PREAMBLE TO A WALK

It's rather strange looking at hams. This from the apartment mate, while leafing through a food catalogue. Which tells me that the holidays are coming up, because nothing says "Christmas Spirit" better than giving piles of dead meat to people.

This is the same person who voices for the more murderous and demented stuffed creatures, some of whom are quite disturbing. Such as the turkey vulture, who wishes to eat little girl hamsters. Or Louise, a small Holstein cow, who believes herself a temptress.

She's realized that she works in a place with strange people, and worries that she'll become a gibbering idiot like them. I feel that worry is unjustified. Too inventive a mind.

While she talked, I finished my tea and the painting I was working on, that being a view toward the Great Star Theater on Jackson Street from the bakery near the corner.

The Great Star Theater [大明星戲院]

Years ago when it was still operational, I spent many happy hours there sucking up derring do and gangster chivalry. They still had the contract for Golden Harvest, and many of the offerings were bullet operas. Stupendously entertaining. Chow Yunfat in his prime.
Maggie Cheung, Cherie Chung, and Anita Mui.
It was glorious.

It's been a good teatime today, strong cuppa which energizes, plus stimulation. Need to walk it off with a pipe. While remembering those movies when I still lived three blocks away from the street shown above. Good tobacco stimulates the memory.
Heck, remembering how that street was too.
Jackson Street near Kearny.

The theater has been closed for years. As has the nearby coffeeshop restaurant where I read newspapers after work (Ping Yuen Bakery: 平園咖啡店 'ping yuen ga fei dim' ). The DPD (一品香 'yat pan heung') is also gone, as is the Shanghainese lunch counter with noodle soup.


The cinemas near where I live now have also been closed for years.
People don't go to see movies much anymore.


No one objected when one smoked in the backrows of the theater. Mostly ciggies, of course.
A pipe was a stealth indulgence on slow evenings.

TOBACCO INDEX


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