Toy Room Gallery

For our feature project, my group went to the Toy Room Gallery downtown. (I was, as a few others here, lost on my way in. Isn't downtown lousy that way?)

It's a "pop surrealism" art store, with T-shirts that look like tags and strange stuffed octopi-bunnies. I have to admit, as my eyes slid from shelf to shelf of merchandise, I scrambled to find something I could understand. I don't know anything about urban culture at all. Ren and Stimpy's "Shaven Yak" toy was the closest I could come. I've never actually seen an episode, but I know it's a Nickelodeon cartoon. Or something like that.

The art in the gallery was something I really enjoyed - especially the robots. They're metallic angels with sad gothy eyes. Simple and profound. Moreover, they were about $50 for the small ones - something I could purchase, unlike the rest of the art. There's a great painting of a woman pepper-spraying some punk who gets a little too grabby - for half a million sheets of dough...

Talking with the co-owner was really a lot of fun. I enjoyed his story, and I enjoyed his point of view on life. His main complaint was that out-of-towners bought the most stuff. Sacramento doesn't like spending money on art; our pocketbooks do not match the caliber of those Bay Area folk.

I can see, because of talking to him, that the store is something special - something SF and LA folks don't have. But I wish I could experience for myself why any of that merchandise was cool. I know I don't get it at all.

If his customers walked into a dice shop they'd have that same lost feeling, I'm sure. Is there a cultural rift here? I feel like I need an anthropologist to explain an era of pop culture I've missed. I can hear myself begging, "What about the bunny with tentacles? Is there no context?! For the love of God, show me the context!!" But as I have rejected pop culture, I don't think I'd even understand the context.

It's a nightmarish feeling for a journalist. I should have watched a few episodes of Ren and Stimpy as my research for this place.