Went to see the Coen brothers’ latest on a gray Sunday afternoon that couldn’t quite decide if it might rain or might have a little sun. That kind of you-don’t-know-what-you’re-going-to-get sums up Larry Gopnick’s life in A Serious Man.

He’s trying to be a serious man, or at least what he thinks a serious man would be, but is overtaken and perplexed by out-of-the-blue events. This is a Coen brothers’ world where things aren’t exactly explained, you get more questions than answers, and there are some very strange characters involved.

I assume I missed some references because this is a very Jewish movie — and I don’t have a strong background there. Need to go back with a friend who can tell me about some of that. I’m particularly interested in the music which may just be traditional Jewish music but didn’t seem to be credited in the music credits. I’d also like to see all those items in Rabbi Marshak’s study again — some things like the picture of Abraham sacrificing Isaac were clear but there were lots of little things sitting around. Danny is taking it all in through a haze of marijuana which just adds to the otherworldly feel.

But the whole aura of illogic, of blank suburbia filled with somewhat alarming neighbors, and trying to explain that you didn’t buy something to people who seem to be from another universe fits right in to our general idea of a Coen story.

Film gets the award for most hilarious ending credit: “No Jews were harmed in the making of this film.”

Some of my specific questions may be answered in reviews (I don’t generally read them till after I see a film) which I’ll be getting to later today. Some of them may be answered in another viewing. But I suspect, like Larry, most of them won’t be answered at all. That’s the way life is, in our world and the Coen world.

Sometimes procrastination really does work out. You will notice that it didn’t do anything for me along the lines of getting anything written this week, but that’s a slightly different issue.

Sometimes if you’re just dithering about something because you can’t choose between options — or want to keep your options open till the last possible moment — you can get an unexpected bonus. So procrastination in this sense is leaving enough room for the universe to help you out.

I’d been contemplating buying tickets for a particular show this weekend but couldn’t quite decide whether it was worth the time, whether I’d really want to go when the hour rolled around, etc. The final push in not going ahead and getting tickets was that I’d need to make a credit card order online; there was no way to get actual tickets in person in advance. I’m fairly resistant to the just-go-ahead-and-put-it-on-your-card syndrome. So that was enough to convince me that I’d just wait till Saturday and see what happened. That way I could decide to go or not go with no issues either way.

And if it sold out and I didn’t get a ticket, then it just wasn’t meant to be. Not a make-or-break event either way. Then, out of nowhere, I discovered an opportunity to get tickets for free for the very show I’d been contemplating. Wow. Now I have tickets for the same show and I didn’t have to go through the two-step of credit card stuff.

Procrastination actually pays off!

Okay, so the one time I perhaps really should procrastinate is the time I decide to act immediately. Somehow I need to get the procrastination impulse to override the one that says “answer this email immediately” or “correct that person who obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Usually it doesn’t really matter in the great scheme of things and the whole email response issue can rapidly get out of hand.

I used to work with a woman who was famous for that instant flame of email to tell you her way, her ideas, her everything was better than yours. Luckily I’ve never been that bad but still. Her reactions just resulted in other people taking her off their email notices so they wouldn’t have to deal with the responses.

Twitter is a lot like that, only faster than email. Generally just let those people go by or unfollow them if they’re just obnoxious. Life is too short. But occasionally I’ve made an impulsive decision to follow someone and then regretted it when my whole tweet stream turned into messages from them.

I really don’t want 40 messages within minutes from the same person, even if they’re interesting. If they’re just RTs of someone else, then the value goes down. So I’m now contemplating unfollowing…but I guess the procrastination thing should kick in here and give it a day or so before I pull the plug. Anybody can have a day with too much caffeine or not enough else to do besides tweet.

No, I’m not at all surprised that the headline on this says Tuesday but I’m clearly writing it on Wednesday.  That’s part of the point, really.  After all I did *think* about it on Tuesday and that should count for something, right?  (Note: if you’re answering yes to that question then you have the same problem.)

Once when I was a software manager, I had a consultant who was supposed to add cool new features to one of our apps as well as generally keep things running.  He was always cheery and full of enthusiasm and really good ideas. The problem came in with the coding of those ideas into actual programs.  Not that he couldn’t code, he just had a really hard time getting around to it. 

So every couple of weeks we’d have this meeting and he’d start talking about his latest idea. When I asked about one of the earlier ones, he’d look at me and say “But we talked about it.”  And we had indeed talked about it.  The talk just never translated into action.

