5-Historisch & Art

Princess Wei's fondest and guiltiest wish was to try the potato chips and mayo at Chipsy King, a fast-food chips-only joint, and so we did. Revved up on carbs, we met Rocknar and Hal at the Town Dick or Dam Square Monument and walked to Amsterdam Historisch Museum so that they could get one glimpse before they went home of a tiny fraction of the cool old stuff stashed around this city. The Rijksmuseum was mostly closed for repairs. On the way there we saw an art car covered with a "birthday cake" composed of tits, dicks and spum, advertising the annual Ex-Porn Star convention.

The Historisch Museum has your enormous Dutch masters galore, canvases on which one may examine up close the actual hand-painted fiddly-bits on the ruffs of the clothing in these 400 year old paintings. There are silver-assed cherubs on vases, 1000-year-old wooden shoes, religious masterpieces, weird looking hypermoderne museum-guard-butt-rests, zillions of ancient clay PIPES, suits of armor on invisible soldiers, elephants made of hashish and chocolate, primitive models of time machines, astrolabes, renaissance porn... (SEE THE COMPLETE SET OF PICS HERE.) I HAVE DIBS ON THIS BUILDINGS AND ITS CONTENTS COME X-DAY.

Paul Mavrides had told us that we must visit a comic book store called Lambiek Stripantiquariaat because it is the generally coolest store in the world. I managed to guide us there by SHEER MIRACLE CLAIRVOYANCE. We had an address, but it turned out they'd moved! We had walked a long way and finally found ourselves at Kerkstraat 78, but... no Lambiek. Despair was setting in alongside tired feet, but down the street I spied what looked like it might possibly be ANOTHER comic book or otherwise kooky store. We walked in, scant seconds before they closed and... it WAS Lambiek, in a new location!

The owner instantly offered us all wine! We introduced ourselves and used the password "Mavrides," and soon Hal was drawing in their guestbook and selling them on carrying all his books and comics, while the rest of us gaped at a veritable Treasure Trove of the Gods in original comic art, prints, rare posters and TOYS. Unbelievable toys and action figures, including a small town's worth of Tintin characters. Overall the store has so much cool kitch and art that it looks like a Todd Schorr painting.(http://www.toddschorr.com/Home/index.html). SEE THE LAMBIEK PICS!

Check out the Comiclopedia at http://www.lambiek.net

Their business card is a most hilarious tiny comic book.

FULL-SIZE PHOTOS PAGES!******************* TO PART 6, THANKSGIVING WITH XAVIERA HOLLANDER!