(Today is April Fool's Day, but this is not an April Fool's Day prank.)
The Basic Eight is a novel by Daniel Handler. It's set in Roewer High School. Daniel Handler went to Lowell High School a year behind me. I've heard rumors of this book, that it's a roman a clef or whatever. I finally got around to reading the book, recognized a couple of English teachers. I tried searching the internet to find out if someone had noted down the Roewer/Lowell parallels. There were a couple of scattered mentions, but no big list. So I guess it's up to me to start one and to solicit help. Behold a link to a new web page:
The Basic Eight vs. Lowell HIgh School
So far, it's a short list of "knowns" and a long list of "I have no idea". And an email address by which you can set me straight.
I hadn't realized that either you or Daniel Handler attended Lowell. When I was in high school (in Palo Alto), some of us used to drive up to a school that I think was Lowell for an extracurricular advanced-math class.
It seems like every time I hear that someone went to high school in SF, it turns out they went to Lowell. But that's probably just that I don't notice so much when it turns out they went to some other school.