Liars and Saints

 There is no law that says a memoir has to address every single part of your life in detail, but if you're married to a high-profile figure, and the marriage explodes in a public way, and you then publish a book that discusses everything *but* the explosion....that's at least mildly annoying. That aside, Anna Marie Tendler is a natural writer; she knows how to mold characters, with words. Her best character is herself; having checked into an asylum, Tendler makes jokes. When a doctor asks her about her depressive periods, she says, "I've certainly had them--but maybe not the kind of *period* you're talking about...." (Rim shot here.) Encouraged to discuss past therapeutic interventions and their levels of efficacy, Tendler says, "I guess I haven't seen success yet, because I weigh 80 pounds, and I want to die." (You can see this is a charming narrator.) I'm also drawn to Tendler's mother, who is a costume designer and an oddball. Mama Ten...

 Oscar Night is my Super Bowl; it's charitable for Marc to watch, because this isn't the language he speaks. Certainly, I would not devote three hours to the (actual) Super Bowl. I think the Oscars must--at times--remind Marc of the experience of watching paint dry. But he watches. "Who is Zendaya?" he asks. "She is the biggest movie star on the planet." (This calls to mind my own inquiry: "Remind me if Travis Kelce has a brother? And he plays for....a  different  team?") I do not think the Oscars represent the best in moviemaking, but I do think of them as a kind of political contest. If you win, your bargaining power can increase. (Though this isn't always the case.) It makes me sort of breathless when Cillian Murphy scores a victory--not because this is unexpected, but because we now live in a world where  Cillian Murphy is an Oscar-winning actor . He now might have options that weren't available one year ago. Who knows what this might m...

Another thing that sort of helps me through these times: John Mulaney, "Airport Sushi." This is a kind of sequel to "Diner Lobster." A young man at LaGuardia wants to purchase the salmon rolls at a dingy LaGuardia kiosk. Such a transgression creates a kind of rupture in space/time, and a bizarre musical begins. The Phantom of LaGuardia--a massacred goose from "the miracle on the Hudson"--appears and warns against the purchasing of the sushi. His song seems to summon others: a dancing man-sized rat, Auntie Anne (of the pretzel world), and also a wide-eyed stewardess. These visitors have stories to tell, stories of De Blasio hatred, of "watching a man die at LaGuardia," of hiking toward an Uber car three miles from the baggage claim. Eventually, the singers are joined by a weary Asian-American man, who has thoughts on COVID-era profiling, and by Jake Gyllenhaal, who just really enjoys an aggressive full-body search at the entrance to t...