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On Newbury Street, between an iced mocha at Espresso Royale and The Else at Borders, there's a tiny gallery (or tinier museum) with a hand-chalked slate out front advertising "GARGOYLES GROTESQUES AND CHIMERA." A Tom Waits lookalike regards you from a chair in the vestibule, like a carnival barker who's not sure you're worth the barking.
The space is long and dim, with dusty hardwood floors disappearing into darkness at the far end. The only thing visible down there is the golden gleaming from a stained-glass portrait of Saint Ursula and her arrow. When you walk down to get a closer look, cool-eyed sphinxes the size of dogs are watching you unexpectedly from the dark cabinet on your right. Their heads are those of pretty Victorian women, with throats framed by starched stone collars where they merge into their lions' bodies.
Nothing has a price tag, and labels are infrequent. You're not sure what this room is, or why it is here.
An aquarium holds a statue of Jesus and a hundred brightly-colored toy soldiers. A large statue of a lion with a coiling fish's tail guards a plate of bright golden leaves. There's a six-inch pipe running up one wall, with an antler-shaped piece of bone-white coral hanging from it, and six or eight typed pages of poetry taped end-to-end hanging from that. Bending down to read it (You are a standing wave of endless eternal love), you can hear the faint rush of water inside the pipe. The paintings that cover the walls between the gargoyles are blue-green and wet-looking, and combined with that soft water sound you start to feel submerged, like you've wandered into a lakebottom cemetery.
The barker nods at you as you leave, and you glance furtively around the bright vestibule for a donations jar, a cash box, some signal or explanation for this room's presence. There's nothing there—just his chair, a table, a bag he rummages through. It hangs from the doorknob of the half-open door, and when he fully opens the door he conceals it from view.
The space is long and dim, with dusty hardwood floors disappearing into darkness at the far end. The only thing visible down there is the golden gleaming from a stained-glass portrait of Saint Ursula and her arrow. When you walk down to get a closer look, cool-eyed sphinxes the size of dogs are watching you unexpectedly from the dark cabinet on your right. Their heads are those of pretty Victorian women, with throats framed by starched stone collars where they merge into their lions' bodies.
Nothing has a price tag, and labels are infrequent. You're not sure what this room is, or why it is here.
An aquarium holds a statue of Jesus and a hundred brightly-colored toy soldiers. A large statue of a lion with a coiling fish's tail guards a plate of bright golden leaves. There's a six-inch pipe running up one wall, with an antler-shaped piece of bone-white coral hanging from it, and six or eight typed pages of poetry taped end-to-end hanging from that. Bending down to read it (You are a standing wave of endless eternal love), you can hear the faint rush of water inside the pipe. The paintings that cover the walls between the gargoyles are blue-green and wet-looking, and combined with that soft water sound you start to feel submerged, like you've wandered into a lakebottom cemetery.
The barker nods at you as you leave, and you glance furtively around the bright vestibule for a donations jar, a cash box, some signal or explanation for this room's presence. There's nothing there—just his chair, a table, a bag he rummages through. It hangs from the doorknob of the half-open door, and when he fully opens the door he conceals it from view.
