I have, by degrees, and by default, become a cat person. This surprises me a bit. When I was a kid I desperately wanted a dog
but my parents thought I wasn’t ready for the responsibility, and
that I’d never walk it. They were almost
certainly right.
These days, however, I sometimes think it would be OK to have a dog because
I could combine exercising it with my psychogeographic drifts, although in the
end I think I’m still not ready for the responsibility. And in any case, I have become a cat person.
 |
| The cat, not much of a walker. |
A cat joined the household, some years ago now, and she has gradually seduced
me – (and yes, there was some inappropriate touching along the way, on her part). And once in a while I think maybe I could combine
my own walking with cat walking, with
the feline striding along beside me on a leash, although I’m told this is only possible
if you start when the cat is very young indeed.
And so the other night I watched Harry
and Tonto, a pretty good, if very much of its time (1974), movie about an
old geezer (Art Carney who is actually playing a character much older than
himself) who goes on a road trip with his cat Tonto, who indeed has a collar
and a leash. They end up on Hollywood Boulevard
opposite Pickwick Books and yes, that is Larry Hagman:
Pickwick Books used to look like this on the inside:
Why can’t there be a bookshop like this in Hollywood anymore? Well, we all know exactly why, but still …
Anyway it so happens I’ve had the above picture of Cary Grant sitting
on my desktop for quite a while now. I read the street names, and realized that
location is just round the corner from where I go to see my doctor. In fact when I go to see him I always take a
stroll around the neighborhood to calm myself before the appointment. So last week when I went for another check up
I decide to drift along to Swall and Charleville and try to find the corner where
old Cary and his cat did their walking. How
hard could it be?
Finding the crossroads was no problem, but it was hard even
to tell which corner Cary had been on.
There were some obvious changes - the streets signs and their poles had
been replaced, and some had apparently gone completely, the mail box had gone, hedges
had grown up everywhere, and I could see no sign of the house.
I thought the chimney and those arches in the Cary Grant picture would have been the give away,
but I couldn’t see them either. I was
starting to think the house must have been demolished and replaced but then something
clicked.
A wall had been built in front of the arches, the chimney was still
there but it had been modified and was lost in the trees, but that front door,
that window with the bars - not identical - but then 60 years have gone by - but I'm prepared to bet that’s the house old Cary and his (or somebody
else’s) cat had walked in front of, possibly only for that one photograph.
I can’t find any hard evidence that he lived there, or even in the
neighborhood, so I guess he was probably there just for a photo op.
And then, much belatedly, it occurred to me that maybe the picture is
an ironic take on his appearance in Bringing
Up Baby, but I don’t have any hard
evidence for that either.
