When I was growing up, there was a thrift store down the street from my house called "Antiques, Funktiques, and Junktiques." I always thought it looked fascinating, but my very Chinese parents didn't want to go in because it looked liked a store full of someone else's garbage, and who knows what kind of germs are in there. Well, now that I'm a full-blown vintage/retro/thrifting-addict, that store is long gone. I will never know what was in it...but I imagine it was a lot like the
Wertz Brothers' Antique Mart. Elaine came to visit me this weekend, and we got to do all the normal weird things (is that an oxymoron?) that we usually do. No
zombie walks or Ren Faires this time; just a giant antique store and possibly the weirdest museum I've ever seen.
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| A cage of clowns and creepy Bathead. |
I took Elaine to the Wertz Brothers', which is my favorite place to take my friends that appreciate weird old things. I love that we can while away several hours just giving each other a running commentary on the things we find, or speculating on who could possibly have owned said objects, and why. Take, for example:
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| You can buy this taxidermied eland head for only $1964.99! |
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| There were these large scary wooden heads with bugged-out eyes. When I pointed them out to Elaine, she jumped. |
We also dropped by the
Museum of Jurassic Technology, where I spent what was possibly the oddest hour of my life. Seriously, if you're quirky or weird and ever in Culver City, you need to go to this museum. It's impossible to accurately convey the experience, but it's a lot like a fever dream; it probably didn't help that we went in when it was still light out, but when we came out it was dark and had rained. This museum's curators deserve an award for being able to write paragraphs and paragraphs that are grammatically correct, but semantically inexplicable. There were exhibits on metaphysical inventions accompanied by weird projections, creepy videos showing people making cats' cradles, directions on how to build theaters and portray running rivers and tempestuous waves, and a whole section on medieval superstitions, but presented as fact. Click on the pictures for a larger image to read the text.
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| The whole place was extremely dimly lit and featured glass cases like this. |
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| Mice on toast as a cure for bedwetting?! |
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| Apparently, the hare is the animal equivalent of Voldemort, or He Who Shall Not Be Named. See description below. |
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| Call it Wilfred instead. |
To top off the whole visit, I finally got to go out to the LA Fashion District and go crazy with fabric shopping! Unfortunately, I also got my first parking ticket ever in life. Boo. So I guess the fabric wasn't that cheap after all. But the fabric I got deserves its own post, so I'll end with this:
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| I taught Elaine to use my sewing machine and she made herself a little hippo drawstring bag! She's never sewn before, and she finished her first lesson and made this bag all under an hour! |
Wow, I'm sad I did not know of that museum's existance when I lived in LA. Exceedingly strange! And I love the fabric district, but the parking is atrocious. I think it's impossible to NOT get a parking ticket down there, that must be how they're funding the whole city. And it's impossible for me to spend less than an hour in a fabric store of that size, so the fabric I buy is never as cheap as it seems, since I need to add the exorbitant parking fees! Great finds, though!
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