The Price of Progress

A sad note to report: Botanica Mystere, that wonderful shop run by Esperanza McNunn (noted in an earlier entry) has been boarded up, along with The Juice Fountain. Apparently, they are building some sort of hotel complex in the area.

I hope the merchants fare well in their new homes.

The Botanica Mystere

Yesterday, I took an excursion (for research purposes) to a small shop in Hollywood called Botanica Mystere. The proprietor is an interesting woman named Esperanza; she claims to have an expertise in unconventional homeopathic and spiritual remedies for common Tzombi ailments. I gently pressed her for some detailed information, but she was sufficiently vague about her training and history. I broached the subject of the fallacy of the R428 virus, but she was completely disinterested in the debate that rages over the subject.

She did, however, sell me a CD, which sounds an awful lot like Native American folk music, but which she claims to have recorded on an island in the South Pacific while shipwrecked with a cocker spaniel and a rock band several years ago. I cannot verify the information, despite my efforts, and I therefore must use my dispassionate scientific eye to cast only a skeptical glance at her claims of “Tzombi knowledge.”

I will say that Esperanza has a wonderful selection of incense and shell necklaces in the store (located on Vine Street, very near a hat shop). Perhaps the excursion was worth it in the end, not because I found a like-minded individual to discuss Tzombi culture with, but because I have discovered Juice Fountain! Juice Fountain is the most wonderful little hole-in-the-wall shop two doors down from the Botanica. I ordered a wonderful fresh juice made of watermelon, orange, potato and basil, a combination that my grandmother loved. They didn’t bat an eye at the request.

I adore fresh juice and I will return.