This Belongs in a Museum
Bringing you museum-approved grammatical errors and typos since 2010.
Oh, and sorry - I DO NOT FOLLOW BACK!
I have good news! Today the ABBA Museum in Stockholm opened to the public. I think just about everyone loves them, whether you’re like a character in Muriel’s Wedding dressing up in some outlandish costume or one of those music snobs who tells everyone you only listen to the most obscure bands but then go home and secretly listen to ABBA, this is your lucky day. Hey, I don’t listen to them too often but when it comes to pop music, I’d rather listen to ABBA than any of the crap on the current Top 40 chart. And who doesn’t love a random museum like this one?!? GIMME GIMME GIMME…THE ABBA MUSEUM! (thanks for that one, swetebreeth) Anyway, there’s nothing more to say so I will leave you with these amazing pictures.
“So I say…thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing…thanks for all the joy they’re bringing…”
If you’re one of the lucky people who possesses a press pass, police and/or military badge, or just happens to know someone who knows someone, then you’ll be able to go inside Mexico City’s National Security building. What’s so exciting about a National Security building, you ask? Well, it’s the home of the Museo de Enervantes (Narcomuseum), probably one of the world’s most high security museums. It’s a shame they strictly control visitors (hey, this ain’t no tourist attraction listed in the guide books), because it sounds like a cool, one-of-a-kind place. First opened in 1985 and repeatedly expanded since then, the collection consists of paraphernalia that was seized from Mexico’s drug cartels. Located on the seventh floor of the concrete military compound, the 10-room museum displays ostentatious possessions of Mexican kingpins, including gold-handled pistols with jewel inlays (talk about bling!), bullet-proof clothes, cars with trick compartments, surf boards that once carried drugs inside of them, false-bottomed shoes, a shrine dedicated to the popular folklore hero Jesús Malverde (I guess he was a bandit turned “narco saint”) as well as hundreds of bazookas, grenade launchers and other confiscated weapons. A total of 110 pounds of marijuana was once seized from a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, it’s on display of course. There’s even a taxidermied German Shepherd named Zayaqui, who died in 2008, who was responsible for the seizure of more than 8,000 pounds of marijuana and other drugs. And let’s not forget the officers who battled these guys. They’re remembered not only in a mural of poppy fields where Mexican troops jump out of helicopters with their weapons drawn, but a metal plaque on the wall lists the names and ranks of each of the soldiers, which unfortunately has grown over the last few years. I bet you’re wondering why this place exists if no one can see it? Besides preserving a unique history, it aims to educate police officers and help them in the fight against drug trafficking. Remember kids, just say no to drugs! Or your crap will end up in a museum.
*AND YES, YOUR EYES DO NOT DECEIVE…THAT IS INDEED A PICTURE OF A TODDLER DRESSED IN CAMOUFLAGE SITTING IN FRONT OF RIFLES. LOOK WHAT DRUGS MAKE PEOPLE DO!*
I don’t know if I’m scared to fly, but I certainly hate it, especially when it involves long ass overseas trips. Always remember to take an airline that serves free alcohol or you’ll be sorry. Probably the worst part of traveling is all the time spent waiting in airports due to delayed or connecting flights. Instead of buying overpriced, shitty food or killing time by recharging your laptop, go to the library, museum and casino. Yes, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has all those things, plus “resting rooms” with reclining chairs you can nap in. Now that’s what I call a waste of time well spent. Oh, and you can even get married there. Geez…why go anywhere else? Everything you need is right at the freakin’ airport. So what is this airport museum like? Well, it’s actually a satellite of the Rijksmuseum. Located on Holland Boulevard, in the area behind the passport control between the E and F Pier, the museum is open every day from 7:00 until 20:00 (that’s a pretty long time, yo!) and admission is free. It houses a permanent exhibition of ten works by Dutch masters from the museum’s collection with new temporary exhibitions a few times a year. Believe it or not, this first-ever airport museum just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Anyway, I strongly support more airports doing this kind of thing. When I fly this summer, I fully expect to see pop-up museums in every terminal. And reclining chairs!
If Ted Nugent ever opens up a museum, expect it to look exactly like the Mann Wildlife Learning Museum. Purchased in 2003 by the Montgomery Zoo, the collection of 70 life-size taxidermied animals were trophy kills by world-record-holding bow and arrow hunter George Mann, who sometimes carried them on his back for miles out in the wilderness. Who knows why the hell a zoo would want dead (and probably threatened) animal species killed by a hunter displayed next to the live versions? The two don’t really go together. But this is Alabama we’re talking about (no offense), which also happens to be the home of the Spear Hunting Museum. So that probably explains it. Anyway, the Mann Museum rationalizes hunting by depicting carnivorous animals and their prey in threatening and somewhat ridiculous poses. Amongst the stuffed bears, wolves, and mountain lions are displays like “A Hare Raisin Experience” where a lynx attempts to kills it food of choice, the horseshoe hare, and “Smart as a Fox” where a willow ptarmigan is attacked by…you guessed it…a fox. The exhibit labels tend to emphasize that hunting and killing are natural behaviors, which I agree with completely. But I do have a problem when the killing of animals is assorted with entertainment or blood sport instead of, say, survival and food. I don’t understand how a hunter who spends half the year killing all kinds of creatures, like George Mann, is considered to be a dedicated wildlife conservationist who has been awarded by the State Governor for his efforts. Maybe conservation has a different meaning down in Alabama???
