After a walk through the flats near the river at Minnehaha Falls (which I still have not confirmed was the result of WPA), we were meandering through the city for lunch (J was checking for what was open) and we stumbled across the Book Trader. The sign was being repainted by a guy with a van lettered with the moniker “Brushed Monkey” and the building was as unlikely as the store in Needful Things. & oh, did the place not disappoint.
A strange store where tin trains sit next to books on trains, a romance section pours out of its shelves as if vomiting on itself, Toms of Finland sketch porn is stacked near contemporary Hustler mags, and a Batman lunchbox is lost among drawings of generals and books on surveillance. Our friend Margaret is likely going back for a certain stuffed animal head to take its place next to the taxidermied grey fox that recently arrived from Pasadena. I walked out with a ’sales kit’ of ceramic dentures, as well as two sets of fake choppers on metal hinges (the teeth are removable, which a friend’s son considered ‘kind of creepy’). Already they have come in handy as I stall here and there on this history of dentistry. Nothing like handling a somewhat used set of ceramic teeth to get the creative juices flowing again.