This Belongs in a Museum

Who would expect a pop-up museum in a former prison, but that’s exactly what you’ll find at the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site in Philadelphia. In operation from 1829 to 1971 and home to famous criminals like Al Capone, the facility reopened in 1994 with guided tours and special events like a recreation of Bastille Day. Presented from March 23 through April 1, Eastern State’s first pop-up museum exhibits 120 rarely displayed hand-made weapons, many of them created by former prisoners, like a set of mini cutlery carved out of tiny bones stolen from a bowl of soup and a wallet made of interwoven cigarette packs. as well as a pile of inmate-written magazines. Other items include the original 8-pound key for the prison’s door, an old mugshot book and the prison’s death ledger from 1829 to 1935, which records more than 1,000 deaths. Surprisingly, murders and suicides didn’t top the list, the number one cause was actually tuberculosis. It goes well with a special hands-on tour where visitors are given keys to the cellblocks and retrace the steps of escape attempts across the bowels of the penitentiary complex. The idea of having a temporary museum is nothing new here, as there have been a number of interesting, critically acclaimed art exhibits over the years. A colony of cats once lived on the property when it closed, so artist Linda Brenner sculpted 39 cat sculptures “purposefully made of a material that slowly dissolves over time to represent the inevitable natural decay that faces all living things.” Artist Dayton Castleman installed hundreds of feet of red piping to symbolize the escape routes used by prisoners. Around the prison full of empty lock-ups, visitors can see how artists have transformed the spaces. One cell block is scattered with dioramas depicting various moments from the prison’s history, another has numerous televisions showing old prison films. This is definitely a creative way to readapt and bring life to an old building, especially for a historic site, where it is easy to become stagnant and boring. Even though I don’t think going to a prison is your typical school field trip experience. Why didn’t my teacher take me here? And can you imagine the permission slips?

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This has probably been the fastest March I’ve ever lived through in my life. The more time you waste, the more you lose…or something like that. Anyway, I’m sure time moves pretty slow in Spillville, Iowa. It’s home to the Bily Clocks Museum, an old brick building dedicated to the clock collection created by two Bohemian bachelor farmer brothers. With nothing better to do, they carved clocks every winter for over 50 years. Most of the items are huge, made of different woods like walnut, butternut, maple and oak and fully animate with figures and built-in music boxes. One such piece, the Apostle Clock, built between 1915 and 1916,  has the Twelve Apostles appear on the hour. Even though they never traveled farther than 35 miles from home, their clocks have advanced themes, like The Seven Stages of Man from Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Father Time hanging out with Quaker activist Elizabeth Fry, philosopher Emanuel Kant, and playwright Henrik Ibsen. During the period of 1923-1927, the Bily Brothers added their masterpiece to the collection, the American Pioneer History Clock, which is over eight feet high and weighs more than 500 pounds. It’s a memorial to the aviator Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight. Henry Ford offered the brothers over a million dollars for the clock in 1928. They respectfully declined and later bequeathed their works to the city of Spillville with the stipulation it must never be sold or separated. The second floor has an exhibit dedicated to the famous Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, who happened to live in the building with his family during the summer of 1893. And that’s all I got, folks…I’ve run out of time.

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Who says there is nothing to do when someone dies? That’s not true, especially if you have a wake at the Toland-Herzig Funeral Homes & Crematory in Dover, Ohio. Unlike most funeral homes where visitors are sometimes “bored to death”, there is actually something to do here. “Buried deep” in Amish Country, Toland-Herzig Funeral Home’s Famous Endings Museum started back in 1996 when founder John Herzig’s hobby as an autograph collector grew into the world’s largest funeral collection with some 1,500 celebrity-death-related items. What began with boxer Joe Louis’s 1981 funeral program, now includes the funeral programs for Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, an original crypt marker for Humphrey Bogart, documents from the memorial service for the Titanic victims, the guest list for the private funeral of Marilyn Monroe and a number of audio recordings from famous funerals. An inscribed flashlight from the funeral of James Doohan (who played Scotty on the original Star Trek film) and a cookie with the cartoon face of actor Rodney Dangerfield that was handed out to guests at his funeral are some of the museum’s strangest items. The funeral memorabilia wouldn’t be complete without some stuff related to U.S. presidents and other historical figures like Robert E. Lee’s funeral card, a shell from JFK’s 21-gun salute, the original train menus from Dwight Eisenhower’s funeral train, and a mourning ribbon and lantern from Abraham Lincoln’s horse drawn funeral carriage. Herzig opened the museum to show funerals and death can be positive and not just morbid. It’s about preserving a collection of artifacts for their artistic, cultural and historical importance…to celebrate the lives these people lived. And don’t think he is done adding to his collection just yet, famous people die all the time. Herzig still doesn’t have items related to his favorite celebrities: Gilda Radner, Dorothy Fuldheim (who?), Ed Sullivan and Steve Irwin. Well, I guess that’s your funeral (museum). 

