School (where Tim is apparently not). Noah runs into Julie in the hallway. She is breathless, no doubt because it's like a creative writing workshop in her pants, returning the book Noah lent her, The World According to Garp. Which, thankfully, I've never read. John Irving is like the Pottery Barn of American literature. ["I have read it, and 'like a creative writing workshop in your pants' is actually a pretty good description of it." -- Joe R] Julie wonders aloud whether Irving is a genius or what; she doesn't know how anyone can write that well. Noah is like a middling cultural capital's own personal Amazon.com when he replies that if Julie liked this book, she'll "love A Prayer for Owen Meany," and then -- then! -- Julie returns the José Gonzalez CD that he lent her. It's a regular Borders employee lunch break up in there! Meanwhile, Tami watches all this go down from a distance. I need to pause before we get into Tami's meltdown to note how pitch-perfect this English teacher plot is. I don't think another show would be as direct in addressing the undeniable libidinal energy in this particular relationship, the intellectual crush, which to turn into anything useful for the kid I think has to be at least a bit sexual in nature. When else in your life will you get so turned on by John Irving? Hope to God never, but also hope to God at least a little when you are sixteen. And the crush is never really about the literature, or even about the person that opens your eyes but instead about your imagination of a different way of living. When you grow up, you realize that that English teacher was a sad man with sad desires who always ate his dinner alone in front of the TV. But for a little while, you imagine him going home, dropping the needle on a Miles Davis record, pouring a glass of wine and sitting down to read a novel. That's a powerful imagined world for any kid; it's a world I imagine for myself and fail to live up to every day still.