Adventures in Cultural Consumption, an ongoing series

It's been a few weeks, since it's also been an application-heavy part of the year. This is what I do on my weekends:


Enrique Vila-Matas, Bartelby & Co.--Despite the fact that the novel is nothing but a series of footnotes, it coheres quite well. Makes me think it may be time to re-attempt Macedonio Fernandez.

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow: Vol. 1--You know how sometimes you just know you're going to like a book? I'm about 60 pages in at the moment, but I can tell. Glorious paragraph-long sentences.

Singles--At 30 minutes, I knew I was going to need to watch it again. At 50 minutes, I was ordering a copy off Amazon. Not only well-observed in a typical Cameron Crowe fashion, but any movie set in Seattle in the early 90s is going to be the world's easiest sales job for me. Loved it.

Ace in the Hole and Stalag 17--I think the run of Billy Wilder movies from Double Indemnity to One, Two, Three is probably the best run of movies I can think of; it's the R.E.M. 1982-1992 of film. Stalag 17 was particularly impressive in the way it managed to balance humor with seriousness; most other World War II POW films, even the good ones, tend toward the grim. I mean, it's a grim subject, but there's something about achieving pathos out of comedy that seems more technically complex (and therefore admirable) than achieving it out of drama. This probably explains a lot of my viewing habits, actually.

Cultural consumption of a different kind:

Sichuan Boiled Beef in Fiery Sauce and Sichuan Chicken with Peppercorns and Chile--both required a trip to the new(ish) Asian food supermarket, which took about an hour because (not surprisingly) I couldn't find anything. But now that I own a proper wok, good knives, and a set of bowls that make multi-stage recipe preparation comparatively easy, the cooking is not so difficult. My wok skills need some refinement, but aside from a tablespoon-instead-of-teaspoon mistake on the soup, both turned out well. (I have some outside confirmation on the chicken, and from someone not disposed to lying about these things. So that's good.)