Liars and Saints

 ] I was struck by two artists who responded to Uvalde. One showed several outlines of bodies in chalk, on a background that evokes thoughts of a chalkboard. This drives home the point that an especially creative place, a place of discovery, has been destroyed.  The second artist showed Ted Cruz praying, with blood all over his hands. This is a visual expression of the ugliness and hypocrisy we spot in Ted Cruz's Tweets ("thoughts and prayers ....") The art captures the thing we're all thinking, the thing we can't adequately describe with words. Here are the images (attached).

  Surely, the worst series on TV right now is "Keeper of the Ashes," starring Kristin Chenoweth. An amazing display of tastelessness and narcissism, "Keeper of the Ashes" should never have made it past the drafting stage. It's the true story of a brutal killing in Oklahoma; back in the seventies, someone murdered three sleeping Girl Scouts at a rural camp. Kristin Chenoweth had nothing to do with this story--truly, nothing--but since, at one point, her family *considered* sending her to the camp, she believes that the tale of the murders is her tale to tell. Chenoweth doesn't do any investigative work; she just pops up every thirty minutes to say, "It was that weekend when I learned the meaning of evil...." Or: "The people of Oklahoma are like red clay soil. We all just stick together." Or: "I went to the same school as one of the three victims. I didn't know her, but I might have said hello in the hallway. I might have been, lik...

 Just tipping a hat to Kate McKinnon, who is leaving SNL. One of my favorite McKinnon works is a spoof of the Todd Haynes film "Carol." Carol has brought her new friend, Therese, to lunch. "Tell me about your last name," says Carol, and Therese says, "It's Czech." This excites Carol: "Czech please! Czech right here! I'll take the Czech. I'm coming down with  Therese Syndrome..... "  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QljnNIBtaI I also like McKinnon as Ingrid Bergman at the end of "Casablanca." Ingrid doesn't know what to say to her lover, as she leaves him to his bloody and maybe fatal near-future, so Ingrid just says, "Bye-eeeeee!"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQKVIJnfiNM Finally, in this house, we adore McKinnon as Elsa in the "cut scenes" from "Frozen II." Elsa has a secret, and she isn't sure if she can continue to bury the truth. "This forest is so disorienting," she say...

  The secret superpower of SVU is its characters. We saw this once again in "Confess Your Sins to Be Free." A little boy sees his father kill his mother, conceives a deep hatred for both parents, then grows up to be a rapist/priest. Another priest--"bound by the rules of the confessional"--crazily tries to "protect" the rapist from justice while also interrupting any new rape attempts. An angry husband blames his wife for having been assaulted. (Fin says, "She knew you'd behave this way, the shouting, the tantrum. Why don't you surprise her by being an adult?") The character who haunts me is Aidan Quinn, who seems to want to make restitution, as part of a Twelve-Step Program. But, like Pete Davidson or Amy Schumer, Quinn becomes intoxicated by his own self-deprecation: He enjoys making people laugh in AA meetings. When the law comes after him, we learn whether he is actually, sincerely interested in atoning for how he has behaved. The wri...

 I'm giving five stars to "Love Marriage," by Monica Ali. My sense is that Ali spends a good deal of time reading Tolstoy; like Tolstoy, she isn't afraid to exaggerate a character here and there. Like Tolstoy, she takes on the big subjects: love, death, sex, marriage, social change. "Love Marriage" concerns Yasmin, who is training to be a doctor in London. Yasmin's parents emigrated from India; it's Yasmin's understanding that Mom and Dad had a "love marriage," and that Mom accepted Dad even though Dad came from the world of the untouchables. (The truth is a bit more complicated.) Yasmin contends with nuttiness in the workplace--and the work scenes are among the strongest. (Who doesn't know what it's like to find the office unbearable?) A white woman looks at Yasmin and requests an "English doctor." Yasmin says, "I'm English. I was born in London." The woman becomes upset and says: "You seem to be ac...

 Despite continued awfulness in America, we're allowed to acknowledge a positive story: Angela Lansbury will be winning an honorary Tony Award. It's amazing to me that Lansbury is alive and well, and that she had a major role in "Gaslight." I know the Tony doesn't acknowledge "Gaslight"--but, still! Lansbury made a big entrance in that movie; she was ferocious. In her second act--her second act!--Lansbury wandered over to Broadway and became a muse for Jerry Herman and Stephen Sondheim. She is the only person in history to have attained two "Herman" Tony Awards ("Mame," "Dear World") PLUS two Sondheim Tony Awards ("Gypsy," "Sweeney Todd"). Though Ethel Merman couldn't secure a Tony for the first version of "Gypsy," Lansbury completed the task in the revival. In a third act, Lansbury inspired Howard Ashman, and she did iconic work in "Beauty and the Beast." Unbelievable. Marc asked ...

 To celebrate forty years of "Little Shop," NPR has released a Tiny Desk Alan Menken concert, and it's worth seeing. You're reminded of the unforgettable Menken/Ashman characters: the sadistic Elvis dentist, the scheming alien cabbage plant, the struggling heart-of-gold heroine. Menken has excellent "backstage" stories: He used laughing gas as a weapon because his own father had devoted his life to the study of laughing gas, he chose a small cast because Ashman insisted (the previous large-cast effort had been a flop), he recognized Audrey's "I Want" song as a major piece of writing (and he later thought of the Little Mermaid's "I Want" song as a piece *very similar* to "Somewhere That's Green," a piece called "Somewhere That's Wet"). The clip is fun because of Christian Borle, but also because of Menken, who is a living legend and a walking history book. Marc and I have watched twice. https://www.youtu...