gnocchi oh. ohhh oh ...

this past week i bought groceries, left one of the bags at the store, and the next day returned to retrieve them. the grocery store people let me just wander through the store, refilling my basket with the missed items.

"do you want to check my old receipt?" i asked a cashier, standing there with saltines, coffee and sandwich bags.

"no," he said. "but if anyone stops you at the door, just run."

okay.

in other news:

MAKING FOODS


potato gnocchi with butter and sage: making gnocchi is so satisfying. it costs about 13 cents and is a little gooey, but filling and easy. although, let this be a lessen to me: next time i make gnocchi, i need to remember to put spinach in it. otherwise it is this bland soft food with absolutely no zip. it's like eating gerbers carrots.

BEEN READING
Lowboy: A Novel by john wray: There is this moment in John Wray’s Lowboy where a character says to the schizophrenic hero: “Listen to me, Heller. You’re beautiful and you make me laugh and I want you to take me to that place that we just saw, but you need to stop saying things like that. They creep me out, okay? And you’re not creepy.”

And that completely sums up the experience of reading this novel, which spans roughly a day in the life of young teenager Will “Lowboy” Heller.

full review here.

Coin Locker Babies by ryu murakami: I'm guessing a lot of people wouldn't make it past the first sentence of Ryu Murakami's novel "Coin Locker Babies." On the other hand, it serves as a sort of litmus test: if you can get past that sentence, you can get through the rest of it. The gauged eyeballs, exposed brains that look like tofu, and part where a character takes a scissors to his own tongue.

This novel is the anti-coming of age novel. It's the story of Kiku and Hashi. Both were discovered stuffed into boxes and left for dead in coin lockers. They meet at an orphanage and forge a friendship through their shared survival. Kiku plays the role of fixer: he kicks some asses and becomes really good at the pole vault; Hashi is more timid. And when he leaves home to find his birth mother, he lands in an uninhabitable area in Tokyo called "Toxitown" where he sells his body to men, and eventually meets one who can help further his career as a singer.

review will be here.

MOVIES
Vicky Cristina Barcelona: one way to completely nullify the effects of two attractive women with pretty hair: make them sound exactly like woody allen. i'm not sure if this is a testament to allen as a creator, that scarlett johanson's voice even sounded like his, or if it is a gaping hole of hubris. funny movie, but the sounds of a neurotic old man? totally distracting.