Paul Rudnick

As a child I had one primary ambition, which was to leave New Jersey and move to New York. It wasn’t that New Jersey was so bad, in fact, the Jersey suburbs are a terrific place to raise children. My small town was safe and there was a nearby lake with a waterfall, and I could ride my bike to school, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized the people who lived in a compound in my neighborhood, on a very large plot of land, were probably organized crime figures.

While growing up, I never divided the world into gay people and straight people, but into people who lived in New Jersey and people who lived in New York. Of course, once I grew up and actually moved to Manhattan, I discovered that all sorts of people lived in New York, which is pretty much the entire point of New York.

What I was looking forward to was a place of infinite possibilities, and taxis. From all the movies I’d watched and the books I’d read, New York seemed like a place where everyone lived in apartments and had all sorts of friends and wildly varied careers, while wearing interesting clothes and holding opinions about everything. All of this turned out to be true, plus you can watch couples screaming insults at each other on the street, which you can’t really do in more rural areas, where when couples fight, you can probably only overhear the distant sound of gunshots.

It’s August, when the city can grow empty, as people head for the beach; of course, when people say that New York is empty, they really mean that the people who can afford to buy or rent beach houses have left, often via helicopter. But I love New York in August, because over the past few days alone, I have done the following:

I attended a delightful party held on the rooftop of the Scholastic building in Soho, filled with writers and editors and all of the terrific people who work at Scholastic, which published my first Young Adult novel, Gorgeous. Scholastic has by far the most shockingly welcoming atmosphere I’ve ever encountered. At some companies, even in the elevators you can sense the prison-colony gloom, but Scholastic is the opposite. Everyone there seems to genuinely love what they do, plus there’s a truly impressive gift shop in the lobby, and a very large  version of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

I went to the Duplex to see a performance by Jeffrey and Cole, a wonderful comic team who had their own show on Logo. They’re both fantastically funny and limber, and the crowd adored them.

I went to the tailor to have a jacket altered, where while I waited, I got to do one of my favorite things, which is to watch strangers try on their outfits in the many full-length mirrors, as the tailor used straight pins to make their skirts and blazers and jeans fit flawlesly. It’s a moment of anxious vanity, as people reveal which body parts they’d like concealed or emphasized.

I did other things too, but in order to reassure my superb and impatient editor, I was mostly working on my new book, because working on a new book is an excellent way to spend August in the city.

Have you ever noticed that there are almost never any Jews in outer space? While I was watching the surprise sci-fi blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy, whenever my mind wandered, because I couldn’t remember the names of any of the planets or their evil overlords, I began to focus on the intergalactic cast: there was a sly blonde hunk, played by the totally adorable Chris Pratt, there was a sexy, svelte green alien babe named Gamora, played by Zoe Saldana, there was a talking raccoon, a lot of people painted purple, and even an ambulatory warrior tree named Groot, but there were no Libbys, Davids, Estelles or Murrays. It’s as if in the future, Florida and the Upper West Side have ceased to exist. Would it be so hard to name a starship the Nebula Ben-Gurion, or maybe the X-15 Nev Shalom?

Going to see yet another Marvel franchise superhero movie is like trudging off for Labor Day with my in-laws: no one really looks forward to it, the experience is always pretty much the same, but for some reason we keep doing it. Guardians of the Galaxy follows the standard Marvel gameplan: there’s an all-powerful bad guy who wears a helmet which covers most of his face, and who speaks in a low, raspy Darth Vader-type voice, which is like listening to a heavy smoker on a respirator; there’s a precious ancient orb or cube which must be stolen, retrieved, tossed through the air in slow motion, and finally restored to its rightful owner, who will keep it safely stored until the inevitable sequel; the main hero is a cocky white male who becomes his best self; there’s a feisty female in a skintight bodysuit who kicks ass; and there are at least three endless battle scenes too many, all  involving grungy, brave little spacepods that soar to the rescue and blow up the massive death-cruisers. Some of the CGI effects, especially the talking tree, are fun; any time the movie starts to get sloggy, the director cuts to the chatty tree for a reaction shot, as if it was a puppy. By the end of the movie, all of the cranky, yet ultimately good-hearted characters have learned to band together, as a team and a family, and then they’re able to slaughter their enemies, because that’s what being a family is all about. Of course, all of the Marvel movies are really about watching a band of wisecracking superheroes save the jobs of the Disney executives, who paid billions for the Marvel archive.