I guess I’m actually one step behind even that. I’m not even talking about it necessarily, just thinking about it. Sometimes thinking does indeed make it so, but not as often as putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

Scrolling through my inbox, deciding to read or not read notices from several lists, I stopped on the first few lines of an email that said “purse your passion.” I spend many of my days editing and proofreading documents and knew immediately that the sender had been in a hurry — perhaps rushing to pursue his passion — and spellcheck doesn’t catch real words. Purse instead of pursue.

The accidental phrase reminded me of something Gary Vaynerchuk said last night at Powell’s Books, one of the stops on tour for his new book Crush It! The book is about making money  from your passions but one of his points is that you don’t do it from the “purse” side first. You do it because it’s a passion, something you want to pursue. So when people ask him what he thinks the “next big thing” will be, he tells them they’re focusing on the wrong side of the equation. Focus on what you care about.

Not new advice of course, but Gary is so much fun and so obviously passionate about what he does that you feel more enthusiastic and upbeat just listening to him.

Full disclosure, I have not (yet)  read the book so making no recommendation on that.

Note that this mostly was written on Monday, but somehow I didn’t post it.

Had a conversation over the weekend with friends regarding what we should have majored in during college, if only we’d known. Some people had sensible, practical things like healthcare or how to survive in a recession, but I’m more interested in the create-it-yourself major. Mine would have been great — if only I’d gotten around to it. As far as I know, no one has an actual degree in Procrastination.

I certainly met all the qualifications during college. All those delayed papers, postponed exams, and changes in major that required more shifting would have fit nicely into the course of study. And I would likely have gotten an “A” — much better than I did in that French Literature course. Some day I do intend to read La Chanson de Roland. No expiration date on good intentions.

But, as we know, I never did get around to trying to create such a major. Maybe for my graduate degree?

The last few days have been full of drama — why am I doing what I’m doing, and so on and so forth, so Cold Souls struck me as just the movie to go to. I’d noticed a review for it a couple of weeks ago — the whole idea of putting one’s soul in cold storage for a bit was interesting and just enough alternate universe to make me want to see it.

Paul Giamatti plays himself — an actor who’s feeling excessively burdened and overwhelmed by the Uncle Vanya role he’s doing as well as the other fairly normal events in his life. He complains to his agent that he’s having dark thoughts and everything is just too much. While most agents would probably suggest medication, his offers a New Yorker story about a “soul storage” service, conveniently located on Roosevelt Island. It turns out that they extract your soul in a machine which looks just a little spookier than an MRI machine and save it in a glass container which is then stored in something akin to a safety deposit box. And if you’re looking to hold down costs, you can have it stored out in New Jersey and save on sales tax. Three people in the audience laughed at that; I’m betting we were all from the east coast.

Soul extraction makes you feel lighter, more energetic, nothing weighing you down anymore. Every soul looks different — Giamatti’s looks like a chickpea, which leaves room for plenty of jokes. According to the storage facility’s Dr. Flintstein, played very well by David Straitharn, each person has a different reaction to soullessness.  Unfortunately the lack of soul does not help Paul’s acting, especially in a role like Vanya. In fact, he is so upbeat and non-anguished that his acting is terrible. So he “borrows” a different soul — that of a Russian poet.

It turns out that trafficking in souls is a big business and the Russians are very much involved, mostly in the export of souls, which leads to all sorts of complications when Giamatti discovers that his soul is missing from the storage unit.

I’m not sure if I’d classify this as sci-fi, surreal, screwball or self-discovery but it was entertaining and thought-provoking without taking itself too seriously. Giamatti is exactly right and I look forward to Sophie Barthes’ next film.

Interesting panel yesterday on New Media, Old Media and the Future of Investigative Journalism with a lot of discussion of the old business model for newspapers (classified ads, general advertising) and some ideas about what the future business model for general news might be.

Participants included David Sarasohn, columnist and associate editor at The Oregonian; April Baer, reporter from Oregon Public Radio; Stephen Engelberg, currently managing editor of ProPublica.org and formerly at The Oregonian; Al Stavitzky, director of the George S. Turnbull Center, part of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication; and moderator Tim DuRoche, Community Programs Manager for Portland Center Stage/Gerding Theater. Many of the audience members were also reporters or writers.

I didn’t attempt to take notes since much of the discussion covered issues that have been discussed in many places already.  Since I decided to write about it after the fact, this is by no means an overall summary.

