New York: Sterling Publishing, 2005
Hardcover $19.95, 272 pages
Finding the Funky
Has cabin fever set in right about now? The images and anecdotes in Weird New England offer an enthralling distraction from the woes of winter as it winds down. A disclaimer cautions the book is “intended as entertainment to present a historical record of local legends, folklore, and sites throughout New England… The reader should be advised that many of the sites are located on private property and should not be visited or you may face prosecution for trespassing.”
But that stern warning doesn’t diminish any of the fun that follows. The oddities described range from ghosts and unexplained phenomena to strange displays of unusual artifacts. The book isn’t intended to be a travel guide per se. It is organized by category of weird rather than by location, and omits maps and access details. What it does offer, however, is plenty of illustrations, ideas and inspiration.
There could be, for example, a tour of unusual roadside attractions that serves as a kind of homage to Zippy the Pinhead (the offbeat character in Bill Griffin’s comic strip who did indeed make a pilgrimage to some of Maine’s unusual icons), including a building that looks like a blueberry, Bangor’s oversized Paul Bunyan, and the giant fishermen and Indians looming over traffic as they advertise commercial establishments. (On Zippy’s tour through Maine in 2003, he also visited the Miss Portland Diner, where inspiration and food converged to create the “Grilled Cheese Theory of Space and Time.”)
There’s a tour of Maine I’m imagining from among the sites described. It includes the International Museum of Cryptozoology in Portland, the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangeley and the Alien Art Outdoor Museum in Houlton, a combination certain to challenge some traditional conventions and beliefs. First stop: the home of cryptozoologist Loren Coleman and his scientific collection of animal models and remains. Alongside those of real but unusual creatures, he also has replicas of those whose existence is uncertain, like the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, and Bigfoot. And then there are oddities that may never have existed at all, including a horned rabbit dubbed a “Jackelope” and a fur-covered trout.
Next stop: “Orgonon,” the American laboratory and home of Dr. Wilhelm Reich. Born and educated in Austria, he trained as a physician and then studied psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud. But Reich fled Europe for America in the 1930s. Initially Reich worked in New York, but was soon drawn to Maine, where Rangeley’s clean air provided a stimulating element for his research. His Bauhaus-style stone home there, with bucolic grounds and laboratory, has been preserved as a museum. On display is the device Reich designed to concentrate energies accumulated from orgone, an airborne element Reich discovered. He believed that with its power to enhance orgasms, overall health was improved. The United States Food and Drug Administration unfortunately intervened, spurred by moralistic complaints. Reich was charged with practicing fraudulent medicine. Imprisoned for contempt of court while on trial, he died in his jail cell a few months later. Orgonon remains a center for continuing Reich’s work and disseminating his ideas, and welcomes initiates and the curious alike.
The third destination, located in Houlton, is the yard of the last house on dead end Military Street right before the Canadian border. The Alien Art Outdoor Museum boasts aliens and UFOs, an anatomically correct Bigfoot, totem poles, palm trees, dinosaurs, Indian chiefs, Santa and a lot more. It appears the owner’s artistry knows no bounds as materials and motifs take on surreal interpretations. In fact, it is easy to imagine Zippy the Pinhead could arrive here — maybe high on grilled cheese and orgone — and think he had died and gone to heaven. This Down East paradise of the bizarre enshrines and celebrates outsider art.
Hopefully these ideas convey the kinds of possibilities Weird New England suggests. Whether you travel miles to find the foreign or savor the surreal close to home, a fresh look to the landscape is exactly what the coming of spring is all about.
