Liars and Saints

 One neighbor makes me think of Norma Desmond, in "Sunset Boulevard." You reach a certain point in life, and things seem "settled"; the substantial changes now seem to be in the rearview mirror. But my neighbor divorced at fifty, assumed sole custody of his children, and began dating an unemployed (and essentially adolescent) bartender. My neighbor likes drama. His bartender drives too fast on the back road, and when this causes a furore, my neighbor does *not* quietly apologize. Instead, he sends an email blast: "The allegation of speeding is false. It's not even possible to speed, if you're going up a hill that steep..." Also, my neighbor regularly evicts the bartender--but then a tearful reconciliation occurs--and housing arrangements are readjusted--and the cycle begins once again. There is some thoughtless groupthink in my neighborhood; when one family requested GoFundMe contributions to help with a small "property issue," several pe...

 Richard Osman's plots tend to fly over my head, but Osman is so clearly enjoying himself, I just keep reading. Osman's special talent is to exaggerate certain qualities we all have--while still making his characters recognizably human. In Osman's new novel, "We Solve Murders," Rosie, a ninety-year-old novelist with an insatiable appetite for sex, seduces various handymen while defending her own life against an assassin (and while, also, investigating a mystery). Rosie's sole moment of weakness seems to occur at an airport bookstore; if you watch closely, you might spot her hiding a Lee Child novel behind a title of her own. Elsewhere, Bonnie, a young woman, dreams of a career as "an influencer." She sees an opportunity: She could sit poolside, in swimwear, while advertising the virtues of "organic paint." ("I hadn't even known that paint could be inorganic ...") Bonnie rehearses her lines, in private: "Color brings happi...

 "Will and Harper" is an unusual movie because its subjects are constantly aware that they are on camera. It's not as stagey as "reality" television, but it's still stagey. Because of the cameras, you're frequently wondering if various people are "performing." For example, when the subjects enter certain bars, and they're surprised to find the locals on good behavior, you might ask,  Is this plausible reporting? Or are the locals behaving themselves *because* of the cameras ? Also, in the main "conflict" scene, when some Texans behave very badly, I (at least) had a queasy feeling; I felt that the filmmakers were pumping their fists, in triumph.  We caught some people acting in a thoughtless way! That said, the movie has smart moments. In one powerful scene, Harper, the subject of the film, shows her friend a house that she bought. It's in a crummy town in California. Before making a gender transition, Harper had purchased this...

  As a tutor, I know how challenging it is to stay "plugged in," to dial up one's own interest in an unchanging curriculum, hour after hour after hour. So I have great admiration for the behavioral coach who works with my son; to me, she is like Chita Rivera, dancing each night with her damaged leg, refusing to "phone it in." "You need a rubber duckie app, to serve as your potty training aid. The app is called 'Countdown,' and it can be your stopwatch. There are other apps called 'Countdown.' Beware. You want the image of the rubber duckie." I nod, but I worry that my eyes might lack a sense of earnestness; they might look like they're "performing" (because they are). "The volume on the stopwatch might soothe your son, as he poops, but it seems to upset your daughter. So be thinking about that. Be thinking about  volume controls ." I feel I've entered the set of a Christopher Guest movie. Our new books are: *...

 "Guys and Dolls" is--like "The Sopranos"--about two semi-separate worlds. One world is the disreputable universe of gambling. The other is the "domestic front," the turbulent world called Loveland. What makes the show extraordinary is Frank Loesser's gift for language. Loesser was not a gambler; it's not clear that anyone in history has ever been anything like the characters in a Damon Runyon story. But Loesser absorbed Runyon's influence and had fun with words. In Loesser's vision, an aggrieved girlfriend shouts, "Take back your mink!" Elsewhere, a Paulie Walnuts type tells his friends about a promising horse on the tracks: And just a minute, boys: I've got the feed box noise. It says the *great-grandfather* was  Equipoise ... Shows class! Shows class! This guy says the horse shows class.... Most famously, a troubled soul addresses the goddess Fortuna, right before a craps game: You're on this date with me. The pickings ...

  At times, I detect little errors in "The Sopranos." For example, when Gloria Trillo drives Carmela in a car, Gloria blatantly mocks Carmela: "So great that your daughter is getting a Columbia degree. Looks like *she* won't have to rely on a man for support. Some people aren't in the same boat." Carmela--who generally seems shrewd to me--misses this insult. Is that plausible? Also, the writers want us to believe that Meadow spends a full summer reading Mary Higgins Clark novels. As far as I can recall, we in the audience never see Meadow reading a book for pleasure. What does she think of Mary Higgins Clark? Does she discuss the Clark novels with friends? To me, the Clark reference feels lazy, undercooked. All that said, I love the Meadow stories. In season four, the feisty undergrad decides to take a year off, to mourn the loss of Jackie Jr. Her mother fights this in a helpless way, but the battles go nowhere. Tony throws up his hands and says, "Fine....

