Emily Erotas

“A hilljack is somebody that’s smart enough to take what you got and make what you need. I don’t own a gun. Guns are expensive, so I made a potato gun, which is cheap.”

The first in 38-year-old confectioner Carrie Abbott’s line of “nostalgia” candies, Frittle tastes like a peanutbuttery cross between brittle and fudge—delivered in pieces only slightly bigger than Scrabble letters. Try to eat just one.

Honestly, I didn’t pay that much attention while reading Slaughterhouse-Five in high school English class. Even though it was short compared to other required books—I’m looking at you, Crime and Punishment—I didn’t fully understand the themes. So when assigned to check out a public media event for a new exhibit fashioned by Ball State University students for the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, I was a bit apprehensive. My Vonnegut knowledge was slim. Yes, I knew that he was from Indiana and that I should be proud of that. I also knew that he had one heck of a mustache. And that’s about it. So when I walked into the KVML yesterday, I was a clean slate personified, although my soul felt dirty for the Slaughterhouse-Five crime.