Liars and Saints

  I love the community pool because it's my own version of La Grande Jatte--or my version of Jonathan Larson's Life Cafe. My entire town is at the pool; there is truly nothing else to do. And I feel for everyone, including these folks: *The married couple. They are standing many yards apart, but they're trying to have a conversation over the roaring of the yellow kiddie "mushroom" fountain. "Do you think it's going to rain?" "WHAT?" "I said, DO YOU THINK IT'S GOING TO RAIN???" *The grandmother with borderline personality disorder. She has a three-year-old, who seems to do nothing objectionable. The child is like a little blinking puppy. But the grandmother is deep into a strange and mesmerizing monologue. "WHY do you choose to behave this way? We could have had a wonderful morning. I don't know WHY you're acting so difficult. YOU TELL ME." *The gay tween swim instructor. He has a tiny non-verbal student in hi...

  I was really happy to see Jeff Hiller among the Emmy nominees this year. To me, Hiller's greatest work is in "Somebody Somewhere" 3.4, in which his fiance forces him to attend a Bible study meeting. There is a banal chat--"I underlined that part, too!eeeeee"--then Joel (Hiller) must awkwardly avoid a former highschool classmate who was (once) a thug. Here, the script makes me think of Mitt Romney and Brett Kavanaugh--two bullies who had an opportunity to learn from past mistakes. Both men chose to deny, deny, deny. By contrast, Joel's bully approaches and says, "I'm sorry about what I did to you in high school. It wasn't OK. It was wrong." What is really special is the terror in Joel's eyes. He is just talking to some doofus who lives around the corner. But the memory of trauma is there--via subtext. The actor Jeff Hiller lets you know how much is at stake--and he does his work literally without the help of words. He just uses his bod...

 "2024" ....It's difficult not to think of "Veep" when reading about Kamala Harris. I especially like the moment when she receives a Taylor Swift endorsement and thinks aloud about building this into ads -- only to have her helpers tell her that this would be "too thirsty." I also enjoyed reading gossip about Michelle Obama and Jill Biden. Ms. Biden insists--via aides--that she and Ms. Obama continue to cultivate "a warm friendship!!!" Because this is the kind of statement you make while you're enjoying a warm friendship. "Dead Money," by Kerr. Though the Times has named this one of the year's best thrillers (so far), it's oddly challenging to find in bookstores. It's worth the hunt. This novel has two standout elements; either one would make it binge-worthy. First, it has a "nesting-doll" plot; the structure is elegant and surprising. Second, it has a satire of tech bros--the domain of Uber, Google, AI--fr...

  On my 43rd birthday, I took my husband to the Met Museum, which he generally avoids; I think he avoids it because of its overwhelming size. Seeing art through my spouse's eyes is consistently rewarding. I notice things I wouldn't otherwise notice. We went to the Temple of Dendur--which I always skip over--and I was moved by the crocodile (below). So many, many trips to the Met--and never before had I really noticed the crocodile. The sculpture took me back to Sigrid Nunez, who asks, "Why aren't animals more prominent in contemporary literature?" That ancient crocodile is a showstopper. The Egyptians knew something about what matters in life. Afterward, we went to see "The Weir," which I chose because of its exalted reputation. What I hadn't considered was this: (1) taking Xyzal at noon will knock you out, and (2) being sedentary, after a parenting marathon, will also knock you out. A weir is a low dam; it briefly interrupts a stream or river. The w...

 The Life of Jesus is like a great horror film. It just keeps giving--and giving--and giving. I think this is why Gaudi gave special prominence to the Four Evangelists in the Sagrada Familia. He knew that the Evangelists had written a terrific screenplay. Look at Mary in the Merode Altarpiece. She is just sitting there--trying to do her reading or stitching or something--and a terrifying angel gets in her face. And look at elderly Joseph (on the verge of learning that his virgin-buddy is knocked up). Everything is immediately creepy. Next we have the Slaughter of Innocents; Herod, concerned about his claim to the throne, asks that all young boys in Bethlehem be corralled and murdered. Gaudi set this scene with one baby thrown up above a man's head; another baby is wriggling at the end of the man's foot. Gaudi devoted one half of his structure's facade to the Passion. Here, it's human failure after failure after failure. Peter denies knowing Christ. Judas betrays-with-a-...

 I'm away....

