This place came out of the blue for me. My travel companion gave me an address to drive to but didn’t say what it was so I was a little surprised it was not another antique store but rather a tiny shop full of dead things. Signs outside said goths were welcome. Okaaaaay…
Inside was a tiny shop set up in a retro circus freak show sort of way. In a series of curios cabinets there were bizarre taxidermy, sarcastic pins and patches, mildly radioactive earrings, and a large silver serving platter full of human teeth! Only incisors.
We bought two grab bags labeled “shit” to be supportive of such an odd shop since we didn’t have the cash to buy the toaster in a bathtub taxidermy duckling. They were full of delightfully weird stickers. Who knew Plaistow was such a fun town! This seemed like the perfect stop after Zoo Creatures… like going from an exotic pet store to the afterlife of an exotic pet store. Fun for all! If you’re unapologetically weird.
After having an absolute blast playing with the reptiles at Zoo Creatures we decided we should continue on our adventures and see what other trouble we could get into. That’s when we ended up at an antique store on the same road as the aforementioned pet shop.
It was a little place, well kept with very organized displays. The vibe of this shop seemed to be one of nostalgia for millenials. Though there was the usual antiques – vassiline glass, the odd creepy doll, salt shakers and what not, there seemed to be more nostalgic toys – rainbow colored storm troopers, plushie girl gremlins, fidgets, trolls, and the like. It was different and kind of fun. I even got a little giggle out of a blinking doll who had an unfortunate blotch of eye shadow that made her look like she was sporting two black eyes, an illusion made all the more convincing with only one eye open.
My other favorite was a little metal fire truck with a key jutting out of it. When I wound it up I thought it’d drive around but no… it was a music box??
This one had been on my list for a long time because it was so odd. And the entrance fee was only $3 a head. Win.
I didn’t actually know where Rockport was. On the other side of Boston of course… so we did that whole fun trip right through the city and all the traffic but luckily it wasn’t that bad on this spring day. When we got to the Paper House it was in a residential neighborhood that was littered with signs reading no parking on this side of the street.
The sign was outside a regular house and up a small city driveway. Was I supposed to go in the driveway??? Could I park on the street?? The driveway had two parking spots, one had what I asumed was the home owner’s car in it. I parked in the other one and we walked awkwardly up the driveway wondering what was going to happen from here. Would we have to ring someone’s doorbell or ring a number? We walked up to the building on the property that read Paper House and looked in the windows. Yep, it was the paper house. It took us a minute to find a sign stating the door was unlocked and we could go in. There was an honor box outside to leave our entry fees.
This place was really small but fun. We were clearly the only ones there. In the structure the walls were decorated with folded paper in the style of “tramp art,” which was common in the 1920’s when these pieces were made. There were chairs, a table, a piano, and a grandfather clock, all decorated with rolls of paper. The information given was that these were made as an experiment to see how long print paper (in this case newspapers) could hold up if varnished and used to make things. There was no explanation as to WHY this experiment was going on, only that it was the homeowner’s grandfather who started in with this quirky hobby in the 1920’s. Some postcards sat out for souvenirs if you wanted to pay an extra 35 cents.
There was also a few pamphlets on other cool places to go in the area including a pottery shed just a few houses down. We’d continue our explorations there. This was a quirky little side quest and if you’re int he area I deffinately think you should give it a little lookey-loo. Otherwise, on it’s own, this probably wasn’t enough for me to say it’s worth any sort of drive, especially through Boston traffic! However, there’s lots of other stuff to do in the area that may make it worth it.
And I’m back with another great CHEAP museum! Only $2 for admission! Unless you wanted to splurge and buy a planetarium ticket of course. We would have but it’s only open certain days and times which didn’t happen to be when we showed up.
Today’s destination had been chosen not just because it was free but because it was the home of a very unfortunate lioness and her cubs which… I’m honestly not certain they weren’t horrifically deformed prairie dogs. Such is the guesswork that goes into bad taxidermy.
But before we even got to the museum we first had to find it near the Roger William’s Zoo which… consider this the afterlife for random zoo animals and wildlife. The parking lot wasn’t very big and only had one tiny entrance that if you missed it you’d literally have to loop around the entire goddamn block to get back to it. Ask me how I figured that out!
