Cases For Rigid Training and the Depp To Pleasure

      Just a hint of an update, folks, as I remain so far behind in my marking-- to be returned Tuesday-- that I'll no doubt be losing much sleep in the next while.   Strange it is, he mutters to himself and sounding like a perturbed Yoda: I used to be relatively energetic when it came to marking, but now I find it's a task all-but-destined to prove an exercise in instructional futility.   At least in recent years it has proven to be, and I fear I'm becoming sufficiently cynical to surrender to that old temptation of educators, simply slopping grades down with only the barest of commentary.   Van the Man's "Why Must I Always Explain?" should probably become my theme song, especially with that lyrical masterpiece "My Humps" being oh-so-certainly out of the question.   (Give me a brown-eyed girl over a bunch of black-eyed peas anyday.)

      Alas, there's not much new to report, save some family stuff I won't discuss here.   My Canuckistani readers might want to check out this ridiculous list of Canada's 100 most important books, a list which would be risible if it was not so infuriating. (Alligator Pie makes the list, but St. Urbain's Horseman does not; Beautiful Losers gets the shaft while Howie Meeker's book on hockey mysteriously stickhandles its way to significance.   Proof positive that Canadians should never be allowed to judge their own works of-- ahem-- "National Literature.")   Similarly, I see the newest chance to see Johnny Depp chew (and eschew) scenery is on its way to cinemas, but this time it's a biopic of the legenderary debaucherer John Wilmot, aka The Earl of Rochester.   Frankly, the previews have me worrying the film will just be Quills in England, and the thought of John Malkovich as Charles II provides with me enough doubt to sustain a Cartesian immortality, maybe the flick won't be so bad. Things can turn out better than I expect, right?   Right?   Oh.   Riiiiiiight....

      Ah, well, that's enough marginal optimism for now.   Any more would be as unnatural as Bushian oratory.   Back to reality, back to the grade-grind and its destructive nonsense.   And if anyone, ANYONE, ENNY-ENNY-ENNY-WUN, figures out the wordplay in my previous sentence, I'll cease to be such a cynical bastard.   For a day.   Maybe.   I'll do my best, anyway. Until later.