Ah, yes. Salem.

I spent some time today in a couple of "new age" shops in Salem, catering to tourists who find it easy to credit anything that looks a bit mysterious because of Salem's disturbing history of killing innocent people witches. The folks I was with found the shops amusing, too. Unfortunately, two of the stores were filled with scent: heavy incense and herbs and perfumes, that had me fleeing into the clearer air outside in self defense.

One store's counter employee smiled at me a bit vaguely and asked, breathily, "And where are you visiting us from today?" "Middleton," was my terse reply. Since that's only about 7 miles, she was suddenly underwhelmed. She offered to make me up a special bag with herbs and crystals tailored just for me; I smiled and declined.

Serious students of the occult would not find these stores at all useful. Their books were of the shallow, almost goofy tourist variety, aimed at people who are looking for easy answers to life's hard questions. One woman offered "readings"...I declined again. (And shuddered a bit.)

When I stumbled on this video (which I'd first seen ~5 years ago) this evening, it made me chuckle, given the day's adventures.