Reading: Pale Fire and Middlemarch.

Watching: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season one. You will be assimilated.

12July 2002: Buffy

The extremes of my taste: I am reading Pale Fire and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though not simultaneously.

I don't know why Pale Fire intimidated me on my first attempt, or why I remember it as intimidation when actually I probably just picked up Sense and Sensibility instead. That's the most likely thing, unless it was Pride and Prejudice. Pale Fire is extremely funny, especially when--what a surprise--I find myself identifying with the narcissistic, rambling, self-referential (and self-deferential) narrator. And when he misses embarrassingly obvious social cues. Oh yeah.

Opinions on the first season of Buffy are mixed, and I can see why. I am not invested enough in the show yet to enjoy the non-conspiracy ones, like "Witch" and "Teacher's Pet." Later maybe--that "Je Souhaite" X-Files episode with the immortal line, "I wish he could talk!" was just wonderful, conspiracy or not. However, my inability to read a journal from any point other than the earliest available entry is paralleled by a strong preference to start a television show from the very beginning, and here I am.