Weekly Journal 10.6.26
Reading
Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun was featured on the employee recommendation shelf at my local bookstore and highly praised by the cashier who rang me up. I've been reading it ravenously. I know that it's soon being made into a Hollywood movie--a thought that almost taints the book for me because I've imagined many of its scenes as film scenes. I don't like watching movies based on books (or, perhaps, being aware of them?) without having read the book first, if it's one I'm interested in. And I don't like when book publishers start releasing copies with "now a major motion picture" on the front cover, or worse, a movie still in place of the original artwork. I don't love that my brain is taking side quests while reading Klara and the Sun to wonder which actor will play this or that character in the film.
That said, it is a great book. It's set in a futuristic world that is not explicitly described to the reader, but sketched out in a way that we understand to be dystopian. The narrator is an Artificial Friend, a lifelike robot that has been purchased as a companion to a sick teenage girl. To me, a person who can hardly fathom writing fiction, it seems like an incredible challenge to write about humans from the perspective of an android who observes them at a remove but also has deep empathy for them. The balance is beautiful in this book.
Watching
Here's another "get off my lawn" moment, courtesy of the 30 minutes I watched of the new Willy Wonka whatever game show on Netflix. This kind of show instantly fills me with rage about everything that's wrong with culture today. My snap judgments are probably unfair, but so be it. I hate the AI-generated voice of the late Gene Wilder; we, as a society, seem averse to letting anyone or anything rest in peace. I hate the sentimental introductions to the cast members who drew golden tickets to get into the "Wonka factory"; they act like it will be a life-changing experience, and given that the show doesn't even start with an explanation of the contest and its reward, this makes little sense. I hate that they're eventually teased with a prize of several million dollars, which makes the cast members become gooey again with sentimentality; that is likely a pittance to Netflix and could be put to many better uses in our country, but instead it perpetuates the fantasy that average Americans are just temporarily embarrassed capitalists. And I hate that just after I started to enjoy some of its magical special effects, the show put all its contestants in a big house together and set them up to screw each other over, creating the same sort of bullshit drama we see on other reality shows.
But my kid sort of liked it, so I may end up watching more.
Cooking
The bananas we've bought lately have gone brown quicker than usual, so I've made banana bread twice in the past week using this recipe from Spend With Pennies. I added mini chocolate chips the second time. I'd like to think this has helped my son get closer to his recommended servings of fruit for the week.
Doing
My son started second grade recently and is struggling to meet the higher workload, such as it is. We are all struggling to keep up. There's homework and reading every night, plus additional activities that the teacher either recommends or requires. This week we are supposed to be role playing safety scenarios as a family. Will we get it done before Thursday, given that there's no school this Friday? While trying to pack everything else into the scant hours between 5:00 PM and our child's bedtime? Magic 8 Ball says "doubtful."
Being a working parent is no joke, especially with a kid who is clearly going to need extra help and patience to succeed in school. I don't know if I'm equipped to give the kind of help he needs, so I've been quite stressed lately.