  When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

 A sense of enthusiasm can help to paper over flaws. J. Courtney Sullivan's "The Cliffs" seems disorganized, then it seems too schematic, then it seems to be a "dump site" for big, bulky sacks of exposition. But JCS likes her characters, so I stay invested in the story. One, Jane, is at war with her mother. Jane--a bookish kid--wins admission to a selective summer program at Bates. When she tells Mom, Mom is oddly dismissive: "It's just a way they're trying to drain money from us." That's a lie, and Jane does enroll in the program. Halfway through, she overhears a teacher explaining that this is a kind of charitable gesture, aimed at "underserved teens"--and Jane then understands that her mother's reaction was about pride. Jane has scorn for Mom, and for Mom's alcoholism--but later, as an orphan, Jane begins to question the narrative in her head. What had she missed, when her mother was alive?  Nearby, an unhappy housewife...

 "Good One" is a journey story. A teenager agrees to a weekend camping trip with her dad, Chris, and a family friend, Matt. On one level, the struggles are predictable: One character gets car-sick, another forgets a sleeping bag, another believes that he communicated certain requirements about his wardrobe (but in fact a miscommunication has occurred). On a different level, everything is a surprise. Though it's a work of fiction, this seems to be a movie about real people (which makes it rare). Chris has issues with his contracting business, because he lies to clients, then expects the clients to be magnanimous and forgiving. He has cheated on his wife, then sought solace with a woman half his age; because he is under the young woman's spell, he has agreed to raise an infant (though he, Chris, is 60 years old). Also, Chris enjoys antagonizing his friend Matt (which is odd, given that neither Chris nor Matt is a middle- or high-school student). The central teenager see...

  My daughter is as tightly wound as I am, so there are some aspects of back-to-school month that should not surprise me. Sometimes, awaiting the bus, Susie bursts into tears; I think this is because the effort of the PK day seems overwhelming. I encourage her to slack off. "Just give 70 percent today," I ask. "No one will notice." The dumbest thing I did was to take her to a cafe after school one afternoon; I should have anticipated that, after all that social school time, she would want to lounge on the sofa with lightly plotted TV options. This is what I myself would want (and, in fact, the cafe led to an ear-splitting tantrum). In desperation, at the table, I made a threat: "Calm down, or we will leave right now." And of course Susie said, "Great. Let's leave right now." Things did not improve. I notice that Susie's accounts of her day tend to focus on lunch--and this, too, makes sense to me. Many of the daylight hours seem to be a di...

 One of my favorite children's stories, "The Photograph," uses dramatic irony. It's an extremely short story by James Marshall. Martha the hippo visits a photo booth; the result is a terrible, unflattering portrait. But Martha, with her immense self-regard, sees only evidence of dazzling beauty. No one corrects Martha. The story ends in this odd, uncomfortable way: We, in the audience, observe something that Martha cannot observe. Jon Klassen has (I think) studied James Marshall. Klassen also likes to produce images that are in tension with the words on the page. "No one saw me steal this hat," boasts a little fish (but a crab is a silent witness, in a distant meadow of seaweed). In "Sam and Dave Dig a Hole," the two heroes are always just inches from uncovering a diamond--but they're unaware, because they don't have the cosmic perspective that we readers have. One of my beloved Klassen scenes has two little ones studying masks, mounted on ...

 Hilary Mantel's towering achievement--"Wolf Hall"--shows how the Tudors both were and were not "like us." The abuse of power, the scheming, the lust--all of this feels "modern." At the same time, Mantel's characters seem to exist in another galaxy; many have fervent beliefs in the supernatural, and many seem to think that the monarch really does have a direct line to God. The musical "Six," which never explicitly alludes to Mantel, does owe a clear debt to Mantel. The most effective segment zeroes in on Anne Boleyn, a recognizably modern figure. Boleyn--sounding a bit like Avril Lavigne--complains that Henry "messages" her all the time. When she decides to flirt back, she becomes impatient with the specter of Catherine of Aragon. Could somebody just *hang* her? He *doesn't* want to bang her . Later, annoyed by Henry's infidelity, Anne petulantly spreads a rumor that the King is impotent. And so she is executed. All of t...