I asked my 12-year-old son Mitchell Sean, who’s a big fan of video games and comic-con lore, if he liked Guardians of the Galaxy more than, say, the last Ironman or Spiderman movies. Of course he just rolled his eyes and made one of those exasperated verbal fry noises in the back of his throat, and said, “Mom, you’re not supposed to like those movies. You’re just supposed to go see them, to make sure the universe is protected. You are just so old.” Which is true, and that’s why I especially liked Glenn Close, who was playing a high-minded authority figure called Nova Prime, which sounds like either a new drug for erectile dysfunction, or a gourmet item at Zabars.

I also saw Snowpiercer, which is a much more downbeat futuristic movie that actually makes sense, which is probably why it’s only been screening in two or three art theaters. Snowpiercer takes place after climate change has frozen the planet and killed everyone, except for a select group of humans onboard a supersonic train which keeps circling the globe, like a Carnival cruise with better plumbing. The movie is the lovechild of directer Joon ho-Bong, who’s a master at keeping the movie exciting and amazing to look at it, even though it’s all set aboard that train, which has cars at the back, where the grimy, downtrodden workers service the engines, and increasingly more luxurious cars up front, for the rich folks who dye their hair and cavort decadently, just like the rich folks in the Hunger Games and every other movie about a peoples’ rebellion against injustice and the extreme use of eyeshadow. As the movie progresses, the workers, led by a determined Chris Evans, push forward, through the many levels of onboard society; it’s sort of like what would’ve happened if Che Guevera had used his miles to book a revolution on the Orient Express.

I loved Snowpiercer, even though not only did the always-dreamy Chris never take off his shirt, he never even took off his coat. The movie is gorgeously designed, so it looks like a German Expressionist musical. The plot is filled with genuine surprises, and when the embattled supporting characters, played by people like Octavia Spencer and Jamie Bell, got maimed or killed, I actually cared about them. And while there are special effects and there’s plenty of bloodshed, Snowpiercer gets its most shocking moments from simple stuff, like suddenly having all the lights go off on the train. There’s also something romantic about train travel, even in a dystopian tommorrow, and the more upscale  cars feature a swimming pool, a beauty parlor and a disco, because even downtrodden workers can appreciate an Ambassador Lounge.

A the end of any Marvel movie, the good guys have always triumphed, and they stand tall in the rubble, as the pounding theme music tells us that all of the movie’s stars will now be able to upgrade their second homes. By the conclusion of Snowpiercer, we’ve been through an almost biblical debate on the tragic nature of humankind. But I’m still waiting for a cinematic epic called Space Shtetl or Don’t Use The Sonic Transporter Until At Least An Hour After Eating, because the universe needs a few Libbys, and maybe a Sophie or two, if you ask me.

So I was reading about this huge amount of Youtube videos in which preteen girls ask everyone
to tell them if they’re pretty or ugly. I watched a few of these videos, and at first they
were heartbreaking and then they grew boring, because most of the videos were quite long,
for someone asking such a succinct question. Also, the girls on the videos, whose looks
covered a wide range, all seemed strangely confident; not because they were impressed with
themselves, but because they had no problem making such a personal video for general
consumption. The comments were just what you’d expect, from the most incoherently vicious
to the most incoherently supportive. Here’s my favorite response:

Drones are becoming cheaper and smaller, and remain shockingly unregulated. A personal drone might be a cross between an unpaid intern, a pet and a flying child. Here’s how I would use my drone, which I might call either Paul Jr. or Droney:

– I would program it to fetch toilet paper from an all-night CVS at 3 AM.

