Cottages & Oddities

[mallorys_camera]

The little Airbnb I’m staying in straddles something called the West Side and the Cottage District.

The West Side is the place where the poor people (for which read “Black people”) lived and are now being driven out by soaring real estate prices. The Cottage District, too, one assumes in the 1990s. But gentrification began there earlier than it began on the West Side.

The Cottage District is quite adorable:



Interesting to me that these little abodes with their steeply slanting roofs—hello! Average snowfall 70 inches a year!—were built in the early 1800s when Federalist architecture was all the rage in more southerly areas of upstate New York.

I did end up walking around the downtown neighborhoods yesterday.

If it weren’t for the fact that for eight months of the year, Buffalo is buried beneath the aforementioned 70 inches of snow, I might let myself fantasize about moving here.

Like I say—I have a soft spot for deeply blighted one-time industrial meccas that are struggling to reinvent themselves.

###

The Expo of Oddities and Curiosities was pretty cool!

(Don’t have much time to write about it this morning since shortly I must take off for deepest, darkest Canadia, but I’m sure I’ll write more when I get home.)

It’s a niche, of course.

Vendors, customers, and wares pretty much fit a mold:



(Expo management advertised something along the lines of: No animals were hurt in the making of these artifacts! Meaning: Everything is roadkill! But I didn’t believe that for a single second.)

Wares varied from the “odd” because “old,” to the “curious” because "strangely beautiful," to the out-and-out "repulsive"—to me but possibly no one else, I should emphasize: Remember! I’m old.

(I have tons of pix but no time to Photoshop them just at the moment because imminent adventure in Canadia!)

I will say this person was the best artist:



But not for the black-and-white kitsch that clearly she was the most invested in.

She did these… dolls.

And the dolls were amazing. Disturbing. But amazing:





Of course, the classics still speak to us, too:



And now...

Have I mentioned I'm going to Canadia?

I'm going to Canadia!

Comments

[halfmoon_mollie1]

where in Canadia are you going, if you don't mind my asking?

Buffalo has reinvented itself several times, and they got 70 inches of snow at once twice during the last winter. I wouldn't live there, but it is pretty neat in some places. My friend Jan was a professor at UB (two HUGE campuses) and had a house...somewhere in the city. I stayed with her a couple times.

Enjoy the rest of your trip.

[mallorys_camera]

Niagara Falls.

I've never seen it.

[halfmoon_mollie1]

oh, WONDERFUL! I love Niagara. I know you'll enjoy it.

[smokingboot]

Jackalopes! The Cottage District! I am following your magical journey in awe!

As an aside, I can no longer find your story, is there some way to link to it?

[mallorys_camera]

I had a total blast!

Story is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JFt_HDaThoI2_jU2VcEcygyvcX7-PkS3qp9HfTxnIFc/edit

Remember! First draft! First draft! First draft!. 😀

[adoptedwriter]

That expo reminds me of the TV shows ODDITIES and LOVED TO DEATH. Yes, cute cottages. I find the places that are smothered in winter yuck the most seem to go all out to celebrate whatever spring and summer they do have. Wouldn't want to experience their reality year-round though...

[mallorys_camera]

I know! Really cute cottages, and that part of Buffalo has a thriving art scene, and a billion interesting-looking restaurants, bars, and breweries.

But Buffalo winters?

No, thank you!

[ethereal_waves]

Those dolls are definitely the stuff of nightmares! 😳That being said, so is that snake (?) in a jar *shudder*

[mallorys_camera]

The dolls were intense. I found them very beautiful. But intense. I couldn't own one.

The snake in the jar actually reminded me of an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode where a bunch of people sat around mesmerized by this... thing in a bell jar.

Lotta people are into that kind of stuff! The Expo was packed.

[ethereal_waves]

Alfred Hitchcock Presents is still a comfort show I enjoy. I think I remember that episode you're talking about too.

The things at that expo, made me think about a TV series called, "Oddities," that I used to enjoy when I still had cableTV. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be available anywhere streaming, but they often had some bizarre, yet oddly fascinating and beautiful things featured on it.

[wayfaringwordhack]

You have hit on one of the rare things that Creep-Me-Out: mutilated/deformed dolls. Like lots of people (because why else would they figure so heavily in scary/psychologically disturbing scenarios?), I am really disturbed by them and just look the other way. >.<

If I had more brain space and time, I might sit and ponder why the fascination for those who like or don't mind being the architects of these little horrors and if there is some social malady correlation...

[mallorys_camera]

Deformed dolls are definitely creepy archetypes.

And yet, and yet, and yet... That horror is a programmed response, so being the Queen of Emotional Dissociation, I thrust that instinctive recoil aside and just looked at them. And they were things of terrible beauty.

(Although now you have me wondering whether my distaste for the Barbie movie isn't related to the fact that a human-sized Barbie is a deformed doll. 😀)

if there is some social malady correlation...

Nobody paid the dolls very much attention except for me. The artist also made these black and white paper mache kitsch things, and those were her main thrust. The dolls were an afterthought, segregated into a tiny corner of her booth. In fact, I wondered if the artist hadn't agreed to sell them for somebody else.

The people at the Expo were kinda like the people you'd find at any science fiction convention—into costumery, into a kind of giddy & age-regressive sociability—the unpopular kids in high school have finally found their tribe! That kind of vibe.

The only social malady I could clearly identify was a booth selling serial killer swag. And that booth did freak me out.

[wayfaringwordhack]

The dolls freaked me out so much I forgot to say how much I adore those cottages! I am made for Extreme Rural Living, but if I were to live amongst others, I could see myself wanting a little house like that, surrounded by other colorful gems.

[mallorys_camera]

The cottages are adorable and amazing. Originally constructed for workers during the industrial boom following the Civil War—I suspect in deliberate imitation of a rustic English village. Buffalo is actually architecturally very interesting—Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvin Vaux constructed a series of parkways throughout the city to give it a kind of rural appeal, and one of those parkways is just off the little street where all the cottages are congregated.