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I remember taking an Earth Science class in high school (or was it middle school?) but I don’t think the Museum of Earth History has anything to do with science…or truth for that matter. This little Creationist museum, first located in Arkansas before moving to its present day location in Texas, features exhibits based on fundamentalist Christian theology. In case you didn’t already know, Creationism holds that the Earth is just a few thousand years old and that the biblical account of Genesis is indeed factual (as TLC once sang, “Baby, that’s actual and it’s factual”). It doesn’t matter if findings in paleontology, astronomy and physics disprove creationism, recent surveys show about 45% of Americans believe the Earth was created by God within the past 10,000 years. So it sounds like Creationism (and its museums) are here to stay. 

You heard of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood? Well, the museum believes that it caused the extinction of dinosaurs. Even though most scientists agree an asteroid struck off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago (see the Chicxulub crater) wiping away most animal and plant life, including dinosaurs. There are actually replicas of dinosaurs being carried aboard Noah’s famous ark. Amazing they fit, but also happily went along for the ride, no questions asked!?! And if that’s not crazy enough, a Tyrannosaurus rex is exhibited living in harmony alongside Adam and Eve, making the dino a herbivore rather than a carnivore, which I believe is impossible (kind of like the whole story of Adam and Eve). Another exhibit depicts the Ice Age, where the last dinosaurs existed with woolly mammoths until the cold and hunting by cavemen caused them to FINALLY die out.

Before the museum left Ar-Kansas for Texas it was part of the Christian theme park known as the Holy Land Experience. I’d say get your tickets now, but it closed in late 2012, but may reopen when God comes through with more funding. For people who couldn’t make the trip to the real Holy Land, all they had to do was take an electric tram over 50 acres of pagan altars, biblical scenes (including Moses’s desert tent tabernacle) and even an impressive replica of the Great Wall of Jerusalem. The believers were then treated to a play called “The Great Passion” (better than the Mel Gibson version apparently). Well, at least there is still a Holy Land in Orlando, Florida (read this shit for a laugh)…oh, and the Middle East. But hopefully God will hear our prayers and Jerusalem, Arkansas will return to its former glory! 

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When you think of card games, computer Solitaire is probably what first pops into your head (or maybe not, I’m just old). The dragging and dropping of digital cards with a click of a mouse, or now with a tap of a finger on a touch screen phone, sometimes it’s hard to remember that humans have been shuffling card decks since at least the 9th century. Located in a former royal chateau in the Issy-les-Moulineaux district of suburban Paris for nearly thirty years, the Musée Français de la Carte à Jouer is a museum dedicated to playing cards. Winner of the 1999 European Museum of the Year Award, the collection contains over 9000 items, including 6500 cars, 980 etchings and posters, and 1000 objects related to card games. Among the oldest cards are hand–painted Franco-Flemish examples depicting hunting scenes from the 1540s and an illuminated 15th century Tarot card attributed to Italy’s Ferrara School. There are also exhibits on the history of the chateau and its owners, the Princes of Conti, as well as noted artists associated with the Issy area (Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, and Jean Dubuffet). I used to carry a deck of cards with me all the time, especially in high school, because we had a thirty minute homeroom with nothing to do except pray (this was Catholic School) so my friends and I would usually play “Bullshit”. Perfect setting for a game of lying, don’t ya think? 

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