Liars and Saints

 I have mixed feelings about the impending (possible) win that "Two Strangers" will (might) celebrate for Best Musical. On one hand, I admire the quiet audacity of this show: It's not about romantic love, and in a way it's not even really about friendship. It's truly about two strangers. It is grounded in character; it follows two people through fairly pedestrian problems, and it arrives at a plausible conclusion. On the other hand, on a line-by-line basis, the writing is often not distinguished. I'd save the Tony Award for a later work by these young writers. My two cents. I do think my personal performer of the year is Christiani Pitts. She will not win at the Tony Awards (and this has nothing to do with the quality of the performance). Her role isn't even the flashiest role in her two-character show. But I was touched and charmed by Pitts's work. That doesn't happen often in a theater. Pitts's character has screwed up in an understandable wa...

  "Tuner" is an old-fashioned thriller with ideas. Niki tunes pianos to pay his rent--but, in his past life, he was a gifted pianist. A case of hyperacusis means that he can no longer tolerate most noises. In my childhood, I studied the clarinet with a formerly professional musician. He himself had apprenticed with Luke Cage; when his body stopped working, he had to become a teacher. I could feel the weight of his sadness when I was with him. In "Tuner," Niki's depression is a ticking time bomb. He wants to live his life, but he also carries so much rage because he has been given a raw deal. His mentor encourages him to go out on dates--is this smart? If he can't take care of himself, should he really aim for an ambitious social life? Hyperacusis has an odd surprise for Niki. Because of his sensitivity, he can break the codes for access to various safes. Through a plausible coincidence, Niki falls in with a gang of thieves. He becomes indispensable to these ...

 It's odd to think of "Gypsy" in reference to "The Pitt," but I gotta be me. Sondheim's wonderful gift was his way of showing people at war with themselves; Madame Rose, running on fumes, often wants to self-destruct. Why did I do it? What did it get me? Scrapbooks full of me in the background. Give 'em love--and what does it get you? What does it get you?  One quick look as each of them leaves you. All your life--and what does it get you? Thanks a lot, and out with the garbage. They take bows, and you're batting zero. Like Rose, Dr. Robby has an addiction to work; it's the chaos of professional life that keeps the doctor afloat. Still, quiet moments are terrifying--because they allow for reflection. Dr. Robby doesn't want to think. One of the surprises of "The Pitt's" second season is that it gives Langdon a "Louise" moment. Having spent ten hours seeming insecure, vulnerable, Langdon finally sheds his skin and become...

  Having a child can be a wakeup call. One hundred years ago, literary theorists began to speak of "defamiliarization," the alien gaze. This is where you describe an ordinary object from the perspective of a non-human. A famous example involves Ariel from "The Little Mermaid": "LEGS are required for jumping, dancing....strolling along down the.... what's that word .....STREET!" Well, having a child can be like living alongside Ariel. My son is disturbed--in every sense of the word--disturbed by the existence of insects. Intrigued, alarmed, excited, flustered, enchanted. This is my wakeup call. Insects: They're really strange! We all tend to forget. For a long while, I thought my son used words in the way adults tend to use them: Words were a vehicle for thought. But now I'm realizing that words are (sometimes) more like a placeholder for Josh. They aren't always meant as a means of communication. They're a sound that pops out of his mou...

  Maurice Bailey was ill in childhood, and he spent a great deal of time alone. He grew up with a low opinion of himself; he avoided parties and dates. When he did find himself on a date, he forgot his wallet; he was mortified to ask for money. Although one part of Maurice was committed to a conventional understanding of success, another part had eccentricities. On some level, Maurice understood that his life was boring. He had an interest in flight and in travel by sea. His wife, Maralyn, shared his interest; because the two were childless by choice, they had some options. They talked each other into a crazy plan: they left their dull British stage set and began sailing toward New Zealand in a small boat. Here we get to the present tense action. All is well, until it isn't. A bloodied whale collides with the boat. A shipwreck seems inevitable. Maurice and Maralyn jump onto a raft--and Maurice starts to prepare himself for death. (Maralyn--more optimistic--thinks that a rescue...

