Next to godliness…
Museums can too often embody a not-quite-covert snobbery… all those works of art or antiquity, painstakingly (not to say prissily) arrayed to communicate their cultural significance… but what of other products of human ingenuity? Does our democratic age not demand a broader, more inclusive understanding of culture? Of design? Should there not be museums dedicated to the less obvious– if no less important– works of humankind?
Thankfully the web has enabled a new wave of brave curators, champions of the underdog arts, who are making the world safe for… well, for instance:
The Moist Towelette Online Museum
As we wipe our fingers, we might recall that it was on this date in 1955 that Swiss engineer George de Mestral received a patent for Velcro (which he had actually invented in 1941). “Velcro” is a portmanteau of the two French words velours, meaning “velvet,” and crochet, or “hook.”