"A SERIOUS MAN" IS A SERIOUS JOKE

“A SERIOUS MAN” IS A SERIOUS JOKE

            THE FILM “A SERIOUS MAN” (2010) DIRECTED BY THE COEN BROTHERS TAKES THE FORM OF A JEWISH JOKE.  HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF THIS FORMAT, UNRELATED TO THE MOVIE:  A JEWISH MAN WANTS TO HONOR HIS SON BY BUYING HIM A PORSCHE FOR YOM KIPPUR, BUT HE’S UNCERTAIN AS TO WHETHER IT’S ACCEPTABLE UNDER JEWISH LAW, SO HE CONSULTS THREE RABBIS.  HE ASKS AN ORTHODOX RABBI, WHO REPLIES WITH THE QUESTION:  “WHAT IS A PORSCHE?”  NOT SATISFIED WITH THE ANSWER, HE THEN ASKS A CONSERVATIVE RABBI, WHO ALSO REPLIES WITH THE QUESTION:  “WHAT IS A PORSCHE?”  FINALLY, HE ASKS A REFORM RABBI, WHO ANSWERS WITH THE QUESTION:  “WHAT IS YOM KIPPUR?”  THIS IS THE PUNCHLINE OF THE JOKE.  OF COURSE, THE WHOLE PREMISE OF THE JOKE IS RIDICULOUS, SINCE YOM KIPPUR, THE DAY OF ATONEMENT, IS A TIME OF FASTING AND REPENTANCE, THE VERY OPPOSITE OF GIFT-GIVING AND THE FLAUNTING OF OPULENCE.  ON THE OTHER HAND, THE JOKE IS A SERIOUS CRITICISM OF THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF HOLIDAYS.  I BELIEVE THAT THE COEN BROTHERS’ MOVIE “A SERIOUS MAN” IS A JEWISH JOKE FOLLOWING THE “THREE RABBIS” FORMAT.

            JOKES HAVE A LONGSTANDING PLACE IN JEWISH CULTURE.  SIGMUND FREUD  EVEN WROTE A STUDY ON HOW TO ANALYZE THEM, “JOKES AND THEIR RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS.” 

  

http://www.amazon.ca/Jokes-Their-Relation-Unconscious-Sigmund-ebook/dp/B00CCK5XK8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388943900&sr=1-1&keywords=JOKES+AND+THEIR+RELATION+TO+THE+UNCONSCIOUS

PHILIP ROTH’S NOVEL “PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT” TOOK THE FORMAT OF A JEWISH JOKE.  THE WHOLE NARRATIVE HAS PORTNOY COMPLAINING, AND THE NOVEL CONCLUDES WITH THE PUNCHLINE OF THE PSYCHIATRIST ASKING IN A EUROPEAN JEWISH ACCENT, IF WE CAN NOW BEGIN THE CONSULTATION.

  

http://www.amazon.ca/Portnoys-Complaint-Vintage-International-Philip-ebook/dp/B003WUYR8Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388944521&sr=1-1&keywords=PHILIP+ROTH+PORTNOY

            I WAS SURPRISED THAT NONE OF THE REVIEWS ON AMAZON.COM NOTICED THAT “A SERIOUS MAN” FOLLOWED THE FORMAT OF A JEWISH JOKE.   THE APPRECIATIVE REVIEWS DID, HOWEVER, RELATE SOME VALUABLE INSIGHTS, PARTICULARLY THE CAPTURING OF THE AMBIANCE OF 1967 SUBURBIA IN THE UNITED STATES (THE HEBREW SCHOOL CLASSROOM, THE OBSESSION WITH TV ANTENNA RECEPTION, AND THE MUSIC OF JEFFERSON AIRPLANE AND SANTANA). 

http://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B0030Y0I3M/ref=cm_rdphist_5?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFiveStar&showViewpoints=0