It was surprisingly bustling. We were met by a clerk who told us if we wanted there were several treasure hunts we could enjoy, which were usually for kids but came in three levels of challenge. We’re big kids at heart so we each took one sheet with our questions, a clip board, and a tiny pencil. I haven’t written in pencil in decades. And between the fact it was a pencil and barely big enough to hold my hand writing came off as quite serial killer-esque. No matter I had the hardest treasure hunt and I was going to complete it!
The treasure hunt paper told us which room worth of displays each question’s answer could be found it so it was mostly easy peasy pudding and pie.
First off we had the dinosaurs because… well they deserve to always be the first thing you see as they’re awesome. There was the obligatory T-rex skull (complete with janky teeth!) Some dinosaur egg shells and for reasons I’ll never understand a marble statue of a beautiful woman and her baby.
The wildlife room was next and filled to the brim with taxidermy coming from all skill levels! The perfect ones were lovely but I was most endeared to the ones who looked like they were melting and malformed including one morbidly obese squirrel I’m positive got that way eating cosmic brownies. He just had that look. This room was just local wildlife but other parts of the museum had everything from a polar bear, to a koala that looked like a crumpled bit of fuzzy newspaper, to the aforementioned lioness who was the coup d’etat of bad taxidermy, Jesus Christ was that something.
But my favorite bit of taxidermy was the kakapo, otherwise known as the world’s chonkiest parrot. So fat it can’t even fly. I laughed and then sadly sighed because this parrot was the same kind that was featured on that Stephan Fry nature documentary that went from a sweet segment about a nearly extinct parrot to some poor bastard getting savagely humped for 15 minutes while Fry and crew just laughed. It’s here if you need a chuckle today. My sigh was because I’d recently had an out with the friend who would have known why this particular specimen was so funny.
But anyway, parrots with no grasp of consent aside, this museum also had a section for all things outer space, a room of curious bark textiles, more taxidermy, and a geology room with a map of Rhode Island and what it’d look like if all the ice caps melted. RIP Providence, Newport, and most of the rest of the state. May you sleep sound with the fishies. Amen.
This was a happy fun little museum if you happen to be in the area or are coming back from the zoo and are wondering what those animals look like stuffed.
After enjoying the Beneski’s Natural History Museum it was only a short walk across campus to the Mead Art Museum which was also free.
I noticed the tower out front before we got there and realized it was part of the art museum and I enjoyed taking photos of different angles.
Inside the art museum there was one woman at the check-in and a few other visitors wandering around. The art museum was pretty small and had a very disjointed collection that seemed to be a completely random sampling of different unrelated topics from ancient Etruscan engravings, to recreations of destroyed funeral art, to a room decorated more like a medieval castle than a college, to a visiting black art exhibit, to a painting of a woman being harassed by a cherub weilding a knitting needle. The latter was my favorite because of the expression on the woman’s face that seemed to say, “It’s back again isn’t it?! I can feel it’s sticky hands over my shoulder!”
My other favorite part was the visiting black art exhibit which unlike the rest had a unifying theme making it seem more approachable and less neurotic and all over the place. We had seen everything in maybe 20 minutes. And that included a lot of dawdling.
I’ve certainly been to more impressive art museums but it was free and near the Natural History Museum so why not visit anyway?
From here we attempted to go to the Emily Dickinson Museum also on campus but that museum charges entry and apparently has the sketchy hours of a salt water fish store. As such we found out it was closed when we drove up.
You know with the economy crashing as badly as it has been I have a feeling more of y’all will be joining me in finding the best FREE entertainment New England has to offer! On this particular day it was the Beneski Natural History Museum attached to the university in Amherst Massachusetts.
This is one of the things I love about New England is their colleges and universities are usually quite proud to share their discoveries and collections with people, even people who do not attend said institutions, which is great because even though I was once academically inclined I now do not have a cent to give towards such lofty endeavors but that doesn’t mean my love for the sciences has waned.
