Cold

Is it just me, or does The Seven Basic Plots sound so high school? You remember don't you, those five paragraph essays in English class on the great themes of literature like "man's inhumanity to man" and all that crap. Chrisopher Booker reworks it a bit, but it comes out basically the same:

Booker compiles a Jungian taxonomy of stories, distilling the entire history of the fictive arts into a handful of flexible but unbreakable archetypes—Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth—and then extracts from those seven imaginative drops a single battle royal between Dark and Light.

Gak! At least someone in Georgia is sane. Remember several months ago those stickers that said "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." They were going to be foisted upon unsuspecting schoolchildren. Well, the judge, he said no. I'm still sick with a cold. And currently it is -5 F outside. The weather forecasters say we won't go above zero until Monday or Tuesday next week. What is one to do when faced with the cold outside and a cold in the head? Why snuggle up in bed and read of course! Though last night I couldn't even read so my Bookman and I watched our DVD of Sense and Sensibility, the one written, produced and starring Emma Thompson. I like Thompson very much and the adaptation is quite enjoyable, but she really was a bit old to play Elinor. Tonight I'll be holding a book in my hands, at least for a little while. I'm not sure what that book will be though. I'm in the middle of several and I don't know which one my sick brain will fancy most.