  Jesse Green has a fun new piece about Broadway in the seventies. "A Chorus Line" went up against "Chicago." This wasn't really a contest. "A Chorus Line" had very little to say. (Its main message--"Performers are sort of needy"--didn't count as news.) By contrast, "Chicago" suggested that most of what you had learned in civics class was an elaborate fiction. "Chicago" seemed to predict the OJ Simpson trial--decades before the OJ Simpson trial.  Though "Chicago" lost the Tony Award, this was like "Next to Normal" winning the Pulitzer over Sarah Ruhl. Michael Bennett's Tony win has not "aged" especially well. Celebrating "Chicago"'s birthday, i'm reminded of some of my favorite lines: Give them an act with lots of flash in it-- And the reaction will be passionate. Also: The folks atop the ladder are the ones the world adores-- So boost me up my ladder, kid, and I'...

  Richard Jones's "Little Bear" is about a courageous boy. The boy discovers a marble-sized living polar bear in his garden, and he chooses to become a parent to this polar bear. He plays with the bear; he stores the bear in his pocket. He makes the difficult choice to travel to the Arctic--because he understands that the bear is destined for "wider circles." The voyage to the Arctic is difficult. Waves toss the boat in the air. Seals are tempting companions--but you don't want to fall overboard. There is also just the passage of time; you're far from your television; you have your bear and your occasional visitor birds for company. Having arrived at the Arctic, having completed his mission, the little boy dies. That's how I choose to read the story. If it's an allegory of life, then think about what happens after you have completed your major tasks. You die. The boy feels sad to say goodbye--but he is aware that the bear is now with his own kind...

 A family friend suffered a loss. His sister--who had been extremely challenging for many years--died unexpectedly. I remember reading something about relationships. The writer, Irvin Yalom, suggested that troubling relationships are actually the *hardest* to mourn. You might think that a healthy relationship would be very difficult to mourn. But--in a healthy relationship--both parties can consistently say what they need to say. There aren't festering, unarticulated resentments. In a troubling relationship, you're always half-hoping that fences might be mended. So, when the person dies, you're mourning that person, but you're also mourning the hope you had for an "easier" bond. That bond will never see the light of day. Two interesting things happened at the funeral. One is that the family members explicitly acknowledged that the departed person had been difficult. They did this in an empathic way: They said she'd had a painful life. I was struck by how g...

  "Hercules" is like a retelling of "The Lion King." Zeus and Hades are drowning in fraternal conflict; Hades sees an opportunity for victory, but it's available only if Hades can get rid of Zeus's son. The son--Hercules--evades death but then spends his childhood in a kind of hinterland. Raised by farmers, he senses that he is "destined for more."  I have often dreamed Of a far-off place-- Where a hero's welcome Will be waiting for me. And the crowds will cheer When they see my face-- And a voice keeps saying... This is where I'm meant to be. Alan Menken worked with David Zippel here. I like Zippel because, unlike Tim Rice, he isn't cloying. He is direct and sincere.  The Eva Noblezada version is among my favorites for a few reasons. For one, this is a gold-standard example of a "chest belt." Also, Noblezada's "air-drum" solo is charming. Finally, Noblezada has explicitly stated that she is using Sutton Foster a...

 Mariska Hargitay is an unusual figure in American history. She is a world-famous actor, but her career is linked with just one role. Literally one role. It's a role she has played for nearly thirty years. Many actors describe a desire to be chameleonic, to be lost in one character after another after another. But if Hargitay has that desire, she has suppressed it. It's almost like she is closer to a late-night host--like Johnny Carson--than to a Jodie Foster or a Nicole Kidman. Then. From left field .We get this documentary. "My Mom Jayne" beautifully follows the standard format of a memoir. Mariska has two storylines unfolding at once; there is the present-day Mariska attempting detective work, then there is the story of the past (the Hollywood glamour, the ocelot in the backyard, the car accident). Think of "Wild," with Cheryl Strayed hiking across a portion of America, in one storyline, and also living through a turbulent girlhood, in a second storyline....

 "Clarity is kindness," says the family counselor. She is pointing her remark at me, because she understands that many of my interactions resemble a labyrinth of misdirection and mystery. "If your child is getting aggressive, you could say,  Stop. I don't like that. " (As opposed to..."What on Earth?" "Why?" Or: "COME ON. Are you serious?") I love words--and I'm trying. Yesterday, at the diner, my home fries did not appear. The check surfaced; clearly, the home fries weren't happening. My first thought was to use a tone with a kind of subtextually disingenuous "top spin": I could say, "The home fries....they're not here...I'm guessing someone in the kitchen is still working on this....or.....?" Instead, I had a small triumph. "Home fries. They were supposed to show up. But they didn't show up." The family counselor says that this kind of small tweak is an example of "stepping in...

