Curiosity cabinet

Oscar Wilde once said, "fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that it requires that we change it from one day to the next."

I think Wilde was on to something honest when he said that, as true then in Victorian England as it is today on the streets of Manhattan. I've come to SoHo this afternoon to try to fit in and be well, fashionable whatever that means. Here in this trendy part of Manhattan you might pass gorgeous woman walking down the street who look like fashion models...and probably are. There are shops galore and snooty designer outlets by the dozen.

I'm braving all this on a mission to find some new jeans. A Japanese outlet store called Uniqlo is my goal as they make the best fitting jeans I can find and their one location in the U.S. is right here. I am making the most of the proximity. Mission accomplished, spruced up and looking more like a Manhattanite I spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering around, or getting lost depending on how you look at it.

I passed through Little Italy, ate dumplings in China Town, and somewhere in the middle even discovered the shop from this photo. In the midst of SoHo I found a modern day cabinet of curiosities like the ones of old in Europe. Here the art and mystery of nature were on full display, and for sale. We?re talking the rare, the unusual, and the odd. From ancient African masks to rows of colorful beetle and butterfly collections. Antique natural history paintings, feathers, claws, and shells galore, and even macabre skeletal oddities abounded. It seems unusual natural "art" is becoming a fashion...

Of course I had to chat with the owner about our mutual interests in curiosity cabinets, past and present. Though nebulous and a long way off, if ever, at least one character awaits for a film interview and so I gave him our card and told him we'd be in touch. Before I left I had to buy an old botanical drawing from an obscure French natural history book dated from the 1800's. Sharon is an ardent botanists and I thought it was the least I could do to show my thanks and add to her own growing curiosity cabinets...