Sometimes the fun part of doing this blog is ending up in places I would have never gone to on my own. This was one of those places because it was my companion who found it online and one weekend before Halloween we decided to check it out. But his pitch of the place made it sound… even too weird for me.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s run by that guy that used to be on that show Oddities…”
“Oh, I know that show. I went to the original shop as one of the first adventures for Catching Marbles but that was in NYC…”
“Yeah, this is a different place. I guess it’s the guy’s personal collection.”
“Oh…. is it even a shop? Or are we going to end up in someone’s garage again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fantastic.”
And so it goes. On that particular day I drove for more than two hours directly into the sun, or so it felt. Was not feeling great by the end of that and when we got there we couldn’t find the there. All we could see was a street devoid of people with a big brewery on it. I parked anyway and we started walking until we found the sign and the door. It did not look like a shop and I thought it might be an appointment only kind of place as there was a camera at the door and we weren’t sure if it was locked or not. But after some investigating it was open, as it said it would be on a Sunday. If I remember right it was only open on Sundays.
We tepidly walked in. Thank god there was several people there and it wasn’t a garage or basement (which would not be the first time that has happened!) Right out of the gate this place was well and truly odd. Dangling from the light fixtures were the old bones of hoop skirts which I thought was a delightfully clever upcycle. There was also what looked like a very old carnival game near the front with a cast iron frog. And that was probably the most normal thing in the whole joint. The farther we walked in the more bizarre it got. Medical illustrations, strange advertisements, almost certainly haunted dolls (one a nun, another playing a piano) and bad taxidermy galore. A sweet woman in period dress greeted us and cheerfully asked me all kinds of questions. I told her we were just day tripping. I neglected to mention the blog because these sort of high end places are not what I usually cover! I made up a lie about going to the Pez museum and going on to check out the other weird antique store nearby when in truth I’d never heard of it until she mentioned it and we got here too late to actually go to the Pez museum although we had talked about going. I was just nervous… I’m freakishly good at pretending to be a rich person until it comes down to talking about life experiences and then it becomes quite obvious I’m one of them poors because I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to have money so I can’t bluff my way out of it. Normally this would be of no consequence but based on previous experiences I know that things can turn very fast and very bad when the wealthy realize you’re not one of them. I was hunted by one once in a similar situation and that… is a trauma dump for another day. It’s sad though, because if I felt more at ease I am sure we could have had a perfectly nice little conversation and probably had a lot in common. Ah well, another potential friendship blows away in the wind. But I didn’t feel bad about being here – I mean I am writing this blog entry which with any luck will encourage other people who probably do have money to spend to go check the place out… so that’s something.
In any event they had just opened up a new room with different venders and had pulled out some truly mental retro clothing for a Halloween photo shoot. The weird artsy nature of this place was setting off my own desires to return to the various arts I have abandoned. Perhaps someday something I made could make its way into another oddity parlour’s terrifying folk art display like the paper mâché Donald Duck here head which apparently had been passed around already between this group of collectors. I can see why. It was a masterpiece! Of horror. So was most of the taxidermy. At one point one of the terrifying monkeys moved. I’m not sure if it was intentionally moved to see if I’d notice or just a happenstance but either way it made me jump! Beyond it was the skull of a hippo, a very well done taxidermied baby giraffe, and what I can only describe as animals in jars.
The back room had some cheeky things tucked in dark corners. Small items that didn’t look out of place until you looked too closely and thought, “Why does that cow have two utter boobs?” In fact the rest of the shop also had small offerings of the obscene. The usual penises with wings and that sort of thing (sorry, I have forgotten what they’re actually called.) At one point we found a playing card deck with naked women. I knew these existed but never had seen one and was surprised that it was such a huge playing card and also that it left nothing to the imagination. I had to swallow my tongue and refrain from cocking my head and retorting, “I think I can see her appendix from this angle.” I’ve learned my humor is not always well received so I keep much to myself.
Of course the rest of the shop was perfectly wholesome. It’s not like this place was all that racy, it just was refreshing that it felt like it could be in the smaller quieter nooks of the shop. I kind of like that. It’s unusual. I left that day empty-handed but my god, if I had money this place would be incredibly dangerous for me. Soooo many probably haunted things I could have gleefully brought home! Not to mention a gorgeous uranium glass necklace that even caught my eye despite not being into jewelry at all. Really something for every quirky person you could think of.