HOWEVER, I WOULD DISAGREE THAT THE STEDTL SCENE WITH VELVEL AND DORA THAT OPENS THE MOVIE HAS NO RELEVANCE TO THE MEANING OF THE MOVIE JUST BECAUSE THE COEN BROTHERS ALLEDGEDLY SAID THAT.  TO DO SO WOULD BE MAKING THE “GENETIC FALLACY” OR “INTENTIONAL FALLACY.”  A WORK OF ART TAKES ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN ONCE THE “UMBILICAL CORD” IS CUT BY PUBLISHING THE WORK.  VELVEL, LIKE LARRY GOPNIK, HAS HIS BELIEF CHALLENGED, AND THE WORLD SUDDENLY APPEARS STRANGE, UNFAMILIAR, AND INHOSPITABLE WHEN DORA STABS REB GROSHKOVER (OR WAS IT A DYBBUK?).    THE STEDTL SCENE BRINGS TO MIND ISAAC BASCHEVIS SINGER’S “GIMPEL THE FOOL,” ANOTHER GOOD JEWISH MAN TRYING TO LIVE BY THE HEBREW POET RASHI’S ADVICE:  “RECEIVE WITH SIMPLICITY EVERYTHING IN LIFE.”

   

http://www.amazon.ca/Gimpel-Fool-Isaac-Singer/dp/0374530254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388946932&sr=8-1&keywords=GIMPEL+THE+FOOL

LARRY GOPNIK, AND VELVEL AS WELL, JOIN THE LIST OF “DIVINE FOOLS,” BELIEVERS GOING BACK AS FAR EVEN AS JOB IN THE BIBLE. 

            THE SECOND RABBI ASKS IN HIS EULOGY OF SY ABLEMAN, “HOW DOES GOD (HA-SHEM) SPEAK TO US?"  HE SUGGESTS THAT IT IS THROUGH THE JEWISH TRADITION, THE STORIES, FOLKLORE, HOLIDAYS, AND RITUALS.  A SIMILAR IDEA IS MENTIONED IN THE BEACH SCENE IN WHICH A WOMAN IN LEG BRACES CONSOLES LARRY ABOUT HIS IMPENDING DIVORCE BY SAYING THAT HE MUST FIND SOLACE IN THE JEWISH TRADITION OF FOLKLORE, THE STORIES, ETC.  THIS IDEA OF COMFORT IN TRADITION SEEMS TO BE THE MOST POSITIVE REWARD SUGGESTED IN THE MOVIE FOR A JEWISH PERSON TRYING TO LIVE THEIR LIFE ACCORDING TO RASHI’S ADVICE.  AS A JOKE, THE MOVIE BOTH CONFIRMS AND RIDICULES GOD SPEAKING TO US THROUGH THE FIRST RABBI’S PARKING LOT, THE DISAPPEARING HEBREW CHARACTERS ON THE GOY’S TEETH IN THE SECOND RABBI’S STORY, AND THE VALUE OF THE JEFFERSON AIRPLANE’S LYRICS AND MEMBERSHIP OF THE ROCK GROUP AS COMMUNICATED BY THE THIRD RABBI MARSHAK TO LARRY’S SON, THE BAR MITZVAH BOY.  LARRY SHOWS HIS CONTINUING BELIEF AND GOODNESS IN RAISING THE KOREAN STUDENT’S MARK TO A PASSING GRADE, AN ACT OF MERCY AND EMPATHY, AND GOD HAS SPOKEN TO LARRY, IN A SENSE, THROUGH THE PRIDE HE EXPERIENCES IN HIS SON’S BAR MITZVAH, THE SUDDEN ELIMINATION OF HIS RIVAL AND CUCKOLDER SY ABLEMAN, AND LARRY’S BEING GRANTED TENURE FOR HIS UNIVERSITY TEACHING JOB.   EVEN LARRY’S IDIOT-SAVANT BROTHER ARTHUR SEEMS TO BE SAFE AND SOUND FOR THE TIME BEING.  HOWEVER, THE THREAT OF DANGER IS EVER PRESENT, AS A TORNADO COMES TOWARD THE SON’S HEBREW SCHOOL AND THE PHONE CALL FROM LARRY’S DOCTOR PORTENDS DEPRESSING CHEST X-RAY RESULTS.   LIKE THE THREAT OF NATELY’S WHORE IN JOSEPH HELLER’S “CATCH-22,” SECURITY DOES NOT EXIST FOR ANYONE IN THE WORLD OF NATURE.

