Still Life With Left Ventricle

The Antique Center of Northampton located at 9 1/2 Market Street is not one store but several dozen rented booths on two floors; the main floor and a basement. The more high-brow Stuart F. Solomon Antiques on the 2nd Floor is a separate business and seems to be open on a whim or by appointment. The Antique Center, on the other hand, is everything a fun vintage stuff store should be. The prices tend to be reasonable and the variety of vendors makes for some entertaining browsing even if you aren't in the market for ceramic penguins or outsider art nativity scenes.

A vintage iPhone. One app.

Decaying rubber Disney figurines. Donald seems to be faring the best. But what of Walt?  In the decades since Walt Disney's death, the claim that he arranged for his body to be frozen has become ubiquitous. Nearly everyone has heard the story that Disney's corpse is stored in a deep-freeze chamber   somewhere -- directly under Disneyland's "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction is the most frequently mentioned site -- awaiting the day when science can repair the damage to his body and bring 'Uncle Walt' back to life.

No antique store worth its dust should ever be without at least one clown painting. The expert on clown paintings is Diane Keaton who also dabbles in acting. She curated a book on the subject in 2002.

Sometimes, overwhelmed by a shelf-load of "pieces" (in dealer parlance), I find myself in a timeless, frictionless plain, unsure where to focus and what to feel. Every piece has an aura that exudes its history and the energies of the people who came in contact with it. From conception to creation to market to possession to dispensation and back to market. Did someone keep it until death or was it yard saled out of their lives?

All these pieces, if one believes in destiny, ended up together here for a reason, each with a storied trail of adventure. Like the little wooden canoe toy in the children's book "Paddle to the Sea," each was an inanimate witness to a specific history.

History would be rather different written by a stumpy Easter Island-esque wooden figurine, wouldn't it? Oh the lies our teachers told us and the truths that these pieces could tell were they to talk. They all saw people, frequently tacky hoarders, with their guards down completely.

These novelty drink stirrers harken back to a time when racism and sexism were still fun.

A very early DVD and a yoga baby.

Ah, the plot thickens.

Fever dream

Still Life With Left Ventricle

Calendar nude with PMS? (see note)

Mishap at the doll factory or sadistic head-swapping brother?

Ancient instruments of culinary torture.

I offer no explanation, though I fear there may be one.

Who is the lucky heir to the duck string holder fortune?

These people are weighing a baby.

After the wise men departed, leaving their frankincense and myrrh, the big man finally showed up with the Wii.