Spent the last week driving completely around the entirety of Lake Erie. Saw a lot of great stuff too, starting in Chicago with The Outsider's Musical, as well as Marc Martel's amazing "One Vision" Queen tribute band (even Brian May can't tell the difference between him 'n Freddie!), also toured a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and an ancient Nubia Bestiary exhibit! Then it was off to Detroit to visit Jack White's Third Man Records home base HQ studio / store. Spent quite a few bucks there too, natch! Crossed the border from there and went right into Canada (please refer to a map if you're getting lost or confused) and floored it all the way to the magnificently monstery, tourist trap chaos of Clifton Hill, which overlooks Niagra Falls from the Great White North side. Ventured through many haunted houses, found some nice antique shops, and ate a lot of great Canadian food, before once again crossing the border back into the US again via Buffalo NY. More fab antiquing to be found, as well as seeing The Falls from the opposite side now, and yet another Frank Lloyd Wright house! And from there, --now a bit more than half the way around Lake Erie-- it was off to Cleveland. So what does a "Midcentury Corpse Reconstruction Wax Practice Model from the Cincinnati School of Mortuary Science" have to do with any of this? Cleveland Curiosities (in Cleveland, duh!) A real gem of a shop, loaded with macabre goodies, both real and unreal, a little bit kooky, and a lotta bunch spooky-- and just as mysterious as it is mystically magical. All era of oddities are displayed, going as far back as the Victorian days, possibly even earlier. Everywhere you turn it's a freaky feast of cleverly curated taxidermy mishaps, side show spooks, religious relics, horror heroes, and vintage funeral home fun. And that's where our beautiful boy below comes in. I suppose the card under his chin is pretty self explanatory, though I will add that, to me, this was the the most unique thing I encountered on my entire eerie trip of the Erie, --and the perfect end to six much needed days away out on the open road. I still had one more day to drive back to MO, and if you're wondering, this smiling, side-burned, eternal slumberer below was unfortunately not my co-pilot.
10 comments:
I, could imagine, these skills would be needed to reconstruct the faces of those who lost their lives in an auto, train, aircraft or mining accident, though maybe a closed casket ceremony would be much more appropriate.
I never, and I mean I Never, would have thought of this as necessary training for the final profession, I had never seen Six Feet Under, nor do I plan to, so I can't say much about the real life or fictional training of morticians or undertakers.
Footnote, when I was living in Philadelphia with my folks, we had a neighbor who worked for an undertaker. My mom once looked out the back window and asked when he obtained a station wagon, I had to tell her not to be upset, but it was in fact a hearse.
He and his family were nice people, no Addams family or goth types, it was just a job for him. They moved out after a few years, we tried to keep in touch but as time went on we drifted apart. It happens sometimes.
Thats the only connection I had with undertakers/morticians, nothing major but an odd footnote in my boring life.
The reconstruction is so reminiscent of Stan Laurel that I can't think of it as anyone else.
There is a lot of absolute skill here. I watch a lot of crime shows and "reconstruct" the face from the skull is a pretty well known art and seems pretty accurate, but this is the 40s! It was probably all by eye, and frankly, the look on the face is so peaceful.
It's a wonderful, if not macabre, piece.
Man that's cool. It's interesting that the eyebrows are real hair and the pompadour is not. I guess they were only graded on the face.
I really dug Cleveland when I was there. We stayed overnight in Little Italy and ate three meals a day there. The art museum was dynamite. I got the Portrait of Nathaniel Olds on a tee shirt.
Arghh you just reminded me that I was going to get a shirt from the curiosities shop before leaving… derrr
Thanks for sharing!
Eh, just get it at the online shop. We won't tell anybody.
I like the three-eyed skull caps myself.
This is the most fabulously creepy find, found by just the perfect person! And I’m totes jelly of your epic summer vaycay, but mostly just happy for ya. Mostly ;)
P.S. I swear this guy looks eerily (Eriely?) familiar…..
I believe I just found the perfect concept for my Halloween costume this year! ;)
Totes Jelly Vacay is the name of my new band!
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