museum of curiosities

bad dogs and cowls

2010-03-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

Seven breeds of dog account for 98% of all fatal dog attacks. In order they are: Pit Bull, German Shepherd, Chow, Malamute, Husky, Wolf Hybrids, and the Akita.

So why is it that my chow-shepherd mutt is afraid of his own shadow? He also succumbed to the etsy cowl trend this winter with shameful ease.

Ma sacre toux!

2010-03-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

Napoleon killed over a thousand people with a cough. In 1799 he was deciding whether to release 1,200 Turkish prisoners of war when he coughed and said, "Ma sacré toux!" (my darned cough) which sounded to officers like "Massacrez tous!" (Kill them all!). So they did.

That makes me feel slightly better about my lousy french pronunciation.

skinned head

2010-03-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

from "Ripley's Believe it or not!":

"In 1867, William Thompson of Omaha, Nebraska, was shot by Native Americans of the Cheyenne tribe. Thinking he was dead, they removed his scalp (as was the custom). Imagine their surprise when Thompson regained consciousness, grabbed his scalp, and ran. He later donated the scalp to the Omaha Public Library."

????! At what point, I wonder, did he decide to donate his scalp? After going home and rearranging it in the mirror, only to give up in frustration of ever having a normal scalp? Years later, coming across it in the attic? But I'm actually more intrigued by his choice of the library as a recipient.

living large in the dog house

2010-03-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

Remember the old days when being "in the doghouse" was a bad thing? I one of my favorite Hank Williams songs, he talks of his wife changing the locks, and telling the dog to "move it on over" as he sleeps with him in the dog house.

In our strange country of extremes, some go homeless while canines have hot tubs shaped like bones.

sugar egg memories

2010-03-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

This weekend I stopped in an amazing little shop in what I hope will be my new neighborhood (after the last house deal fell through, I'm afraid to count my chickens until we have the keys in hand). Roslindale Village seems to be a warm little enclave within Boston, and I can't wait to get to know the community. Anyway, back to my point.... at Joanne Rossman , puveyer of the unnecessary and irresistible, I bought an Easter egg diorama made completely of sugar. I had one of these as a kid, and remember well all the time I spent staring into it, torn by my urges to covet this magical world or just eat the damn thing. It's really kind of torture for a kid - giving them a fragile object made of sugar and then telling them they can't eat it.

A little broke off when I took the photos, and I must say it was quite tasty. Now who shall I bequeath this torturous gift upon?

blue sky and leaf skeleton

2010-03-08T07:25:00.001-08:00

lucky Chevy

2010-03-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

On October 9, 1992, Michelle Knapp of Peekskill, NY heard a loud crash outside her home. When she went to investigate, she found that the back of her car was smashed, but there was no other car in sight. It turned out to be a meteorite the size of a football had passed through her car and left a crater in her driveway.

Michelle thought she had pretty much lost the $100 she paid for her old Chevy Malibu. But a collector paid her $10,000 for the car, and it's been on tour around the world.

go jump off a bridge

2010-03-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

In 1885, a 22-year-old woman named Sarah Ann Henley survived a fall from the Clifton suspension bridge in England when her billowing skirts acted as a parachute. A news report on the following day:

She had been for some time keeping company with a young man, but recently had a disagreement with him, and a “few words” between them a night or two ago were followed by a parting and a letter in which he gave up the companionship. The letter was received on Thursday and was taken much to heart by Henley, who was noticed by the neighbours to be looking depressed in spirit. She was seen in Twinnell Street yesterday morning at about 11 o’clock, and this depression was noticed then. At a quarter past twelve she leapt from the bridge. The woman fell as if she was going into the river which was running down. The tide was extremely low. The soft mud banks were accordingly not completely covered by water. A rather high wind was blowing and the woman’s dress offered a good deal of resistance to it, not only materially checked the rapidity of her descent, but instead of falling vertically she was carried onto the Gloucester bank, where she fell on the mud in almost a sitting posture. The mud yielded freely, and the woman, straightened out to full length, sank some distance into it. She was conveyed on the stretcher by several constables to the institution, where after being seen by the surgeons in the casualty room, she was placed in one of the wards. She was not considered to be in any immediate danger.

That she has great regard for her beau is shown in the fact that she continually asks for him and is impatient to see him. He too apparently repentant, called at the Infirmary to see her, but the house surgeon, fearing an interview between the lovers might have a prejudicial effect upon the young women, forbade his seeing her at present.
While in hospital she received several offers of marriage, one wealthy suitor offered a sovereign to a hospital official to ensure that Sarah received his offer of a life of luxury as his wife. Showmen also showed interest in her, one offered her a contract tour, with £400 down and a share of the profits, another approached her father with an offer of £1000 to allow him to use Sarah for show purposes. She took up none of these offers. The young porter disappeared and some years later in 1900 she married a Mr. Edward Lane. Although her attempted suicide remained an embarrassment to her for many years she kept the souvenirs of the fall until a year before her death when she had to leave her home to go into an institution to be cared for. Sarah Ann Lane died at the age of 85 and was buried in Avon View cemetery in an unmarked grave.
history from http://www.bhhg.co.uk/

firing squad survivor

2010-03-05T08:06:00.000-08:00

On March 18, 1915 Wenseslao Moguel was captured while fighting in the Mexican revolution. Without trial he was sentenced to be executed by firing squad. Moguel was shot 9 times including a final bullet through his head at close range by an officer to insure death. Moguel somehow survived and managed to escape. Wenseslao went on to live a full life after his “execution”. The above photo shows Moguel in 1937 on the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not radio show pointing to his scar from the bullet that was shot at close range.

