Liars and Saints

It has taken me a long while to hop on the "Schitt's Creek" bandwagon. I'm on now. A few thoughts: *The real brilliance of this show is in the minute details. Recently, in an early episode, a phone call arrived for the Levy, Sr. character. The motel phone wasn't working. After the tiresome nonsense of trying to establish that the phone was indeed broken, Levy, Sr. had a great idea: "Send the call next-door, to my son." Of course the phone worked there. And of course the bratty son could not be bothered to invite his father in to field the call. The bratty son had a terrific idea: "Just hang up and call again, but call my dad's number. So glad I could be helpful." This endless scene--in which truly nothing happens--seems to say so much about miscommunication, passing the buck, and tolerating frustration. It seems to capture everything that occurs continuously in my work life--through metaphor. It's like something you would see in ...

Disney is resuscitating "Mulan," which seems unnecessary, but also let's recall how close-to-overtly "gay" this movie is: Look at me I will never pass for a perfect bride Or a perfect daughter Can it be I'm not meant to play this part Now I see That if I were truly to be myself, I would break my family's heart Who is that girl I see Staring straight, back at me Why is my reflection someone I don't know Somehow I cannot hide Who I am Though I've tried When will my reflection show who I am inside When will my reflection show who I am inside That's Mulan herself, worried that the person she is will never match up to the person her family wishes her to be. Though I'm not sure, I'm willing to bet that the lyricist is a gay man. I can't really recall the plot of "Mulan"--I think there's some Shakespearean cross-dressing, some bits involving mistaken identity--but, over the years, I've often admired ...

What I Will Read while I Wait to Pick up the Baby: * "Devil's Knot." The Times has listed the fifty states and paired a true-crime book with each state. "Devil's Knot" is the story from Arkansas. This is a story similar to the saga of the Central Park Five (from what I gather). A crime occurs; the police find some teenagers; confessions are coerced; lives are ruined. The actual crime--in the case of "Devil's Knot"--remains unsolved. Squeamish about reading true crime? A writer recently observed that the pleasures of the genre are something like the pleasures of "Hansel and Gretel" (which is a crime story). We want to understand what happens underneath the surface: Is the smiling lady really a witch, and how do we prove it? We also want to look for human ingenuity in the face of evil. Scatter those bread crumbs: smart! Who knows if a true-crime book might help you to wiggle out of your own tight spot, eventually? * "Born ...

It happened. I didn't handle it all that well. I went to see "Road Show," at City Center, and there was "Steve" Sondheim, at the post-show reception. He wore a plain yellow polo shirt, untucked, and it didn't fit too nicely. He hovered on the perimeter of the reception, maybe not thrilled to be there, and the minute the congratulatory remarks were finished, he made a bee line for the exit. This is where the story takes on a "Cinderella" aura. Bear with me. I suddenly understood that I could not continue to make the small talk I was making. I hastily murmured goodbye to the very polite person who had been talking to me all evening, and then I more or less body-slammed a stranger so that I could reach the staircase. (Sondheim is past eighty years of age, and I'm not sure why I thought he would be racing at 100 mph for the door, why I thought I wouldn't catch up, but this is how my brain works.) City Center has grand, wide staircases...

I'm super-excited for "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," which opens tomorrow. A few thoughts: *This movie tells--partly--the story of Sharon Tate. Ms. Tate was married to Roman Polanski and nurturing a young film career when Charles Manson's minions murdered her. Hollywood in the sixties seems to be a special obsession of Tarantino's--dating to childhood--and I'm pleased he's exploring it here. (John McPhee says, "If the thing didn't interest you in your teens, it's never going to be a great subject for you to write about.") *How strange to blend real and fictional characters. Like "Ragtime." DiCaprio and Pitt are playing fake people, but they will be in the company of Tate and Polanski, among others. *Acting is about gestures. "Lightning in a bottle" is when a performer does something surprising and real, on camera. I'm obsessed with one Margot Robbie moment in the trailer. She says, "I play Mia--the klu...

Secretarial work requires "communication skills"--there's that old chestnut--and though I'm still frequently evasive, crabby, and sloppy, I *have* learned a few things from my four-ish years behind a desk. Here's what I have learned: * Do not apologize too often. Excessive apologies are needy and irritating. They will help you to defeat your own purpose. * Do say "thank you" all the time. "Thank you" opens so many doors. I try to slip it into the first ten seconds of my phone call with any customer-service person. "You greeted me! Thank you!" (Not literally.) "Thank you" says: "I'm going to make a good-faith effort to be a human being on this phone call." Everyone hears that subtext. That subtext is *never* not welcome. * Explain the purpose of your email in your first sentence. "I'm writing to...." If you can't finish that sentence, consider not sending the email. * Have an interes...

One thing I'd like to do with my kid is make glue. This is the lesson plan to end all lesson plans. You take some small children and some kitchen ingredients--maybe corn starch, baking soda, baking powder, sugar. You have the kids experiment with the materials. Which makes the best glue? Is it the corn starch/water combo? The baking powder/water combo? The kids test their results with paper. Can I attach one paper to another? No? Then the glue isn't working very well. This is how it becomes clear which household ingredient is best. Then: the really elegant climax. You have the kids vote: Which is the best glue-making ingredient? They create a large bar graph. They create the bar graph by using the glue that they feel is best. That glue becomes the glue by which the kids affix their particular choice to the massive bar graph you have posted. Why is this so thrilling? Well, it's an approach to problem-solving in which actual hands get actual use. There's a mess....