Intimacy

Last week, when I posted about training oneself to be an editor , someone commented on Facebook: " I'm curious, does any part of editor training involve breaking it to people gently? I would be surprised if it did, but I think that would be the hard part of editing, handing/sending back the document without making the writer want to quit writing. " Writer and editor experience an odd intimacy. Much as professionals school themselves to think that the text is an artifact, a product rather than an extension of the self, that text is still a personal expression.

Last week, when I posted about training oneself to be an editor , someone commented on Facebook: " I'm curious, does any part of editor training involve breaking it to people gently? I would be surprised if it did, but I think that would be the hard part of editing, handing/sending back the document without making the writer want to quit writing. " Writer and editor experience an odd intimacy. Much as professionals school themselves to think that the text is an artifact, a product rather than an extension of the self, that text is still a personal expression.

FIRST, there was Operation Desert Shield.Then, there was Operation Desert Storm.Now, there is Operation Desert (Between the) Sheets.The most potent fighting force in the world is getting advice from headquarters in Washington about the niceties of intimacy and sexual etiquette.Troops in all branches of the military are being counseled about coming out of the desert and courting their mates.The reunion briefings were prepared by the Department of the Army and are being distributed to military chaplains and community service personnel.

Junot - and Yunior - are back. Junot Diaz is the MacArthur Fellowship-winning writer whose work reflects his Dominican roots and his Jersey youth, and who has dazzled critics and audiences with a virtuosic narrative voice that weaves tales of young men similar to the ones he grew up with. Yunior is one of Diaz's most indelible characters - brilliant, posturing, alienated, self-destructive and, for better or worse, unable to fully inhabit his own mask. Readers previously met Yunior in the 2006 short-story collection "Drown" and in the novel "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.

The subject on everyone's minds is given a meditative, ironic twist in "Last Night," Don McKellar's cool cerebration on millennial angst. The story of a group of Canadians who are counting down to the end of the world, "Last Night" starts out as a hip and unimpressed take on mass destruction. But as their stories interlock in unexpected ways, McKellar's film becomes a touching evocation of intimacy at its most ephemeral. Screenwriter Don McKellar ("Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould," "The Red Violin")

The shards of Apocalypse Now embedded in the thrilling behind-the-scenes chronicle Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse are more vivid and cohesive than they were in Francis Coppola's movie. This movie is a milestone. It's the closest celluloid equivalent to Lillian Ross' book Picture (about the making of John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage) or Pauline Kael's long article on the making of Sidney Lumet's The Group, or Julie Salamon's chronicle of Bonfire of the Vanities as viewed by Brian De Palma, The Devil's Candy.

There's more to life than a low-fat diet, most of us agree. But who was expecting to hear that from Dean Ornish, the physician-apostle of near no-fat eating?Lately Ornish is everywhere: kindly lecturing via PBS airways, promoting another would-be best seller, smiling at us from the cover of Newsweek, even introducing a new line of frozen foods. With each appearance, the doctor is touting his new message.People interested in heart disease -- either because it's their business or because their lives are at stake -- know Ornish as the dean of the low-fat diet.

Junot - and Yunior - are back. Junot Diaz is the MacArthur Fellowship-winning writer whose work reflects his Dominican roots and his Jersey youth, and who has dazzled critics and audiences with a virtuosic narrative voice that weaves tales of young men similar to the ones he grew up with. Yunior is one of Diaz's most indelible characters - brilliant, posturing, alienated, self-destructive and, for better or worse, unable to fully inhabit his own mask. Readers previously met Yunior in the 2006 short-story collection "Drown" and in the novel "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.

Real intimacy has become so rare in today's movies that the fake intimacy of Notes on a Scandal may take you in, then leave you feeling rooked. Seldom has so much first-rate acting and top craftsmanship been wasted on such a small-minded melodrama. The cascade of interest it has aroused this award season may just reflect the current hipness of cruelty. The film grabs your interest as a tale of two flawed teachers: the fetching art instructor Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), who sleeps with a 15-year-old student, and the battle-ax history department head, Barbara Covett (Judi Dench)

Let me begin this column -- which will address the declining state of marriage in America -- by getting Liz Taylor out of the way. She is not -- repeat, not -- a good example of the type of caution exhibited by many men and women nowadays when the subject of marriage is broached.In fact, Ms. Liz is a perfect example of the Hope-Triumphs-Over-Experience School of Matrimony. Her thoughts on the subject?May 6, 1950, on her marriage to Nicky Hilton: "There is no doubt that Nicky is the one I want to spend my life with."