 Thinking about Apu, I'm led to recall Charles Dickens. Dickens invented Fagin, a famously antisemitic caricature in "Oliver Twist." Then, confronted with the truth of what he had made, Dickens did a 180. It's widely believed that Riah--the saintly Jewish character in Dickens's final novel--is a kind of "apology" for Fagin. We can still read "Oliver Twist" while wishing that a bit more thought had gone into the recipe. The story of Apu is complicated and lengthy. Writers of "The Simpsons" have been weirdly defensive about their error. One notably said, "This is an era in which people like to pretend to be offended." Another described Hari Kondabolu's work as vicious and small-minded. It does not seem difficult to concede, "Times change. There is a world of difference between 1990 and 2015. We're flawed, we've tried to grow up. End of story." From what I've read, it's Hank Azaria, the actor, who ...

  At times, with the special needs counselor, my spouse and I just want to rend garments and gnash our teeth. Yes, we *know* there are steps to take to limit a child's physical aggression. But we don't always need to hear the steps. Sometimes, it's useful just to shout to the heavens. "If you tell a child to stop, that's provocative. The end result is that the child will continue to do the obnoxious thing, and will just *amplify* the intensity of the obnoxious thing." No shit. But here's a question. Sometimes, physical proximity is not a reasonable choice. Let's say you're at a hotel, and your children have raced away--so that there are several football fields between the kids and the adults. You see your kids, but they are just little stick figures against a sea of beige carpeting. One child puts an arm in the air--violence is on the agenda. If you were Mary Poppins, you might hurl yourself down the length of the hallway; you might intercede. You ...

 In a way, "Dear Mr. Henshaw" is a companion novel to the Ramona Quimby series. Leigh Botts doesn't meet Ramona, but Leigh's issues remind me of Ramona's issues. When Ramona's father loses his job, he struggles with depression and begins smoking. When Leigh's father has his own existential crisis, there is a related string of bad decisions. Beverly Cleary doesn't mince words. Adults make errors all the time. Children have to cope with the messy behavior of loved ones. Bill Botts is so lost--so inadequate--that Leigh Botts needs to invent his own surrogate parents. He is like the bear in a Henshaw novel--when the bear's mother dies, the bear begins eating only sugar, so much sugar that he cannot hibernate properly. It's a friendly ranger who intervenes and teaches the orphaned bear to feed himself properly. One of Leigh's surrogate dads is Mr. Fridley, the observant janitor, who drums up tasks for Leigh and sings the praises of a well-develo...

 Anthony Horowitz speaks about the construction of "the twist" in a mystery novel. A good writer has to play fair--all the clues need to be available to the reader just as they are to the detective. In a well-done mystery, the clues seem to lead you down one particular path--but another path is just as plausible. In the new Horowitz novel, an actor playing Daniel Hawthorne is murdered. We first think that the actor was the intended victim. But what if the killer was going after the real-life figure the actor was playing--the killer saw the name "Daniel Hawthorne" on a trailer and became confused--? The killer then killed the actor, thinking that the actor was Daniel Hawthorne. We accept this conjecture. But the question is this: *Should* we accept the conjecture? I was raised on Agatha Christie. In college, I discovered PD James, who is like the upgraded iPhone version of Agatha Christie. Depending on the day, I might tell you that PD James is my all-time favorite w...

 I struggled with "Is God Is." We know we aren't in the realm of realism--because the two protagonists refer to their mother as "God," and they're being sincere. I've thought a fair amount about the off-putting title, and I assume it's a reference to the idea of twins. The two starring roles are for twins. They are daughters of God. One on each side of God. We're in the world of the ancient Greeks. God's husband throws God in a bathtub--then sets Her on fire. Many years later, God is out for revenge. She is too damaged to fight. So she sends her daughters to kill their father. This story evokes thoughts of Medea, Oedipus, the House of Atreus. God's nurses are like the Furies. We might also wonder if God is telling the whole truth--for example, why isn't there a clear explanation of how the two daughters ended up *next to* their mother in the bathtub? The movie's success depends on the actor playing Man--and, here, the director was...