*A follower has told me hunting is a huge part of conservation in that is helps prevent starvation, disease and to control population levels. That makes sense, but I still don’t understand hunters who kill endangered species in (usually) canned hunts just for a freakin’ trophy. I will never get that.*
My grandfather was a bit of a hoarder, but it never got too out of hand as he managed to keep most of his stuff down in the basement. Considering I lived with them, I have strong memories of a bunch of cast iron thingamajigs down there, so I’m sure he would’ve loved the Underpenny Plane and Cast Iron Museum in Queens, New York. Antique collector Sung Park spent over fifteen years searching New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Ohio for these mid-19th century American artifacts. He always dreamt of sharing the cast-iron pieces by opening up a museum-shop. And he did just that. Tucked right beneath a tenement house, one side of the tiny space for viewing only with hundreds of items lining the wall behind the counter, like ornate penny banks, cast iron trivets, bells, bookends, wood planes, and horse-and-carriage toys. And even though these trinkets are off-limits from your greedy hands, at least the other side of the room is for sale. So good news, shoppers. Commerce wins again!
Once upon a time Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about “Sweet Home Alabama”, but I bet they didn’t know about the town called Sweet Home. Yep, such a place exists in Oregon and it’s the sweet home of White’s Metal Detectors, one of the earliest manufacturers of metal detectors. Next to the factory and offices is a little museum full of things unearthed by the company’s metal detectors as well as some of their earliest models, which date back to the 1950s. The diverse assortment of treasures discovered with White’s instruments include items from a Spanish fleet that sank off the coast of Florida in the 1700s that were found by Ken White, president of the company as well as various coins, bullets, cannonballs, and bottles. Besides a personal tour of the museum (by appointment only of course), there is also a demonstration room and test garden. Personally, I’m not a fan of the device, just from my experience of flying, and once having to take every single thing out of my suitcase to be inspected because, you know, I really look like a danger to society. I actually take that back…I’m totally a danger to society in that I’m a bitch. Scan away!
In America, today is the deadline for filing your taxes with the IRS. I don’t know if there is a tax museum, but trust me, even an accountant doesn’t want to go to that shit. So the next best thing is a taxidermy museum. We’ve covered it here before many, many times…you might remember this (squirrel dioramas) or maybe that (the world’s largest collection of stuffed dogs). Well, apparently there is a dead frog circus at the Wistariahurst Museum, a historic house museum once owned by a prominent silk manufacturer and his family, in Holyoke. Over the years the museum’s most popular object has been moved around quite a bit, from prominent rooms to tucked away corners of the house…and even hidden away in storage until the public demanded it be put back on public display where it currently sits in the visitors’ center. A dead frog circus is exactly what it sounds like: a diorama of four dozen taxidermic frogs posed in a circus scene. Some drive chariots pulled by mice and rats (and some even ride an endangered spotted turtle), while others trapeze above and play music. It dates back to 1927 when it was created by naturalist Burlingham Schurr, though no one is sure why, which makes it even more intriguing. According to the curator, most visitors convince themselves that they are not real frogs, but they are real, more real than a freakin’ reality show.
Because I’m a poor asshole, I usually cannot afford to go to a hair salon. I end up badly cutting my hair into uneven bangs or have my mom (a beauty school dropout) give me a trim. But if I lived in Le Havre, France and was a man I would totally go to Le Salon des Navigateurs where 76 year old barbershop owner, Daniel LeCompte, dresses as a sailor and curates a mini-museum dedicated to hairdressing techniques. The Sailors’ Salon, opened in 1960 in the Saint-François neighborhood of city, has a collection of objects related to sailing history (of course) and a hair-raising accumulation of barbershop objects and mementoes from LeCompte’s father, who also happened to be a hairdresser. Customers don’t seem to mind getting a haircut while sitting next to a mannequin, so props to them! And don’t worry…you don’t need to be a man with a desperate need for a shave or cut, LeCompte and his wife welcome all visitors and will show you around their museum for FREE!!! This is a perfect time for an awful hairdressers’ pun - “going to this museum is like a hairway to heaven.”
When traveling to Tokyo you’ll probably be bringing a lot of excessive baggage (figuratively or literally) with you. What better way to rid yourself of it than with a trip to the Ace World Luggage Museum (after you needlessly purchase some self-help books of course). Owned by Japan’s Ace luggage company (the world’s first producer of nylons bags in case you keep track of that sort of thing), the museum is located on the seventh floor of their corporate headquarters in the Asakusa district in Tokyo. The collection includes 600 examples of handbags, travel bags and trunks made not just from leather, but all different kinds of animal skin. So if you’re a member of PETA or something, look away! Besides the trunk covered with the black skins of 12 saltwater crocodiles, every endangered species is on display - antelope, zebra, hippopotamus, seal, elephant, buffalo, shark, eel and even aardvark. There are also a number of non-dead animal historic pieces in the museum, like a navy blue Panam flight bag made in the 1960s, a grey aluminum box with an orange Bakelite handle designed by the famous explorer and traveler Richard Halliburton and an even larger box that used by the Apollo 11 crew to store moon-rocks during their space journey. Most hotels keep luggage before you check in (or after you check out) but if there is a problem, I’m sure this museum wouldn’t mind storing it for you…or selling you another piece. And in case you’re keeping track, yes, we have been to another handbag museum before.
Exactly 45 years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He was only 39 years old. Today the site is part of a 4 acre complex of buildings that make up the National Civil Rights Museum. The motel is connected by underground tunnel to the Young and Morrow Buildings, where James Earl Ray initially confessed (and later recanted) to shooting King. Another component, Canipe’s Amusement Store, is next door to the rooming house where the alleged murder weapon (along with Ray’s fingerprints) was found. The museum traces the history of the Civil Rights Movement from the 17th century to the present day. A temporary exhibit called Freedom’s Sisters dedicated to African American women who fought for equality, like Ida B. Wells and Myrlie Evers-Williams, is now on display through the rest of 2013. Interesting to note the motel’s owner’s wife suffered a stroke hours after King’s assassination, and died 5 days later. I did not know that.