– I would use it to annoy my partner John, when he was sitting a few feet away. I would have the drone hover near his head and ask in a mechanical voice, “What are you doing?” and then, a split second later, “What are you doing now?”

– I would have it take photos of random people on the street, just to make them paranoid. Then I’d have it approach Justin Beiber but at the last second decide, “Nah” and zoom away.

– I would teach it to follow people who litter and scold them.

– I would have it reach inside the collars of people’s shirts from behind, if the tag sewn into their shirt has flipped up and can be seen. The drone would correct this and the people would thank me.

– I would train it to hover outside the door of any office where I was having a meeting, and as I emerged it would say, “Great meeting!”

I love reading interviews with deeply pretentious, self-important writers, because they feel the dreadful burden of having to speak unto the world. I always want to tell them, “Honey, it’s okay.”

Like everybody else, writers crave rules, because if they can only figure out the rules and follow them, then artistic and commercial success will logically follow, right?

When I write in longhand on yellow legal pads and I cut some God-awful word or paragraph, the messy scriibbled cross-out reminds me of how virtuous I am. When I change something on the computer, it magically disappears, as if I’d never had such a terrible thought. Win-win.

Writers don’t need to be physically attractive, and we can comfort ourselves by imagining that instead of beauty, God gave us talent. This would be a delightful equation, except for the existence of staggeringly gorgeous, superbly talented writers, like Zadie Smith, Bruce Chatwin, Martin McDonough and Jennifer Egan. And if you have even an ounce of decency, you will now Google one or more of these writers, examine their photographs and snort, “Well, I don’t think they’re all that.”

Success can make some writers genuinely happier, because they can finally take a breath. It can make other writers even more bitter, because their success was too late and never enough.

A writer’s fantasy: he or she will write their own rave review under an assumed name and then, once this review has been published and the congratulations begin pouring in, the writer can sound confused and say, “Was it good? I haven’t seen it.”

Here’s the new Katy Perry video, which, while hugely popular, has also been attacked for
something called “cultural appropriation.” This is a variation on charges of white privelege
and pop star entitlement, and while these critics may have a valid point, the video is, of course,
undeniably perky. I also saw a comment which claimed that the only people who would like
this video were “gays and hos”, which seemed a bit hostile. See what you think:

1. Outrage at a genuine injustice, against yourself or a loved one.

2. Outrage at a global injustice, which while unspeakable, has not affected you personally on a day-to-day level.

3. Outrage at someone who’s disagreed with you regarding the nature of that global injustice, on Facebook.

4. Outrage at anyone of an opposing political party, i.e., an idiot, a criminal, or a liar.

5. Outrage at whoever answers the phone, finally, at Time-Warner. Even though the problem is not technically their fault, they still work there, and it’s hard to get the CEO of Time-Warner on the phone, so that you can call him exactly what everyone else would like to call him.

6. Outrage at someone who’s horribly offended you, including an abusive parent, a facist tyrant, or Walt Disney, but they’re dead, which seems like cheating.

7. Outrage at inanimate objects, which you’ve stubbed your toe on, an event which you swear hurt more than open heart surgery without anesthesia.

8. Outrage at any form of packaging which is impossible to open.

Here’s the question: is this list in ascending or descending order?

The new film Child of God has arrived with an R rating and the following advisory: Gun violence, necrophila, on-screen defecation.

Here are some other recent advisories, for a variety of films:

Contains scenes of endless conversations between under-employed adults near Seattle, off-screen cars arriving, some snacking.

Poorly executed alien spacecraft, tight latex bodysuits on the wrong actors, destruction of international landmarks previously destroyed in other recent films.

Ape-on-ape violence, ape-on-man bittersweet friendship, apes clambering atop everything in their path.

Attempts at depth by television performers, wry looks between family members, lingering, pensive, carefully lit close-ups of star/writer/director.