  My husband and I left early from a party; we wanted to watch "SVU."  It didn't matter that the episode seemed to have been written by AI. (Big plot holes troubled me. Parents are upset that Olivia has allowed a child-torturer to walk free; in the next scene, the same parents have cheerfully loaned their own tween to Olivia for an improvised game of baseball. Also, cops talk about the "intelligence" of a particular predator--but the predator drives around with a gun on display, even as a victim is shouting in the trunk.) At the party in question, Marc and I were pleased to find another SVU fan. Neither my spouse nor I have any idea what we should be discussing at parties--to be gay in a sea of straight people is to be mostly puzzled (hour after hour). I generally find myself summarizing the plots of recent films for an uninterested listener. But meeting another SVU addict--that's a game changer. This particular addict had "intel": If you skip the ...

  The song "New York" does double duty: It sets the scene and functions as an "I Want" solo. (In this way, it's a bit like "Skid Row" from "Little Shop of Horrors.") Like many other moments in "Two Strangers," "New York" is a case of inadequate writing--the lyricist wants you to laugh at the European tourist's minimal knowledge, but by reaching for cheap jokes, the lyricist sacrifices a sense of realism. In a way, that doesn't matter--because of Sam Tutty's immense charm, and because of the bond linking Tutty and Christiani Pitts. I especially like Pitts in this song; she has to be extremely dry while also conveying a sense that there is chemistry between the two main characters. Pitts is given terse sentences that contrast with Tutty's rambling--she puts a surprising amount of topspin on just two words. ("It's not.") No one thinks that either one of these actors has a shot on Tony night--but ...

  Elizabeth Strout writes odd and compelling characters. Artie Dam--her new protagonist--is silently considering suicide. He teaches history at a high school, and his boss has said that local pro-Trump forces are demanding curricular revisions. Artie can no longer ask his students to play the roles of Northern soldiers in a Civil War reenactment. He must now offer a choice between a Northern *or* a Confederate role. Meanwhile, Artie has an angry protege whose talent involves Shakespeare studies. Artie's little protege causes a problem by insulting another student in class. Artie digs deeper. The insult grew from a personal wound; Artie's protege understands that his mother is having an affair, and he doesn't know what to do with his pain. Elsewhere, Artie's adult son Rob suspects that Artie's recent boating accident was not an accident. "You have to promise me you won't kill yourself," Rob says. "Because everything you do is like a map of the stuf...

  My son was mildly ill yesterday, so he and I stayed in to watch "The Simpsons." This was my ideal Sunday. As an adult, I feel that "The Simpsons" is essentially a documentary about my parenting experiences. Josh and I watched not one but two spoofs of elementary-school birthday parties. In "Grade School Confidential," Martin's mom hires a "math magician," who bores the children with (incorrect) demonstrations of long division. Many seasons later, Nelson hires a professional Spider-Man, who is distressed by the party's low turnout. ("Listen, kids. I've got just ten minutes of material....Maybe I should come back later?") Josh tends to vote with his feet. If he doesn't like a show, he leaves the room. But he did stay for the entirety of "The Simpsons." Because of a communication delay, I'm not always sure what Josh is processing (and I suspect it's quite a bit). For now, he likes to quiz me on the main ...

  I'm watching "The Pitt," and occasionally I grow tired of the melodrama. Yes, we are all at war with ourselves, but sometimes the Dr. Robby struggles seem over-the-top. We get it. A little more subtlety would be helpful. By contrast, "The Simpsons" does a great job of showing Principal Skinner on a particularly bad day. Bart has smuggled his dog into school--but the dog escapes through an air vent. Groundskeeper Willie coats himself in lunchroom grease, and his rescue efforts are successful; however, Willie destroys a piece of school property and falls from the gym rafters. Having witnessed this, Superintendent Chalmers fires Skinner. Things don't get better. In an amazing scene at the laundromat, Skinner tries to entertain himself by reciting the names of each and every detergent. He can't even secure a playdate with Bart. Miscreants appear and steal his underwear--though he vows to buy a new pair, he soon discovers that he is penniless. Nelson's ...

