I have been reading David Brooks' book on The Social Animal.  Lots of ideas to chew on.  There are two levels of knowing:  Level 1 is the intuitive level.  Level 2 is the rational level.  Creating systems, mathematical thought and analyses, exact recipes, etc. are in level 2.  The Grid illustrates that in Square 1 is the actual theory or perhaps system we are teaching.  Square 3 is the beginning of a combination of the two levels and square is in the automatic phase which is really a combination of 1 and 2.  Examples abound:  The recipe for a beginner is in Square 1 while the expert cook combines as in square 4.For the runner in the 400 meters he learns how to go into automatic mode on the back stretch.  This has to be taught first before it can beBrooks also makes a fascinating contrast between the French and the En glish enlightenment integrated.  The French Revolution looked to theory and thought primarily; while the English Enlightenment looked to the essence of things , its innate beauty, as well as thought. For the French it was the light of reason.  The goal of the Revolution was like a social contract a la DesCartes,.In England there is more emphasis on fellow feeling as opposed to individual reason and thinking.  In the case of the French we see machines and systems being emphasized; in the case of the British organisms of living relationships.

     We tend to think of level 1 as the unconscious.  Peak Performance is in Level 1.  However you cannot have peak performance without having learned some kind of theory or thought first.  (as in level 2)  EUREKA said in the bathtub is a good example.  The great cook cannot get to square 4 without having studied the recipe first.  The great runner or swimmer or dancer cannot get to a peak performance without having the something like a system.  Going unconscious cannot be done without a great deal of study and learning.  INTUITION AND LOGIC  are partners.  At a political level, the far right and the far left are both stuck in immature thinking and systems analysis.  They cannot integrate logic and intuition.  There is no system that is true; no one thought that is truth .   Only an examination without prejudice can really be true.  To get there one must go through a position of uncertainty and a dearth of judgment.  In other words do not be afraid to be a wanderer.  Listen well and learn well.  Better decision making is a result of this. Be patient, gather information, listen to others and to yourself and the result will be productive.

Joe Paterno and being human

In my opinion, the entire story of Joe Paterno is nothing less than a Greek Tragedy. The kind of trap the ancient Greeks were always warning against-- too much hubris. The reason that the warnings came was because the Greeks knew how easy it was to become enamored of oneself. The ideal was to keep things in perspective and maintain some kind of balance. Most of us do not have to worry about this on any grand scale. Who is subsescible to this? Any celebrity whether they be in the arts, sports, politics, et. al. A public figure! What happened to Joe Pa was almost predictable. He stayed at the helm too long, despite being asked to stop coaching at Penn State. The request to step down was early in the 2000's when he had built a reputation of a great coach and model for keeping a program clean. He had one of the highest rates of graduating football players throughout the country. He cared about his players. However, time had caught up with him. He did not recruit as well as he had previously and his teams were generally not ranked in the top 20 for a few years. However Joe refused the reasonable request claiming, quite rightly, that he brought more money into Penn State than anyone else. Besides , he said, what was he going to do on Saturday afternoons. Now that is all hubris. Yet it is understandable. He had taken for granted his status and his importance. In my opinion this is a gift; i.e. his great coaching and his great teams. He , in the end, viewed himself as indispensable and this gift had become a right and not something to be claimed as only his for all time. When you stick around too long something tragic is bound to happen. It just catches up with in some way, either directly or otherwise. A tragic figure and someone who may be remembered for the horrible events of the early 2000's rather than his great successes.

Teaching and Humor

It is difficult to daw the line in teaching between humor, surprise, playing the trickster, et. al. Most of the good teachers I know use humor in the classroom somehow. This requires some distance between the teacher and the students, a kind of objectivity. Further, they have to decide how to respond to students when they say weird and sometimes hurtful things. After all students come to class with plenty of baggage: Their boyfriend or girlfriend said something to them they did not like, or their Mom yelled at them that day, or they are just in a rotten mood. Who knows? Regardless, one has to approach class with a kind of lightness of being ; a kind of zen place where what students say or discuss is important and of value but not necessarily an earth shattering idea nor is it directed at the teacher. The teacher has to decide who and what to praise and appraise. But getting back to my major point on developing some distance in the classroom I have an example. I had a student who was a very funny wise guy. He was very smart; so my job was to listen to what he said carefully but not to get excited if he said something that had a personal twist to it. Further he was popular and respected in class. During One class I showed the class a picture of Golda Meir and asked them if they knew who this was . The wise guy said, "Oh what a nice picture of your Mom." Anyone who has ever seen Prime minister Meir knows that she borders on being ugly. I paused in my response and said, "Oh no this is not a picture of my mother. She was not nearly as good looking as Meir." Everyone laughed.

