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Storytelling

Amy Bloom writes about Karen Pirie, Poirot, and Peter Wimsey, and these characters would be ideal "college essay" narrators: What all of these people have in common is curiosity and intelligence and an impressive, sometimes awkward, perseverance. Some of them are self-aware (to make any monster no longer a monster, give him or her some self-awareness), and some are not, and some pretend not to be, but we see that they know who they are or, at least, what they have done, in the quiet moments and the musing after the event, whether the event is homicidal or sexual. Many high-school seniors shy away from self-awareness in their essays; the writers believe that conceding a flaw would be an unappealing choice (when, in fact, it is a *very* appealing choice). Some people might wish for the perfect protagonist, but it’d be hard to get any of those people to agree on what the perfect protagonist should be. Do we all want beautiful or genius? Beauty or extreme handsomeness can be off-...
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My Favorite Music Video

  My favorite music video is for the Whitney Houston "Higher Love" remix. A few things it does right: *It is pure sex. It would be difficult to imagine a hotter, more joyful music video. *It is not thuddingly literal. Too often, music video directors feel a need to underline each and every lyric. If there is a metaphor involving a sunrise, we see an actual sunrise. "Higher Love" avoids this trap. *It's a thoughtful tribute to Whitney. The costumes are an allusion to "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"--and we in fact see that video on a small TV screen for approximately three seconds. This feels appropriate--not sappy or overly reverent. A light touch. Five stars, no notes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR49dyo-y0E&list=RDJR49dyo-y0E&start_radio=1
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Jessica Chastain: "Other Mommy"

 Yes, it's a bad movie. But it's not terrible. In a way, it *profits* from the negative reviews--you see the film and anticipate a trainwreck. And it's just a car wreck, so you're pleasantly surprised. A grand tradition of storytelling involves children attempting to piece together the truth from various fragments that adults provide. The main text is Henry James's "What Maisie Knew" (with a strong film adaptation featuring Julianne Moore). You also have the Culkin character in "You Can Count on Me." You have Maile Meloy's excellent story "Red From Green." Mona Simpson's "Casebook" belongs in this discussion. Plus Jesse Eisenberg's galvanizing performance in "The Squid and the Whale." "Other Mommy" features a little girl--a young actor asked to do a bit too much. As others have noted, it's hard to spend so much time with a child actor when you know Jessica Chastain and Arian Moayed are in th...
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Family Counseling

 In Lorrie Moore's famous story about pediatric oncology, Moore encourages the other parents (people she finds in a hospital waiting room) to tell *their* own worst stories. "Hit me--hit your hardest." My group, Autism Moms, has a standout. She recently had a ruptured aneurysm; she believes that stress didn't help the situation. In her account of her life, her ex-husband refuses to read about autism; he believes that the daughter in question will "learn" if the stakes feel threatening and punitive. He uses corporal punishment; the family judge says it's OK, because "it's not like he is beating anyone senseless." The dad has made noises about weaponizing Child Protective Services; if the mom isn't compliant with certain wishes, CPS might need to get involved. The mom is frightened when the daughter gets violent--it's difficult to manage this if you're alone in the house with the child. As I listen, I have two strong reactions. On...
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The Art of the Essay

  The extraordinary paragraph featured here is from Donald Hall's essay "Out the Window." Hall--having spied his ninetieth birthday on the horizon--had committed himself to writing prose. We don't get many books from octogenarians. In fact, Lorrie Moore has specifically said that she thinks a writer's career ends at the eightieth birthday; "I have turf until I turn eighty, and then I need to cede my spot." This is nonsense--and Donald Hall enjoys taking on the contrarian role. It's clear throughout the essay that he is writing  as an act of service --he knows there are not many literary reports from the pen of a "post-post-retirement" man, and he is filling a gap. I'm especially moved by his descriptions of his mother. The subtext is evident: "This, now, is what it was like for her. This is what she couldn't find words for. This is what she couldn't tell me." A writer has to recognize shame as an opportunity. Most of u...
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On Painting

 I'm always drawn to "The Thankful Poor," by Henry Ossawa Tanner, at the Met. No one will advertise the fact that this painting briefly belonged to Bill Cosby. The family dinner table is a dramatic setting; as a dad, I can't help but wonder if the child in the painting is about to knock his little cup on the floor. I also think of the climactic dinner scene from "Kimberly Akimbo": Isn't this nice? Everybody's being so nice. Nothing is wrong-- Troubles have passed. Everybody civil and getting along-- Will it last? I'm guessing that the grandfather will quickly run out of topics to discuss--and will wish that the child could be a bit more like Barbara Walters. The child is agitated because the library hour was cancelled--without explanation--at school today. A final thing I love is the unbalanced nature of the sleeves on the boy's shirt. I can imagine the grandfather saying, "Check yourself in the mirror and tidy up--Henry Ossawa Tanner is...
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A Day on the Farm

 Wightman is a farm that gracefully does its job. You get a scenic tractor tour, a pumpkin patch, a hay "gym," a corn maze, a donut stand. The patches of wildflowers are the highlight of the tractor event; these patches are saved for the end, in the same way that you don't get "Rose's Turn" until the final minutes of "Gypsy." I especially like the country music soundtrack, which always catches me by surprise. At home, my family's sonic landscape tends to feature Ariana Grande or the most famous numbers from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats." Suddenly, at Wightman, I'm plunged into a melodic world of Jesus stories and descriptions of pickup trucks. It's like I've entered another universe. My daughter struggles with the idea of apple-picking; impetuously, she grabs the half-rotten apple corpses from the soil. I don't mind; I secretly think apples are overrated. There is a website that has a damning observation about...
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