Scott Lax

 

Finn loves Mickey Mouse, playing catch (at 101/2 months!), singing, music, and being irrepressible.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.
- Aristotle

My nephew and former producing partner, Tyler Davidson, recently screened his film, TAKE SHELTER, in Cleveland. It's gotten praise and awards from all over the world, but of course I wanted to see it for myself.

I was completely stunned and moved by this great film. I could write a long review of it, but I'll make this short. If I were to blurb it this is what I'd say:

TAKE SHELTER combines a literary, lyrical, sensitive character-driven drama with a psychological thriller. The over-arching effect of it is that these shocking, scary and even apocalyptic images and scenes bring out tenderness and love for family. That is one astonishing accomplishment in today's cinema. The performances were excellent, but Michael Shannon's role as Curtis is simply one of the finest performances by an actor I've ever seen on film. Like Jimmy Stewart and Marlon Brando at their best, there is no one to compare him to in his day. He's that good, and should win an Oscar for his epic performance.  Read More 

I'm not one for food writing. I find it boring, and there are others who do it much better, though too many are doing it, which diminishes it the real food writers. But that's another matter. Now feeding Finn, and watching him eat on his own; that I find incredibly wondrous.

Here's our little man Finn at the diner. His hat says, "Since 1934," so I checked to see what was happening in literature that year. What a heyday it was: New books by Samuel Beckett, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitgerald (TENDER IS THE NIGHT), Henry Miller (TROPIC OF CANCER), Ellery Queen, P.L. Travers, Evelyn Waugh, Nathaniel West, H.G. Wells, Frederico Garcia Lorca....

To name a few. Inspiring, yes; and a little sad. The country was awash in literary genius, in new ideas, and all of this during the Great Depression. Can you imagine?

What's happened? Where is the great literary art and the great literary writers? We have some, but I mean, that partial list...it's tough to dispute that 1934 boasted more greats than today. (Even genre writers: James Patterson instead of Agatha Christie?)

Some possible answers: Lost in a fog of distractions, both electronic and otherwise; writing for television; writing for advertising agencies; the pace of life; MFA factories; deciding not to write at all because it's usually not valued like it used to be.

Literature, and books in general, despite the availability of tablets, Kindles and such, is suffering. Too many other things to do with one's eyes than read a book. So what can we do we as lovers of literature? All I can think of is read more and better literature. And if you're a writer, set your bar higher, whether you write genre, literary or whatever it may be. That's what I'm doing. That's about all I can do.  Read More 

People learn most of what they know in the first few years of life. Part of the reason for that is that babies watch everything; but they also listen. They soak it all in; it forms much of how they think about the world and how they approach their lives. Hence language; hence logic; hence sensibility; hence writing.

As writers, we need to listen: not just to what's being said, but to the cadences of speech; to the inflections of stress or excitement or satisfaction; to ambient sounds and to beautiful sounds and to harsh sounds.

One of the problems writers have with fiction is when all or most of the characters sound the same. No one sounds the same... not really. Babies pick up on inflections and attitudes before they understand language. So should writers. Those underlying aspects of speech are referred to as subtext: that which is going on underneath the text, or in this case, speech.

Here's our little man, Finn, at Rick's Cafe...listening.  Read More 

Like most readers, I go through times when I don't read as much as usual. The past seven and a half months -- the best of my life, with the arrival of my son, Finn -- have been such a time. Too tired; too busy. There's no need for any writer to apologize for not writing or reading more. It happens.

And then I got back into it. I'm starting slowly, with not much more time, but maybe a bit more intellectual energy. I just read "Dog Story, a Personal History," by Adam Gopnik, in The New Yorker; and am reading Ben Marcus's short story, "What Have You Done?" as well as a novel by one of my favorite writers of light fiction. It's not genre fiction, but it's not exactly Dickens or Kundera. (More on that later.)

If you've gotten away from reading -- and like most of you, I never completely get away from it -- all you have to do to get back in it is open a magazine or book or turn on your iPad or Kindle. (I still like paper, but we'll see.)

Speaking of seeing things, here's Finn about a week ago. He loves nature. And books. And climbing things. And bouncing. And drumming. And singing. And laughing. And...you get the idea. Read More 

"Mostly, we authors repeat ourselves -- that's the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives -- experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time that anyone else has been caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald  Read More 

It's strange and amazing to have just turned 59 and understand life in a way I never imagined. Everything looks different: the environment - so neglected, so precarious; our politics, so filled with greed and short-sightedness; the world, still so full of promise. When I try to see life through Finn's eyes, I know that I can't, but I can sense it. Everything is new, much is wondrous, and his trust is pure. I write to make our lives better, and if I can make the world a little better, that's okay too. I think if leaders thought and cared about children first and foremost many problems would go a long way toward being solved. They should be our first priority.  Read More 

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.' - E. B. White