Liars and Saints

 My daughter's teacher is a mindfulness coach; that's her side hustle. She taught my son--as well--and she often seemed to think that my son's aggression could respond well to soothing ideas from a vague "Eastern spiritual" realm. "When he wants to hit his sister, encourage him to breathe deeply....remind him to seek out his cozy corner...." (In fact, these strategies did not work. What Joshua needed was a linebacker--ready to remove him from fraught scenarios at all times. No words. Just pick up the little tornado and place it in a new spot. In this way, I am like the "magic claw" in an arcade game.) When I visited Ms. Y's class last week, my goal was to read a brief story, but Ms. Y sort of derailed my presentation. The story alluded to "the beauty all around us," and Ms. Y took this as a cue. She needed to respond with a speech about mindfulness. "Children, in our busy lives, we fail to notice the flowers, and the clouds, ...

 Creative writing seminars tend to focus on stakes. "What are the stakes?" "You need to up the stakes."  This is something Hitchcock managed extraordinarily well; in "Rear Window," the Jimmy Stewart character is fighting to save his own life. In "Dial M," a man pursues a legal victory because it can ensure his romantic happiness (ad infinitum). What I love in "The Artist," by Ed Vere, is that there is a sense of urgency, even as the writer tells a story that small kids can understand. A dinosaur is born with an innate love of the world's wonder and beauty. She becomes determined to communicate her own vision to the rest of the world. She refashions herself as a graffiti artist, perhaps in New York City, and she wins praise, but then her brush slips. Shamed by her error, she becomes mute. (This is like the weird gap in Jane Austen's career, during which Austen spent years not-writing. Whatever she did, it wasn't writing.) A s...