To passersby, the startling noises spilling from Laurel Mill Playhouse during its current run of Sarah Ruhl's "In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)" may seem curious even for the lively little theater on Main Street. The first of Ruhl's plays to open on Broadway, "In the Next Room" debuted at the Lyceum Theatre in Manhattan a mere two years ago, earning a Tony nomination for Best Play in 2010. The show was also selected as a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. Directed here by Michael Hartsfield, the adult comedy revolves around a Victorian doctor who treats female "hysteria" by using an electrical instrument to "relieve the congestion" in their wombs.

In his gray hooded robe with its knotted cord belt, Father Bart Karwacki doesn't look the part of a lecturer preparing to teach people how to keep their "love tanks" full. But the Franciscan friar will discuss that technique and others at a Valentine's Day workshop at the Shrine of St. Anthony. The event is based on the bestselling book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. "These theories fascinate me, and I find they can be helpful to people in their relationships," Karwacki, 61, said.

It's Saturday morning in any neighborhood hair salon. Dryers are whirring, curling irons steaming. Amid the machinery, women are gathered - talking, laughing, gossiping, and at times maybe even crying. There are rollers and bobby pins, yes, but more importantly, there's intimacy here. And comfort. The neighborhood beauty shop is a place where stories are told - which is what makes it a perfect setting for a movie. Over the years, many filmmakers have picked up on this notion and set their movies in or around the goings-on in beauty salons.

The Amputee's Guide to Sex By Jillian Weise Soft Skull Press / 84 pages / $14.95 Readers who can handle the hair-raising experience of Jillian Weise's gutsy poetry debut, The Amputee's Guide to Sex, will be rewarded with an elegant examination of intimacy and disability and a fearless dissection of the taboo and the hidden. Weise fuses the sterile language of medical science with the fragile territory of the heart and dares to ask whether the body is the temple of the soul or its prison.

Real intimacy has become so rare in today's movies that the fake intimacy of Notes on a Scandal may take you in, then leave you feeling rooked. Seldom has so much first-rate acting and top craftsmanship been wasted on such a small-minded melodrama. The cascade of interest it has aroused this award season may just reflect the current hipness of cruelty. The film grabs your interest as a tale of two flawed teachers: the fetching art instructor Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), who sleeps with a 15-year-old student, and the battle-ax history department head, Barbara Covett (Judi Dench)

Travel south to Miami for the white beaches, winter sun, art deco and Cuban mojitos. But when it comes to first-rate chamber music, there's no need to pack the flip-flops - Miami exports one of the nation's finest string quartets. The Miami String Quartet is heading north and will perform at 8 p.m. tomorrow at Howard Community College's Smith Theatre, sponsored by the Candlelight Concert Society. Candlelight's artistic director, Holly Thomas, said she was delighted to present these acclaimed artists in Smith Theatre, "a true chamber music setting" where performers "feel close enough to the audience to be able to relate to them."

The most upbeat message of recent books on health and medicine is contained in "Heart Illness and Intimacy: How Caring Relationships Aid Recovery," by Wayne M. Sotile (Johns Hopkins University Press, hardcover $19.95).For most heart patients, according to Sotile, a psychologist at Wake Forest University Cardiac Rehabilitation Services, sex is no more dangerous than gardening. He also maintains that fear, anger and guilt can be turned into positive emotions and that coping with heart illness can bring families closer together.

Valentine's Day approaches, and there are the requisite love-theme books for sale. Many of them are the size of a matchbox and contain about that much information. Most of them read as if they took 10 minutes to write. I am still waiting for the Valentine's Day pocket book that says something like, "Look, I know we are barely speaking, but I don't want to make an issue of it by not acknowledging this holiday." Anyway, among this year's offerings is "Intimate Questions: 459 Ways to Bring You Closer," written (and I use the term loosely)

Mature adults in countries where men and women hold equal status had more satisfying sex lives than those in male-dominated societies, according to a study billed as the first of its kind to document and compare sexual behavior and satisfaction among middle-aged and older people worldwide. Surveying 27,500 men and women between the ages of 40 and 80 who live in 29 countries, researchers at the University of Chicago found that people reported the greatest sexual satisfaction in Western countries including Austria, Canada and the United States.

When author Sabrina Weill was going over a national survey on teens and sex for her new book, one figure in particular jumped out at her. When asked whether sex should be romantic, nearly one-fifth of 1,059 12- to 17-year-olds answered: "Don't know." Coupled with the recent news from a large government study that teenagers who have not yet had intercourse are having oral sex, the information tells Weill that today's young people have no idea what intimacy is. And that it's up to their often-squeamish parents to tell them.