  My daydream of returning to work involved Julianna Margulies, in "The Good Wife." I would be in expensive suits, squaring off against Renee Elise Goldsberry and Martha Plimpton. Instead, my workplace is called a "shack"--that's actually how the company has branded itself--and I tend to get text messages about an overflowing toilet, a need to deodorize "tutor spaces" after one or two hours of "instructional use." My spouse is sometimes in a slightly combative mood...when I come home. We are dividing labor in a generally graceful way, I think, but it can be hard not to "hoard free minutes," those minutes in which you're enjoying an empty car, an absence of shrieking. (Most recently, my daughter had a tantrum because I wouldn't immediately pull over, put on the brake, and adjust her stuffed dog so that its tummy was fully shielded by the car-seat straps, because a hypothetical car accident might endanger the welfare of this t...

  Plot isn't very important; what matters is an engaging voice. I'm reading "Colored Television," and it's not clear to me that a story will emerge, but I very much like the protagonist. She is Jane, an irreverent writer in Los Angeles. She calls herself "mulatta," because she dislikes the word "biracial." (She says the latter word sounds like a description of an insect, or alien, and also, it lacks specificity. A "biracial" person can have parents from any two varied backgrounds--any you can imagine.) Jane comes from the "Loving generation," a term she hates. Yes, her parents married after the  Loving  decision, handed down by the Supreme Court. But--since her parents have always deeply loathed each other--Jane prefers to think that she belongs to the "Hating generation." As a professor of creative writing, Jane assigns stories to Millennial grad students and Gen Z undergraduates. All students will complain about ...

  The first time I watched "The Sopranos" (Season Three), I was overwhelmed by Annabella Sciorra, called the greatest guest actor in the history of the series (see Michael Imperioli's remarks). Through "The Sopranos," Sciorra rewrites "Fatal Attraction," and she gives the story the ending that Glenn Close actually lobbied for. Rewatching now, I'm still mesmerized by Sciorra, but I'm newly interested in Jason Cerbone, who plays Jackie Jr. Though he is mostly deplorable, Jackie Jr. has nice moments. For example, he shares football tips with AJ. Also, he has a warm bond with a little girl--this forms over a game of chess--during his final days on Earth. We, on our sofas, might occasionally wonder how fully "rotted" Jackie Jr. has become; he might make us recall a certain therapist's observations to Carmela ("Take the children--what's left of them--and get out of your marriage"). At the end of the season, David Chase hel...

My daughter wound up at my son's old school. "This is great," said my husband, "because it means you can continue to make fun of the principal." Indeed, that thought had (also) crossed *my* mind. When the principal speaks, I sometimes have to miss appointments, because I'm so eager to witness the lunacy. I'm truly humbled to be serving as your leader and remain   committed to providing a nurturing and challenging environment where every student can thrive. This year, I'm particularly excited about the finalization of our school's Vision Statement....I look forward to our next steps on how we will gain collaborative stakeholder participation and input. I'm also thrilled that much of the construction work around our school has been completed. In addition, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that I ordered new furniture, materials, and supplies that will be added to classrooms throughout our school! I've been hard at work thi...

  Fairy tales often feature battles between greed and selflessness: hungry wolf vs. courageous woodsman, cunning stepmother vs. gentle, generous Hansel, evil sisters vs. patient Cinderella. William Steig creates a variation on a theme, in "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble." Here, the malevolent force is a shiny pebble: It seems to give you everything you wish for, but secretly, it wants to steal your soul. When Sylvester spots a menacing lion, he foolishly (understandably) wishes to become a rock; this wish saves his life, but it also causes him to become paralyzed and mute. He can't "un-transform" himself, because he is now immobile, and he is not in contact with the pebble. Sylvester's parents are the true heroes. They search tirelessly for Sylvester. Even when they announce they're giving up, they continue thinking about Sylvester, talking about Sylvester. They spot a certain pebble and stash it on a rock ("because Sylvester always loved pebbles...

  "Sunset Boulevard" is not a musical I love; it seems bloodless. It is an overly literal translation of a good movie. I think it adds nothing to the movie. But I like the title song. It opens Act Two, and it nicely recalls the opening of the show, in which Joe speaks directly to the audience. In the song "Sunset Boulevard," Joe makes an explicit connection between the L.A. sunset and Norma Desmond's "sunset"; he lets us know we are watching a kind of death (at least one kind of death, possibly several kinds). In witty verses, Joe tells us about becoming a gigolo: She was sinking fast; I threw a rope. Now I have suits-- And she has hope. It seemed an elegant solution. One day, this must end;  It isn't real. Still, I'll enjoy a hearty meal-- Before tomorrow's execution. It's the bridge that ups the stakes; Joe admits to us that he is not coolly disengaged from the events of his life. In a way, he has feelings for Norma. If I'm honest...

