Posts Tagged ‘museums’
Another Roadside Attraction…
Readers still wrestling with the need to finalize this summer’s vacation plans will be grateful to Atlantic Cities for its survey of “9 Utterly Bizarre Museums.” From the sublime…
The Miniature Book Museum in Baku
… to the, well…
The Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum in Osaka
… with body parts, voodoo, funerals, Parisian sewers, and toilets in the mix.
And then there is the Mutter Museum in Phildelphia…
…a museum “best known” for its skull collection. Other artifacts include a wax model of a woman with a horn growing out of her forehead, several wax molds of untreated conditions of the head, and a nine-foot-long human colon that contained over 40 pounds of fecal matter.
Also not to miss – the body of the Soap Lady, whose corpse turned itself into a “soapy substance called adipocere better known as grave wax.”
And Boston’s Museum of Bad Art…
The museum’s curators seek “art too bad to be ignored.” The first piece was found in the trash.
Once, the museum would not pay more than $6.50 for a piece, now most are donated by the artists themselves. The most famous piece is Lucy in the Field With Flowers, featuring a woman skipping through a field in a blue dress.
Turn summer into an educational adventure with the help of “9 Utterly Bizarre Museums.”
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As we search for a docent, we might recall that this date in 1881 is the earliest of three competing candi-dates for the invention of the ice cream sundae. In the most ancient of the creation tales, a treat-seeking patron of Edward Berner’s drug store in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, sat down at the soda-fountain counter. Since it was the Sabbath, the customer couldn’t have the desirable, but proscribed-by-Blue-Laws, ice cream soda that he wanted. Berner improvised, putting ice cream in a dish and pouring over it the chocolate syrup that was previously only used as flavoring in ice-cream sodas. And so the “ice cream Sunday” was born. It’s popularity grew, and soon it was ordered throughout the week. Finally, when a glass salesman convinced Berner to order special canoe-shaped vessels for the confection, the spelling of Sundae was changed… or so the denizens of Two Rivers aver; the good people of Ithaca, New York, and Evanston, Illinois beg to differ.
The ice cream sundae in its more modern vessel
History belongs to the victuals…
After our recent visit to the Creation Museum, readers might appreciate the disciplined scientific rigor (and presentational empathy) on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History…
[TotH to the eclectically-accomplished Christopher T. Palmer]
As we exit through the gift shop, we might recall that this date in 1954 was, according to the True Knowledge Answer Engine, the most boring day since 1900.
Hardcore History…
Your correspondent and his daughter were recently in Our Nation’s Capital, and visited that collection of museums arrayed around The Mall. We were amazed to have the exhibits more or less to ourselves.
So it was a delight to discover the work of artist Jenny Burrows and copywriter Matt Kappler, who created a wonderful set of fake ads for that famous institution. E.g.,
The originals of the ads above and below, and of the rest of the set, featured the name and logo of “America’s Treasure Chest”; but as our friends at Design Milk report, “unfortunately, that major museum was not a fan. Jenny had to change the text at the bottom to read “Museums” and change the logo. You can read all about that here.”
See the rest of the Jenny’s and Matt’s portfolio at “Historically Hardcore.”
As we wish that our tax dollars could stretch to cover a sense of humor, we might recall that it was on this date in 1940 that Booker T. Washington became the first African-American to be depicted on a U.S. postage stamp. (The first U.S. coin to feature an African-American was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar, minted from 1946 to 1951; he was also depicted on a [“regular”] U.S. Half Dollar from 1951–1954.)
The Annals of Exhibitionism, Vol. 12: Specialization…
Museums preserve and celebrate the extraordinary scope of human experience and accomplishment; they educate and entertain; they are, at once, a culture’s treasure chests and its hope chests.
And thus, museums come in an equally-extraordinary ranges of sizes, shapes, and foci. While the best-known tend to be either broad in the purview (e.g., The Museum of Natural History) or focused on something central to the zeitgeist (The Air and Space Museum), there are thousands of others, devoted to more… well, more particular corners of the human experience.
Consider for example, The Vent Haven Museum of Ventriloquism…
So, what do you get when you combine the loneliness of a pet cemetery with the creepy flair of vaudeville? The Vent Haven Ventriloquist Museum, of course—where dummies go to die. The Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, museum was the brainchild of the late William Shakespeare Berger, who founded the site as a home for retired wooden puppets. In fact, he collected figures from some of the country’s most famous ventriloquist acts. And with more than 700 dummies stacked from floor to ceiling, you’re bound to feel like you’re stuck inside a 1970s horror flick—albeit a really good one. But sadly, when Berger gave the tour, you could totally tell his mouth was moving. [Image courtesy of Vic.]
Or The Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia…
…did you know that PEZ was originally marketed as an adult mint for people trying to quit smoking?
Founded in 1993, The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) in Boston is “a community-based, private institution dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.” The art featured on the site is not of the middle-school drivel variety; rather, the pieces seem to be the product of people who think that if they light candles and play Mozart loudly, the talent will come. It doesn’t, but the results are fun.
Thanks to the good folks at Mental Floss, readers can discover nine other rare gems at “12 Oddly Specific Museums Preserving Our History.”
As we celebrate enthusiasms for their own sakes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1965, at 11:00 pm, that Dale Cummings did the first sit-up in the set that would, almost exactly twelve hours later, result in his having set a new world record– 14,118 sit-ups.
click here to see enlargement at source
“A screaming comes across the sky”…
Long time readers know of your correspondent’s abiding affection for the works of Thomas Pynchon. So readers can imagine his delight at discovering The Thomas Pynchon Fake Book, an online collaboration among 37 people (and three animals) that yielded 29 songs, all with lyrics appearing in Gravity’s Rainbow (a positively ditty-packed volume).
Readers can listen to streaming renditions of “Loonies on Leave,” “Byron the Bulb,” “The Penis He Thought Was His Own,” “Herman the German,” and over a score more.
Every weirdo in the world is on my wavelength.
– Thomas Pynchon
UPDATE to yesterday’s XXL: MK reminds your correspondent that all readers might enjoy the exhibit, a collaboration between London’s Serpentine Gallery and EDGE, in which Kai Krause’s “Africa to Scale” features. It can be found here or here.
As we stay alert to Inherent Vice, we might recall that it was on this date in 1959 that The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened in New York. Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned and designed the building in 1937; but construction was delayed until 1957. The resulting gallery, which features a spiraling six-story ramp encircling an open center space lit by a glass dome, is home to a powerful contemporary art collection, strong in Klee, Kandinsky, Calder, Chagall, and Brancusi.
The Guggenheim (source)
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