Interiors

Rooster Express, part 2

Here's an addendum to my recent post about ubiquitous fast-food chicken restaurants. I found these next-door neighbors on Harrow Road north of Notting Hill. Talk about competition! (To make things even more intense, Chicken Valley, pictured in my earlier post, is right down the street.)


And then there's nearby Carolina Chicken, which -- while violating my theory that red signs are required for chicken chains -- seems to similarly mimic a corporate giant by borrowing its typeface from Coca-Cola.

Short Updates

-- Ruby had a better day yesterday. She slept a lot, so maybe she really is just worn out. In between, she ate, drank, took three short walks, wagged her tail, did what we call her "Milk Bone dance," and unnecessarily climbed a set of stairs when my back was turned. I read that "sundowning," or evening confusion and agitation, may be caused (in people, anyway) by a change in circadian rhythms. Goodness knows Ruby's circadian rhythms have taken a beating in the past week! I cased out our local vet and a 24-hour vet clinic, just in case, but we hope the crisis is past.

-- Regarding the "What I'm Reading" box at right: Up to now, I've been listing my next book as soon as I finish the previous book. But in this case, I haven't even started "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" yet. So henceforth I'll just leave the box blank until I actually start the book, because otherwise it looks like I take forever to read something. (Like anyone cares!)

-- Dave and I went to a pub Monday where he got a minced beef pie. They asked if he wanted gravy or "green liquor," and when we asked what "green liquor" is, the proprietor said it's an East London sauce made traditionally from, I kid you not, jellied eels. (But this version, she assured us, was vegetarian. Dave opted for it, or rather I opted for it on Dave's behalf.) We looked up the recipe online, and sure enough it calls for cooking a tub of jellied eels in stock. The "green" comes from parsley. Sadly, it turned out the pub was out of green liquor, so after all that he got gravy anyway.

-- From the pub we went on to the cinema to see "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." It's one of those espionage movies that's just way too complicated. We couldn't make heads or tails of it. (And we'd only had one pint at the pub, so I doubt that was to blame!)

-- I'm trying something new in my evening gin & tonic: sloe gin. I always thought sloe gin was a brand of gin, but it's not. It's a drink unto itself, creating by soaking sloes, fruits of the wild blackthorn that are otherwise inedible, in gin or some other base alcohol. I bought Gordon's sloe gin, which uses plain old gin as the base. I drink it with tonic, just like usual gin, and it's pretty good. It's pink and tastes a bit like cranberries.

-- I never mentioned it before now, but I was sorry to hear about the death a few weeks ago of Bob Arihood, who kept a photo blog about New York's East Village called Neither More Nor Less. Arihood died last week, quite unexpectedly. His blog is one of several I read to keep up with New York and the neighborhood I most enjoyed.

-- Jumping back to New York and my previous entry about former disco drug den the Limelight, I learned some even more alarming news yesterday. Part of the Limelight is about to become an IHOP. Seriously, the world is ending.

(Photo: Shad Thames, Oct. 2)

Turn for the Worse

Ruby's health, as it turns out, may not be as stable as we first believed when she arrived on Friday. Despite her big belly and heart problems, she was mostly OK through the weekend, even eating most of a lamb bone. But when I took her for a walk yesterday morning, she collapsed on the sidewalk.

I'm not sure whether she lost consciousness -- if she did, she came back within moments -- but she couldn't stand for several minutes. Finally she did, and walked back to the apartment under her own power.

She slept all morning, which is typical, but in the afternoon she began acting a little strange -- restless and a bit disoriented. She ambled aimlessly around the apartment, panting. Then, in the evening, she had another episode, collapsing and appearing dazed. We sat with her for about an hour, thinking she might die right then and there. But she finally relaxed and fell asleep, and we brought her to bed when we turned in. I'd check on her whenever I woke in the night just to make sure she was still breathing. She slept very soundly.


This morning she seems more like herself. She got up, went outside, wagged her tail and ate breakfast as usual. She doesn't seem to be breathing with any difficulty. (That's Ruby in the foreground above, with Ernie looking at the camera.)

We're not sure what to expect. She could still be recovering from her transatlantic adventure -- maybe it weakened her more than we realized. I also walked her and Ernie around the neighborhood the first two days they were here, and maybe that was just too much too soon.

In any case, we're going to let her rest a bit more. Dave thinks she may be "sundowning," or having confusion and agitation in the evenings. We'll see what happens tonight. We don't believe there's any point in stressing her out with a visit to a vet -- we already know nothing can be done about her condition. If she continues to get agitated or have fainting spells, we may need to make a decision -- but I hope we can forestall that as long as possible.

