Liars and Saints

 Patti LuPone appeared on TV with Andy Cohen -- the appearance was recent -- and Cohen asked, "Is  Being Alive  the greatest Sondheim song?" LuPone has brains, and she answered in an admirable way. "It's not really about individual songs, if it's Sondheim. Sondheim wrote for characters; because he was so invested in his characters, it's hard to take a Sondheim song out of the story it's embedded in. I think of Sondheim in terms of a full musical score. My favorites, among his scores:  A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd ." Hard to argue with that. But if you wanted to make a case for "Being Alive," I think you'd want to look at the bridge. Bobby has been complaining about the idea of being coupled. Marriage is giving up your chair, your sleep, your privacy. At the same time, Bobby has conflicting voices in his head: "Don't be afraid it won't be perfect. The only thing to be afraid of is that it WON'T B...

  PBS has its spotlight on a great Tim Rice song, "Heaven on Their Minds." It's the start of "Jesus Christ Superstar." We see Judas; he wrings his hands. Judas recalls an exciting era with Young Jesus; at the start, these two guys were running around scoring points for social justice, making the case for a redistribution of power and wealth. But, at some point, Jesus seemed to lose interest in politics. Jesus's story became something more than a political story; people wanted to call Jesus "God," and, terribly, Jesus seemed OK with the shift. Judas understands what will follow. If people put you on a pedestal, it's only a matter of time before people will try to kill you. At the same time, Judas can't just abandon his old friend, who (now) seems sort of repellent. Judas loves Jesus. "Believe me: My admiration for you hasn't died." This is a terrific opening--because we might not expect to identify with Judas, but Tim Rice make...

 As my son approaches his 2.5 birthday, I find our lives are overwhelmed by Cocomelon. This is a series of scripted televised songs for children. I don't know how the songs entered our lives, but they won't leave. They're like crack. You have pulsing rhythms and a literally nonstop chorus of soft giggling. (The giggling is just a little creepy -- and it makes me think of porn, the way the quiet sighing is added on top of the visuals, in "post-production.") The baby-protagonists in Cocomelon have large "Charlie Brown" heads, and they walk in clumsy ways, as actual toddlers walk. If Cocomelon has a plot, that plot concerns the small crises in the life of JJ, a tiny kid with issues. These are his issues. His mother shows up late for a special school edition of "Winter Show and Tell." He feels nervous on the first day of Kindergarten. He has a friend who struggles with the jump-rope. ("Someone's in my head, saying NOT A CHANCE! Someone...

 As we approach the end of "Better Things," here is a love letter to my favorite character on television, Phil. A "retirement-phase" Californian, Phil has some unconventional ideas. She basically steals a man from the man's ailing wife; this is especially uncomfortable because she, Phil, is white, and there is a sense of white entitlement/obliviousness in Phil's behavior. (Phil also blindly alludes to one of her granddaughter's friends as a "scholarship student." The retort: "He is not a scholarship student. His father is Harry Belafonte.") No one around Phil is happy with Phil's choice of boyfriend, but Phil has a startling speech. "Yes, my boyfriend is married. But, when you reach my age, there are so many roadblocks to divorce. Questions about health, money, family, property, mental fitness, impending death. People my age do not have the luxury to clutch their pearls all the time. People my age cannot be as rigid as people...

 I liked Laura Lippman's new book of stories--"Seasonal Work"--and I appreciated the many murders, false identities, affairs, acts of spying, and even allusions to the supernatural. Lippman is often thinking about power--and specifically the link between power and gender. One story takes us back to the most-eventful days of the Cold War; a housewife makes a habit of studying her neighbors (the one with conspicuous makeup under her eye, the one who stores vodka in a water bottle, the one who seems to walk far, far from "the office" on an ostensible trip to work). Through a series of amusing twists, the housewife becomes aware of Kim Philby and Philby's colleagues--and, by the end of the story, she has opted to "donate" her eagle eye to the neighboring offices of the CIA. A "bestie" invents a Match.com persona so that she can off her obnoxious girlfriend; she then plans to steal the girlfriend's spouse. A smart little girl studies her s...

 One gift that Sondheim left behind was: an invitation to see canonical works in a new way. It seems that Sondheim continuously fought against popular wisdom. Hammerstein's great achievement was not "Some Enchanted Evening," but "What's the Use of Won'drin." Lorenz Hart was iffy, but DuBose Heyward wrote like a god. Ira Gershwin tried too hard. "Tonight," from "West Side Story," is an example of "purple writing." Leave it to Sondheim to view "Rent" in an unusual way. Sondheim didn't have much praise for the big, buzzy numbers, but he was fond of Jonathan Larson's quiet, little song, "Santa Fe." Let's open up a restaurant in Santa Fe. Sunny Santa Fe would be nice.... We'll open a restaurant in Santa Fe-- And leave this to the roaches and mice. Larson's fictional bohemian brainiac Tom Collins addresses his new love, and he (Collins) gets swept up in a daydream: You're a sensitive aes...

 Some friends are planning on, or moving toward, a second child, and here is my letter to those friends. I can't generalize, but I think that having two children means that you almost never leave the house with all the supplies you need. I'm routinely stunned to discover that a crucial--THE crucial--supply is still back on my desk, on the second floor. That supply could be: the zoo pass, the functional car key, the speech-and-communication notebook, the driver ID, the cell phone. I think, once you accept that you will always be unprepared, the actual moment of discovery ("God damn it!") is a bit less irritating. It seems to help me to "draft" various events, in my head. If there is a doctor visit, I try to envision my own behaviors before they happen. So, if the visit falls apart, I may have choices to fall back on. I understand, more and more, that parenting is about "making implicit things explicit," and I'm surprised how hard this is. For ex...