The Baltimore haul

I came back from Baltimore with a pretty good treasure trove of stuff.

The American Visionary Art Museum has a great gift shop called Sideshow--it'd probably be worth a visit even if you weren't going to the museum. Their wares include original folk art (such as this adorable little robot made of wood, bolts, keys, and the like), books, vintage ephemera, toys, and other weird little tchotchkes that you never knew you needed.

I also picked up this plastic TV that, when you look into the viewer, shows you images from the museum. And the promotional barf bag from the 1970 film Mark of the Devil...well, who could resist that? I like how it's the first film rated V for violence. (Funny enough, one of the last times I was in Baltimore, for the Rolling Roadshow's John Waters marathon, I came away with a promotional barf bag too. It's become a bit of a tradition.)

I also bought this vintage notebook. (If Dave hadn't dragged me away when he did, who knows what I might have added to the already substantial pile of random stuff that grew with every step around the store.) Each page is lined and numbered, I guess to help you test your spelling skills. Not sure what I'm going to use it for, but I'll think of something.

At Housewerks I bought these antique type blocks. I like the abstract quality of the one on the right, which is half of an "R". I also should mention how insanely heavy these things are. They could double as weapons in a pinch.

There's more about my visit to the shop here.

On Sunday we went to the the Fells Point Second Sunday flea market. While it's certainly no Elephant's Trunk, I did find this great tablecloth. Not that I've ever used a tablecloth before, but I love the colors and the pattern. At first I thought maybe I'd use it as fabric to make pillows or something along those lines, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to cut it up. Maybe I'll start using a tablecloth now.



Monday was the big shopping day on "The Avenue" in Hampden. The first stop was Atomic Books, where I bought two great comics. Later on at Normals I found a used copy of another book by Lilli Carre for $3.

At Red Tree I wanted to buy half the store (as usual), but limited myself to two of these awesome glasses. Not that I even needed any more glasses. But...you know.

At Shine Collective I was pleasantly surprised, as for some reason I remembered them being kind of expensive. But this vintage leather bag was priced pretty reasonably, I think. I was excited enough about having a bag with actual pockets (maybe now I'll actually be able to find my cell phone when it rings).

But then I got home and inspected it further to find these next-level organization options. There's even a place for pens and my train tickets. They're a little hard to pull out so I turned them up for easier access. But it's still pretty handy. This was probably the best thing I bought on vacation.

And finally, I stopped at my favorite clothing store in Baltimore (and maybe one of my favorites in general), Double Dutch. They have a great selection of clothes and accessories from indie labels, and pretty reasonable prices. I of course managed to pick out one of the only dresses in the store that wasn't on sale, but that's all right. It's called vacation! I tried taking a picture of me wearing it but I really just don't photograph well. So I found a picture of the dress online, if you really want to see it.