Labored hijinks, careful camera angles on aging female star, desperate editing.

Constant triumphant music, carefully moussed bangs on aging male star, well-paid character actors stifling yawns.

That somewhere on West End Avenue, a 21-year-old is living in his late grandmother’s 12 room, rent-controlled apartment, and paying $125 a month in rent

That because you never use it, your stove will never break

That if you never clean your bathroom, eventually it will be landmarked

That due to the progress of civil rights, gay people no longer cluster in certain neighborhoods – except for Hell’s Kitchen, where you can cast a Broadway show, its first replacement cast, and its first national tour, on any block

That shopping at Trader Joe’s somehow helps the environment

That someday, every one-bedroom apartment will also have a Dunkin Donuts in either the hall closet or the half-bath

That Marc Jacobs is now legally allowed to seize any property in the West Village, including private homes, and open another pop-up boutique

Why does some tiny, perverse little part of me want to watch Sarah Palin’s new cable channel? Is it because, when Sarah’s unscripted and starts to flail, she can become trainwreck riveting? Or is it because the channel promises not only Sarah’s political rantings but a behind-the-scenes look at Sarah “as mother, grandmother, wife and neighbor”? And why do I want to hear from Sarah’s neighbors most of all?

Why do some people become obsessively outraged by inconsistencies in sci-fi or action movies? I’m talking about the guy who, as he’s leaving the theater, says something like, “But you CAN’T change the future during time travel to the past, everyone KNOWS that!”

What gives someone the ability to hold an extended conversation, about an issue in their personal life, with a bank teller or supermarket cashier, while there are 12 people waiting on line behind them?

Why can’t Beyonce solve the problems in the Middle East? I bet that if she was willing to host the event, all of the various factions would at least show up at the conference table, for the selfie opportunities alone.

The English artist Tracy Emin has created an artwork called “My Bed”, which features Ms. Emin’s actual bed, with crumpled, stained sheets, cigarette butts, condoms and empty vodka bottles; Ms. Emin has said that the piece represents a time in her life when she was severely depressed. My Bed was just sold for 4.3 million dollars to a German collector. Should this sale make other severely depressed people feel:

A) More depressed, because their depression isn’t making them a dime
B) Inspired, because Tracy has proved that severe depression is now a lucrative career move
C) Jealous, because if Tracy was so depressed, why did she need condoms?

I think that Scarlett Johansson is currently the coolest human being on the planet, and I’m not saying that just because, like me, she’s a stunningly beautiful, deeply gifted and sensual Jewish woman. In her new hit movie Lucy, Scarlett plays a girl studying something or other in Taiwan, who’s forced to become a drug mule and who, after she accidentally receives an extremely high dosage of a new designer substance, becomes the smartest person who’s ever lived and experiences the birth of the universe. And of course all I kept thinking was: this is my story.

Just this past weekend when I was out on Long Island, transferring two 12-packs of paper towels into my mini-van at Costco, a woman rammed me with her jumbo shopping cart from behind. This woman claimed that she couldn’t see me because her own cart was piled so high with five 64-packs of toilet paper. We got into a terrible shouting match which resulted in me screaming, “Who needs that much toilet paper? Is your cooking that bad?” Anyway, for the rest of the weekend, my lower back was aching so badly that I took three Advils and I asked my husband Josh if I could also have a Margarita, and when he said that mixing drugs and alcohol is never a good idea, I just thought to myself, Josh, you’re an orthodontist, which isn’t the same thing as being a real doctor, so I took the pills with an iced coffee spiked with skim milk and tequila.
And that’s when, just like with Scarlett, my mind started to expand.

