mongo

sometime in october, probably...

though as i think about it, it seems unlikely that the washington metro's quarter million or so strong ethiopian community would be larger than those in cities in countries like saudi arabia, israel or the u.a.e with far fewer urban centers to divide their large overall populations...

maybe not in dc proper, but the washington metro as a whole does seem to have the largest population of ethiopians outside ethiopia*. that doesn't excuse the purple prose, however. *though as a country, saudi arabia has the u.s as a whole beat.

it was just banal beyond belief. probably didn't help that i watched it right after watching anatomy of a fall. this review gets at some of what grated on me. but mostly i was bored to tears by what felt like the movie equivalent of a heavily workshopped mfa piece that's had everything that might have been interesting sanded off to look pretty.

i thought "past lives" was appallingly, embarrassingly bad.

i think that happened already when they let priya krishna do it for a year.

curry leaves are earthy now?

this photograph of a very tranquil sistine chapel was taken just a few seconds before the guy at left-front told me photography was prohibited. i didn't bother saying i was photographing the crowd, not the ceiling. my favourite part of the experience was that they periodically, very loudly, over a microphone, call for silence.

this is only appropriate. i think i actually have a hungry onion account.

are greatly exaggerated.

apparently the username may have been "irishcream". i can't remember that username at all on mouthfuls, so either this was her egullet username or she ddn't post very much here--or not since the very early days. does that name ring a bell for anyone else?

egullet still exists? you really do learn something new each day.

as per squeat, she doesn't know either.

well, both steve and squeat came up empty. i'll ask lippy next.

i have sent messages to squeat and rancho gordo (both listed as fb friends of maureen o'reilly)--maybe one of them will remember what her username was here.

ask not for whom the bell tolls and all that but i'm afraid i'm going to need to know who i am mourning before i can mourn.

deepest condolences.

wilf?

i used to call for more south asian representation in american food media. after priya krishna's rise i realized i needed to be more specific.

as i recall, she did gain first-hand experience of homeless shelter "cuisine" (as she put it).

in the last year of high school i came under the sway of an older neighbour* and had a big thing for robbins after reading still-life with woodpecker. i didn't know much about american counter-cultural writers or anything about post-modernism really--robbins seemed very exciting. but as i read more of that stuff in college, thanks to the american center library in delhi (soft power!), my interest in robbins waned. reading more by robbins also contributed to this development as what had seemed fresh and exciting to me in still-life with woodpecker quickly curdled into cliche. *said older neighbour was revealed to be a sex pest during the height of "me too" revelations in india.

also, just realizing that i have been misreading "tabelog" as "tablelog" for god knows how many years now...

we are pretty much set on spending 7 days in tokyo. the other 3 will probably be in kyoto but leaving options open for now. have to admit that the thought of visiting the yoichi distillery on hokkaido does appeal.

a question about tablelog ratings: even when i turn off the "children welcome" filter the highest rated sushi spot in the general vicinity of our airbnb reservation has an average of 3.67 stars out of five. is this--as i suspect--just a case of there not much grade inflation in japan? or should i be wary of places that don't have at least four stars on tablelog?

i may try that in may. in the meantime i've booked a (cancellable) well-reviewed airbnb to have something in the back pocket. i'll send you the link and you can tell me if we are going to be in a yakuza den.