The Checkout Counter #39
January 2026

Butter

Dinner in America

Happy-Go-Lucky

whew january felt long. who knew 31 days could be stretched so infinitely. in other news the cold front here has lasted so long that 20°F (–6°C) now feels genuinely pleasant. thanks, as always, for reading 🖤

Books

  • Butter, Asako Yuzuki (tr. Polly Barton)one of my go-to quick and easy meals is butter over rice drizzled with maggi sauce, so it was fun to see that same, simple meal (albeit with soy sauce) written so luxuriously here.

    i ended up really loving this despite taking months to get through the whole thing, and it took a lot of turns that i wasn't expecting. so many thoughts about hunger and desire and pleasure and indulgence…! rika is really living the dream at the end. good for her.
    Literary, crime. Rika, the only woman in her news office, is determined to get an exclusive interview with Manako Kajii, a talented home cook convicted of murdering several men. With each visit to the detention center, Rika is drawn further into Kajii's orbit and gourmand way of life.

Short fiction

Film

  • Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008i love movies that drop in on an ordinary person's life, going about their ordinary days. poppy and everyone around her feel so alive and realized, as if they all have their own histories that will continue long after the credits roll. there's a moment where poppy comments on how beautiful the sky is, and it's just the ordinary london sky. lovely.

    the plot point that sticks with me the most is poppy learning how to drive and her relationship with the driving instructor—it's so crazy how that specific type of paranoid, racist, woman-hating guy is everywhere now. or maybe they were everywhere in 2008, too, and were just quieter about it.
    Drama, comedy. Nothing will break the stride of Poppy, an optimistic and cheery schoolteacher in North London.
  • Hard Truths, 2024excruciating watch! this is barely a comedy to me lol—the way pansy berates everyone from customer service workers to her own son is agonizing. very distinctly a post-covid movie in how pansy is afraid to leave the house and such.

    really liked the scenes with chantelle's two daughters, especially when they meet up for drinks and lie about how their work days went. so much unsaid!
    Drama, comedy. Follows two sisters and the polar opposite households they run: one sterile and hostile, the other inviting and warm.
  • No Other Choice (어쩔수가없다), 2025feels considerably less biting than park chan-wook's previous films, but there's still a lot of fun in here. the metaphor (of killing your competition) is obvious and its obviousness is weirdly comforting—yes, it is like that. yes, it does drive everyone crazy. so it goes. perfect ending, too.
    Crime, comedy, thriller. A man goes to extreme and violent lengths to eliminate his competition in the job hunt.
  • Dial M for Murder, 1954
    Thriller, crime. A man orchestrates the murder of his wife by coercing a former classmate.
  • Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi), 2025this is one of those movies that's impossible to even attempt to look at objectively because of how it gets into my guts and puts to screen things i could never vocalize myself. eek! great performances though, i can definitively say that.

    wish the subtitles could've differentiated between norwegian/swedish/danish. that renovation at the end was evil lmao
    Drama. Two sisters reunite with their estranged and world-renowned filmmaker father, who steps back into their lives for the creation of his next film.
  • Dinner in America, 2020manic pixie music boyfriend!

    the first ~20 minutes of this felt pretty obnoxious lol but i really warmed up to it by the end. i was trying to figure out when this was set (80s? 90s? now?), but it doesn't truly matter and that nebulous time period feels perfect for the small midwestern town they're in. emily skeggs is such a star, cast her in a bunch more movies now!!
    Comedy, romance. After setting a suburban house on fire, Simon evades the police with the help of Patty, a former classmate and devoted punk rock fan.

Music

Comics

  • Cry Wolf Girl, Ariel Slamet Ries
    Fantasy. Dawa, having grown up with the tale of the boy who cried wolf, doesn't know what to do when she starts seeing wolves of her own.
  • My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, Nagata Kabi
    Memoir. An autobiographical glimpse into a young woman's relationship with self-harm, sex, and intimacy.

Articles & essays

Blogs

Games

Around the web

  • bimbo
    Static site generator
  • How Many Apples Are You?
  • Kaomoji Cool Club
    Kaomoji builder
  • wikiview
    Visual exploration of Wikimedia Commons images
  • gradient.horse
    Draw a horse and let it run
  • Inhabit, Outhabiti happened across an exhibit for the architecture biennial and spent an unexpectedly long time there, so i was glad to see my favorite part available online (for now?). i love architecture and how it visualizes how we want to live and interact with others, and i love how clearly this exhibit showcases that. there are so many different models of housing that steer us away from individualist and car-centric and nuclear family existences…a better world is possible, and we can make it happen!
    Videos of collective housing projects from around the world
  • The Watterson Archives
    Calvin and Hobbes archive

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