  One lesson Sondheim discussed was this: "Not everything needs to be the National Anthem." In other words, not every song needs to be enormous. There is room for a small song. A little variety makes the evening more fun. My favorite example is "Mr. Goldstone" from "Gypsy." This is a song that doesn't really need to exist. Certainly, it doesn't need to be dazzling. But there is just as much care here as in "Rose's Turn."  The song has a message: "I'm so happy." But--as in actual life--the happiness pops up in the white space between giddy declarations. Have an egg roll, Mr. Goldstone! Have a napkin, have a chopstick, have a chair. Have a spare rib, Mr. Goldstone! Any spare that I can spare I'll be glad to share! Other writers might stop here, but Sondheim now takes off. He understands that Rose actually feels nothing for Mr. Goldstone--it's just her monomania that is triggering her happiness. So he lets the monom...

  People around me ask, "How can you continue to watch  Sex and the City ?" My husband waded through the recent season premiere, then said, "I can't anymore. I'm pulling the plug." We were at dinner, and the table next to us had four gay men; the men complained about Charlotte's dog and about the way Aidan almost shat himself during phone sex. (In fact, I sort of liked the phone-sex flatulence.) The discussion became a six-person discussion, as Marc and I piled on. "To think this was the PREMIERE! Someone behind the scenes thought.....this is our BEST material, so we need to pack it into the first hour...." I'll tell you why I stick with Carrie Bradshaw. It's because Michael Patrick King is a gay Irish (lapsed) Catholic voice--and there just aren't so many of these voices in the entertainment world. His interest in farts, adult diapers, erectile dysfunction, and "the wild CUNT-ryside" just speaks to me; his words have a wa...

  We considered seeing "Jurassic World," but the reviews were so bad. The reviews said this: "If you vomited, then ate your own vomit, then had diarrhea, that would be  Jurassic World ." So we saw "40 Acres." I was drowning in post-nasal drip--and I was half-awake--but I appreciated that Danielle Deadwyler was so unappealing. It takes boldness to make your protagonist insufferable. This told me that someone behind the camera had a vision. The movie was made *not* for the sole purpose of creating multiple paydays. By chance, we realized that the local fireworks were visible through our upstairs window. And I learned something. I learned that fireworks really *can* inspire awe. They can't--for me. I don't think any real thought or creative work is involved in a fireworks display. And I feel *compelled* to seem impressed--which is irritating. But my kids were enthralled. In the ensuing days, they asked for an encore performance--as if I could snap my ...

  A perfect essay is a rare event. Here's an example. The playwright Sarah Ruhl is alarmed; a scream is coming from her daughter's room. It turns out the daughter has just discovered dramatic irony. "I know something that the Little Princess does not--and this feeling is the worst." Having claimed to be terrified, Daughter happily keeps turning the pages. Sarah then considers her own distaste for dramatic irony--and links this feeling with death, which is "the  ultimate  form of this particular species of irony." God holds all the cards; God knows when you will die, and God isn't saying. More spirited than Sarah, Daughter has a solution. It's possible to cheat death. Just look at dolls; they get "old," but they do not age. Take that, God. This is a terrific essay for a few reasons. First, it's consistently surprising. Second, it shows two versions of insanity: one belongs to the bullheaded daughter, but another belongs to Sarah Ruhl. (W...

  James Marshall named his famous hippos after the central characters in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." So he liked Edward Albee. I can't help but wonder if he liked yet another gay playwright, Thornton Wilder. Wilder wrote "Shadow of a Doubt," which opens with a ne'er-do-well in a tense conversation with the woman who runs his boardinghouse. And Marshall wrote "Rapscallion Jones," which opens with a ne'er-do-well having a tense conversation with the woman who runs his boardinghouse. Additionally, Rapscallion wears a Yale sweater--makin g a subtle reference to Thornton Wilder's alma mater. Rapscallion desperately needs rent money, so he ponders (1) marrying a rich widow, (2) writing a novel, (3) stealing from a pair of alligators. The alligators mistakenly think RJ is a doctor, and they're dealing with chocolate poisoning. "Just jump on your bed," says Rapscallion. "It redistributes the chocolate throughout your sys...

