ANIMAL SOUNDS

Last night the wind was cold, venomous almost, which made smoking a pipe while waiting for the bookseller to get to Chinatown after work a little more iffy than it usually is. And with all the feral white yuppie types about, I had to dance into the street more often to avoid breath moisture droplets from the maskless dweebs. Who, I am surprised, aren't dead yet.

It's kind of like the days before Aids, when careless twenty somethings would gaily screw at random with whomever, unprotected, unsober, unprivately. Or so it seemed at the time.
Being fussy, and conversational, my sex life was much more limited.


"If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t f**k them."
------John Waters


It's a life style choice. All of my good friends read, as do every one of my former girlfriends. At least I assume they do; my Berkeley girlfriend I lost contact with ages ago, but my longtime companion with whom I broke up over a decade ago is still a very good friend, and has an entire wall of bookshelves, filled, plus stacks. Multiple stacks.

The relatives with whom I communicate are also literate. Very much so.

We need to agendize, prosylate, and rope people in.



Sadly, literacy is not a significant marketing demographic any more. That probably explains why there were almost no white people at the karaoke bar, unlike the two dives further up. The sheer exercise of reading skill demonstrated by the tipsy Cantonese must be frightening to those poor souls. Chinese song lyrics are, on the whole, a bit harder to grasp than "ooh baby I wuv oo uh huh uh huh". To my great regret and the bookseller's pleased surprise, nothing by Andy Lau was on screen. I've become rather fond of his weird shiznit.

As usual I had "the pipe for watching rats in Spofford Alley" with me. A tradition based, more or less, on the city's project a few years back to make the alleys of Chinatown more pretty and appealing to white tourists, beautifying them, while doing absolutely jack of any significance toward bettering the living conditions there.

They had dug up Spofford, leaving a long open pit with a narrow wooden walkway for over two years, which proved difficult to navigate (a problem when the ambulance dudes had to carry someone one night in the pouring rain), but naturally the rodent population loved it. They were vibrant, they were cheeky, they had confidence. They positively swaggered, and they thrived as never before. They were very entertaining, and I enjoyed observing them every week on our burger and bar nights, while having a smoke.

There are flowers there now, and educational plaques.
It is very edifying. And cultural.
Only one rat.


Other than a dearth of wild life, it was a good evening.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================