            WHILE SOME COMMENTATORS HAVE CONDEMNED “A SERIOUS MAN” AS ANTISEMITIC, I WOULD SUGGEST THAT THEY ERR IN THEIR INTERPRETATION DUE TO IGNORANCE OF LITERARY TRADITIONS, BOTH JEWISH AND ENGLISH.  THOMAS HARDY’S CLASSIC PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL “JUDE THE OBSCURE” (1900) IS ANOTHER DESCENDANT OF “THE BOOK OF JOB” IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.  THE STORY OF A GOOD MAN IN A NOT-SO-GOOD WORLD IS NOT NEW, AND DISMISSING LARRY GOPNIK AS A “WIMP” AND A MOCKERY OF JUDAISM MISSES THE MARK.  ON THE CONTRARY, THIS MOVIE FINDS GOD SPEAKING TO MAN THROUGH STORIES, TRADITION, POETRY, MUSIC, AND HUMOR.

RICHARD BROWN

JANUARY 6, 2014

Snowden's Secret

SNOWDEN’S SECRET

               In a quirk of history, a man named “Snowden” has been in the news recently for leaking secrets.  This reminded me of another Snowden, a character in Joseph Heller’s classic World War II novel Catch-22, who also leaked secrets.  In fact, Heller’s character’s secret was a major focus of the novel, a mystery which the hero Yossarian was intent on solving and discovering its meaning.  As an American rear gunner aviator shot up over Italy, Snowden leaked his secret to Yossarian toward the conclusion of the novel:

Yossarian was cold too, and shivering uncontrollably.  He felt goose pimples clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor.  It was easy to read the message in his entrails.  Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret.  Drop him out a window and he’ll fall.  Set fire to him and he’ll burn.  Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage.  The spirit gone, man is garbage.  That was Snowden’s secret.  Ripeness was all.

    “I’m cold, Snowden said, I’m cold.”

   “There, there,” said Yossarian.  “There, there.”  He pulled the rip cord of Snowden’s parachute and covered his body with the white nylon sheets.

   “I’m cold.”

   “There, there.” 

--Joseph Heller,  Catch 22 , (Simon and Schuster: New York, c. 1961), pp. 457-458.

Following the realization of the meaning of Snowden’s secret, Yossarian regains his spirit by taking action to follow Orr (the alternative?) to Sweden and refusing to participate in and facilitate the senseless carnage.

          Snowden’s secret is that we are subject to the human condition; we are flesh and blood.  When we overstep our boundaries, God or fate or nature puts us back in our place, often accompanied by much suffering.  Joseph Heller turned to the “humanities” in the form of literature for wisdom.  Note that he did not see science, math, or technology as the answer to our problems.  “Ripeness is all” is a line from William Shakespeare’s King Lear, and it roughly means that one must be prepared for anything.  Heller puns on Snowden’s name by referring to Francois Villon’s poem “Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis,” which includes the memorable line “But where are the snows of yesteryear?” with “But where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?”  (“Mais ou sont les Neigedens d’antan?”). 

          So what is the meaning of Snowden’s secret for us?  If his first name is “Edward,” we don’t even know yet what the secret is because CNN informed us last night that Snowden is still leaking.  As for the meaning of Snowden’s secret, CNN also reported that comedian Conan O’Brien quipped that an unexpected, and scary, consequence of Snowden’s leaks is that sales of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 have skyrocketed:  Americans are being driven to read literature!  I hope that they also read Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.  It’s the least we can do for Snowden.  There, there.

