Watched an interview with Martin Amis where he said as he ages he has less future and more past. Realized it is a very good way to put it. We live so many different lives and perhaps you are just a collection of stories. Ten more points for the camp that says life is a dream and we cannot comprehend the reality of it because we are being dreamed. As if simply cells in the body, busy with the job of being a kidney cell or a lung cell, positioned never to grasp the incomprehensible fact you are part of something called Betsy or Giovanni. In the current version of my class there are many different English accents but two are particularly hard to understand. I hate asking four or five times to repeat what they said. There is a real temptation to pretend I got it when I didn’t because I after a while I am perhaps embarrassing them which I do not wish to do. Last week a student brought his guitar and played his own interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man. The acoustic guitar had a unique wood grain tone, he said it was from Nepal where he is from. I picked it up, heavy like a Les Paul. A student from Trinidad asked what’s the big deal with Canadians loving Leonard Cohen? I said it might be a combination of what he is saying plus the phenomena of loving someone who is from one’s hometown. This led to a discussion about Hallelujah and that many love the song yet omit the verse about sex because it is in the way of how they want to interpret him. In a way they miss the point of what he intended writing it. I was at the Junos one time with Blue Rodeo and Kim Mitchell was on the stage and made a joke that Leonard Cohen couldn’t sing and yet that year was nominated for the best male vocalist. I saw Kim Mitchell’s band Max Webster when I was in high school. I wasn’t impressed though all my friends were. It was a Rush concert and Max Webster was the opener. The part of his joke I found funny was that for my taste Kim Mitchell was himself the very musical imposter he insinuated was Leonard Cohen. Sometimes it is like so many stories are happening simultaneously you can do nothing but appreciate being another audience member watching the big screen.