Piety

 Surah 2 is the longest surah in the Quran, making up something like 12% of the entire material. As you know, there are 114 surahs, so for one to take up over ten percent of the entire mass of the text that's definitely saying something. Of course, so many of the later surahs are only a few lines long. There aren't too many important subjects related to the faith that don't show up in one form or another in al-Baqarah ("the Cow"). Here is one of my favorite passage, relating to the concept of piety.

"It is not piety to turn your faces toward the east and the west. Rather, piety is he who believes in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets; and who gives wealth, despite loving it, to kinsfolk, orphans, the indigent, the traveler, beggars, and for [the ransom] of slaves; and performs the prayer and gives the alms; and those who fulfill their oaths, when they pledge them, and those who are patient in misfortunate, hardships, and moments of peril. It is they who are the sincere, and it is they who are the reverent." 2:177

As Seyyed Hossein Nasr adds in his commentary, "Piety is understood as the obedience to God that is well established in the heart or as the sum of acts of obedience and devotion that led us closer to God." I'm always drawn more to the esoteric than the exoteric, and also to what someone does as compared to how they are performing for others, so there is so much about this passage that speaks to me.

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Bay of Angels, (Jacques Demy, 1963)

And while I was roaming around the Criterion Channel's French New Wave collection, I decided to watch Jacques Demy's Bay of Angels, his second film and the one before his wildly popular The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I liked Bay of Angels, but didn't love it. It featured some fine performances, with Jeanne Moreau and Claude Mann playing two gamblers, Jackie and Jean, whose lives are being destroyed by their growing addiction. Jackie (Moreau) is a long-time gambler, with lots of stories about the times when she was broke and how she reverted to stealing and conniving to get another stake. Jean is a young man who has just started gambling, and his (eroding) common sense is all that keeps them going. There is an absurd happy ending. I want to think that Demy was just being ironic, but it doesn't play that way. I'd recommend it. It pales in comparison to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, although that's hardly a stinging critique.

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Breathless, (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)

After yesterday's rant about Pierrot Le Fou I thought I owed it to Godard to watch one of his films that I liked, and celebrate its excellence. So, last night I re-watched Breathless (for who knows how many times). It's funny, the other day I went down a Godard rabbit hole and read several pieces that ranked Godard films, and not only did every one of them rank Breathless as his best films, but then they universally apologize for naming Godard's first film as his best film. It's an old chestnut that an author or a filmmaker or a songwriter spends their entire life writing their first work, but then are unpleasantly informed that they need to produce something better in a year. I would rank A Band Apart higher, but that's purely subjective - that is, I simply like it better. It's hard to argue with Breathless's position based on its cinematic/historical significance; as the Criterion Channel pointed out, there was film before Breathless and film after Breathless. Every time I watch Breathless I'm reminded that Jean Seberg was essentially driven to suicide by the FBI. 

No Fear Shall Come Upon Them

 And another Ramadan has started, and thus it is time for my favorite part of the month: intensive study and self-reflection. Obviously, it's not as if we shouldn't be studying the Quran throughout the year, but the beauty of Ramadan is it is structured to help us get back to that place where we are that focused. If you're a long-time reader of this blog (and, seriously, don't you have something better to do with your time?), you know that one of my critiques about how we approach the time is that Muslims will routinely ask each other Muslims how the fasting is going, but no one ever asks how the Quranic study is going. Again, is it simply because that's easier to quantify, as compared to "what breakthroughs have you made, brother, in your study?." The fascination with fasting shouldn't be an easy path to shaming, but, sadly, it often is. Anyway, I was up early, happily reading and studying, looking at my notes in my well-worn copy of Nasr's The Study Quran, and adding even more notes. I came across one of my favorite passages:

"Truly those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabeans - whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and works righteousness shall have their reward with their Lord. No fear shall come up them, not shall they grieve." 2:62

This passage is very similar to the later verse, 5:69, so I suspect that will pop up later as well. There are, not surprisingly, many, many passages in the Quran that I love, but this was is very dear to me because I think it speaks to a more universal concept of faith - that is, a more beautiful and less tribal sense of what this is all about. Granted, Nasr is more ecumenical than most Muslim thinkers, and maybe this is why I'm so drawn to his work, but his commentary really stresses the transcendent nature of what religion and faith can be, as an avenue for personal improvement and an opportunity for building bridges, and not as yet another excuse for people to hate each other. Nasr quotes the commentator al-Qushayri, "The differences in paths, with the oneness of of the origin, does not hinder the beauty of acceptance. Whosoever affirms [God] the Real in His signs, and believes in the truth and His Qualities of which He informs them - namely, the Truth and His Qualities - then the differences in religious paths and the differences in the appellation of names do not impinge on the realization of the good pleasure [of God]." 

