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.
It’s a rare occasion when I get to drag someone along to a happy little memory of when I was growing up. I think one of my favorite things to do as a kid and as a teen was go to all the independent pet stores that were out there, running like it was the Wild West. Some were absolute dumps, literally run out of trailers and stinking to high heaven, but others were goddamn treasures and all of them brought with them the opportunity to see some crazy animals. Colors and morphs of common pets that were out of this world as well as critters you would normally see at a zoo. And there always seemed to be surprise grab bag, an abandoned animal being rehomed that the shopkeeper didn’t exactly know what it was. You want a lizard? Cool, here’s a lizard! Bird? We got you. This one seems nocturnal?? Thirty-foot-long snake? Oh, God, it’s heavy. And might be a literal anaconda.
This pastime has mostly been crushed by the arrival of PetCo, PetSmart, online retailers, and increasingly harsh animal laws and outright bans. One of the few places that has still survived and is in great standing is Zoo Creatures. It’s a reptile-centric center which I have had on my bucket list for a few years now. It seems to be the brick and mortal base for a much larger operation of reptile breeding, distribution, and outreach. That part of it is called NERD and they do reptile shows both on and off the property. I’ve encountered them over the years at schools, county fairs, and cons. They also do private events like birthday parties and whatnot I’ve just never been cool enough to be invited to one of those.
Still, the shop is a great way to at least see a lot of these critters and buy fun stuff for your own critters. They even have a petting zoo outside where a number of obese goats vie for your attention. And food. Just inside the door they have a whole rack filled with baby frogs of various kinds, scorpions, isopods, and millipedes. No tarantulas on this day but I would expect to see them here too. I wanted to bring the giant millipede home. Fucking love those things and they’re hard to find these days since imports have stopped and they must be bred here (which I guess must be a pain because there isn’t enough supply to meet demand, or at least there wasn’t when I was looking.) The frogs were also after my heart but they’re hard to keep alive unless you have the perfect environment. Above them were a couple very bright snakes cuddled on individual tree branches. Very pretty!
For the most part this looked like a normal pet store but just around the corner is when things got interesting. We entered the reptile room. There were rows of habitats and containers. Lots of strange morphs in the containers and some animals on display in the habitats that were a little unusual. Rock iguanas, frilled lizards, a snake that looked like a vine, and some bigger snakes. And randomly a big constrictor snake in a bubble bath. It seemed to be enjoying it, though I’m not honestly sure what the bubbles were for. Maybe it was a dirty snake…
From there we found the venom room… which was filled with huge venomous snakes. One of them was the biggest Timber Rattlesnake I have ever seen in my life. I didn’t even know they got that big! Which is concerning as Timber Rattlesnakes are the only venomous snake (capable of killing people) native to New England. They live in the mountains and luckily through all my hiking I’ve never encountered a wild specimen as they are endangered. There were cobras and spitting cobras also in this room and as I cautiously made my way to the back I heard a familiar SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHK! It was the angry rattle of a rattlesnake. An albino (?) rattlesnake on the bottom cage took offense to me walking by and let me know it. It slithered up the glass in a sidewinding sort of way as it shook its tail. The primitive monkey part of my brain was screaming DANGER! DANGER! but the other part of my brain that thrives on adrenaline just soaked up the moment. I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie, even though no one who knows me would say this, it’s just because it’s very specific. I feel most alive when I’m around animals I know can and will kill me given the chance. Something I learned as a kid while wrestling a pit bull who got tired of my bullshit and pinned me to the floor with its paws and just hung over me, inches from my face, it’s breath hot on my neck. It’s a good thing I did not grow up in Florida because as a kid I LOVED reptiles and am pretty sure if I could have gotten a job catching dangerous ones or milking snakes I would have taken it at that time – back when I had the reflexes of a cat and the joints of youth. SIGH.
My companion came over to ask what the noise was and the snake responded to him in the same way. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHK! Cranky little beastie. He put on such a show I almost missed the Gila monsters cuddling in the corner and the GIBOON VIPER in another bottom cage. I’d heard about them so many times… people keeping them, them getting out, animal control being WAY out of their depth in capturing and or dispatching them. I had no idea they grew so big! And were so… beautiful. Though I still think it’s a really dumb idea to have a venomous snake as a pet and you shouldn’t I could at least start to see the appeal. This snake was colorful, animated, and had weird little horns. I should note here the venom room is basically a gimmick to get people in the door. They do not sell these dangerous animals; they just put them on display.
Beyond the venom room there were the turtles and that’s where my companion fell apart. They had a very large soft-shelled turtle who seemed very intent on seeing what we were up to and he was so cute! We hung around with him for quite a while because he was so endearing. Above him were what I’m guessing were a few of his children? And behind him were two massive snakes. This is what I was hoping to show my companion as in previous occasions he seemed wowed by much smaller big snakes. I wanted him to see the ones I was impressed with all those years ago… and these two were very decent! Not the biggest I’ve ever seen (that would have been a green anaconda) but still right up there. One of them was even one of those black rainbow snakes that shimmer like a puddle of oil. I took a photo but the lack of natural sunlight didn’t make the shimmer obvious.
From here we went into the fish room not expecting much. Indeed fishwise there was little to look at buuuut there was an enormous alligator snapper and he was perched on two feet peering over the top of his enclosure. He seemed so…. intent, so intelligent. Almost cute. I cooed at him. “Sorry, I don’t have anything for you, not even any human hands.” He was big enough to snap one right off. My travel companion was enamored. It was like meeting a goddamn dinosaur. And his feet! Dear god! They were huge! and the claws! This was definitely the highlight of the day.
I asked my companion if this was worth the 2+ hour drive and he said, “Hell yeah! I saw more animals here than at all the zoos we’ve been to!” I’ll leave that as testament to how cool this place was. Someday when I have a home of my own… I’m coming back, maybe for a millipede, maybe for some frogs, maybe for one of them turtles. Hard to say. Though I do really miss having weird pets. SIGH.
After enjoying The Paper House and Cynthia Curtis Pottery we decided to head towards town and see if there were any walkable streets. We were not disappointed and there’s few things that make us happier than a surprise independent book store! You never know what you’re going to find in these places.
This one had a whole Beat section, some obscure local books, a number of weird antique books, a French copy of Babar, the usual LGBTQ+ section, and entertaining category signs and quotations. David Bowie was sprawled out on the Fashion categorey for example. So much character!
And the shopkeep? Adorable. I was eavesdropping and heard her exasperatedly claim, “I want to sell to queer people, not rob them!” In this capitalistic hellscape we live in such a statement is so refreshing! Not to mention allyship always warms the cockles of my heart.
So yeah, looking for something obscure, old, or weird, this is you place!
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.