Richard Brown"

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Seeing is Believing

I remember vividly being in the Oberlin College library back in 1967 and seeing Marshall McLuhan's picture on the cover of Newsweek magazine, and at that moment my plans for my future crystalized, and I knew that I would work toward going to the University of Toronto to study with this oracle of the electronic age.  And so it passed.  After graduating Oberlin, and then two years at The Ohio State University graduate school to earn an M.A. in English, I moved to Toronto and studied English at University of Toronto's graduate school, taking McLuhan's "Media and Society" course as my outside elective.  The course would meet Monday evenings in McLuhan's "Centre for Culture and Technology," which was a converted garage behind St. Michael's College library and near Queens Park, and the seminars attracted all sorts of people, not merely enrolled students. 

For readers unfamiliar with the phenomenon of Marshall McLuhan, I suggest reading the following articles about him, to give some context to my memoire here:
http://www.cyberchimp.co.uk/research/testoftime.htm

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.01/saint.marshal_pr.html

At the Monday evening seminars, McLuhan would hold forth with his probes (they weren't exactly "theories"), and those with enough self-confidence would ask questions or offer comments.  He welcomed intelligent questions and comments, but he had no patience for cliche or sycophantic responses.  A visiting priest once spoke up about how much he appreciated McLuhan and concluded with, "Every day I learn something new, and tonight has been. . ."  Here McLuhan interrupted with, "Just another day," and then he quickly moved on to the next topic.  Faint souls would do well to keep their mouths shut in those seminars so as not to have their feelings hurt.  McLuhan was more interested in hearing new ideas than in suffering blather.  For my major presentation in that seminar, I chose to read aloud from Tom Wolfe's essay about McLuhan, "What If He's Right?" from The Pump House Gang, and then lead a discussion on it.  It was a good class, and McLuhan appreciated it.  A few years later, when the graduate English department wanted to terminate my Ph.D. candidacy due to a three-hour essay exam in Modern Literature, despite two years of course work with A's in English courses and a pass on the other two parts of the Ph.D. general exams, the written in Victorian Literature and the dreaded oral exam in Victorian, McLuhan championed my protest and blamed my "failure" on my having had a weak faculty adviser.  I even heard that he confided to a group of my classmates that I was too "intelligent" for that department, which, of course, I regard as the highest compliment I could have received.  The reference letter that he wrote for me gives evidence of that, and I persevered in getting the original after his passing:

In addition to being a brilliant scholar, teacher, and creative artist, Marshall McLuhan was also a kind and generous person, who contributed greatly to my life experience, as well as to the lives of many others.  I was able to use his ideas, not to mention his courage to pun, in my own high school teaching career.  I should add that his wife, Corinne, even visited my former wife in hospital at the birth of my oldest son Matthew.  I was also fortunate enough to be able to thank Marshall and Corinne after his stroke in the early 1980's, and show him how I was using his teachings in my own teaching.  I am extremely grateful for his being a major mentor in my young adulthood.

One of my favourite McLuhanisms involves how we tend to be biased in favour of the sense of sight over the other senses:  "seeing is believing" but "hearsay cannot be credible"  The sense of sight, he would point out, was the only sense that gives the illusion of connectivity; the others work on intervals.  We tend to be much more concerned with how we appear or look than with how we sound, etc.  He reminded us that the sense of sight can fool us; we're like the fish in water who don't know they're in water until they're taken out of it.  This brings me to the question of, "How can I prove that I was really present at the Monday night seminars?"  Two photos have emerged of a Monday night seminar from 1973, one spotted by my son Matthew in a slideshow in a lecture on architecture and the other from a University of Toronto Alumni Magazine feature on McLuhan.  You be the judge.  First, how I look now, forty years later:

 Next, the seminar photo from back then:

Next, a blowup of a person who might have been me:



Now, here's the other seminar photo:



And now here's the blowup from that photo:

Many of my relatives and friends are sure that this image is me, but others disagree.  I myself have come to believe that these blurs very well may be images of me forty years ago at a McLuhan seminar largely because of the attire and the slumped body language.  Please tell me what you think in the comments, and, if by any chance, you, and not I, are the blur, please correct my misinterpretation!

