWEENEY, and we were squabbling in the limo....and then he actually kicked me in the butt." Later, Sondheim himself suggested that Leonard was being difficult because of the professional envy he was trying to suppress. Sondheim made this remark to Jamie Bernstein. Of course the other Bernstein story that interests me also concerns Sondheim: When early "West Side" reviews ignored Sondheim's contribution, Bernstein made a suggestion. "I will stop listing myself as co-lyricist. You will be sole lyricist, and ...

  The TV writer Ed Zwick has a memoir coming out, and he says, "It's never possible for a script to be *too* funny." The older I get, the more I accept this. Writers without a sense of humor make me tired. Also, though you maybe shouldn't judge a book by its cover, you *can* judge a book by its title. Michael Cunningham's title "Day" seems vague and lazy; the book also seems vague and lazy. The title "Swamp Monsters" seems fun and irreverent; the book itself, a life story of Ron DeSantis, also seems fun and irreverent. This brings me to "Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone." Here's the setup. A scholar of crime stories, Ernie, witnesses a murder; he sees his brother killing an apparently random victim. But the brother gets out of jail after an absurdly short three years. Now, the family is gathering at a ski lodge, for a kind of reunion. Of course, corpses begin to pile up. Ernie must find the murderer (who may be a member of...

 "You want the poop to be like soft-serve ice cream. Or like mashed potatoes. It's OK if it's like a banana. But: a very, very ripe banana...." I wonder, is this something close to the fantasy the doctor always nurtured, through childhood--the fantasy of a professional life? Mainly, my son views the gastroenterologist as a kind of Santa Claus. "My tummy hurts," he says, loudly. When he notes his own impact, he smiles. He savors the attention. He says, "I really need a sticker...." His sister likes stickers, too, but I can sense the *big* idea that is running through her head: "If I were a doctor, I'd do better." Susie begins to stick small plastic toys into my ear, and she also jabs them into my hip, as if administering a vaccine. "There," she says. "Do you feel happy?" "Remember," says the actual clinician, "there are two things a child can control. What goes in his mouth. And what comes out of his ...

  In my house, we're watching many classic animated films, and some are simply better than others. I have a deep love for a movie whose title is a pun on the term "toy store"; the movie is "Toy Story." This is basically "Thelma and Louise." Two figures with serious flaws can become their "best selves" when an obstacle arises. Woody, a toy from the Wild West, must accept that he isn't as flashy or interesting as Buzz Lightyear, a new action figure. Buzz has problems, too: He believes that he really is a world-conquering hero, and as troubling "counterpoint" evidence accumulates, his sense of self becomes "slippery." Both stars of this film are asking: "Who am I?" This would be enough for a slow-paced indie film, but Pixar adds a curveball. The two lead figures are kidnapped by a psychopathic neighborhood child, who wants to roast them over a fire. They must escape--must trust each other--and must find their wa...

  The true crime stories that really fascinate me are all unsolved: Did Michael Peterson push his wife down a set of stairs? In the DC townhouse murders, did all three roommates participate (or was Victor unaware of what occurred)? Where is the American medical student Brian Shaffer? It's the phenomenon of lying that captivates me. Seeing two eyes on camera, when the eyes seem to say,  I have additional facts, and I won't disclose them.  Are you correct in this interpretation of the eyes? Are you correct *sometimes* and not all the time? If you believe the person is lying, is your suspicion-about-actual-events somewhat close to the truth? Or is the truth a *third* scenario, different from the lie, and also different from the story you, the viewer, have constructed in your head? I know the true crime genre is under fire right now, but I will always, always have an appetite for a real-world, unsolved mystery. By contrast, I have very little tolerance for ambiguity in a work...

 My career coach has become a kind of superhero to me; she is a fan of swift, decisive action. "Once," she said, "I hired a tutor for my child. And the tutor had a nutty idea. My son had done well on the SAT, and his grades weren't quite as dazzling as the SAT score. But, instead of celebrating the SAT score, the tutor said that my son should write a letter of apology to Stanford. As in:  I apologize that my grades aren't always fabulous . So I stared quietly at this tutor, for a minute. Then I fired him." Later, she rolled her eyes at me. "You have sixty contacts on Linkedin. I want that number to reach three hundred. Or you can continue writing meek, solicitous emails to one contact per day--and see what comes of that...." My career coach has a punch list attached to each email. "CLARIFY your goals. VISUALIZE the path forward. TAKE the first step." Even her blog title is a kind of mission statement: "TOWARD A MORE FULFILLING LIFE....

  A woman goes to her doctor to have a prescription renewed. But the doctor is not there. It's her day off. In fact the woman has got the day wrong, she has mixed up Monday with Tuesday. This is the very thing she wanted to talk to the doctor about, as well as renewing the prescription. She has wondered if her mind is slipping a bit. "What a laugh," she has expected the doctor to say. "Your mind. You of all people." (It isn't that the doctor knows her all that well, but they do have friends in common.) Instead, the doctor's assistant phones a day later to say that the prescription is ready and that an appointment has been made for the woman--Nancy--to be examined by a specialist about this mind problem.  It isn't mind. It's just memory. Whatever. The specialist deals with elderly patients.... This is the start of an Alice Munro story; it's about the war you have with your own body.  Nancy knows, deep down, that she is losing her mind. But she...

  Here are the British mega-musicals, shows that began on the West End before making a splash on Broadway: "Evita," "Cats," "Chess," "Les Miserables," "Miss Saigon," "Phantom." Generally, these shows aren't great. I agree with Frank Rich that "Miss Saigon" is the best of the bunch. First, though: "Miss Saigon" has some terrible writing. No one would mistake this for Sondheim: They're called Bui Doi..... The dust of life.... Conceived in hell.... And BORN IN STRIFE!!!! Never fond of subtlety, the writers dream up a big number for the suicidal protagonist: "I'd Give MY LIFE for You." We might wonder if the two central lovers are humans or robots; we might wonder if their thoughts are the product of some early, secret form of AI: The birds awake... The stars shine, too! My hands still shake. I reach for you... And WE MEET IN THE SKY!!!! The Second Act is both weirdly padded and weirdly ru...

On Watching "Beauty and the Beast":  Susie was transfixed. She did not speak for ninety minutes.  During the title song, she gestured frantically at the screen, as if to say, I've been waiting for this. And I admired Jerry Orbach (Broadway's original Billy Flynn, opposite Chita Rivera).  Also, I enjoyed the tension in "Something There," the way Belle's inner conflict is underlined via ranting syntax: There's something sweet, and almost kind... But he was mean, and he was coarse and unrefined... And now he's dear? And so unsure? I wonder why I didn't see it there before.... After the movie, my daughter demanded to wear her various princess gowns. And I was driven back to James Marshall, whom I have cast as Howard Ashman's artistic soulmate. Like Ashman, Marshall is a fan of irony and subtext. The hippos are always exchanging covert glances, visibly biting their tongues. Did you know that Ashman also contributed lyrics to "Oliver and C...