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On Fatherhood

Recently, in the NY Times, Jason Zinoman, one of the great writers at work today, was brave enough to admit that certain bits of Louis CK’s old comedy still really move him. (This is brave because it’s now popular to dismiss work if the person who produced it is a monster; see the recent Times piece on Gauguin, for example.)

I know what Zinoman is talking about. I still often think about Louis CK’s past observations about fatherhood. Specifically:

*If you are a parent, the greatest joy is the thirty-second interlude between the time you lock the child in his car seat and the time you buckle yourself into the car. That brief pause is like a siesta, a little resort visit. (Who would think to make this observation?)

*I love the Odd Couple dynamic between the cranky misanthropic comic and his wonderstruck child. The comic wakes on a Tuesday morning--enraged at the world--and sees the broad smile on his baby’s beatific face. The baby is delighted; the baby is stunned to discover that the exterior world STILL EXISTS! (This must be a major revelation for the baby, every morning, for at least several mornings.) This is an “I-feel-seen” moment in Louis CK’s writing, if you ask me.

*A small child of divorce sits comfortably with her father. The child is brushing her teeth. “I like brushing with Mama better,” she says, sweetly, and we notice certain veins in Louis’s neck starting to bulge. The child has no awareness of subtextual tension or the need for tact; she goes on to say, “I like brushing with Mama better because I love Mama more. I love Mama the most. And so I’m happiest with her.” Louis murmurs, “That’s nice, Sweetie,” then, as his daughter recedes, he covertly flashes a middle finger at the camera. That’s a moment of greatness. In what other way could it be characterized?

OK. Just had to say that. Thanks to Jason Zinoman for his incisive recent remarks.
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