SCENE ON THE STREET : Beauty in the Beast

It lies down with lambs, and the veldt tingles with its mighty purr. It announces movies, tossing its head the way Jack Benny used to and thrilling the blood with its petulant roar. It performs in circuses; its trainer’s head between its jaws is just a yawn. It is tawny and terrifying, sweet and sinister; no wonder it is king in all nations.

And yet in all nations, it is different.

Take the hair.

East is East and West is West, and never the mane shall meet (lions mutter to their young). It is like a rock star’s in Europe, and in Asia like a British judge’s wig--or in Alhambra, for that matter, where these pug-nosed versions are for sale.

Lions guard half the libraries in the world and quite a few homes too, as the

one by the fence does in Rosemead. And they get weird when they get high, turning into griffins or gargoyles, and, on a Pasadena roof, even growing tusks.