It's weird how things come at you — I mean, life's little convergences.  Like, I started on this William Gass kick, reading his Reading Rilke, and I'm down in the Goodwill basement a couple days into it, and come across an unlikely collection of essays by Gass (2002's Tests of Time)...

OK, whatever.  But it's not like I've ever run across anything by Gass at a Goodwill anywhere before, and now as I'm just devouring his stuff... and it's not like I was looking for it — it's almost as if it was looking for me.  But maybe that's just me.  I mean, obviously, it's just me, right?  Although I do seem to be not only gravitating toward certain kinds of questions, but drawing the like as well. 

I was out with my missed-connection-turned-wingman-in-training, Pantos, Sunday.  We took in an underwhelming Honk! in Davis, and followed the parade to Harvard Square for Oktoberfest. 

All I will say about Honk! is that while I think any reason is a good reason to parade down Mass Ave on stilts banging drums and blowing horns, the slightly ironic conceit of a gathering of "activist marching bands" is still a uniquely WASPy one.  Catholics have their feasts and festivals, stretching back, literally, ages.  Protestant culture has nothing like Carnival, with its glorious pre-Lent excess and abandon. 

The element of activism in Honk! seeks to give the parade a purpose, when it would actually be much more political without one.  And this is something very hard for very clever people to grasp: unbridled fun, authentic enjoyment, spontaneous celebration, art, beauty, music are all more potent forms of political protest in and off themselves than protest that is itself explicitly political. 

Having said that, the sometimes odd and varied politics on display at Honk! are a part of what makes it fun as a spectator, so long as you don't take it seriously.  This time around the whole thing reminded me of nothing so much as the Teabaggers recent Glen Beck Fest in Washington, where "protesters" were protesting anything and everything, and nothing made any sense.  Only Honk has much better costumes and some effin awesome music.

Oktoberfest in Harvard Square wasn't very beery, I have to say.  And the throngs made it hard to take everything in.  But there were a lot of cute guys out and about, which was good practice for my wingman.  But we didn't spend all our time in maneuvers.  While we were down there we did some shopping, too.

We dropped into Harvard bookstore, and I picked up a couple books from the bargain table downstairs that just sort of struck me.  One: Yudl Rosenberg's The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of Maharal of Prague (first published exactly a hundred years ago).  And the other: a book called What We Can Never Know by a David Gamez of the University of Essex, which is "a wonderfully imaginative and powerfully written defence of Positive Scepticism," according to a certain Professor Simon Critchley, blurbed on the back cover.

What turned me onto What We Can Never Know were the bits I glimpsed skimming the introduction, particularly this promising passage:  "Taken together, the theories in this book integrate into a single picture of reality that can almost be believed in, even though it cannot be coherently described, justified, or even thought about."  DING DING DING DING! That's so totally where I'm at right now.

Not to mention in the mood for a zombie movie, which would have capped off the weekend for me.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone willing to go see Zombieland with me yesterday, so I decided to head to the Kendall to see A Serious Man, the latest from the Coen Bros., by myself instead.  From start to finish — and what a finish — it was just the thing.  It dovetailed perfectly with my own stream of consciousness.  It was kismet!

The Coens get a lot of crap from critics, but they have always made great movies (their oeuvre contains some real dogs — they went through something like a ten-year jag — but it also contains truly great movies) with a singular sensibility.  I looked up Ty Burr's review.  One of the comments struck me as so hilariously skewed, I just had to reproduce it here, in all its shock and awe (without any [sic]s, as it would have taken me all morning):

blainerunner wrote:

Whywould anybody subject himself to a film like this? I'm jewish and Ihave Ph.D. from Brandeis, even, but I have no interest in this film. Ican't stand Steely Dan, but I do love Roth and Bergman, but can't seethe similarity. Bergman was never quirky, and he had a deep, deep, deeprespect (and love) for his characters. Deep. Imagine the Coens with aLiv Ullmann. Impossible. Ullmann wouldn't work with them, because she'dquickly size up the fact that the Coen brothers dislike women.Furthermore, the Coens can't or won't write anything resemblingarticulate psychological realism. W/r/t Roth, his characters have sexlives. The Coens make films as if sex doesn't exist. They are, to me,the most asexual major filmmakers in America. Roth is one of the mostsexual writers of the 20th C. His characters (Zuckerman, etc) may beneurotic, but they're never feckless or awkward. They have a titanicstrength and libidinal verve. The Coens are nerds before they are Jews.When I've watched 'The Office', I think "ah, it's the Coen brotherswithout the cinematography and the Gogolain weirdness." However, Ishould say, I feel that absurdism should've ended with Beckett.

I'mbeginning to think "didn't get laid in high school" should become agenre (for both film and TV shows). Is it comedy? "well, it'sdidn't-get-laid-in-high-school comedy". That category wouldn't include'Charade' and 'Wedding Crashers'.

I'm pissy because I loveBergman and Roth (and think Bergman would be rolling over in hisgrave), and because I'm quite weary of Hollywood bashing. Shakespearewould be working in Hollywood. So would Dickens and Edith Wharton. EvenHenry james and Proust. The most difficult thing in the world is tomake a work of art that doesn't remind one that it's a work out, whichis why Hitchcock was so great.

"I'm Jewish and I have a PhD from Brandeis, even."  Classic.  "However, I should say, I feel that absurdism should've ended with Beckett."  Priceless.  The main problem here seems to be that the Coens aren't Philip Roth and/or Ingmar Bergman (and perhaps secondarily that they are "nerds before they are Jews").  But just think if every writer was Philip Roth and every filmmaker was Ingmar Bergman.

If we take the Coens for what they are, and not for what they aren't (which I'll admit may be impossible for someone with a PhD from Brandeis, who seems to be a prig before he's a Jew), their latest offering is a treasure trove of priceless vignettes held together by a grimly comic conceit. 

Given that the question here is nothing less than the meaning of life, and the answer is... well, let's just say somehow, even when reality "can almost be believed in, though it cannot be coherently described, justified, or even thought about " I find there's some small comfort in commiseration.  And laughter.