I was told there'd be culturally-relevant observations

I'll be damned if I end my 25th year without knowing how to make non-instant [i.e., "traditional"] rice.

As mentioned, Reading Program 2010 is going well. Working on Sloane Crosley's "I Was Told There'd Be Cake" and while it's not terrible, neither will it become a favorite (or even a volume to return to, infrequently). Since my completion of an M.F.A. in fiction writing, I've become increasingly more interested in genres other than fiction; I've turned to memoirs, cookbooks, magazines widely varying in quality and content, volumes of poetry, collections of essays. Crosley's collection I discovered via Goodreads and, based on the title (who the hell doesn't love cake?) and the glib combo of the cover photo/sans-serif font in which the title is printed, I decided to give it a go. [Aside: I realize that the preceding statement critically undermines whatever "cred" I have as a reader, if there is such a thing as "reader's cred."] Yes: so, the point. The point I'm getting at is that I can neither like nor dislike Crosley's essays because said essays are insubstantial: they don't give me enough to (dis)agree with. Addressing topics such as one's youthful envisioning of "Oregon Trail" as a means of gaining power over individuals who, in life, control and vex one, the essays are funnyish, cuteish, and short enough to be read during in-between bits of time [i.e., lunch breaks, the ten minutes between packing my lunch and having to leave for work]. I'll finish reading "Cake," but only because I'm 100 pages in and because I rarely, rarely quit a book.

Update: the rice burned. Again.

Liking things I've never liked before...

Or, more accurately, liking things I previously professed to hating.

Exhibit A: Apocalypse Now. We watched it in "Fiction to Film" Monday, and I was astounded at how much I enjoyed it. Really? YES. I know. I viewed it the first (and only other) time for Freshman Preceptorial in college, and I remember hating it - as in, not even sitting through the whole thing. (Sorry, Stuart Allison.) I don't remember why I hated it (though any reasons I provided were probably just reconfigurations of my generalized freshman year surliness - sorry, everyone), but this time around, I dug it. Great use of sound, some beautifully framed shots. I didn't even mind the voiceovers! The ending, admittedly, dragged on; I also didn't really need the scenes of the cow butchery interspersed with the slaughter of Kurtz, but that's neither here nor there. This post is about my changed opinion, after all. (*)

Exhibit B: Modern Fiction. Some of you may recall a time in the not-so-distant past when I professed to only liking literature written in the last 30 years. OK, I never actually made such a ridiculous claim, but you'll grant that I read/discussed/emulated mostly contemporary fiction. No longer, friends. This Fiction to Film class has really changed my view. We're currently reading The Quiet American, and I love it. As in, I don't want to stop reading it. When has this ever happened? I mean, when (in the last few years) have I loved a modern novel this much? This, friends, is a pressing question.

I'm not sure what's going on here, all of my opinions undermining themselves, but if the trend continues, I might just end up liking other things I hate, like Hummers, Jessica Simpson, and seafood. !. Just kidding: I'll never like Jessica Simpson (or Hummers. Jury's still out on seafood). Whatever the reason for this change, I am glad.

(*) Just had a terrible thought: did we even watch Apocalypse Now for FP? All these years, I was convinced that we did & that I hated it, but I might be thinking of Blade Runner (which I actually do dislike, and which I know for certain that we viewed in Harbach). Nevertheless: continue.