  "Obsession" is a retelling of "The Monkey's Paw." In that famous story, a man wishes for great wealth. But the wealth turns out to be blood money--it's a corporation paying cash to cover up the death of the man's son. At the end of the story, the man wishes to have his son back. Fair. But the tapping on the door--is that a human being or a zombie? With "Obsession," young Baron wants the love of his old friend Nikki. He goes to a spooky voodoo shop and "gets" his wish. But Nikki's love seems problematic. Nikki begins screaming at random intervals. She tells lies about cancer. We reach a "crisis point" when Nikki cooks and eats a portion of Baron's dead cat. This movie has a little bit more on its mind. Baron's friend Ian has secrets--we're not sure we can trust Ian. Additionally, there is a colorful cameo at the voodoo store; the clerk is maybe not the helpful neighbor we imagine him to be. Beneath the layer...

  My daughter is now at a stage where she states her questions aloud while watching a movie. I've learned that I do not have to answer the questions. She is just thinking out loud. Her questions are spot-on. They are the questions that any engaged viewer would want to explore. In his new book "Make Believe," Mac Barnett argues that kids are the ideal readers. Their minds have not atrophied. They do not grow impatient if a story "breaks the rules." They are comfortable with uncertainty--because their growing brains have not learned it's possible to *reject* uncertainty. (By contrast, in my old age, I don't have much patience for a novel if it fails to feature a detective. If I can't immediately sink into the standard detective rhythms, I get crabby and anxious.) Barnett suggests that 95 of every 100 picture books are very bad. But he says this is not alarming, because 90 of every 100 "adult" books are very bad. Barnett argues that many adult...

 Like Anne Lamott, I'm not a great fan of Mother's Day. It's not clear to me why parenting demands a celebration--no one puts a gun to your head and requires you to become a parent. So the expectation of being celebrated--this feels narcissistic. At least until our culture establishes a Single Person's Day, and a Gay Uncle's Day, among several other random days that come to mind. Recently, the Times ran a letter by a single woman who had an inner conflict. A friend was marrying for a second time--this friend was staging a splashy second wedding. The letter writer makes an annual trip to a particular concert with another single friend. There is a kneejerk reaction: A second wedding is "more important" than a single person's ritual. But why should this be the case? I admired the Times's response: Cite a scheduling conflict, go to the concert, and move on with your life. My daughter brought home a Mother's Day card. In one spot, the paraprofession...

  One error of the current revival of "Chess" is a wish to make the characters likeable. Trumper's bad behavior is "explained" through a new subplot about mental illness. There are machinations around Florence--but these machinations do *not* include lies about her dead father. Her father is, in fact, alive; he pops up at the end. (Heaven forbid we leave the theater with a feeling of sadness!) I do not like or understand "Chess"--and I think it should be retired. But--watching clips of Judy Kuhn--I can get a sense of a slightly weightier "Chess," a better "Chess" than the one we have to swallow in 2026. Kuhn is capable of acting--she seems brittle and conflicted. This is more than Lea Michele can offer--with Michele, we get an unconvincing pantomime of distress. We also get some loud "Mariah"-inflected pop numbers. As others have observed, the current "Chess" is half-redeemed by its Anatoly. Nicholas Christopher ...

  Lena Dunham reminds me of Amy Winehouse. You listen to a tape of the pre-adolescent Winehouse, and the voice is already there--the talent is undeniable. And Dunham's major movie--"Tiny Furniture," essentially the work of an undergraduate--is a masterful comedy. It's the kind of thing that earns you random emails from Nora Ephron. (Ephron lobbied for Lena Dunham's company.) Amy Winehouse didn't want fame; she wanted to be a jazz singer in tiny nightclubs. Lena Dunahm didn't want fame; she wanted to express herself. The early years of "Girls" are a horror story. Dunham teams up with a "friend," a substantially older woman, Jenni Konner. Instead of mentoring Dunham, Konner views her child-colleague as a kind of meal ticket. In the first season, Dunham begins to show signs of disordered eating. Konner does not offer help. She approaches Dunham and says, "The producers are worried that your weight seems too normal. The show doesn'...

 My spouse and I knew nothing about colors; we thought a reasonable choice for the exterior of the house was red. "No," said the contractor. She doesn't mince words. "You do not live in a farmhouse. Choose again." I think our next dream was to live in a sleek charcoal box--of the style that Bosch uses in the show "Bosch." We were inspired by the concept of the "upside-down house" in Los Angeles. You enter the house--it's the kitchen. Then you walk *down* stairs to reach various basement bedrooms. "No," said the contractor. "That is not your house. Think light and bright . Think about sea foam, yellow, or green." Combining yellow and green immediately made me daydream about jaundice. Or stomach viruses. Did I want the house to resemble the face of a sick person? I had not imagined that this would be quite such a process. I wish I had entered the discussions with less impetuousness and more humility (and this is the stor...