 Parenting is like "Rashomon"; you hear things, and you just have to assume they're untrue. "We take our child out to restaurants," says my neighbor. "But we don't allow screens. No screens. He is only two years old, I know. But we give him a small toy truck, and he is just fine." To me, this is like claiming, "I can defy gravity." I have another voice in my ear that says this: "A child can sit at the dinner table for a certain number of minutes. The number exactly matches the number of years the child has been on the planet." So--by that metric--my neighbor is entering, then leaving, the restaurant within a two-minute cycle. My neighbor goes on to say that he "smuggles" shredded carrots and broccoli into his homemade shrimp-burger patties, and his child then *eats* a patty. But then there's that other voice in my ear, the voice of the therapist who says this: "Not having Twinkies at the breakfast table is a t...

  One thing I admire about Prince is his weirdly pretentious verses: Dream, if you can, a courtyard-- An ocean of violets in bloom. Also: Touch, if you will, my stomach. Feel how it trembles inside. No one else writes like this. Did people try to shoot down these choices? Did a producer say, "We'd like to rethink this one... Touch, if you will, my stomach...."  I can't help but wonder. But it's the chorus that makes this a classic. It's direct and universal--and it ends with that bizarre flourish, the allusion to "the crying doves." (Prince's song was number one in America for quite a while; it defeated Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark.") How can you just leave me standing-- Alone in a world that's so cold? Maybe I'm just too demanding. Maybe I'm just like my father--too bold. Maybe you're just like my mother; She's never satisfied. Why do we scream at each other? This is what it sounds like when doves cr...

 Sondheim had an influence on William Finn; you see it in the "patter" interludes and the sudden tonal shifts. And William Finn had an influence on many other writers. He put HIV on the musical stage long before "Rent." He musicalized the end of a marriage long before "Next to Normal." He wrote about the economy and about greed--before "In the Heights," before "Hamilton." "Unlikely Lovers" is a short story in the form of a quartet. One character--Whizzer--says that he wants to die alone; he doesn't want sentimental lies or consolation. His friends want to read from "Chicken Soup for the Soul." A truce is reached: The four will just talk about nothing. ("Sky! It's blue! I love the sky! I love the trees!") The truth of this situation bubbles up. It's an extraordinary chorus. What a group we four are-- Four unlikely lovers. And we vow that we will Buy the farm-- Arm in arm-- Four unlikely lovers wi...

 When I planned to visit my son's classroom this spring, I anticipated chaos. Josh doesn't like any kind of deviation from a routine--so I assumed that the drop-by would be tumultuous. One of our many therapists gave me a deadpan look. "I understand that your role is  Mystery Reader , but you are allowed to break the rules. The teacher is not the President of the United States. Just tell your son--tell him in advance that you're coming." We all sat outside for Tomi Ungerer's "The Three Robbers." This is the most subversive picture book I'm aware of. It's a socialist screed. A band of robbers steals jewels from rich people. One night, the robbers stumble upon an orphaned little girl. She scolds them. She has no issue with robbery. The problem is that the robbers are not *spending* their wealth. Money is useless unless you put it to work. So she prods the robbers; this new family begins using the wealth to build a fabulous orphanage in the hill...

 I have been watching "Parenthood" along with "Succession," and it seems to me that the two shows are part of one tradition. This is the weirdly-entangled-adult-lives tradition. "Parenthood" is a fairy tale that makes me slightly ill. Every time the grandfather gives a speech about "treasuring every moment," I want to throw things at the TV screen. The writing is also wildly irresponsible. The central couple can't accept that the school system is failing their quirky son, so they grow magical wings and superhero brains and construct a school of their own (within a few months). The school not only succeeds but becomes a kind of gold standard; all of this happens despite the fact that Kristina and Adam Braverman lack basic training in education. Although "Parenthood" pretends to be progressive in its treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder, it sends a clear message that regular Americans don't really need to worry about this situati...

  Last week, I wore my Entitled Parent armor. The public school system accidentally failed to include summer bus transportation in my child's IEP; I discovered this and demanded a change. The new IEP made its debut. The transportation department blithely responded: "We'll address your bus situation, but this will take three to five business days." I've been around the "special needs" block, and I know it's illegal not to follow the specifications of an IEP, even for one day. (Never mind that I would be truly insane to bring this to court--and I surely would not win anything.) As I continued to push, I thought, how obnoxious it is that I have to spend time on this. Why is this something that needs to be on a parent's plate? Then I picked up Lauren Christensen's memoir. Christensen is over twenty weeks pregnant when she learns that her baby is dying in her womb. Though the baby won't make it, and though a full-term pregnancy would be a seri...