My friend lives right around the corner from the old Essanay Film Manufacturing Company building in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Believe it or not, but before Hollywood became a “thing,” many films were made in Chicago. One of the most successful and earliest studios was Essanay, which was founded in 1907...
Sorry for all the public art lately, but hey, it’s October and there’s a lot of scary stuff out there. Like the Mifletzet, for example, which literally means “the monster” in Hebrew. At first, the Jerusalem Parks Commission rejected artist Niki de Saint Phalle’s sculpture (originally known as “The Golem”)...
The only painting by Vincent van Gogh in Kansas happens to be a reproduction, but also the world’s largest. It’s not the world’s largest painting, it’s just the world’s largest Vincent van Gogh. Got that? Good. If you happen to be driving down I-70 through the town of Goodland you...
Believe it or not, but during the 19th Century, 75% of everything written in the world was written with a ‘Birmingham’ pen. Nowadays people don’t even know what a pen is. You mean I have to write it down? Like write write? WHAT??? Birmingham’s Pen Museum helps to keep the...
If you’re looking for a museum-related holiday item to give as a gift this year, some museums offer ‘adoptions’, such as the Natural History Museum in Berlin which is looking for ‘godparents’ to sponsor new drawers for their insect collection, or the British Library’s Adopt A Book scheme. Several North...
If you ever find yourself traveling around the Nebraska-Kansas border, because so many people do, make sure to stop in the town of Belleville. There you’ll find Paul Boyer’s Museum of Animated Carvings, a collection of 65 imaginative and elaborate hand carved motion displays which are animated through intricate mechanisms...
I bet you didn’t know Muppets creator Jim Henson was originally from Mississippi. I bet you also didn’t know that Jim Henson had a (human) friend named Kermit. They used to play along the banks of Deer Creek in the small town of Leland, which has since been proclaimed as...
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...
At Harvard University’s Museum of Natural History, there is a unique Glass Flowers collection, which includes nearly 4,000 models of over 800 different plant species. Professor George Goodale, founder of Harvard’s Botanical Museum, wanted to teach botany with life-like flowery creations instead of the crude wax models that were common...
Over 200 vintage lawnmowers at the British Lawnmower Museum in Southport, Lancashire, England. There’s no excuse, you have to mow the lawn now.
If you are a knife-wielding firestarter, then I probably don’t want to know you. But I can at least help you out with summer plans. Maybe consider visiting the Zippo/Case Museum in Bradford, Pennsylvania. This 15,000 square foot (!) building covers the Zippo lighter’s cultural influence throughout world history, like...
As a museologist (meaning someone who has paid a lot of money to study museums) you’d think I’d call the Marsh’s Free Museum in Long Beach, WA a junky tourist trap. But I saw the same kind of stuff at several museums in the UK, which considered themselves to be...