  In 2006, GLAAD listed "all" of the gay characters on TV--but omitted Waylon Smithers from the list. (This error was corrected in 2008.) Smithers is not the star of "Burns' Heir," but his role is notable. We first see him giving a sponge bath to Burns--Burns complains that the sponge in question "has sharp corners." In his crazed wish to please Burns, Smithers forgets himself. He has an idea to find a better sponge--but he hastily leaves the *offending* sponge on Burns' head. The weight of the square sponge almost causes a drowning episode. It's this near-death experience that inspires Burns to search for an heir. ("It won't be you, Smithers, because you will have the honor of being buried alive *next to* my skeleton.") It's a sign of Smithers' deep devotion that he tolerates the indignity of the "heir contest." In the climactic moments of the show, Smithers watches in horror as Burns tumbles into a deep pit (a ...

  An element of Gothic storytelling is "the inexplicable." A shape in the doorway might be a vampire--or it might be just an odd effect of lighting. I love this uncertainty--it's maybe the thing that I love *most* in storytelling. I love it in true crime, as well; I almost feel deflated when a crime is actually solved. One of my favorite stories--about the DC townhouse--has three men conspiring to murder a friend. The friends claim they are innocent--but the facts suggest that this is almost impossible. But if they *are* guilty, then they are living (year after year!) with a terrible secret. This seems (additionally) impossible--at least to me. Patrick Radden Keefe is part of a dying breed--the breed of "the star journalist." His golden era began with "Say Nothing," in which he described a cold case from Ireland's troubled history. At the end of the book, he actually solved the case. He presented a hypothesis that seemed more or less airtight. He f...

 I was raised on Celine Dion; her work inspires a special mixture of reverence and disdain. I think her most questionable move was to release a song called "I'm Alive" shortly after the devastation of 9/11. If this was meant as a tribute to victims of 9/11, it was difficult not to hear an *implied* title: "I'm Alive---and You Are Not." I did not see Marla Mindelle in "Titanique"--I saw Dee Roscioli in the off-Broadway version. This was a special night for me; some kind of Kansas City Chiefs game was occurring, and I did not have to watch. I sat among many other gay people--also, oddly, the Broadway performer Eva Noblezada--and I enjoyed seeing a heavyset man in the role of Frances Fisher (mother of "Rose" on the Titanic). This man flirted with me and tried to sit on my lap. Marla Mindelle has all of my love. I watch her clips regularly. Among her many gifts is her incisive reading of Celine Dion's "crowd talk." Because Dion ...

  In my town, there is a great deal of virtue-signaling around coffee. There is a desire for "coffee purity," which means that you can be judged for visiting Starbucks. In fact, the workers at the rival shop, "Village Cafe," wear tee shirts that say, "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Starbucks." (This is the closest to overt nastiness that anyone gets--anyone in Maplewood.) People were ecstatic when a new local option opened--the option was called "Elitist Coffee." It's really called that. Not "Elite Coffee," which would also be absurd. "Elitist." People wanted to pretend to love this local shop--though its hours (W-Sunday only) were bizarre, its seats were uncomfortable, and its counter was unequipped for accepting non-cash payments. This sort of situation breeds cognitive dissonance within a Maplewood citizen. The citizen wants to (loudly) proclaim his or her love for Elitist Coffee--but you can only tolerate so many ...

  A "heat check" is a moment when an actor hijacks a film or show for three or four minutes--the actor becomes something like an MVP in just a very short span of time. On "The Pitt," occasional heat checks come from the student doctors. These students are young and dumb; they say tasteless things. The awkwardness is compelling. For example, one student doctor recently concluded that a mother was a psychopath, because her "stressful-situation face" did not seem adequately "agonized." The other student-doctor--Ogilvie--cannot tolerate when patients reveal themselves to be flawed. I think this intolerance is fairly typical for people in their twenties. Ogilvie joins Dr. McKay on an "outreach trip." (It seems clear that McKay has selected Ogilvie *because* of his frequent discomfort. At least on a subconscious level, McKay wants to give Ogilvie a trial-by-fire.) Within one minute of meeting his new patient, Ogilvie falsely concludes that an...

