Many whys to while away the time

Pre-exams low and boredom high. This the winter of our discontent. Haven't read Steinbeck in ages. Or the Bard for that matter. Why?

In this place east of my eden, carefully squelching every little ripened grape of wrath, living the lives of both mice and men - why this sudden retrograde musing on a high-school literary fascination?

On a whim (and because one can do only so much of Java threads in the morning) I try to trace back the reasons.

A few days ago the long-neglected VCD-player caught my notice. Put On the Waterfront with all that "could've had class." That started off the Brando bandwagon - no stopping Streetcar after that. Purposely didn't go into the later movies.

Guessing that these two b/w films put the whole vintage era somewhere at the back of the mind. Dylan for company on the long travels with charlie (always on the dark side of the road) might just have played some role in that.

When the Steinbeck bug bit I'd be carrying around this paperback of The Grapes of Wrath everywhere. A friend once looked at the cover and remarked: "That's the tambourine man." How did this instinctive identification with the book and Dylan (the first song of his that I heard) come about?

Still caught up in a time warp.