Watch Hill Merry Go Round and Lighthouse – Westerly Rhode Island

Last week was just so completely random. I have no idea how I ended up at the bougiest corner of Rhode Island staring down the world’s most terrifying carousel while surrounded by ice cream lapping tourists but I’m not complaining…

Truth be told I desperately needed to be somewhere, anywhere, that was so completely and utterly different from my usual surroundings that I could just mentally check out for a while. You know what I mean. You feel it too. Well, I don’t live anywhere near the ocean so that fit the bill but really we went for the carousel and the lighthouse. The rest was just a cheerful bonus.

When I drove up it was definitely hoppin’. People were everywhere packing nearby beaches and perusing the shops and boutiques. It was like… going back in time… you know to the mid 1990’s, before the economy collapsed and people had vacations like this all the time! Parking was just an ever lovin’ joy to figure out as it was all parallel and pretty much full down the whole block. No worries after a 20-minute show with at least one horrified onlooker I was able to technically get the car within the lines. Technically. Then we walked!

This was the most touristy tourist trap I have ever seen in New England. Kids ran about with reckless abandon being ‘watched’ by their dads who were buying ice cream for the whole gaggle while their wives fucked off and enjoyed some sweet sweet alone time in the boutiques. There was even an antique store! Granted it was all nautical, just vaguely antique, and reminded me more of one of those Old Timey Country Stores with what it was selling. Just add some salt water to that country chic and you can picture it. I took some whimsical photos of random hanging trinkets.

And then we made our way to the carousel at the end. It was…. a thing of tremendous terror. Something that shall haunt my nightmares for years to come. Here they were selling tickets to ride the Merry Go Round $1 for the inner ring of horses, $4 for the outer ring and a chance to grab a gold ring to win a free ride. Now as fucking amazing as I find all that truly obsolete Americana I was a little trepidatious for the poor children on this machine who were whipping around that thing at great speeds, so much so the horses were at full tilt, their wee hooves kicking the air towards the onlookers at the sides. It made my heart skip a few beats. And the horses. Oh my God, the horses. I have no words to describe just how blood curdling creepy they were. They are supposed to be America’s longest continuously running Merry Go Round built in 1867 and “mysteriously abandoned” at Watch Hill in 1883 by a travelling carnival which… makes sense for a bunch of ponies that look like they could suck out your soul. I’m told each one of them still has it’s original eyes which is some sort of stone… but really it makes them all look like they have milky white cataracts and combined with their over all grizzled appearance I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the zombie horses of the apocalypse. They look the part. Every time I found one that just had to be the most unnerving another one would pop up behind it that made me gasp even more. Left me in a real pickle to find a favorite.

You may ask, “Did you ride the scary pony death machine?” No, no, I did not. The horses on this carousel are very small, clearly just for children unlike today’s carousels with life-size horses (or steam punk monsters if I remember the one I once saw in Brussels, Belgium right…) And I mean if I were a kid I probably would have loved hanging on for dear life as I spun wildly out of control trying to catch a gold ring as I went by. I mean that’s just good old fashioned family fun. Right? RIGHT?

Well anyway, there was a beach right next to the carousel with plenty of people sunning and swimming and having a grand old time. We decided to shun it in favor of walking up a nearby side street to see the lighthouse which I guess is only open for a short time every year – a short time that didn’t include that day. But it was still technically a park so we went to at least poke at it. This was my companion’s first lighthouse so he was impressed. I was amused by the mansions lining the drive it was on (especially the one with the witch weather vane) but the lighthouse itself was intensely meh for me. Maybe I’m just jaded having gone to so many. Either way it did seem to be a nice fishing spot and a few people were here doing exactly that and enjoying this gorgeous summer day.

All and all it was a nice way to spend an hour or two and the carousel made it 100% worth it because it was just soooo weird. Everything else was just a cherry on the terrifying carousel cake.

July 2, 2022 0

Cambridge Antique Market – Cambridge MA

It was yet another day and yet another antique store. I know we’ve been hitting a lot of those lately but it’s hot outside at this time of year so I tend to run for the shade. This time it was at the Cambridge Antique Market which was 5 whole floors of weirdness.

