This Belongs in a Museum

In honour of Yahoo!!!!!! buying Tumblr (and killing it, because we know that’s eventually going to happen…I mean you heard what they did to Flickr, right?) let’s talk about a dead museum. We’ve covered closed museums before (Red Baron Museum, Museum of Funeral Customs and Museum of Menstruation immediately come to mind) so it won’t hurt to add another one to the list.

Unfortunately, visitors to the Million Dollar Museum in New Mexico did not receive a huge chunk of change to take home with them to hide under their mattresses. Money wasn’t even the theme of place. Instead the museum randomly gathered together everything weird and creepy, and I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s hair.

The entrance to the museum only hinted at what lurked ahead. After walking by various pieces of taxidermy, as well as video games and coin operated peep shows, visitors would go downstairs to the basement to check out eleven dust-filled rooms. Over 50,000 items, including a room full of busted typewriters and longhorns, were found in this hoarder’s gangsta paradise. But that’s not the really weird part. Next to the jars of “alien baby” mummies and two-headed animals was a collection of European Dollhouses. In another display case, four skulls of an ancient people called “Basket Makers” were seated on flat baskets, just in case you didn’t get the basket connection. Next to a 19th century horse-drawn hearse was some weird contraption hanging on the wall marked, “Used for Smoking Bees.” Something I’ve always been meaning to do, just haven’t got around to it!

The place was like a garage sale that’s gone on for decades and no one told the person to call it a motherfuckin’ day. Or you can say it was like a very, very, very bad episode of ‘Hoarders’. The name of the museum implies that all this stuff is worth a million dollars. Right. Bitch, you’re delusional! Well, anyway it’s long gone, the odd and curious contents of the Million Dollar Museum were auctioned off in 2008, scattered in the wind, probably to other hoarder-doms. Now the museum is worth zero dollars, kind of like my bank account.

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Ever heard of bauxite? Apparently it’s the main source of aluminum. And there’s actually a town in Arkansas named after it, which is appropriate considering that’s also the state where you can find the Gann Museum. Built in 1896 as the medical offices for Dr. Dewell Gann Sr., it is the only known structure in the world to use bauxite aluminum ore as its building material. According to the historical marker out front, “the building was constructed by patients who could not afford to pay for services he rendered them. The soft stone was dug from a farm near by, sawn into blocks with a handsaw and allowed to harden for six weeks.” The three-room structure had separate entrances and waiting rooms for the ladies and men. Why, you ask? It was to assure female patients that they could avoid exposure to any rough dudes like railroad or industrial workers. Anyway, the building was used as a medical office until 1946, then became a library, and in 1980 was turned into a FREE museum. Today it houses memorabilia, photographs, and artifacts from Arkansas’s past. Visitors can see Dr. Gann’s old desk and medical correspondence, a vast Niloak pottery collection, old wood carvings, Quapaw and Caddo Indian crafts, and weird stuff like a mid-19th century tombstone marker in the shape of a butter churn.

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Yesterday I told you about the brand-new ABBA Museum in Stockholm, but that’s not the only random music museum in existence. Even though Canada is the home of respectable musicians like Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell (let’s forget about Avril Lavigne, Céline Dion, Nickelback, and the rapper called Snow), those people do not have museums. But in Springhill, Nova Scotia one random Canadian musical artist does. Yes, if you’re ever around those parts, you can visit the Anne Murray Centre. You might be too young to know who the hell she is (unless you watched this episode of Family Guy), but this is a woman who has sold over 50 million albums so I guess it’s not completely crazy that she would have some kind of shrine. While many celebrity museums struggle to stay open (R.I.P. Liberace Museum) this doesn’t seem to be happening here, even though this super-mellow adult pop star isn’t as popular as she was back in the 70s with such hits like “Songbird”. Open since 1989, the museum is the typical mix of awards, photographs, videos, and memorabilia. Only true fanatics would get excited over the dress Anne wore in the Rose Bowl parade of 1971…Anne’s first stereo system…Anne’s wedding certificate…Anne’s gold records…photos of Anne posing with various celebrities. You can even pretend to be one of those celebs and pose next to a cardboard cutout of Anne!!! Life doesn’t get any better than this, folks.

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…”

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I might have looked forward to eating lunch every day if my single mother, who happened to be an artist, had done this while I was growing up. But, you know, I guess she was too busy going to school, working three jobs, and shuffling me off to various babysitters that she barely had time to throw me a lunchables or a bag of cheetos so this obviously would never have happened. But it’s still cool! Someone should make a sandwich bag museum.

Illustrated Lunch Bags by Dad

Since 2008 graphic designer David LaFerriere has been drawing illustrations on his children’s sandwich bags. He photographs almost all of them. You can explore the entire collection on Flickr.

(via odditiesoflife)

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!*

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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!

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With earlier posts about Korea’s Penis Park and Prague’s Sex Machines Museum, it should come as no surprise that this dirty little ol’ blog is now telling you about the Phallic Shrine in Bangkok. In the heart of the city right behind the five star luxury hotel Swissotel Nai Lert is a shrine dedicated to the female animist spirit Chao Mae Tubtim, who supposedly lives inside the banyan tree on the grounds. Because measuring is important here, the site of the shrine, roughly 60 by 70 feet (18 m × 21 m), is literally crammed with hundreds of penises. In Thailand, the phallus is a symbol of good luck and fertility, so women visit the shrine bringing gifts when trying to conceive or to return if their wish is fulfilled. The phallic shapes vary in shape, size and are even decorated with bling. There are small wooden carvings and big stone sculptures (some ten feet tall) of penises, usually decorated with ribbons and next to offerings of lotus, jasmine, candles and Chinese incense sticks. There is even a plaque, which says, “Chao Mae Tuptim has received yet another rather less conventional kind of gift, phallic in shape, both small and large, stylized and highly realistic. Over the years, they have been brought by the thousands…”. From what I’ve read on-line, many modern Thais see these magical dildos as quaint and eccentric, and even the hotel staff pretends to not know of the shrine’s existence. But if you’re a determined tourist who has a thing for unusual religious circumcised fun stick gardens, then go out and find it. Next to professional athletes and Donald Trump, the Chao Mae Tuptim shrine is the cockiest of the cock.

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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!

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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.

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