HUmor and surprise are often mixed in together, intentionally or not. When I was teaching new teachers at SF State I required them to keep a weekly journal of at least five mistakes they made during each week for the first six weeks of their teaching stint. Their mouths dropped about a thousand feet. I had to somehow punch a hole in their idea that they had to be perfect. It had a wonderful effect with them. They were to share with each other, in small groups, their imperfections. It made their work easier to deal with and easier to accept who they were.

Whatever ideas or "methods" one uses, the idea is to lighten the load for everyone. Nobody has to repeat that teaching is a huge and important task. It is a kind of spiritual stewardship where you have to lead by example. Perhaps the greatest complement I have ever received as a teacher was one where one of my students, representing the rest of the class, said, "As for Dr. Beren he is the silliest teacher we have ever experienced."

love/crime

This French film is a wonderful drama that begins benignly and then morphs into a murder mystery. The story is focused on two executives who work for the same company in Paris. The first woman is played with great dexterity by Kristin Scott Thomas who acts equally well in both French and English films. She is unscrupulous , without principle, conniving, and brutal. No one, male or female, is spared her venom. In this film her main adversary, as she sees it, is a younger woman who is sensitive, loyal, highly creative and an innocent. She begins her job with the same attitude that most of us have when we join a firm. She wants to do well and please her boss (Thomas) When Thomas takes credit for several ideas that the younger woman proposes, we see the writing on the wall. Following several public humiliations by Thomas the younger woman plots her revenge. And quite a revenge it is. The film is not just a battle of wits; it also focuses on obsession, a love/hate relationship, and the place of women in the working world. The film is made with such brilliance that before we know it, the end of the story is upon us. There a are couple of plans that may get lost to the viewer, but pay no mind. It all comes together at the end. Only the French could make a film like this, with so much attention to detail.

"love/crime"

"love/crime"

THE MOTHER

This film features twists and turns that so surprise the viewer that you really cannot predict what is around the corner. A Korean film produced by Bong Joon-Ho is part mystery, part horror, and even a little comedy. Yet it all is woven together in a way that only a master could put into a pattern that turns out beautiful and fascinating. It begins simply enough when we see the mother , the central character and played with boldness by Kim Hay-Ja, keeping a close eye on her son who is partially retarded. He cannot protect himself and is too often taken advantage of by his best friend. Each of these characters are presented in a striking way and with completely different personnas: The overprotective mother, the simple son, and the friend who is a bully. What a triad! The film gathers steam when a murder of a sexually precocious teen ager takes place with the town folk suspecting the son. We have no idea who is the guilty party. It seems impossible to imagine that the son committed the murder. Perhaps it was his nasty friend. As the film moves quickly along there are other suspects. In spite of the huge variety of suspense,suspects, and Hitchcockian like moments, the mother remains the one constant in the story. She is single minded, daring, and willing to go to any lengths to prove her sons innocence. We sympathize with her and are amazed at how she hounds everyone in town. I highly recommend this film. If you go see it, hold onto your hats!

One of my favorite Jewish Jokes:

Yeshiva U. decided to field a crew team. Unfortunately, they lost race after race. They practiced for hours every day, but never managed to come in any better than dead last. Their coach, at his wits end, decided to send their captain whose name was Yankel to spy on the Harvard team. So Yankel shlepped off to Cambridge and hid in the bullrushes off the Charles River, from where he carefully watched the Harvard team as they practiced.

Yankel returned to Yeshiva. "I have figured out their secret," he announced.

"They have eight guys rowing and only one guy shouting."

This and That

One of the loveliest and haunting pieces of music I have recently heard is Dimitri Shostakovitch 's music,"From Jewish Folk Poetry". Prokofiev did something similar but not nearly as authentic as S. did. I know that Shotakovitch despised Prokofiev's music. I do not know whether that went both ways. I believe that Shostakovitch was one of those Soviets who believed that P. ran off to Paris for several years because he could not stand the musical competition in Russia. The irony for Prokofiev was that when he got to Paris he was in competition with Igor Stravinsky. That was also a competition he could not win. I do believe that S. suffered much more under Stalin's watchful eye and ear than P. did. There was a small period of time when S.'s music was not heard in Soviet concert halls. According to some, Shostakovitch always had his bags packed to go to Siberia. He was under constant stress. There is a lot of mythology about S. One view is that in a few of his pieces for Chamber music there is hidden meaning which was suggestive of anti-Stalin repression.