  No writer alive today is more fun for me than Anthony Horowitz. As he has said in interviews, Horowitz writes just for himself. He is not concerned with market trends. He is not looking for Netflix deals. He writes because he has to write. There is a well-populated world inside his head; he knows how to describe that world. His sentences are elegant, and his stories are surprising, well-structured, and weirdly plausible. The Horowitz/Hawthorne series uses a grammatical or writerly term in each title: "The Word Is Murder," "The Sentence Is Death," "A Line to Kill," "The Twist of a Knife," "Close to Death," "A Deadly Episode." In the newest novel, "Episode," Horowitz is filming a series based on his own books. There is an actor to play Horowitz's detective buddy, Daniel Hawthorne. When the actor is murdered, it looks like a case of professional jealousy "run amok." Is the killer a costar? An agent? A sc...

 It's a standard refrain--how inadequate so many doctors are, how chaotic their offices can be. I've read the explanations about being overtaxed. I empathize. As a tutor, I sometimes do not want to show up. My bedside manner can be "terse." I can be slightly--or significantly--distracted. My child's neurologist is well-intentioned, but she tends to be forty minutes late. Each time this happens, she appears stunned--as if she herself cannot believe she is so tardy. But I've stopped "buying" the act, since the lateness is now a ritual. It's like if you let your dog shit on your neighbor's garden sculpture every single morning. Eventually, your neighbor is going to suspect that your "surprised face" is just a kind of pantomime. The neurologist had a nurse call to say that my child's potassium level was high. What followed was a startling nonsense word salad. "Maybe it's high because he didn't fast before the blood work...

 Lisa Kudrow gave an interview recently about auditioning. She said that auditions are frequently brutal for actors, because the actors are focused on the director. ("Does he like me? What does she think of me?") Kudrow's suggestion is simple: Just do the job. Forget that anyone is observing you. When I was in high school, I was puzzled by Charley's observation in "Death of a Salesman." Having sent his son to argue before the Supreme Court, Charley says, "I never cared about anything. That was my ticket to success." Now I understand what Charley means. He has removed his ego from his work. He has shown up and done his job in an efficient way--and he has used his actual mental and emotional energy to pursue his hobbies. Missteps at work have not had a seismic impact on Charley--because work is just work. Charley's sense of self-worth is not linked with the things that occur at the office. The elegant plot of "Death of a Salesman" build...

  I'm getting ready to see "Death of a Salesman" tonight--my sole source of interest is Laurie Metcalf. Recently named one of the theater actors "you must see," Metcalf is always mesmerizing. Here are my three favorite Metcalf memories: *"The Other Place." I think this was toward the start of Metcalf's Broadway reign. All I remember is that it begins with a monologue and that Metcalf's character is losing her mind. A theater actor has to command a cavernous space; there has to be a sense of "layering," a sense of mystery. I remember feeling that right away from Metcalf. She was the center of a force field--that's the only way I can describe it. *"Little Bear Ridge Road." By this point, Metcalf had become something like Broadway's Mozart. In my favorite scene, she was near comatose--she was listening to a story that her troubled nephew had written. Because she had invested so much in her character, because her perform...

 The recent Times interview put a spotlight on a Taylor Swift song I admire; this is a widely beloved song. I want you to know I'm a mirrorball-- I'll show you every version of yourself tonight. I'll get you out on the floor-- Shimmering, beautiful-- And when I break, it's in a million pieces. To me, this is notable because Taylor is speaking directly to the listener. This isn't unparalleled--but, in other settings, I tend to think of Taylor in storyteller mode, writing to "Betty," to Jake Gyllenhaal, to her mother. The idea is that a pop performer--or any public figure--is just a vessel to be used. You listen to a pop singer so that you can learn or understand something about your own life. "When I break, it's in a million pieces." The personal failures of the songwriter are a gift to the world--because the shattering yields a million pieces (a million songs). This composition is celebrated for its bridge: And they called off the circus-- Bu...