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In late 17th century Salem, a small group of young girls gave testimony that resulted in the deaths of 20 people. Their motivation for this is unknown, but it is speculated that either they were influenced by the hallucinogenic properties of a grain fungus, or that they were simply bored. In either case, those are the events that are now known as the "Salem Witch Trials" -- a 3 month period of hysteria, religious zealotry, brutality, and medieval superstition. Witch hysteria is still alive and well in Salem; they are not executing them anymore, but rather in the finest of American traditions, they are marketing it; almost glorifying in this sad moment of their history. There are Witch Museums, Witch Trials, witch garment stores -- all things witch and witchy. We went and saw the cheesy show at the Salem Witch Museum (below) for about $20 for the 4 of us. We did learn quite a bit, but it was painfully melodramatic at times. 
Here is a shot of the exciting climactic scene -- I hope that I am not spoiling it for you -- showing the hanging of one of the accused. The characters below are all dramatically lit mannequins, dressed in period costumes, but with oddly distorted faces -- like those little 'apple people' you can buy in kitsch shops. All of these elements contributes to the cheesy quality, which must have been what the museum designers had in mind.
One poor chap was actually executed by 'pressing', depicted below, where successively heavier stones are set onto the victim until dead. The colors are all weird because this was a very low-light shot done without flash, and then heavily processed.
Happily back out on the streets of this historic port town, we wandered over to the waterfront. For a brief period of time in the early 1800s, Salem was one of the biggest and busiest ports in the world. It was so large, the story goes, and so many goods were transshipped through it, that peoples in other countries thought that 'Salem' was its own country. The shot below was taken from the docks back towards the customs house. You can see some rigging from a tall ship at the right.
As we walked about the downtown looking for a dinner spot, we came upon a magnificent bookstore. The books were literally piled floor to ceiling, haphazard, pell-mell, and willy-nilly. It was wild and wonderful. I had to go in.
As we drove back towards our campsite, we went through Marblehead, another old money summer town full of gorgeous homes. Marblehead was much more charming than Newport -- it had a real beach-town feel to it that Newport lacked. Also, gigantic homes were not so much in evidence, although one can be seen in the background of the picture below. We stopped by this little bay to poke at the things we found in the sand, enjoy the sunset, and shoot some pictures.
Shot and processed by Joya, on the same beach. The compression we use to get the pictures small enough that you can view them on this web site causes the artifacts that you seen in the picture below.
Ditto.
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