 I hadn't known this one year ago, but a kind of "conquer-your-fear" therapy exists for four-year-olds. My son spent the summer in an informal "social anxiety camp," conducted within our home. The playdates were like medicine. I could rarely predict how Josh would behave. One day, an entire party seemed to be occurring in our living room, and my son wanted to sit in a quiet corner and eat macaroni and cheese. Another time, he seemed to infer that the presence of guests required a kind of "social labor," but he spent all of the hour socializing with his little sister, and only his little sister. Did this count as progress? I myself like to be entombed in a silent, empty house, for hours and hours, so the summer required work from me, as well. There were rewards. I became enthralled by the saga of "the surly au pair" -- a young person just down the road, who seemed to be contending with a possible "failure to thrive." Also, my spouse ...

 There is a scene in "The Cruelest Month" that nicely illustrates what I dislike about Louise Penny's writing. Armand Gamache, the hero, is watching his little grandson. The grandson walks too close to a pond. Armand stands to correct the error, and his wife stops him. "Don't," she says. "That is your son's job now." Touched by this feedback, Armand kisses his wife, in a reverent way. "Thank you," he whispers. He doesn't say the words; he whispers them. All of this reeks of bullshit. Who says a grandparent can't save a small child from drowning? And, in a marriage, even a functional long-term marriage, might one spouse be tempted to say to the other, in a peevish tone, "I wasn't actually seeking any guidance here" --? I sometimes have to take a few deep breaths so that I don't throw the physical object, the book, across the room. That said, I like Penny's use of an omniscient narrator. This feels old-fash...

  Sondheim hated intermissions; he felt they sucked energy out of the evening. "Follies," "Passion," and "Assassins" all have (at least) versions that unfold without an intermission. When Sondheim did use an intermission, he tended to use the Hammerstein template. Get to the curtain with a loud crash: "Climb Every Mountain." Start Act II with something sort of disposable, for the people who are still in the restroom (the von Trapp children gather to rehearse a less-than-urgent reprise of the title song). Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" concludes Act One with a major twist; the two leads commit to a life of cannibalism. The song is witty and canonical--but, curiously, it left Sondheim himself somewhat disappointed. He wanted a bigger bang. In any case, the Act Two opener--"God, That's Good"--beautifully describes a day in the murder house/pie shop (and it's free of substantial emotional moments, again as a tip of the hat ...

 My twin lives down the road; she is a struggling writer, with two small children. Her high-profile spouse takes frequent work-related trips; when the two argue about this trend, the spouse suggests that the trips are a financial necessity. They are *good* for the family. Since my twin has my own set of interests and liabilities, she gives me little life hacks (perhaps without grasping exactly what she is doing). The Louise Penny mysteries that do *not* unfold in Three Pines are maybe not worth reading.... I can't remember road names, and I have no talent for geography, so I just depend on landmarks. If you do not collaborate with a nanny, then you must buy a family membership to the community pool. It's actually non-negotiable. This is a survival tactic. Here's one thing I've offered, in return. Parenting means that your phone blows up with mysterious contacts--community members you've hired, or considered hiring, then forgotten. The names overlap. Jackie the night...

  One thing I appreciate in "The Sopranos" is its use of dramatic irony: the moments when we're aware of twists that have somehow concealed themselves from the major characters. Season Three "resurrects" Big Pussy, in a series of flashbacks; because we know Big Pussy's fate (and Tony does not), the mid-nineties scenes are notably painful. When Big Pussy becomes weirdly territorial about his Santa suit, we understand that the artificial "fat mounds" conceal a wire. At the same time, we can appreciate that Big Pussy is genuinely an excellent Santa; he is a conflicted soul, more complicated than the 2-D image his friends carry in their heads. In a parallel subplot, we're made aware of Charmaine Bucco's disdain for Tony (but the Sopranos do not know about this disdain). Then, having seen her own life crumble, Charmaine decides to "drop the mask" in Tony's presence. She calls him something lower than dirt. Carmela--having noticed T...

  Everyone knows about Marie's Crisis--the occasional celebrity cameos, the rich sense of history, the sense of solidarity, etc.--but not everyone notes MC's role as a "kingmaker." I'm not as interested in the bar as my spouse is, but a recent visit made me more fully aware of a certain shrine. Scattered around the bar are photos of prominent divas: Bernadette, Patti, Audra, Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera, Angela Lansbury, Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli. Here is my question. Are we celebrating musicals, or are we celebrating  movie  musicals? As far as I can see, Judy Garland never appeared in a Broadway musical. Julie Andrews did two--then she turned her back on Broadway for thirty years. After thirty years, she appeared in a mediocre show, and threw a tacky, public tantrum when the show did not earn the nominations she felt it was entitled to. ("Entitled" is the key word there.) I guess it's fine to enshrine movie legends in ...