Liars and Saints

One of my all time favorite story songs is: "I Had Myself a True Love," by Johnny Mercer. Mercer ranks among the great American songwriters. In "I Had Myself a True Love," the speaker, who has lost her man to a gal in "that damn old saloon," tells us a bit about coping with despair. https://www.google.com/search?q=audra+mcdonald+i+had+myself&oq=audra+mcdonald+i+had+myself&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60.2947j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 The speaker informs us, casually, that this guy was a looker, "something to see." The speaker spends her days plotting ways in which she might get this guy back. Meanwhile, cruel tongues wag; everyone in town indulges in spiteful gossip about the speaker's sorrow; "the Lord knows I done heard those backyard whispers goin' round the neighborhood." The song--which started with a reference to "the first thing in the morning"--builds to a climactic dinner scenario. "In th...

We found a house. It's at 67 Maplewood. This is where I imagine I will be for at least the next eighteen years. Maplewood, NJ, has a charming downtown with a functional bookstore; the new releases aren't immediately available, as they would be at the Strand, but if you wait a few days, then they're available. You purchase two hundred dollars in reading, and you get a free book. This is a store that feels no need to carry Anita Brookner--not one Brookner!--and it's also pretty skimpy in the Philip Roth department. But I'm coming. (Actually, I don't plan to complain about the Brookner or Roth issue.) Joshua now sleeps in a crib with a small central "nest." If you poke your tongue out at him, he will reciprocate, but he seems to need to open his mouth wide to get the tongue out, and the tongue will be visible for maybe half a second. Just a tiny slice of tongue. Joshua can also smile. The musical finale of "Transparent"--a widely-panned ...

I don't always love "The Crown." It's not as tight as "The Queen." (Also, could Peter Morgan work on his titles?) "The Crown" sometimes wants to tie things together in a way that feels hammy. There is excessive tidiness. I felt this way in an early episode about smog and a later one about a visit from JFK. And--as in many other Netflix series--there's often a sense of bagginess. You sometimes want to ram your head into a wall and ask, "Did this episode really need to be SIXTY MINUTES long?" I wanted to say that because there's so much "The Crown" does well, the reverence it inspires can be "too much." We should hold "The Crown" to higher standards, for the sake of "The Crown." The new teaser trailer is what you would expect. The writers need to acknowledge that Olivia Colman has replaced Claire Foy. They show Colman scrutinizing a formal portrait. (We're reminded of the famous ...

Here is the thing that Ann Patchett does extraordinarily well. It's a contrarian thing. Writing about owning a dog, Patchett recalls all the people who approached her and said, "That's just a surrogate! You really are rehearsing for having a baby!" Coolly, Patchett observes, "This is incorrect." She leaves unstated: "Take your sexist laziness and shove it up your ass." There's a tension required for that kind of understatement--and the tension is the thing that keeps you glued to the page. How to get married: Make a mess of your first marriage. Find yourself shaking and permanently scarred. Next: Date a man for eleven years. Be sure he is fifteen years older than you. Insist that you will never, never marry. When your boyfriend has a life-threatening heart incident, find yourself getting married. In her new novel, "The Dutch House," Patchett has two main characters disinherited. They have access only to a trust-for-education. So...

For most of my life, I've been drawn to scary stories, and so the Broadway musical has been home for me. Even in shows that are not overtly or consistently scary, ghosts tend to play a role: *Fiddler on the Roof (the "Dream" sequence) *Next to Normal (the entire show) *Les Miserables (Fantine jumps back from the Land of the Dead, among others) *Miss Saigon (You thought Thuy was *fully* dead?) *Carousel (See Act Two) *Into the Woods (Keep an eye on the Baker's Wife) *Sunday in the Park with George (Keep an eye on Dot) *Hamilton (See the finale, which borrows from "Les Miserables") *Caroline, or Change (I'd argue that the talking statue of the Confederate soldier functions as a ghost) *Dear Evan Hansen (See the entirety of the show) *Ragtime (See "Sarah Brown Eyes") *Once on This Island (I'd argue that Daniel--right after the car accident--is a kind of ghost for Ti Moune, even though Daniel does also eventually wake up, in a prop...

My understanding about Kate DiCamillo is that she moved to the midwest at some point in adulthood--and, bored, wrote a novel to begin entertaining herself. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I think--also--that that novel was "Because of Winn Dixie," which won awards and launched DiCamillo on her career. Gripes first. DiCamillo is a bit sugary. She is not the master of subtlety that Kevin Henkes is. She has never made me laugh, as far as I recall, and so she is not Beverly Cleary. But there are several things DiCamillo does very well: *She underlines life's randomness. In "Winn Dixie," a little girl meets a stray dog at a grocery store; store name becomes dog name; the story begins. In a somewhat hackneyed way, Winn Dixie's travels through a new town help the girl to meet a ragtag group of friends, and the struggles of these friends become the novel. *DiCamillo makes lively characters and gives them high-stakes situations. The narrator of "Winn Dix...

There is a book entitled "Everyone Brave Is Forgiven." This makes me think of Fleabag. She is a wreck, yes, but she is brave. A wreck? She shtups her best friend's boyfriend. That friend then ends up dead--so "resolution" isn't a possibility. (Maybe resolution isn't often a possibility.) Brave? Fleabag tries to rebuild her life. She pursues funding for her little cafe. (This doesn't end well; Fleabag actually flashes her bra at her interviewer, and she is promptly dismissed.) Fleabag enters therapy; she reads the Bible (her jaw drops, frequently); she visits some kind of "healing commune"; she begins refusing offers of empty sex (though you can see the pain this refusal causes her, written across her face). All the while, Fleabag is able to laugh at herself, and so she is different from many people. Aware of Fleabag's spotty past, one friend says, "I thought you'd be in prison by now." Chuckling, Fleabag says, "...