An Eclectic California Shop With Unique Merchandise Is A 'Convenience Store For Time Travelers'

Whether it's a return to the Neolithic Era or the Victorian, or a madcap romp around the Jetsons' space neighborhood, any metaphysical journey through time should start in Los Angeles' Echo Park neighborhood at The Time Travel Mart. Just around the corner from California's trendy Silver Lake neighborhood, the Echo Park storefront (1714 W. Sunset Boulevard, open daily 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.) is styled as a kooky, 1970s-style vintage gift store. Inside you'll find supplies for enduring prehistoric medical procedures, surviving travel through a wormhole, or even decoding ancient languages like Arabic, Greek, or Latin. For westsiders who are more likely to teleport to ancient Mesopotamia than drive to the east side of the city, The Time Travel Mart's second location in Mar Vista (12515 Venice Boulevard, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Fridays through Sundays) may prove more useful for obtaining their time travel essentials.

Selling items like dinosaur eggs ("Miniaturized for your protection and comfort.") and candles designed to resemble the pottery style and scents common to the era and location in their name (like 'a mystical souk in Egypt' with notes of myrrh, honey, and dried fruit), items leap out from any era, like celebrity lunchboxes, futuristic 'emotion-upgrades,' and Viking-odorant for that whiff of medieval mojo. You can even get time travel sickness pills, to keep you going at full speed as you pass the leap into hyperspace. And lest you thought The Time Travel Mart contained only novelty items, there are also thoughtful gifts that might actually unwind your mind as much as an afternoon of inner peace at a historic California estate.

If all of this whirls your mind into a flurry of creativity, that's intentional. The Time Travel Mart is really a front for a small literary press, Barnacle & Barnacle, that publishes work by student authors, and offers free mentoring and writing workshops for school-aged children. This non-profit youth organization, 826LA, is a chapter of 826 National, a youth writing program co-founded by author Dave Eggers and teaching advocate Nínive Calegari. 

The mission statement of 826 National is to "spark the power and joy of writing for a more just world," and it sponsors creative writing programs outside the classroom and volunteer-led author workshops to help children learn how to express themselves and access their own voices. The two Time Travel Marts in Los Angeles use the genre and frame of science fiction and fourth-dimension thinking to foster young writers' creativity, but the agency's original novelty store in San Francisco's Mission District is called the Pirate Supply Store. Any image that evokes imagination and inspires wonder and joy can be the bridge to help kids start writing.

You can purchase work illustrated and authored by students on the shelves of either Time Travel Mart. The books themselves are literary treasures, and when students see their work in print, it gives them confidence in their own voice too. Even better, proceeds from item sales fund the organization and keep programs free for all students. The Time Travel Mart may not have made this century's list of most exciting free things to do in Los Angeles, but come back in 2124 and things could be different.