oddly enough

oddly enough

Head-scratching over gifts? How about part of a human skull?

NEW YORK

What to get the loved one who has everything? Steven Rabinowitz wracked his brain before settling on (spoiler alert, relatives!) a raccoon skull.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Rabinowitz, 31, said as he revealed his purchase near a crowded display of animal skulls, antique medical instruments – and a bowl full of human teeth.

The bizarre bazaar that drew Rabinowitz and other curious clientele Sunday was the Morbid Anatomy Museum Holiday Flea Market – offering gifts both frightful and festive.

In the dim light of a pair of golden chandeliers, about a dozen vendors displayed their horrific wares: pieces of human skulls, a wide variety of taxidermy and earrings made from muskrat jaws. One vendor, Divya Anantharaman, stood by her display of two-headed taxidermied birds – complete with Santa hats.

Joanna Ebenstein helped open the museum in 2014 as an extension of an art project on anatomical history and artifacts. Initially, Ebenstein said she had to hide her odd obsession from her co-workers at a children’s book publishing company.

“I didn’t want them to know I was into all this scary death stuff,” she said.

The museum hosts a wide range of events such as taxidermy classes, lecture series and film screenings. But Ebenstein said the flea markets are the most successful.

“People like me don’t want to buy normal Christmas stuff,” she said.

The flea markets have proved so popular they had to be moved from the museum’s basement to a larger space around the corner after the wait to get in reached 21/2 hours last spring.

Sunday’s was the third of the year. The line stretched around the block.

“For some reason right now it’s captured the public imagination,” Ebenstein said.

Police: Man flees from police, gets haircut before arrest

TULSA, Okla.

Authorities say a man wanted for failing to signal a lane change ran from Tulsa police and stopped to get a haircut before being arrested.

The Tulsa World reports that the 27-year-old man was arrested last week on several complaints, including eluding police after a felony conviction and possession of a firearm after a felony conviction.

Police say they saw the man’s car cross several lanes of traffic, and a police officer tried to pull him over. They say after a pursuit, the man got out of his car and ran to an apartment complex. Police later found the man inside an apartment.

Officers noted the man “sported a freshly clipped head with extremely short hair” despite reportedly having a “large amount of hair” when running from his car.

Associated Press