glassware

Under the auspices of the Saint Heron collective she founded in 2013, Solange, 38, has mounted performance-art pieces in museums and galleries around the world; composed a score for New York City Ballet; and even designed a line of glassware meant, in her words, to reveal “the sentience of household objects through the landscape of Black domesticity.”

Inside, the shelves are packed with thousands of items: from an upturned bathtub and dented porthole, to intricately etched glassware and tiny buttons.

The smoke shop near a busy intersection in a gentrifying Long Beach neighborhood looked much like any other — one wall had a vast array of bongs and glassware, another featured dozens of brands of nicotine vapes.

At retailers like Molu Yobi, Monkey Pants and Sanrio, business is brisk for the latest multi-colored backpacks, plushies and Hello Kitty merchandise, while the gift shop Rafu Bussan still finds customers for imports like sake glassware, Hasami porcelain and Kaga dolls.

And for the hard-to-please folks on your holiday list, the UW Surplus Store, on 25th Avenue Northeast, just east of the University of Washington, is your go-to source for such finds as used dorm furniture, spare graduation robes, hospital beds, lab glassware, even medical equipment.