A few things that I remember:

Sarasohn, admitting that newspapers didn’t realize that the web was a new way of doing things, not just another version of the once-a-day process they were already doing, and that he and his colleagues at The Oregonian are figuring out what they’ve learned. He also made several comments about the ideal of the newspaper as a public square, where people with opposing ideas could meet on some kind of common ground. The danger of the niche news outlets is that people may not be exposed to any views other than the ones they already hold. If everyone is part of a special interest group, who’s left to be a citizen.

Stavitsky, on what university students (and many others) want from news — on-demand, free, and interactive. Is it possible to get all that — especially the free part. People who’re getting their news online from various “free” aggregators don’t seem to realize that the aggregators are getting it from journalists somewhere else. 

Engleberg, on the problem of narrowness of hyperlocal or niche news services; his example was pollution problem in a large river in a large state — no newspaper or news service in that state felt responsible for covering the problem because it was outside of their focus area. What happens to many of those kinds of issues if no one is watching or reporting on what’s going on?

Several audience comments about the desirability of some kind of distribution service that would charge but combine several news sources. That  model runs into some antitrust issues that would have to be resolved.

General discussion that we don’t know what the new model may look like and in fact may not recognize it till we see it. In the beginning of TV, people said that “obviously” no one would pay for TV, it was just there. Lots of people now pay for various TV services.  Nobody imagined what iTunes would do for the music market until it was invented.

Along those lines, there is a joint effort of the University of Oregon Journalism Department, the Portland City Club, and Oregon Public Broadcasting to try to build a New Community Journalism Enterprise for Metropolitan Portland. An all-day session will be held on Saturday, November 21, 2009, to discuss various desirable end states for a Portland community response.  Event will be limited to 200 participants and costs $25.00. Statement says it will be an “open, democratic meeting with no hidden control group.” They handed out a one-page flyer about this event but I can’t find anything online to link to. If you have a link, please let me know.

I’ve been looking at words for as long as I can remember — from hanging over the arm of the person reading to me as a child, trying to see how they were making those things on the page turn into a story, to spell-checking movie credits (just last week). Not that I intentionally check movie credits, it just happens in the back of my mind as I’m watching them go by. 

Before we had spell-checkers, or much of any kind of technology, in the small-town school I went to, I was the person that everyone asked to proofread papers. I was also the one who constantly “had my nose in a book.” That was not used as a compliment unless they wanted to find something in a book. Once during my college days I got a temporary job addressing envelopes, not because of my wonderful penmanship but because the person who needed them knew I’d get the names and addresses spelled correctly.

Not too surprisingly, I’m a big fan of crosswords and other kinds of word puzzles. And I spent years working as a researcher in law firms, where a lot of money can depend on using just the right word.

So why am I thinking about words today — too many instances of people either not knowing or not caring about the words they use and what it says about them. Or at least how it makes me feel about them. They may not care about my opinion, but what about people who might be evaluating them for something — like a job. I’ve been a hiring manager and I can promise you that people who didn’t bother to spell correctly ended on the bottom of the stack. My building has a community trash compactor — one of those things where you drop your bag of trash down a chute and it falls into a bin several floors below. Evidently someone on my floor has not been following proper procedures. When I took my trash down last night, there was a bag of trash on the floor in the collection room with a neatly lettered note beside it. They got points for neatness but not for spelling — a trash chute is not spelled “schute.” Then there are the people who claim to be fans of various TV shows and movies. They send out e-mail, tweets, etc. about those shows to demonstrate their expertise and/or influence. My opinion of their value drops sharply if they can’t even spell the star’s name correctly. Maybe once is just a typing glitch but consistently getting it wrong means you’re just not paying attention.

This week is continuing the pushmi-pullyu theme of last week — with a tip of the hat to Hugh Lofting and the Dr. Dolittle books, not the movies. I think I should be moving in a direction but one impulse goes one way and the next goes the direct opposite way, which tends to leave one sitting in the middle of the see-saw.

My aunt used to say “I’m of two minds about that” when she couldn’t decide. Lately I seem to be of two minds about everything. It all comes down to what I refer to as dithering. Can’t do this (or don’t want to), can’t do that; therefore nothing happens.

Before someone corrects me, I admit that the pushmi-pullyu was more organized than I am, since he had subdivided the duties for each head to work together, but I like the  two heads image. However, the old “two heads are better than one” theory doesn’t hold up if they’re working at opposites.  One head that’s focused is more likely to get something done.