Scarlett’s progress is monitored by Morgan Freeman, as a scientist who studies what he keeps calling “cerebral capacity”, as if Scarlett’s head was an advanced washer/dryer. According to Morgan, most humans only use a few percentage points of their brains, but when Scarlett hits 20%, she can not only crawl on the ceiling, but she can disable a platoon of armed gunmen within seconds and even more impressively, without visiting a salon or even using her hands, she can change both her hair color and the length of her bangs. When I started functioning at 20%, I found that I could not only swallow an entire sleeve of Oreos without chewing, but that I was suddenly able to fast-forward through DVR’d TV shows where, according to an introductory onscreen warning, the FAST FORWARD FUNCTION WAS NOT AVAILABLE.

Once Scarlett reaches 40%, she’s able to drive super-fast the wrong way through the streets of Paris, which means that the drug has somehow made her French. Then her body starts to morph into all sorts of strange shapes, she kisses a rugged French detective, and she acquires a gorgeous black cocktail dress and a pair of Louboutin spike heels. As for me, at 40% I found that I was able, for the first time in my life, to order a batch of slouchy leather totebags from QVC, in every color – okay, this wasn’t actually the first time when this had happened, but it was the first time I’d done it without telling myself, “You need the Washed Periwinkle bag in case you’re ever invited to a wedding where the invitation stipulates Wear Washed Periwinkle.”

Finally, as Scarlett nears 100%, she begins to envision the entire history of the world in Times Square, starting in the present day and then, in super fast-motion, regressing to the 1800s, when there were dirt roads and gaslights; then back to the days when Native Americans rode their horses right through what’s now a Marriot and a Forever 21; and then zipping even further back, to when the dinosaurs roamed right through what would now be a matinee of Matilda, as if the dinosaurs were tourists from Wyoming who’d gotten half-price tickets because they’d heard that the show was good but not great. Once I started to circle 100%, I had a similar reaction to Scarlett’s, only at first I experienced a Spice Girls video which had also been shot in fast-motion in Times Square. Then I saw the Times Square of the 1980s, when it was still a dangerous neighborhood without any available yogurt or smoothies, and then I hurtled even further back to my earliest childhood, when there was a Howard Johnson’s and absolutely no people dressed as Spiderman who spit at you if, after you’ve had your picture taken with your arm around them, you only tip them a dollar.

It was a little hard to figure out, but ultimately Scarlett turns into either God or a super-computer or a Discovery Channel documentary called something like A Day In The Life Of Our Big Old World. The reason I love Scarlett is that she manages to star in a movie like this while still seeming smart, sexy and funny; she takes the whole thing seriously, but not too much. Scarlett has now given completely delightful performances in everything from Woody Allen movies to sci-fi blockbusters, and she’s even won a well-deserved Tony for her first time on Broadway. And as with the greatest stars, she makes it all look easy.

As for me, once I’d recovered from my overdose, my lower back felt much better, and I found that someone in our house had eaten an entire box of delicious extra-spicy dog treats. So, as with Lucy, my mind-exploding day had been something of a cautionary tale. I learned that maybe, just like Sarah Palin, I don’t need to use all of my brain all of the time. Just like with wearing linen or anything strapless, I think I’ll save my entire brain for special occasions, if you ask me.

I would publish an inspirational, Sheryl Sandberg-type book for commoners, entitled Marry Up

I would appoint a Fantasyland Commission to investigate the effects of climate change on talking animals

I would visit all of the elementary schools in the land, and tell all of the little girls that they can become anything they want to be, especially if they’re really pretty, like me

I would petition the Disney animators to give me a complete nose, instead of just two tiny nostril dots

I would impose an additional tax on all party-related paper goods, including paper plates, gift bags, napkins and crepe paper centerpieces, which bore my image

I would reveal the secret of my beautiful hair: asbestos

I would reach out to Mulan, Jasmine and all of the other princesses from troubled regions, and I would beg them not to provide any warring factions with magical spells or power ballads

I would visit Times Square and all of the Disney theme parks worldwide, and I would thank all of the women who’d been hired to dress up like me and pose for photos with children and families, and I would end their suffering, by getting them real jobs painting figurines with lead-based paint in my enchanted sweatshops