That's what I like

The song with my favourite lyrics ever turns out to be cowritten by Sam Shepard, which of course does not make it any better, but does sort of up the interest factor in Shepard for me. I've only read the occasional New Yorker story by him--does anyone want to recommend what play to start with?

Sunshine on tulips! The ones on my dining-room table look like this and are absolutely splendid.

The weather this week! Yesterday was perfect wandering around weather and I hope that's what you did. And now, we don't have to panic, because the rest of the week will be nice, too. But then next weekend, it's supposed to be 5 or 6 degrees and snowy, which makes no sense. But we have five glorious days until then.

Taco King at Danforth and Donlands. I'm linking to a largely negative post because it's all I can find--but most of those people didn't eat there, just looked at the pictures through the window. I think it's great--cheap fast Mexican food that does not come out of a box, bag, or tube (ie., no cheese of the whiz variety). After a lovely delivery experience (embarrassingly, me and my dining companion ordered so much they gave us three forks--we thought at those prices the portions would be small but they weren't) I went on Saturday to see the establishment. They grill the chicken in front of you and apparently the tortillas are homemade, and everything's a wicked good deal. Let's not let prejudice taint a good thing--just because the owners and some of the staff are Asian, doesn't mean they haven't learned to do Mexican food extremely well! I'm scared it will close because so many restaurants in that area do, and I'll be back to Moe's Southwestern, which is actually good too, but I'd rather have local indy than big American chain if I can.

RR

Let Us Compare Mythologies

Like all book-lovers, and I think a fair amount of those who aren't even *that* bookish, I am certain my lens on the world is distinctly tinted by what I read when I was young. What I read now, too, but in those impressionable years I do think I internalized stories more thoroughly than perhaps I do now in my older jaded years. I feel those books formed my internal mythology.

Naively, perhaps, I assumed that school-inflicted part of this lens was semi-universal; that many if not most of the books I read in school were on syllabi all over the country. But then I asked around my friends of like age and station...and *no one* had read what I read in school. Did I go to a mutant school? I find it so odd to think that I read the world in the light of *Antigone* and most don't.

So here is a list of all that I can remember reading in high school. I think some of the years are off, as there is more in some than others, but it's a good approximation. The starred items are book-report books, chosen off a list of 3-4 (I don't think we ever had free choice). I would love to see other people's lists, if you feel like posting'em somewhere or in the comments or sending them to me. I'm once again really curious about something minor and irrelevant.

English Course Requirements, Wentworth County, Middle Nineties

Grade 9 English, Enriched

--Selection of Greek and Roman mythology (plus excerpts of The Iliad
--Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
--Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
--Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut*

Grade 10 English, Enriched
--A short story collection about multiculturalism--the only story I remember being A Class of New Canadians by Clark Blaise
--Obasan by Joy Kogowa
--Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
--A selection of ballads--the only ballad I remember being The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson
--The Diviners by Margeret Laurence*

Grade 11 English, Enriched
--Everyman, a medieval morality play and my pick for most-hated high-school text
--The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
--a selection of sonnets, the only sonnets I remember being Shakespeare's love sonnets
--Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw (I remember nothing about this play)
--Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Grade 12 English, Advanced
--The Oedipus Plays by Sophocles--we read all three, but only studied Antigone in-depth
--The Tempest by William Shakespeare
--Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
--something else that I am forgetting

OAC English
--Hamlet by William Shakespeare
--Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (my pick for most-loved high-school text)
--The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood*
--The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence

Never, sadly, anything by Leonard Cohen, whose work I didn't read until university (and never the title work of this post, actually). But I sure did like the songs when I was a teenager!

There's music on Clinton Street all the through the evening
RR