Straw Fox

When I went walking with Sally and Liz last week, we came across this huge straw fox perched on the Southbank Centre, part of the arts center's 60th anniversary celebration of the 1951 Festival of Britain. The festival, held on the same site on the south bank of the Thames, was at the time conceived as a post-war mark of progress for a battered nation.

The fox is an outgrowth of a tradition at a farm in Cheshire, where each year people build a huge straw sculpture. Southbank Centre arranged to have this year's sculpture transported to London, and there are explanatory murals and photographs nearby showing how that feat was achieved.

"As we learn to become more careful with our resources, what better animal is there to represent wily resilience than an Urban Fox? These creatures have long been considered to be a uniquely British phenomenon," reads a display adjacent to the fox.

"Everyone remembers locking eyes with a fox in a garden or street. Urban Fox recreates that moment of wildness on a grand scale, so for a fleeting instant you are not sure who owns this space."

Personally, I think this fox is a little creepy. But then, urban foxes can be a bit creepy. I took Ernie and Ruby out for a walk the morning after they arrived, before the sun came up, and one ran across the parking lot right in front of us, watching us warily, as silent as a ghost. (Fortunately, the dogs, being old and somewhat blind and deaf, were none the wiser.)

I saw two in the courtyard this morning, too, making their high-pitched barks and squeals. A little creepy, but also pretty amazing.

Rooster Express

There's apparently an unwritten rule of marketing that says when you open a fast-food chicken restaurant in London, you must give it a red and white sign. Blue accents are permitted.




I love the names -- although my brother recently found a place in Tennessee called "Chicken Blast." (Which, incidentally, illustrates that the red-sign rule does not apply in the American South.) I can't top that one yet.

This place (below) might be going a bit overboard on the blue. Call the poultry police! (I couldn't get my own photo because a construction barrier was in the way -- thanks, Google Streetview!)


Of course, I think we all know who set the standard for red-and-white signage.

Hibiscus

I've been spending a lot of time lately over at Sleepless in Southie, a blog by a young gay guy in Boston. I don't remember how I first stumbled onto his blog, but I've become quite addicted, and so far I've paged back through about 330 of his 445 pages of content. It's not often that I find myself motivated to read someone's entire blog.

It's not a lot of reading -- like many Tumblr blogs, it's mostly pictorial -- but it's a fun combination of gay culture, pop culture and brief posts about real-life issues like work and romance. (A word of caution to my readers -- this means you, Mom! -- those who click over must be prepared for frank discussions of gay sexuality.)

Anyway, I'm mentioning this because his blog has taught or reminded me about so much. For example, the story of Hibiscus.

You've all seen the photo below, right? It's a famous image from a 1967 anti-war demonstration at the Pentagon, by photographer Bernie Boston. It was published in Life magazine, among other places.


As a teenager, looking through my Life photography anthology, I always liked this image. I was a committed hippie sympathizer, and besides, that blond guy looked kind of cute. So when I stumbled onto the back story about the photo and the blond guy on Sleepless in Southie, I was fascinated.

It turns out his name was George Harris. At the time of the picture he was a teenager, but just a few years later in San Francisco he became a drag queen who went by the name of Hibiscus, part of a psychedelic drag act known as The Cockettes. He flourished in the counterculture scenes of San Francisco and New York until the early 1980s, when he died of AIDS. He was one of the first AIDS deaths in the country, dying before the disorder even had a name.

The New York Times Magazine ran an article several years ago about this photo and Harris. I think I read it at the time, but I'd forgotten it. So kudos to Sleepless for refreshing my memory.

Sleepless has also taught or reminded me:
-- that Alicia Bridges, who sang the '70s disco hit "I Love the Nightlife," is a lesbian.
-- that Mae West recorded a cover of The Doors' "Light My Fire."
-- that Karen Carpenter made a disco album.
-- that Track Palin, Sarah Palin's son, lived in Portage, Mich., in 2006 in order to meet hockey scouts. (Dave taught high school in Portage before moving to New York and meeting me!)
-- about popular Internet videos like Randall's "Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger" and the Grey Gardens-ish Royce and Marilyn.
-- that one of Carol Channing's grandparents was black.
-- about gay author John Rechy, whose work I now plan to read.
-- about avant-garde New York performer Klaus Nomi.

Not to mention pop music and television -- this guy follows singers and shows that are utterly alien to me. (He has a special thing for Mariah Carey, but I have heard of her -- I'm not that pathetic!)

Also, he has the stereotypical gay fascination with Judy Garland, "Mommy Dearest" and other cultural touchstones. Once again I'm marveling that many gay men, even gay men of a younger generation who were 20 years away from being born when Judy Garland died, have such common interests. Fascinating!

(Top photo: Soho, London, on Thursday.)