You Don't Have to Be Jewish. . .

"A Serious Man" opens with a Zen Koan of a prologue. Back in the "Old Country"--where it always snows and everyone speaks Yiddish--a man returns home and tells his wife about his journey. On his way home, his wagon had broken down. Fortunately, Reb Treitle Groshkover happened along to help him out. The wife's eyes widen in terror: "We are cursed by God," she whispers. Reb Treitle, you see, died of typhus some three years earlier; the husband obviously just encountered a dybbuk (a Yiddish demon). There is a knock at the door. "I invited him to have some soup," the husband explains. The door is opened. Reb Treitle stands there, looking eerie in the black garb of the rabbi, but not especially threatening. He is invited in. The wife accuses him of being a dybbuk who has seized the body of the old rabbi. Treitle laughs it off. The husband tries to laugh it off. The wife plunges an icepick into Reb Treitle's chest. The dybbuk does not die. He gets up, mutters something along the lines of, "This is the thanks I get for helping your husband," and leaves. The couple stare out the door into the swirling snow, and the husband mutters, "We are ruined."

What do we make of this? Was the wife right to stab Treitle? Clearly, he was a dybbuk. But he had also helped her husband make it home on a wintry night,.Why did he help her husband? Was he a "good" dybbuk? Did he retain some of the rabbi's holiness? Or was he plotting the family's destruction? And what does all of this have to do with Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), the protagonist of "A Serious Man"?

Well, nothing, really, except thematically: The movie is a meditation on the unknowability of God's will. Larry Gopnik is a modern-day Job, a physics professor on the brink of tenure, whose wife is leaving him for a longtime family friend; he is being bribed and/or blackmailed by a Korean student who wants a passing grade; his next-door neighbor has a thing for guns and is encroaching on the property line; his brother is, well, nuts. And despite Larry's quest for understanding, the various rabbis from whom he seeks advice can offer him nothing but meaningless parables: "Look at that PARKING LOT, Larry," the junior rabbi says rapturously, explaining that happiness is all a matter of perspective, of finding wonder in the most mundane things.

Another rabbi tells a story of a dentist who found "Help me" written in Hebrew letters on the backs of a gentile patient's teeth. So what happened to the dentist, Larry asks? "What would happen?" The Rabbi replies, "Not much. He went back to work. For a while he checked every patient's teeth for new messages. He didn't find any. In time, he found he'd stopped checking. He returned to life. These questions that are bothering you, Larry - maybe they're like a toothache. We feel them for a while, then they go away." And what happened to the goy? Larry asks. "The goy? Who cares?"

Larry doesn't even make it to the most senior rabbi, but his son does. Right after his bar mitzvah, Danny is ushered into the inner sanctum of this wisest of the wise. His advice to the young man? "When the truth is found to be lies, and all the hope within you dies. . . .Then what? Be a good boy."

Unlike Job, Larry seems to have found some solutions to some of his problems by the film's end. Like Job, though, he finds that other, darker problems loom. And lest the message be missed, a literal whirlwind is heading into town.

While on the surface, there's nothing obviously thrilling about the story of a middle-aged Jewish man's search for meaning, this is a Coen Brothers movie. As such, it has brilliant dialogue and enough quirky moments to keep you wondering what could possibly be coming next. In the end, we're not sure what the whole movie "means," but we've enjoyed trying to figure it out.

You're a Grand Ol' Shirt

So, as we were saying, the other day a quartet of boys at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, CA, wore shirts with the American flag on them. Being that this was May 5th--or, as the Germans call it, Cinco de Mayo--the assistant principal saw this as an "incendiary" act, and told the boys to either turn the shirts inside out or go home.

(Digression: Why Germans feel the need to celebrate a sinkful of mayonnaise is beyond us, but as long as they're not annexing the Sudetenland, we suppose they can have their fun. EOD)

OK, OK. In all (semi)seriousness, we understand that immigration is a hot-button issue, particularly Mexican immigration and particularly in California. And we suppose we can understand--well, not understand, but there it is--that some Mexican students might have been offended by white students who might have been wearing American flag shirts as a sort of subtle protest against the rights of Mexicans--particularly since two of the flag-wearing students were of Mexican descent.