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Maggie's Plan, (Rebecca Miller, 2015)

This morning I watched Rebecca Miller's 2015 film Maggie's Plan. I definitely love it, but I did like it, so I'd suggest you check it out (right now it's available on the Criterion Channel in their Julianne Moore collection). It's described as a screwball comedy, and there are certainly aspects of that genre in it, but it also felt very much like one of those lesser Woody Allen movies where a series of educated white folks have enough income and time on their hands to fixate on their personal problems without actually dealing with anything particularly important (I think that sounds harsher than I intended). Greta Gerwig is charming in a very Greta Gerwig role (funny and clumsy and earnest and endearing), and you can't help thinking that it's a pity that she's so good at that role that she never is given the opportunity to play a role that displays how obviously bright she is. Ethan Hawke plays a very Ethan Hawke role, in that he's likeable and smart but obviously mildly fractured and incapable of finding a happy relationship or bringing happiness to a relationship. Julianne Moore is typically good. She's intelligent and emotionally distant and more than a bit fractured (which sounds like a typical Julianne Moore role), but she's also quite funny in the film. It's difficult to make the claim that such an accomplished actress isn't given great roles, but she's also often typecast in darker more emotionally complicated roles (which is hardly something to complain about, obviously). This reads like a negative reflection on the film, which I don't think I meant it to be, because I did like it. There are some great moments. When the Gerwig character says to Hawke that their relationship should have stopped at the level of an affair (he was married to the Moore character) and not led to them getting married she's definitely speaking some serious truth.

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Pierrot Le Fou, (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)

Recently I decided to give Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot Le Fou another viewing. I wanted to watch it again, partially because, well, duh, I love movies, but also because I simply didn't like it the first time I watched it five years ago. So, I decided to give it another shot, figuring that maybe I was simply in a mood before which kept me from appreciating it. I always think that this is a real danger with movies, because they're so emotionally driven and also because they blow by in less than two hours, which increases the chances that you might have simply not been willing/able to play your part in the movie experience (as compared to say being consistently in a bad mood for the forty hours that it might take to get through a Dickens novel). So, I did have a different response, in that I think I disliked it more than my first viewing. Obviously, I'm in the minority here, because many folks consider Pierrot Le Fou to be one of Godard's best films. I routinely like the film's stars, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina (including in other Godard films), but in this film I simply didn't care about either of them, and those classic Godard-isms that I often consider brilliant simply annoyed me this time. It's not that I disliked Godard, because I love many of his films (Breathless, Bande a part, Vivre la vie, Masculine/Feminine) but there are other times that I may just like the idea of Godard more than Godard. Or maybe I was just in another bad mood, and I'll check back the next time I watch it with an updated review.

17

 And another week has begun, and my final semester is flying along. As I think I said last week, I'm not feeling too nostalgic and the passing moments don't feel too bittersweet so far. Again, maybe when I'm down to the final two weeks, and the CFL player jerseys are below five, I'll feel differently.  My officemate Erik proposed yesterday that I seemed very much at peace with the end, which he took to be reflective of the fact that I had an rich life planned out (living in Sicily, learning Italian, writing books) and thus it was less of an ending and more of a transition. As usual, I suspect he's right.

Thanks to Khari Jones for loaning me his number 17 for today's commemoration. I didn't know until recently that Jones is a fellow Hoosier, born in Hammond, Indiana. After attending college at UC Davis, he played briefly for the Albany Firebirds (Arena Football League) and Scottish Claymores (World League of American Football/NFL Europe) before heading north of the border. Over his ten years career he was a member of the BC Lions, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Calgary Stampeders, Edmonton Eskimos, and Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He was voted the CFL's Most Outstanding Player in 2001 and led the Blue Bombers to the Grey Cup, although they lost to Calgary. The next year he threw for over 5300 yards and 46 TDs (which is the third most that any CFL QB has ever thrown in a season). Shoulder issues impacted his later career. After retirement he was Offense Coordinator for several teams, and also served as Head Coach of the Montreal Alouettes for four years.