A Single Man

A Single Man

I would like to share some personal thoughts on "A Single Man". As most of the reviewers say the acting from both Colin Firth and Julianne Moore are magnificent. Colin Firth shows his great range of acting in a demanding role of a man suffering from terrible grief and loss; while Moore gives another magnificent performance to her already considerable list of great performances. She plays her role with great understanding of what it would be like for a woman in love with a man who is unavailable to her. She is also wonderful as a great lush who is feels very sorry for herself and her predicament. I do think that for gays this is a period piece. This was a time before the gay liberation of 1969 when most of us were in the closet. How heartbreaking it is for Firth to learn that he is not invited to the funeral. How typical of the time to bury their sons' homosexuality. To the movie's credit this disappointment and mean spiritedness is downplayed. After all, this was then and not now. A further example of the films' attachment to the period was the seduction going on toward the conclusion of the film between Firth and his young student. As a viewer I was hoping the two of them would get together both physically and emotionally. This would help Firth with his pain. As far as we know this did not happen. Instead there was open flirtation and nudity between them but no act of consummation. Disappointing for the viewer but BRAVO for the film.

An education

Last night I saw "An Education". It was quite an education for me to watch the film. It delivered a story that avoided almost all cliches that must have been tempting for the director. This was a story that has been previously told--A relationship between an adolescent girl and her lover--a rogue of 30 something. What is it that keeps the film fresh? For one thing, the girl is not so naive as we would think. Although she has some difficulty in escaping without a pregnancy , her awareness of who he is and what he is "up to" is not lost to her. He is dishonest in as many ways as possible. He cheats on his wife and his work is absolutely dishonest. (If we could even call what he does work) Peter Saarsgard plays the seducer and he is so committed to the idea of seduction that it becomes his main MO. He seduces the girls entire family; Mom, Dad, the whole package. This helps the viewer watch the film with interest. This is not a story about lured sex between a minor and her lover. It is a seduction match. It takes some of the moral sting out of the story. The acting by the entire ensemble is brilliant. Alfred Molina as the family father is totally believable as a lower middle class man who will to anything for a larger status including selling his daughter. He is so good that you are left to wonder who is the real villain here? The seducer or the seduced? Saarsgard, for his part, is so low key that that he just creeps up on you and is constantly surprising the viewer with his ability to get the family to go along with whatever he wishes. The female members of the cast do very well with their parts. The girl is suitably coy and bright and possesses the hubris of an adolescent. The mother has little to say; but she does not have to say much given the position of wives in the early sixties. Emma Thompson has a small cameo role here and does fine with it.

I went to the film with a friend. She came up with a very interesting question. Why is David (Saarsgard) Jewish? That would make for an interesting discussion.

A Serious Man

A retired rabbi asked me what I thought of the Coen brothers recent movie and I said that I loved it. He did not. He hated it! He explained that he found the main character despicable. This, in fact, was what I loved about the film. I too found the protagonist to be despicable. What is enticing about the film is that Larry's character raises a central question for Jews. What is a man worth? Jewish teaching tells us that we are to lead our lives practicing compassion and doing mitzvot. For example we are taught to be hospitable. This idea--hospitality--is a central component of the Jewish faith from Abraham on. This in no way implies that we should only live our lives for others. On the contrary we need to stand up for ourselves when a wrong is committed and be strong in our commercial, family, and spiritual pursuits. As humans, we should try to be strong and unafraid when challenges present themselves. As Nelson Mendela said (Not a Jew but who wouldn't want him to be a part of their tribe?) we are all children of God and we should not act in a way that makes us small. It does not serve the world. Further he goes on to say," There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you"...

In this film what did Larry stand for? What kind of life did he lead? In my view he stood for nothing. He repeated over and over, "But I haven't done anything" Right, he did not do anything at all. He was a nebbish. To be a nebbish is to lead a life that has no meaning. He allowed himself to lead a life and be pushed around by others His wife and Cy just assumed, quite correctly, that Larry would do as he was asked to do. OY! HIs treatment of others (with the noted exception of his brother) was really not any better. For example there is the conundrum raised by the Korean student. What should Larry do about him and his grade?
Instead of trying to work with the student to raise his grade Larry summarily dismissed the situation without one iota of understanding or compassion. Larry referenced the rules and simply dismissed his student. This gave us some humorous scenes to watch but it did not raise the moral level of our protagonist. Which is the greater wrong--to try and change the situation by working with the student or by failing him because he did not understand the math?

What do we make of people like Larry? What questions do we raise about ourselves? How do lead our own lives? There is a kind of character comparison between our own protagonist and Joseph K. in Kafka's book, "The Trial" Joseph K. lead the same kind of uninvoled life as Larry did. Instead of living in a suburban ticky-tacky house, K. worked as a bureaucrat. He also led an unexamined and selfish and compartmentalized life. He did not care about others unless they could help him out of his dilemma. Both Larry and Joseph K. create their own sad and hopeless lives and invite others to trample on them. They lead meaningless lives. Is this not a sin?