Wait, huh?!?

OK, never mind, we don't understand. Does this mean that if a Mexican student wears a Mexican-flag themed shirt on any day other than Cinco de Mayo, he can be suspended for inappropriate jingoism? Or would it only be inappropriate on the 4th of July? Or would you only get in trouble for wearing the Union Jack on July 4th?

On the news, a reporter was soliciting feedback from parents of Live Oak students. One gentleman said he thought--correctly, in our opinion--that there is nothing inherently wrong with wearing an American flag shirt. Trying to trip this obvious fascist up in his own hypocrisy, the reporter ambushed him: "Well, what would you think if a student wore a flag emblazoned with the Japanese flag on December 7th?" Disappointingly, the parent seemed flummoxed. We wish someone had asked us that question: We would have no problem with it on patriotic grounds, and as for worrying about inflaming the student population, we would be thrilled if any of the students (A) recognized the Japanese flag and (B) realized that there was a reason they should be offended by that.

"Whoa, Dude, awesome shirt. Love the whole red circle on white background thing. Rockin'!"

We have no enthusiasm for knee-jerk patriotism, but if people want to wear shirts with flags on them, who cares? Don't you think school administrators have more important things to worry about?

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say. . . Great!

We were all set to blog about the administrators at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, who sent students home for wearing clothing bedecked with the American flag, but then we read about formspring.me. Forbidden patriotism will have to wait.

Apparently, Formspring is the new big thing: All the kids are doing it. On this site, as far as we can ascertain, members--primarily middle- and high-school students--create accounts for the sole purpose of receiving abuse. Unlike Facebook, where people must identify themselves before calling you a flat-chested slunt, on Formspring, anonymity reigns. You can find out what people really think about you! And no one thinks anything good!

Personally, we think this is a great idea. We encourage all Sloppists to sign up. Then, the Solipsist will be able to enlighten you about all your little quirks and foibles--all those personal faults that we've wanted to point out for so long, but have been unable to for fear of hurting your feelings--well, of hurting your feelings and being identified.

Understand, Nation, this is all for your own good. When you open your Formspring mail and read about your unflattering profile pictures, your jejune commentary, your flouncing egocentricity (you know who you are!)--your bad hair, worse breath, and unforgivable inability to dance the samba--your utter irredeemability and unfitness to walk among polite society--we hope you will take the comments in the spirit of deep affection with which they are made. . . .y'know, by whoever might be making them.

Let the improvement of Solipsist Nation commence!

Smog and Slunts (Not Appropriate for Children)

Last month, we discussed portmanteau words, words formed by combining parts of other words. We failed to discuss one of the most familiar portmanteaus: Mix smoke and fog, and what do you have? Smog.

Smog is a lovely portmanteau; not just for its usefulness, but for its euphony: "Smog" just sounds right for what it describes. That low guttural slap of a word nicely approximates the emotional response provoked by the thing itself. Good job, wordsmiths.

We've been thinking about portmanteaus again because last night we were introduced to a new one on a Facebook friend's wall: Slunt. This portmanteau is a derogatory term for a woman, combining "slut" with. . . well, we hesitate to mention with what. Suffice to say it begins with a 'c' and will get you pummeled if you use it unadvisedly. Despite that--or perhaps because of it--we think it a wonderfully evocative term of disapprobation: "Oh, my God! That slunt's making out with my boyfriend!"

We wonder about the relative appropriateness of this particular term. If one calls someone a "slunt," is it equivalent to calling her a slut or. . . the other thing? For now, because of its novelty and somewhat humorous connotation, one could probably get away with using the term. But if the term catches on, will it become more offensive or less? Female friends can playfully call each other "slut" (or even "bitch") in much the same way that black people can amicably tar each other with the 'N' word. But we've never heard girlfriends refer to each other as "cunts." (See how jarring it is, even in a semi-clinical context?) Where does "slunt" fall on the spectrum of insult.

Who decides on the relative offensiveness level of new insults? At what point does mildly off-color become egregiously inappropriate?

Short and

We'll dispense with the end of the cliche. We're all about verbal economizing.