The Natural History Museum is attached to an active science building. There are classes going on in the back but there’s pretty rocks in the hallway just outside said classrooms to enjoy if you’re quiet. I was hoping to eavesdrop on a paleontology lecture as I was surrounded by the aforementioned pretty rocks but instead my eyes glassed over at the sound of someone trying to make unsolvable math problems exciting in two different classrooms. Math. It’s never liked me and I never liked it. But the rocks were cool… there was even a display on rocks and minerals found here in New England and I had NO IDEA were here but now I’ll be looking! And the variety… my god, I’d never heard of most of these little earth treasures.
However I didnt swing by today to tell you about hallways, the main part of the museum was probaly more notable! It had more fossils than anything. Most of the big displays were brought back during one exhibition the college hosted in the 1920’s when all you needed was a $100 car, a pick ax, and a vague destination out west somewhere. The colorful details if this story were everywhere to be read and enjoyed.
But there were also drawers, so many drawers! Each just asking to be opened with all sorts of fun stuff… everything from trilobites to turtle fossils. My favorite displays included an Irish elk, two beautiful archapteryx complete with fossilized feathers, and a sea scorpion which is the state fossil of New York. Also the basement which had dinosaur tracks and dinosaur skin imprints lining all the walls.
And since I seem to be writing this entry backwards I will say the exhibits in the entry were very well displayed and even included a cute little dinosaur I’d never heard of and the school’s mascot: the mighty mastodon. A very excitable student greeted us and told us to ask any questions we had. I didn’t ask anything but I did learn the US used to have tiny camels running around and there’s a rock called wulfinite that’s is a gorgeous orange…
I guess that’s where I’ll leave you until tomorrow when I’ll tell you where we walked from here.
Having just come from “the least suspicious fish store” in New England my companion decided to bring me to the most suspicious record store just to bring a sense of balance to the day.
When I drove up to this place I wasn’t even sure it was a store. Another guy loitered outside with question marks floating over his head. A sign on the door said call to ring the owner and give him a couple minutes to get to the door. I’ve been to places like that before. It’s always sooo awkward… The guy loitering seemed infinitely relieved we’d also shown up to poke at things. Makes it less awkward you see. Comradery!
As we walked in I was met at first with a wall of nostalgic toys and board games. This place was exactly what I expected from the sign outside… clearly someone’s personal collection that got a bit out of hand and now occupied a weird little basement store.
My companion was immediately distracted by a Dungeons and Dragons board game. Had this satanic panic beloved past time not started as a board game? I guess not. The box was inspected with befuddlement as if it was some sort of blasphemy coffin.
As we inched farther into this crammed space we saw oodles of weird vinyls, a pile of random cast iron cookware, a light smattering of minstrel references (which I am deeply hoping was there to make white customers uncomfortable, you know doubling down on the awkward) as well as a series of bizarre knickknacks, a giant bowl and ball made of welded keys, and more weird records. I don’t know if this place takes part in Record Store Day but it should! It’s goddamn perfect for it. It had everything from a limited edition of Wicked to the California Raisins, to Pacman’s completely unwarranted musical debut next to the soundtrack to a B-rated zombie movie no one’s ever heard of. This place was dangerous. I could come home with half this entire collection. Mixed with the peculiar there was also well known albums cheap albeit deeply loved beforehand. I had to stop myself when I spotted Janis Joplin’s Pearl album. Siiiiiiigh, not today, though God forbid I come back on a day I have some spare spending change!
So would I suggest this place? Sure, but I’d deffinately also advise to bring a good gaggle of friends, fellow weirdoes who’d like this sort of thing. If you’re reading this you know the type.
“This is the least suspicious fish shop you’ve ever brought me to.” My companion noted, rather astutely. Indeed it was in a proper plaza with a real parking lot and didn’t even have the faintest whisper of the serial killer’s basement vibes that these places tend to have. But then again, as the woman at the desk explained, it wasn’t really a store in a classic sense either. It was an event space first and foremost with gorgeous display fish tanks scattered throughout and a back room filled with… well fish stuff. Coral frags, quarantined fish, live rock, all the things a fish tank installation company would need to create another spectacular tank in a client’s home. And that’s really what Something Fishy is.
They must be successful at it too because I’ve seen their trucks driving down the highway numerous times fanning my curiosity. And if their client tanks are half as decent as the ones in their event space they’re probably worth the investment. They were stunning. Sadly the sun was up at just the wrong time and there was a glare that made taking photos really difficult. No matter, I allowed myself to delight over their coral shelves and get lost watching the fish who were robust, healthy, and showing no signs of distress. These were some swank fishies!
