The Spirit of '06

Have you been to the Musee Mecanique? The collection of antique arcade games used to be under the Cliff House, but now it's at the end of Pier 45 (Fisherman's Wharf). I checked out the new digs on Sunday and the collection is just as creepy cool as ever. If you watch HBO's Carnivàle (the first season DVD is now available on Netflix) and/or if you've read The Confessions of Max Tivoli, the museum makes a great companion to either. It really catches the turn-of-the-century spirit of invention and the fascination with mechanics. You can imagine how new and strange it must've seemed to people at the time--almost like magic. Particularly when the mechanics are combined with the "paranormal" as they are in the many fortune telling machines. Most of the machines are in working order and there are plenty of change machines. There is no entry fee. (Update: While I smugly put quotations around the word paranormal, I should add that all of us thought our readings were eerily right on...isn't that the way it always is?)