Horseplay

We noticed the oth­er day that Namastey in Dixon St had had a makeover. Most of it involves  over­stuffed couch­es and smart new table­cloths, but it was the art­works that real­ly stopped us in our bha­ji.

I’m not real­ly sure what’s going on here. I imag­ine it’s based upon tra­di­tion­al mythol­o­gy, but the whole thing is a sur­re­al mélange of fluffy New Ageism, Bol­ly­wood glam, dis­turbing­ly con­tort­ed anatomies, bondage chic, earnest Chris­t­ian devo­tion­al art and Turneresque mete­o­ro­log­i­cal impres­sion­ism. Some­one on Twit­ter sus­pect­ed that one of the back­ground Cen­tau­rbeast­ies may actu­al­ly be The Dude from The Big Lebows­ki.

But the paint­ing beside it is even more … inter­est­ing. It may not be safe for work, espe­cial­ly if you work with ani­mals.

This may have been com­mis­sioned by Col­in Craig to warn of the dan­ger­ous­ly slip­pery slope that would be start­ed by mar­riage equal­i­ty. Or per­haps it’s a vignette from the ear­ly life of Cather­ine the Great. Have a look (though try not to stare: it’s rude) next time you’re at Namastey.