Booga Booga

SYRACUSE – It was late afternoon when I knocked on the locked door of the spooky building. “By appointment only,” the little sign read.
I could see a woman pecking away at a computer inside the cluttered front office. She got up and opened the door. Grinning, she agreed to take me on a tour of the International Mask and Puppet Museum, housed in a red-brick Victorian built in 1890.
The eager hostess showed me the lone exhibition room, where dozens of African masks decorated the walls, and a tribal warrior sculpture stood clutching a 10-foot stick. We then headed down to the basement, where two men – one a master puppeteer from Russia – were shaping a giant shoe out of papier-mâché for an upcoming performance. The messy workshop was strewn with oddities – dusty marionettes, a whimsical ostrich costume, a mannequin that resembled an elf.
Next stop: the small, decaying house next door, where piles of puppets filled each musky room. A goat, an evil witch, a praying mantis. And over there, a mound of priests (their faces were made of medical plastic).
Fascinating, but eerie. This is no place I’d want to be on a dark and stormy night. (JM)