Gravenor's school daze

I feel awful for Kristian Gravenor's sense of post-adolescent angst and I am deeply saddened that he didn't get more out of his high school years ["The idiot factory," May 20]. However, I can't help but feel that his negative experiences had more to do with his feelings about his "hideous skin blotches" and his "uncool jacket" than with the efforts of his teachers to provide him with an education.

Kristian went to a public school; public schools accept everyone. They take all comers, from murdering sickos like his buddies to the people who will eventually discover the cure for cancer. That's the whole idea of public schools: they try to teach everyone.

If he had been paying attention to his teachers instead of concentrating on his "spontaneous erections" (a bit of bragging there, I suspect), Kristian might have twigged onto the idea that Macbeth was the ultimate greedy CEO or that Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is all about dirty office politics, complete with friends stabbing friends in the back. When they tried to make him read Orwell's novels, 1984 and Animal Farm, maybe, just maybe, they were trying to teach lessons about the evils of blind obedience and about corruption in government. But you weren't listening, were you Kristian? Did your little teenage 'tude get in the way?

--Peter Martyn

Tut tut, Trembles

Whoa! It's bad enough that Hollywood keeps screwing up Egypt's dynastic history, but now Rick "hieroglyphically yours" Trembles is at it too [Motion Picture Purgatory, "The Mummy," May 13]. Clearly, Mr. Trembles and I were not watching the same piece of fun-filled hokum. According to the soundtrack I heard, the lovesick Imhotep was diddling Ankh-su-Namun, the Pharaoh's mistress. This is quite understandable--after all, she did have "nice buns."

But according to the version Rick Trembles saw, Ankh-su-Namun, (which rhymes with Tutankhamun (1339­1335 BC), whose tomb really was cursed) was the Pharaoh's daughter. Is he accusing Menmac réc Sety-merenptah (aka Sethos I or Seti I) of having had incestuous relations with his daughter? Hey! Don't knock it. Incest ain't all that bad: the Ptolomies had a rash of 11 bro-sis marriages which proved that the factor geneticists call "hybrid-vigour" is present in many incestuous relationships and produces ravishing beauties like Cleopatra, who got bored with men and died making love to an asp.

Hollywood has been messing about with Seti I for years, so this Pharaoh is certainly fair game for satirists. Still, they could have picked on Sethos II (aka Seti II). His reign was shorter than that of Seti I, maybe because he did have a thing for his daughter.

--Philip Hudsmith

Making progress on poverty

The horror stories recounted by Jacquie Charlton ["Forced through the cracks," April 29] are all too familiar for most Montrealers, who are constantly dodging panhandlers trying to make ends meet. It goes without saying that it is our collective ethical responsibility to mitigate the destructive consequences of poverty in whichever way possible.

This brings me to the point that I wish to make: while I appreciate the progressive stance which the Mirror has supported concerning poverty, I have a hard time trying to understand why you have not published (on a weekly basis in the back pages) a list of food banks and various community help groups which can assist those who are in dire need of urgent assistance. After all, your paper is easily accessible, and that sort of information, for a hungry and homeless person, will surely go a long way.

--Joseph Erban

[Editor's note: We will be expanding our listings section to include community and outreach groups in the next few weeks.]

Correction

Re "Angel of the week," May 20: the correct number for the Éco-Quartier flower give-away program is 872-1111. Re BOM: Although Argo was voted one of the best used bookstores in the Best of Montreal survey, it has actually sold new books for several years.