I'm looking forward to your comments.

Bullies, Bodyguards, and the Bully Pulpit

"Bullying" has received much media attention recently, particularly with CNN's Anderson Cooper's "Bullying:  It Stops Here" campaign, and rightly so.    http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/05/bullying-it-stops-here/?iref=obinsite  and  http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/11/video-the-battle-to-end-bullying/?hpt=ac_t2  The accounts of victimization are heartbreaking, and it's no surprise that some young people have been driven to suicide as a consequence of this social ostracism and ridicule.  This state of affairs is intolerable and unnecessary, particularly in a school context.  The "experts" speaking on Cooper's Town Hall program show how bullying is nothing new and that it takes place as a part of "social combat" for one's place on the social ladder (the pecking order?), but that the prestige that one gains from bullying is short lived and counterproductive.  Another feature of this phenomenon is that the roles of "bully" and "victim" tend to be interchangeable, with the same person playing both roles at different times.  Thus, today's victim may become tomorrow's bully, and vice versa.

How can bullying be prevented?  One suggested remedy is to create "a culture of tolerance" wherein bystanders would not stand idly by tolerating incidents of bullying.  The community would agree to abide by the golden rule of "do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you."  The school community would be educated through "sensitivity training" on how painful being bullied can be, and the interveners or peacemakers would be honoured as praiseworthy.  This makes sense to me.

The popular culture has given us movies that seem to teach the moral of "stand up to bullies because they are essentially cowards and, if challenged, will collapse like a house of cards."  Thus, the prospective victim must have self-confidence, courage, and skills in fighting, or he/she must procure a threatening bodyguard.  Two of my favourite Hollywood movies that address bullying are "My Bodyguard" and more recently "Drillbit Taylor," which actually alludes back to the earlier movie.  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_bodyguard/ and http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/drillbit_taylor/ and http://www.grouchoreviews.com/reviews/3130.  On a personal level, I enjoyed the film "Mr. Woodcock," since the gym teacher is the bully, and my own worst memories of being bullied in school were from being in gym class in Ohio from both teacher and kids because I was overweight.  Since that time, I've always tried to avoid gym class-like settings!  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mr_woodcock/  Unfortunately, the victim in this film realizes in adulthood that the bullying by Mr. Woodcock actually did him a favour by preparing him for manhood rather than that bullying is shameful and should not take place.  These three Hollywood movies are intended as light comedy, not as social analysis, but they do express a social concern with bullying as a topic.

The problems of bullying in school settings take on a different dimension when adults do not believe that bullying should be viewed as a problem.  Anderson Cooper's Town Hall program discusses a school board refusing to allow anti-bullying education on "religious" grounds.  Some members of that Southern so-called "conservative" community see attempts to prevent bullying as a political infringement on their beliefs.  And how do concerned parents protect their children when possible perpetrators of international bullying are treated with impunity?  Doesn't a President have at his/her disposal the "Bully Pulpit"?  Is he/she a role model? http://ca.news.yahoo.com/canada-arrest-george-w-bush-visits-next-week-145732842.html
And to "blame the other guy" doesn't address the fact that war crimes, such as torture, were committed, if there really is such a thing as International Law.  I guess that the Nuremberg Trials have been long forgotten.  Or perhaps, there's a "double standard" that we seem to live with and believe we're powerless to change.  At this level, of adults, the problem becomes a political issue.


But whatever the bullying problems beyond our reach, if you are a victim of bullying, or know anyone who is, or are depressed or suicidal, I urge you to visit the "Your Life Counts" website, which provides excellent help and resources.  http://www.yourlifecounts.org  I thank my friend John Housser for informing me about this encouraging initiative.

Since I believe in the power of music and song, I'd like to conclude this blog with two music links, the first dealing with the pain of victimization and the second an uplifting call to life and love.  Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the group Joy Division eventually committed suicide, and his sing "Insight" communicates his pain: http://youtu.be/0WxutVmQ8_s
On the other hand, Greg Laswell in his song "Comes and Goes (in waves)" praises the strugglers and helpers: http://youtu.be/pEFxfVyz4Uc

So what do you think?  I welcome your comments. 

