The Peculiarium

Good morning, my friends. It was a stormy day yesterday, but it didn't dampen our spirits for visiting Portland's Peculiarium.We had so much fun. 

The City of Portland is divided up into quadrants. Burnside Street separates north from south, and the Willamette River separates east from west. The Peculiarium is in one of the older areas of the city in Northwest Portland. Parking is a nightmare there. After driving around and around, I finally found a spot two blocks away. Happily, it hadn’t started raining yet. Walking along, I passed by this potted camelia blooming away.

Turning a corner, I could see the Peculiarium. Despite those “Open” signs, I was a few minutes early, and the door was locked.

This guy was there to keep me company, and such delicious food was being served! How could I resist?

The door opened right on time, and this greeter was wheeled out.

Matthew was just a few minutes behind me. I wandered around the gift shop while I waited for him. They had a whole big board of these little things…are they tacks? Pins? Not sure. Of course, I liked the cat ones best.

This made me laugh.

Also…apothecary, anyone?

When Matthew arrived, we bought our tickets and headed inside. It’s a small, but crowded space. We were in and out in about half an hour, but there’s no way we could see it all. The walls are covered floor to ceiling, wall to wall with interesting things to look at. It’s one of those places that requires a second (even a third) visit.

My pictures are mostly posted in the order I took them. Certain things caught my eye. The image below is of classic Universal Pictures monsters, but Matthew and I photobombed it. A lot of what you’re going to see is movie memorabilia. I’m not sure how much of it is genuine as opposed to representing some oddity, myth, urban legend and the like. You can read (or listen) to a little blurb about it broadcast by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

This is a cast of a footprint from Sasquatch, aka Big Foot. It was about 15 inches from heel to toe.

I’m not sure about these cats, but cats. I must photograph them.

This one might actually be Smitty. I’ve heard he has a night job as a superhero.

The California Raisins! What a hoot!

With our country’s new chief of staff, this might actually come in handy.

Here’s a close-up of the sign. (I wonder if these can be purchased on Amazon.)

Someone got married here.

This movie came out when I was nine years old. It scared me so badly, I had to get in bed with my mom and dad that night.

This happened one town west of where I live. Sorry it’s not a better picture. I cropped the text and posted it below to make it easier to read.

Here you go…it’s a little easier to read, and it’s worth reading to the end.

Here’s the Batmobile.

The Ghostbusters’ car.

Okay, now this was fun. I knew this was how they did those tall building scenes in films, but I’d never seen this in the “flesh” before. Matthew is actually lying horizontally. It’s an optical illusion that makes it look as if there is depth to the photo. 

And then some friendly folks standing nearby offered to take our picture together. How could we resist? Don’t look down!

Okay, and this was interesting. See how the image below has depth? It was actually shaped more like a traffic cone, with the center square and woman closest to us with the rest falling farther away. (I hope that makes sense.) It’s a little like looking at one of those pictures where you have to relax your eyes and let them see it as it really is.

There were a lot of these fun interactive exhibits. This was a box-shaped thing. Matthew was looking through a small hole cut in the middle. The only face that is his is the one in the middle. The rest are projected with mirrors(?) I guess. I was on the far side of the box holding the camera up to a small hole cut for that purpose.

Here, one of us could have poked our head up through that hole and allowed ourselves to be operated on by aliens. Nah. One can only embarrass one’s self so many times in a single day.

Matthew (the musician) knew what this was right away. It’s a type of synthesizer known as a theremin. This is better seen and heard, so turn up your volume if you need to.

This cat looked for all the world like something Louis Wain might have created. If you’ve been reading a long time, you might remember when we visited The American Museum of the Housecat in North Carolina. It was more fun than I could have imagined, and it was there that I first heard of Louis Wain. He was an artist with a special talent for drawing cats. He also suffered from schizophrenia, and his art changed over time as his disease worsened.

Okay, now this was just downright offensive. I was well into my 20s the first time I encountered a pushbutton phone. Who’re you calling old? Or weird? Or just what are they implying here, anyway?

The only one of these early cell phones I remember was the one in the middle known as the “Brick.” Our first cell phone…shared among family members…was a smaller one, but it still had a pull-out antenna.

These are all characters from The Simpsons. Matt Groening was born in Portland. He uses the names of places in Portland in his cartoons.

In the middle of the image above is this original drawing from him.

Of course, we had to stand in front of the crazy mirror and turn ourselves into dwarfs.

This little shot glass was in a display case. I looked for them in the gift shop, but they didn’t have any. Bummer. 

And that was our visit. Great fun. I want to go again and take Mike with me. If we get cabin fever this winter (probably), it would be a fun way to break out of the doldrums.

After that we had lunch at this restaurant and French patisserie. Lunch was delicious, and it was fun to catch up on what’s going on in his life.

This was their dessert case. Oh my. See those little orange cake-like things below and on the right side?

Yeah, I got two of those to go. They’re called “Passion.” They were a combination of chocolate cake, white chocolate, passion fruit, in a sort of custard. The outer portion there is like an edible chocolate ribbon. It was sticky and icky, and it tasted really good.

And that was our day. It was great fun. Looking forward to the next time. There’s going to be a gingerbread house display at one of downtown Portland’s hotels in December. That might be a good way to spend a rainy day.

So, I’ll get back to my sewing today. The Snow Day embroidery should be finished this morning, and I’ll get a start on the quilting for Grandpa’s Bridges. My goal will be to quilt three of the embroidered blocks (one row). That might be overly-ambitious. We’ll see. And then I’ll get back to the Zebra. I’d like to make another three blocks for that.

Okay, then. The day begins. Make it a good one.