Unlike other ethnic restaurants that boast an “authentic” dining experience (I’m looking at you, Benihana, where the last three chefs who juggled Ginsu and gyoza and made onion volcanoes and pretended to throw shrimp at me in traditional Japanese manner were named Jose, Esteban, and Gonzalo, respectively), the staff of Wonderful Chinese Restaurant in Citrus Heights, California is authentically Chinese.
The family that runs this restaurant appears to be largely antisocial and downright angry at your presence, and greets your arrival with simple rudeness, but that quickly escalates into open hostility and apparent contempt. Continue reading →

Louis Wain was an English artist back around 1900 who painted cats.  Well, I mean, he didn’t actually go around tagging neighborhood cats …he painted pictures of cats doing people things: wearing clothes, playing golf, litigating, whatever (the proper term for this is anthropomorphic, but my old lady is tired of me flaunting my vocabulary, so I’m trying to tone down the sesquipedalia).  Anyway, his paintings were pretty popular in jolly old England, and his work was widely published and he managed to eke out a living for a while.  But then things went south for Uncle Lou.  There’s some debate over whether he was schizophrenic or just really Aspergery, but either way you slice it, he went nuts.  Which is no big deal: artists go nuts all the time, it’s part of the gig.  What’s remarkable is that he kept painting cats throughout his decent into madness, and oh boy…you should see what happens to the cats in his paintings when the carnival comes to town and sets up its tent in Louis Wain’s brain.  Seriously, go check it out.

Anyway, I mention Mr. Wain here only because until this week he was the artist that I thought most effectively documented how one’s vision of the world warps during nervous breakdowns and psychotic episodes.  But then I saw “Troll 2.”  Mother of God.

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