The context of where I found the following quote isn’t terribly important — although if you care, it came from an ongoing discussion of the popular Angry Birds video game on a political blog I like to follow — I just thought it was an interesting idea. And, I think, a very true one. It originates from the autobiography Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby:

A critical faculty is a terrible thing. When I was eleven there were no bad films, just films that I didn’t want to see, there was no bad food, just Brussels sprouts and cabbage, and there were no bad books – everything I read was great. Then suddenly, I woke up in the morning and all that had changed. How could my sister not hear that David Cassidy was not in the same class as Black Sabbath? Why on earth would my English teacher think that The History of Mr Polly was better than Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie? And from that moment on, enjoyment has been a much more elusive quality.

I’d like to say more about this idea, but I’m afraid I’m leaving in the morning for a bit of a walkabout, and it’s already long past the time I ought to be in bed. So I’ll just leave it for my Loyal Readers to mull over — consider in particular how this relates to the furor over the Star Wars prequels — and I’ll catch you all in a week!