42 Degrees
Arguably the best known glass or head shop on campus, 42 Degrees offers a huge selection of, uh, accessories to anyone willing to visit its E. Williams location, demarcated from its neighbors in purple and green. Approaching its 15-year anniversary, 42 has secured itself a position in Ann Arbor stoner culture as a reliable source of diverse quality goods. The cheekily-named store’s psychedelic staircase opens into a smoker’s playground, the walls lined with pieces in every shape and size – functional glass art, 42’s primary merchandise.
Cases exhibit high-quality accessories blown primarily by local artists, with smoking accessories in extravagant and bizarre shapes. Priding themselves on being able to offer a smoking piece at every price, 42’s selection is one of the best in the city: casual or discreet individuals have their choice of hundreds of cheap small pieces, from spoon-shaped bowls to the smallest of one-hitters. Those looking to make more of an investment have plenty of options: bongs with more diffusion than you know what to do with, bubblers, fixed and handheld vapes and every accessory that could possibly be needed. Behind the counter, fifty different brightly colored rolling papers sit alongside hemp wick, lighters, glass screens, pokers and equally cheekily-named cleaning and “smell removal” products. The usual fare — incense, vaguely Buddhist trinkets — round out the selection. While the more interesting, bigger and less mass-produced pieces can be thousands of dollars, it is difficult to imagine someone feeling constrained among the panoply of paraphernalia.
Despite number of other options, most students either haven’t heard of or don’t care to try anywhere else: many are won over by 42’s selection, pricing and service. Knowledgeable, friendly and accommodating, the crew is comfortable managing interactions with all kinds of clientele and matching them with their desired product. Without fail, the equal part art gallery and candy store charm wins over visitors and locals the first time the top of the stairs is reached — often turning them into lifelong customers. Supposedly unrivaled in product diversity in the Midwest, 42 is the place to go if you’re looking for your first piece or you’re buying yourself a little-too-nice of a birthday present.
Foggy Bottom Bayou
Foggy Bottom Bayou is Ann Arbor’s homegrown, locally-sourced, fair-trade and feel-good head shop. Opened in April 2008, FBB is dedicated to providing quality goods for the best price while being as involved in the local economy as possible. The bulk of the pieces available — a smaller selection of spoon-shaped bowls and water tubes, primarily — are from one of five local artists or their protégés. Alongside smoking pieces, local artists like “Lindsey” display hand-blown vases and other artwork. Foggy Bottom is also the only head shop with a stall at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, where it will show the most complex, unique and beautiful pieces its artists have completed.
It’s not uncommon for tourists and newcomers alike to wander in wide-eyed, having climbed the cramped stairs to the store’s location after leaving Urban Outfitters, dazed from hipster irony overload. Fortunately, Foggy Bottom is one of the best places in town to get lost. Much of the staff is educated in the design and process of glass blowing, and can tell the story of many of the locally-blown pieces’ creation and inspiration. They’re intimately familiar with the network of artists the store sources from, and can occasionally put the enterprising individual in touch with one for a customized piece. The store lacks a tobacco license and the big names in glass, but they offset it with great quality, better prices, a wholesome atmosphere and modus operandi.
Recently having condensed into one room, the Bayou’s gift shop leads into its glass selection, with beads hanging from the ceiling and a subtly tribal/East Asian feel throughout. Foggy Bottom’s choice not to stock the big names in glass is compensated by its devotion to the art of glassblowing and its support of local artists. The staff is friendly and keen to converse about the trade and culture, making Foggy Bottom Bayou an enticing locale for the curio-curious and conversation-keen individuals in town.
Bongs and Thongz
From the outset, it looks like the basic business idea for this local glass shop just hinges on the notion that the words bong and thong rhyme — and perhaps the intriguing question “Do people smoke pot wearing nothing but a thong?” Whatever the case, the quirky strangeness of the concept never gets in way of the quality of the products advertised. Located on East Liberty Street, the mellow, green-walled establishment has garnered a reputation for the diversity of its inventory. Everything from artisanal massage oils and lingerie to hand-blown smoking utensils can be picked up somewhere in the shop. Walking in the first time, you’re struck by an outward divide in the layout of the 2600 square foot space. The ground floor is dedicated solely to the sale of tobacco products. On one shelf sits a large assortment of hookah products while another corner proudly displays bongs of every color.
The basement is a living, breathing shrine to anything dirty. Sleazy posters line the walls while the shelves are crowded with sex toys that only someone baked out of their mind could have dreamt up. The uninhibited filthiness of it all is endearing, and in the right “state of mind,” trippy as balls. Even if you’re not that into commercialized kinkiness, just pick up something for the sake of novelty — the heads you’ll inevitably turn as you stroll down the street with a bong in one hand and a dildo in the other make it worth it.
Bongs and Thongz has received criticism in the past for its seeming dedication to quantity over quality. Whether or not that’s true, an ever-present attitude of “fun” never leaves you while you’re poking through its shelves. And at the end of the day, that’s what bong-hunting should be about: the anticipation of getting stoned out of your skull coupled with the giddy high of a shopping-bag full of unnecessarily bright underwear.