Later.

"A Fish Doesn't Know. . ."

"A fish doesn't know it's in water until you take it out of the water" was a favourite saying of the late Marshall McLuhan, my former teacher and mentor.  He used it to point out that when we're totally involved in an environment, we cannot see, or understand it objectively.  McLuhan used to say that it's like asking a drowning man what he thinks of Richard Nixon; the drowning man is too busy trying to stay afloat to worry about a politician.  McLuhan used this saying as a metaphor for the advantage Canada has in trying to understand the U.S.  The Americans, McLuhan would say, were too busy being totally involved to really understand what was happening to them, while the Canadians had the advantage of an objective distance from the turmoil and thus could understand the phenomenon more clearly.

The "fish" saying came to mind the other night when my friend Ali phoned and asked for my opinion on an assignment his teenage daughter Taslima had.  I said sure, and he put Taslima on the phone, and she explained the assignment.  The class was studying the life of Tommy Douglas, the founder of the CCF party (later to become the NDP) and the father of Canada's health care system.  The teacher had assigned the students to find a website about Tommy Douglas and then to write a critique of the website showing its strengths and its limitations.  Taslima found a website written by a former NDP premier of British Columbia and could find strengths but not limitations.  In fact, what was meant by "limitations"?  I saw immediately that the problem was that she, the writer of the website, her father, and myself all agreed with Tommy Douglas' politics, so we were blind to "limitations" of the website, like the fish in water.  I suggested that she do a search of the words "Tommy+Douglas+critic" and see what those who disagree with the ideas of Douglas have to say, and then compare the two sites.  We only know what something is, by comparing it to what it is not.

So that's my story.  A fish tale?  I urged Ali to join my blog.  Do you think he will?  Maybe he'll think there's something fishy about it.   

By Whose Authority?

When confronted with the question "What is the greatest crisis facing people today?", few would answer "authority."  And yet, who to believe and who to follow faces us every day, and we must live with the consequences, some of which are quite significant.

Back in the Middle Ages, the answer was simple.  You were expected to follow the direction of whomever was immediately above you in the "Great Chain of Being" with God at the top, the King the anointed and infallible representative on earth, below him the Queen, and so on down to the father as head of the family, etc.  Authority came down from above, and failure to comply was regarded as "heretical" and "criminal."

But following the American and French Revolutions and the rise of democracy, the world was turned on its head.  Authority emanated from down below, from the people, as expressed, hopefully, by elections, petitions, persuasion, etc.  The business model reinforces this because to be successful we need to please the customer.  This frame of mind has made life particularly hard for teachers of any stripe, since parents, politicians, "experts," all seem to have their own ideas of whom should be teaching and what should be taught.  And the revolutionary notion of "equality" has put everyone, it seems, at the same level of credibility.  Some families even turn to their children for leadership.

So whom do we turn to for authority?  Whom do we believe and trust?  In L'Aquila, Italy the scientists are on trial for not predicting and warning against an earthquake.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14981921   If we could sue economists and politicians for failed policies, would the world be in better shape?

For my own part, I like to turn to authors and artists for direction.  If they are "worth their salt," they are true to their art or ideas.  Like Shakespeare, Federico Fellini, and Michael Moore, their works create quite a bit of controversy and discussion.  I don't trust the propagandists, advertisers, and people who want to profit economically from their works.  No two people are alike, and we must know ourselves individually and what we want out of life, as well as what we can tolerate, to know who to believe and what choices to make.  One thing's for sure, those who claim to have all the answers are least to be trusted.  A healthy doubt, as author John Ralston Saul wrote, tends to accompany wisdom.  And I believe we must be prepared to learn from our mistakes. 

And with that thought, I release my first blog, a message in a bloggle.  Up?  Down?  To?  Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season, to quote the great T. S. Eliot.