Once again I’ve fallen behind writing up my adventures! But alas tonight I shall regale you with witchy tales from last week’s hapless wanderin’.
The day had started as it usually does, fussing over where we could possibly go. Since I bid farewell to FaceBook I haven’t had any algorithms helping me find new hidden gems and honestly going back to cold calling Google has been a bit rough. But on this day my companion wanted to go to a witchy store so he found one and we went!
The place was small, painstakingly neat and organized, and had a selection of shiny and perhaps magical rocks, some spell bottles, a few pieces of home made jewelry, and a row of adorable tiny spell cauldrons which I was tempted to get and put them in a little nest next to my regular size cauldron to make it look like it had babies. This is why I shouldn’t be allowed a house… it’ll get weird. There will be questions.
No matter this shop was adorable and had a pretty decent spice rack and a few tarot decks as well as the funniest no shoplifting sign id ever seen, home made just like the rest of the things here. In the back there was a lovely gathering space with art for sale on all the walls. Very neat!
I don’t know what events they may host there but I bet they’d be interesting for sure! And the staff seemed very pleasant as well. All and all it was a sweet little independant shop and I’d suggest it to anyone in the area looking to cast a good spell or two.
After the Sparkle Barn we decided to end our trip to Vermont with one more randomly picked antique store which ended up being Twice Upon a Time Antiques in Brattleborro.
Finding it was easy, finding parking during peak traffic wasn’t so much but we managed to find a little paid public parking lot. I guess this neighborhood was somewhat rougher than my companion anticipated for Vermont so I got reminded to lock the car, something I don’t normally bother with because if anyone wants to steal 40 pounds of plastic bags I keep forgetting to return to the grocery store then so be it. They can have them. Besides this we parked next to either an on duty cop or security guard, I mean yeah he was amongst a gaggle of pot smoking 20-somethings paying no heed but this is Vermont. I don’t know about the legalities, all I know is the vibe – hippies live here.
We walked to the antique store probably more disoriented than the aforementioned youths but that is what several days of driving to absolutely random locations will do to you. On this day I was confusing Brattleborro with Bennington. No matter, a b’s a b, and we’re still in Vermont.
The antique store had a lovely vibe. The woman working here today was joyful and sweet, even singing along to the oldies until she heard me also singing along. Don’t be shy! Everyone should sing more often! And it’s fun when it’s two strangers!
This place was three moderate floors. The front had typical decorative antiques and nostalgic throw backs (like a whole wall of brightly colored Felix the Cat clocks, you know the ones with the swinging tails) and the back had a bunch of really delightful retro clothing. I’ve grown too fat for all of it but I did really enjoy pawing over it and my companion was distracted like a crow with something shiny when he found a massive collection of fancy hats next to a mirror. I chose a few for him to try- how about the Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat, no? Surely these series of Easter Sunday bests would do. The woman working here giggled with us as she walked by, “That one suits you!” It’s important to be silly sometimes. I was just happy the mood of the past few days was finally swinging back to playful.
Upstairs there was mostly charismatic furniture and a few odd paintings, all very hippie for the most part. That’s probably the other reason I loved this place, that is absolutely my style (or rather the first of my styles before ADHD took over.) The basement had the usual basement antiques but hidden among them was THE UGLIEST teapot I have EVER seen with an odd number of cups. It was peak 70’s fashion. Orange and brown floral. This is absolutely where my love of the color orange came from – from 70’s decore that was so heinously ugly I decided to love it as an act of rebellion. It was only $25 and I really wanted this horrendous choice of kitchenware but… what was I going to do with it?? If I had a house with a big kitchen and company to feed tea to that’d be one thing but that just isn’t even remotely my reality. So I left the poor thing there… and it’s probably still there… because who else would buy something that profoundly fugly?!
Back upstairs my companion found a book so specific and local it just made me want to eat Vermont whole for being so goddamn adorable. This shop wasn’t huge or crazy but the hats everywhere gave it a certain charm and the staff were exactly what I’d expect in Vermont, just a few chill women enjoying a beautiful day.
Outside on the streets however things were getting weird. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post to see why!