I wasn’t in the most receptive of moods knowing that Cambridge is basically parking purgatory filled with empty parallel parking spots because there’s signs with super conflicting information wafting above each space confusing the ever-loving shit out of even the locals. You’ll see cars driving around and around the block for hours because there’s also not enough spaces to go around. It’s a nightmare. The antique mall was fortunate in that it had a parking lot but it was tiny, shoved between the building and some fences, big enough for maybe 10-15 cars. The front part was full so I had to go to the even tinier back bit which had parking so tight and bizarrely shaped it’d take me a 300 point turn to eventually get out. But parking drama aside this was another delightful adventure.

We had chosen this local for it’s size. It was in another mill building and sprawled out for five whole floors with who knows how many different vendors, each a new chance to find something crazy or wonderful. We’d been in a car a long time though and I had to pee so I tried to find the bathroom right off and it was… a whole separate adventure. They had an old one stall bathroom that felt like the light should be flickering. The lock on the door was this tiny antiquated dead bolt that barely aligned with the door and I was more than a little amused that they had tried to add a little class by using toilet paper with frills. I’ve never seen anything like it! It was like using a doyly! I washed my hands with their fittingly super fragrant soap and hopped out as quick as I could. This adventure was followed by getting into an elevator that could be the whole set for a horror movie any day.

But all the endearing architecture aside this place was packed full and there was a lot to find. There were the usual assortment of haunted dolls (this time featuring an old lady marionette!) deranged Buddhas, terrifying paper mâché masks, weird novelty postcards showing a woman riding a giant grasshopper, boxes and boxes of instant ancestor photos, cannibalistic looking horses, likely serial killer clowns, a smoking bunny, a boot with Chewbacca’s face on the heel, and sooo many freaky cookie jars! I mean just hundreds of them scattered about like tinker tape. We must have been in there a couple hours – time having completely evaporated.

Yes – this was a win. A really wonderful find and I would completely suggest it to all my eccentric friends.

June 24, 2022 0

Buddha Bob’s – Eastham MA

Our trip to Cape Cod was one of those last-minute things where we really didn’t know what we wanted to do… so we decided to fill up our National Park Passport with stamps. That being said we ended up stopped in traffic in front of Buddha Bob’s only a little down the road from Salt Pond which was our real destination. And this place looked so bizarre that we decided right then and there it needed more investigation.

It was… a trip. WELL worth the detour! I parked in front of a Bigfoot wearing gold chains and that’s where we started. Have you ever been to a little shop that has no idea what it is? This would have been that. It was part rock shop, part lot for eccentric yard and garden ornamentation, part commissioned junk shop. As such we found everything from a pair of bronzed baby booties, to Buddhas of every conceivable size, to LOTS of pretty rocks inside, to a pair of Turkish looking marionettes (perhaps haunted!) to a rather fetching (if totally rusted) statue of Achilles. Fuck knows my Achilles heel is… Achilles himself. That’s how I ended up writing a whimsical satire about his teenage years but I digress.

Buddha Bob’s was an adventure for sure. No one quite knew what would be around each corner and to my great delight the people running the shop were just as unrepentantly weird as the shop itself. This was my kind of place. And my travel companion lucked out by buying two hematite rings for $1.88. I know in previous entries I have been a little dubious about the whole hematite ring thing but I guess it’s not so bad if each replacement is less than a dollar… This was my happiest tourist trap yet. FEEL THE WHIMSY!

June 24, 2022 0

We Have a Little Shop Now!

I know it’s the dead of winter and we’re all still dealing with quarantine. I’m in hibernation with the rest of you but my feet are itchy to continue exploring as soon as the weather warms up a bit. In the meanwhile I have devised a little plan to help me pay for gas money when the time comes… a little shop! With many of the photos I have taken for this blog. I have put them on over 50 different products from greeting cards, tote bags, canvas prints, mugs, face masks, pillows, you name it!

So if you’ve enjoyed my photography and would like it in your home please check out my RedBubble shop.

And as always, thank you for continuing to follow me on my travels. This blog would be nothing without readers.

Much love,

Theophanes Avery