Department of Canons and Mysteries

Only one class changed my life in second-year university, and it managed to do so while showing me samurais getting skewered in the neck and rent boys getting screwed. I'm sure you've all guessed by now that class was Shakespeare on Film. I thought of it this morning when I woke up at 5:30 with my cat's paw on my back and his breath in my ear, and a line from a Rilke poem running through my head. Blame the lecturer. The first day of class she read Archaic Torso of Apollo to us, whose last bit reads

" and not from every edge explode
like starlight: for there's not one spot
that doesn't see you. You must change your life."

It was the last sentence. And I could hear it in Jenn's voice. "You must change your life." I must change my life? How? Would either my favorite masters student or sickly German poet please tell me? I do not know. This is all a mystery. I hope the change is something more meaningful than doing the dishes more often.

Also, a conversation with my roommate last night reminded me that movies or TV with believable, likable teen girls are rare. So rare, I'm trying to come up with a girl canon. So far, I have Daria, Freaks and Geeks, Ghost World, and both Buffy and Juno to some (very articulate) extent. If anyone has any other suggestions for the Girl Canon, please send them in.