Since I stayed over Saturday night in Manhattan in order to attend the Disch memorial, I had Sunday free in which to wander the city. So as a result of reading a recent post over at boingboing about merry prankster Banksy’s bizarre art installation, I decided to head downtown early yesterday morning to visit the Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill.

Since I tend to get up to no good when unaccompanied in New York, I talked Bob Howe and Eleanor Lang into joining me. We met outside the “store” down on 7th Avenue between West 4th and Bleeker Street in the West Village around 10:00 a.m., just as the workers were preparing to open to the public. Visible in the windows were chicken nuggets being hatched while more mature nuggets fed on BBQ sauce beside them, a rabbit primping before a mirror, and other animatronic oddities. Other playful creations waited inside the faux pet store, including wriggling sausages inside aquariums and the sad, featherless Tweety Bird you see beside me below.

Those who wish to see further photos can check out my set over at flickr. But still photos alone don’t do the place justice.

First, here are two chicken nuggets feeding.

There’s something unsettling about the following meat creations, which are under heat lamps inside six glass tanks.

Finally, here are two fish sticks getting along swimmingly inside a large bowl of water, reenacting the lives they led before having been diced and fried. Strangely, there’s something quite beautiful and peaceful about this last video.

Thanks to a typo on the installation’s site, which I see has since been corrected, we were led to believe that the show was only on each day from 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m., that is, for two hours, when it’s actually going to be open until midnight each day through Halloween. So at first I thought we’d arrived unnecessarily early. But the workers inside told me that we were better off having come when we did, because thousands of people have been turning up each day, leading to long lines stretching down the block, and visitors being hurried through rather than being able to linger the way we did.

After enjoying Banksy’s guerrilla playfulness, the three of us had brunch at a nearby Italian bistro, after which Bob departed to get some writing done while Ellie and I met up with Ellen Datlow, Rick Bowes, and Jacob Weisman. Down in the subway, we joined Jack Womack, Valeria Susanina, their delightful daughter Lily, and one of Lily’s friends for a trip to (and lunch at) Brooklyn’s Botanical Gardens, which you can best experience through Ellen’s flickr stream.

Many hours later, after a long day spent playing tourist, I headed home on an Amtrak train with only a brisket sandwich from Ben’s Delicatessen to keep me warm …