The Boring Post

I have a high tolerance for boring; in fact I find that the more I dig into the more mundane parts of life looking for beauty and oddness, the happier I get. The online Furnace Sticker Museum is an old favorite, .I have no idea what possessed me to seek it out again, but it's still around, and completely unchanged from when I first saw it probably 5 or more years ago.

In response to my Facebook post of the sticker museum, Tidious Ted responded with the gloriously unnecessary Femtiolasjakten site, a love affair with the thermos flask.Now if only these museums had gift shop t-shirts, my life would be complete.

Vent Haven, not Heaven

Vent Haven Museum in Ft. Mitchell KY features over 700 ventriloquist dummies, as well as mucho memorabilia on all things dummified. Hey Yuma, ROAD TRIP, I know you love the little dummies, wanna meet me there this summer? Maybe Percy Trout will come up and join us there.

Diorama-o-rama!

Love them dioramas!

Anatomical Model Exhibition

If I had the time and money to go to London, I would surely visit this exceptional display of wax anatomical models on display July 30-August 18 at the Wellcome Collection museum. Visit their website and you can have a little interactive playtime with their Anatomical Venus.

Cairo Agricultural Museum

The ever-fascinating Morbid Anatomy blog has a link to some stunning images of the Agricultural Museum in Cairo. The museum was established in 1930 and boasts a collection of wax anatomical models, hand drawn health posters, and taxidermy, housed in the rapidly-decaying former palace of Princess Fatima. The odds of me ever seeing this in person are slim to nonexistent, but I can always live vicariously through these evocative images.

Secret Agent Man

I've actually have wondered "who costumes the secret agents? How could I get a job like that?"

Well, the Spy Museum in Washington DC is doing Operation Undercover: Secrets of Disguise for kids. It's this Sunday.

But, more importantly, a SPY MUSEUM? How cool is that?

Get to know the communist history more intimately

Click "Karl Marx" for a closer look at source.

Campaign launched by czhech agency to get people to visit the Museum of Communism in Prague and get to know the communist history more intimately. (via Adland)

The World's Worst Comic Book Musuem

Click covers for information about the actual comics and a little bigger view.

" ... Those comics which aim high and hit are often as unsaleable as those which aim anywhich way and wildly miss. Not all of the bad ones display their full badness on the front cover - all of them must be read in full to be truly appreciated. I shall do my best here to provide an overview of the wide range of bargain comics the discriminating collector rejects."
The World's Worst Comic Book Collection (via The Ephemerist)

Antique Anatomy Teaching Charts

Browse through a collection of images from medical teaching posters (7' by 5' in size) dated 1918--sometimes frightening, sometimes strangely beautiful-- on the Indiana Medical History Museum's Flickr site.

Pricked

The Museum of Arts & Design in NYC presents their exhibition Pricked: Extreme Embroidery now through March 9, featuring updated versions of handcraft traditions. I read about the exhibit in a great article in the NY Times about Pearl Lam, a Shanghai decorator who commissioned a sofa featuring hand-embroidered images from a gay bondage magazine (that part of the artwork must be on a different part of the sofa than what is shown below). A twin of Ms. Lam's sofa appears in the exhibition.
What a great addition a sofa like that would be in my family room. "Welcome Aunt Tillie....some tea and scones? And won't you sit over here on the divan....?"

Ron Mueck

A friend sent me information about Ron Mueck- a former model maker for movies who has taken his skills at process in the direction of sculpture for sculpture's sake.

While this may be everywhere, perhaps some of you have not seen his work yet:
Flickr slideshow 1

Interview with Mueck at sculpture.org

Flickr slideshow 2

Brooklyn Museum video clip

21st Century Curio Cabinet

In the introduction to his online curio site, curator Ben Osto says, “The Web Wunderkammer is meant to be an online version of the 19th century “Cabinet of Curiosities”. Small collections and museums of oddities created and maintained by individual collectors was a movement beginning in the 1700s, which then rose to popularity during the 1800s.”

Osto updates the concept to include such oddities as Robotic jellyfish, a woven bag from New Guinea decorated with dried pigs scrotums, a sock doll made by Charles Manson, a photo of Wink Martindale’s Chihuahua Olivia Newton Martindale, square dancing chipmunk taxidermy, and Napoleon’s coat hangar.

If there is a unifying theme between these objects, it eludes me, except that I want to be curator of this museum. Or at least buy the t-shirt from the gift shop.
The collection includes donations from Duplex Planet publisher David Greenburger, Zippy the Pinhead artist Bill Griffith, Andre Codrescu, the Roadside America guys, and a man who collects paintings of salmon steaks.

Tattoo Collector

Some people are not cut out to be satisfied with a collection of Hummel figurines. Like Major General Horatio Gordon Robley, seen here with his collection of Maori tattooed heads. The photograph is from the book Medicine Man: The Forgotten Museum of Henry Wellcome.