Today, we introduced our students to the concept of concision. Take this sentence, for example:

In my personal opinion, I think that it is necessary that we not ignore the opportunity to think over in a careful manner each and every suggestion that is offered to us.

Now, many students--especially students of basic writing--would pat themselves on the back upon composing such a grammatically perfect and sophisticated sounding sentence. But what you have there is a five-word sentence hiding in a 32-word fatsuit.

The sentence comes from Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams, and it exemplifies the breakage of virtually all of Williams' rules for concise writing:

--Don't modify words with words or phrases that are understood through the definition of the modified word. Sounds confusing, we know, but easily illustrated: "Opinions" can only be personal, so the word "personal" adds nothing. All suggestions are "offered": An unoffered suggestion is merely a thought, so we can eliminate "that is offered to us."

--Avoid metadiscourse, i.e., "writing about writing." That allows us to get rid of "In my opinion" and "I think."

--A word for a phrase. "It is necessary that we" means "We should" or "We must." To "think over" is to "consider."

--Not the negative. When you "don't ignore" an opportunity, you take an opportunity. For that matter, when you take an opportunity to do something, you simply, y'know, do it.

--Avoid meaningless modifiers--which, in expository non-fiction prose is almost all modifiers. In the example above, "in a careful manner" is meaningless, not because consideration is by nature "careful," but because we can assume the way in which we should consider the suggestions should be careful. We wouldn't advocate incautious consideration; thus, there is no reason to advise against it. If anything, that could jinx it!

--Avoid doubling. English has several "doubled" expressions: each and every, full and complete, safe and secure, etc. This is all thanks to those pesky French. When they conquered England in 1066, they brought their language with them. As a result, it became tres fashionable to speak the language, so people started tacking Francophone companions onto good ol' Germanic vocabulary. And that, boys and girls, is how "each" got its "every."

So what are we left with?

We must consider each suggestion.

Concise writing is important not just because it keeps you from irritating your reader with a bunch of irrelevant words. It helps the novice writer avoid mistakes: The fewer words you use, the fewer are your opportunities to screw up. Quite simply, the more you have to say, the fewer words you should take to say it.

Words, Words, Words

We're a bit tired today, so we thought we'd just share a couple of expressions overheard: what the kids are saying these days, if you will.

Dry-Snitching: To snitch (tell on someone) in a less than obvious way. Thus, when the White House spokesperson says, "Mistakes were made at the highest levels," he or she is dry-snitching on President Obama.

(Digression: We actually learned this phrase when we were explaining passive-voice to our classes. Always nice when the kids can relate grammar to their everyday experiences. EOD)

Ear-hustling: Eavesdropping. Explained to us when we were making snide comments about an overheard conversation. "Yo, Solipsist, what're you doin'? Ear-hustling?"

Please feel free to work these expressions into your everyday conversations. They have been Solipsist-tested, Solipsist-approved.

Squirrel!

First, as we logged into Blogger today, we noticed that today's post would be number 502. 502! We've passed the half-millenium mark! Well, we're impressed, anyway.

Second, as you might have guessed from the title of today's post, the Solipsist is continuing his slog his way through last year's Best Picture nominees. Last night's feature: "Up."


Now, we wanted to like this movie, and, on several levels, we did. The animation exemplified the typical virtuosity we've come to expect from Pixar ("Toy Story," "The Incredibles," "Wall-E," etc.): The first sight of Mr. Frederickson's (Ed Asner)balloon-borne house sailing above the clouds through an impossibly blue sky is enough to bring a lump to even this inveterate cynic's throat. The animated format also provides the filmmakers the opportunity to supply some clever and genuinely funny dog-related gags.

We weren't blown away, though. Maybe we've become jaded by the virtuosity we mentioned in the previous paragraph. We know Pixar movies are going to be beautiful to look at. We know they'll be well-made and intelligently written. But we also know they're going to hit some standard points: There will be a fairly obvious message; there is will be a fairly upbeat/ heartwarming ending. There's nothing inherently wrong with either of these things----it worked for "Avatar"--but there's also nothing particularly surprising about them.

In terms of visuals, the makers of animated films can literally do anything they can imagine. In order to truly dazzle an audience, then, they need to create stories whose elements we cannot so easily predict.