Vagabond Dispatch #2

These pictures were taken at a place that I can't quite remember the exact name of. It was located near Fisherman's Wharf, and was something like The Museum of Electric Novelties, or Museum of Electric Gizmos, or Electric Machines, or whatever. Tried to Google it, but no luck. Anyway, they have a bunch of coin-operated machines dating back to the turn of the century (the one before the most recent, fool) that range from little risque peep shows to these gigantic scale models of carnivals or rodeos where all the little figures are moving around doing their own things.

Strangely, there were like five separate machines that had some kind of public execution theme; a couple guillotine ones, a couple gallows ones. Just goes to show that people have always been willing to pay to see some kind of unsophisticated, morbid spectacle. Anyway my two favorite machines were "Opium Den" and "Drunkard's Dream", but only my pictures of the former really depict the true entertainment value in still frame form. I'll post some pix of the other machines later, but for now just settle for this hazy dream of a diversion. I'm thinking this may be a good theme for The Red House one day.