pro-bacterial soap & a Poe clothespin

2010-03-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

Some interesting etsy shops found this week...

cleanerscience makes soap modeled after petri dish samples of various bacteria. I love the rubber gloves in the photos, and the fact that she shows a photo of her bacterial inspiration.

UneekDollDesigns makes the strangest little dolls out of clothespins, such as the one of Edgar Allen Poe above. I was baffled by one pictured on her Twitter page, I thought it was a young Abe Lincoln, but couldn't figure out why he was holding a bongo drum. Then the association of the red-headed clothespin in the 50's dress pictured nearby clued me in that it was Desi Arnaz. Duh. In my defense, I'm sure I could tell the difference from a 1850 and a 1950 suit if it wasn't clothespin-sized.

raining fish!

2010-03-02T06:44:00.000-08:00

LAJAMANU, Australia, March 1 - weather experts said the fish that fell on a remote Australian town for two days had likely been sucked up by a thunderstorm before falling to the ground.

Residents of Lajamanu said hundreds of small white fish, believed to be common spangled perch, fell from the sky during the weekend despite the town's location 326 miles from the nearest river, The Sun reported Monday. Locals said many of the fish were still alive when they hit the ground. Mark Kersemakers, a senior forecaster with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, said the fish could have been transported by a storm system. "It could have scooped the fish up 40,000 to 50,000 feet in the air," he said. "Once they get up into the system they are pretty much frozen. After some period they are released." Locals said it has rained fish in the town twice before, in 1974 and 2004. (taken from UPI.com)

Maybe it's time to bring back my raining fish hoodie , pictured above. It was retired due to lagging demand.

how deep is the ocean

2010-02-24T08:35:00.000-08:00

The Mariana Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean, just east of the 14 Mariana Islands (11″21′ North latitude and 142″ 12′ East longitude ) near Japan. It is the deepest part of the earth’s oceans, and the deepest location of the earth itself. It was created by ocean-to-ocean subduction, a phenomena in which a plate topped by oceanic crust is subducted beneath another plate topped by oceanic crust.

The Mariana Trench is 11,033 meters (36,201 feet), (6033.5) fathoms deep. The Pressure at the deepest part of the Mariana Trench is over 8 tons per square inch. The Mariana Trench is 2, 542 km (1,580 miles) long and 69 km (43 miles) wide.

Jim the wonder dog

2010-02-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

In Marshall, MO you can find an entire park that is dedicated to the memory of one dog. Jim is known as the canine enigma of the 20th century. When told to do so, Jim could go out on the street and locate a car by make, color, out-of-state, or a license number. From a crowd he could select the "man who sells hardware", and the one who "takes care of sick people", or the "visitor from Kansas City". He carried out instructions given to him in any foreign language, shorthand, or Morse Code. He was capable of predicting the outcome of future events. He chose the winner of seven Kentucky Derbies, The World Series of baseball and the sex of unborn babies. Jim was, in fact, so skilled at predicting race winners that his owner had to cut short a vacation to Florida. They'd received a telegram threatening Jim's life if he didn't stop picking winners at the dog track. One more interesting fact on Jim: His favorite food was cornbread.

found on http://www.jimthewonderdog.com/ and roadside america

thinking about Schubert

2010-02-22T18:37:00.000-08:00

Listening to Schubert's Trio in E Flat, one of my favorite pieces of music, (hear it here on a clip from Barry Lyndon) over dinner tonight led to reading up on his life online. He died at the age of 31, and wide appreciation of his music during his lifetime was limited at best. He was never able to secure adequate permanent employment, and for most of his career he relied on the support of friends and family. In this short career, he managed to write nearly 1000 works.

Besides his early death, another heart breaking fact was that In 1994 musicologist Rita Steblin discovered Schubert's marriage petition in the attic of the Lichtental church. This document shows that Schubert had intended to marry Therese Grob, but was hindered by the harsh marriage consent law of 1815, which required the ability to show the means to support a family. In November 1816, after failing to gain a position at Laibach, Schubert sent Grob a collection of songs, which were retained by her family into the 20th century.

new Phineas Gage photo

2010-02-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

Last month I wrote about Phineas Gage ( link here ) , and I just found that another image of him has turned up. Here is the new family photo, and a transfer collage I did of the one discovered last year. I think he's incredibly, well, .... hot.

Gage was a railroad construction foreman now remembered for his incredible survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head.

Amazingly, Gage spoke within a few minutes, walked with little or no assistance, and sat upright in a cart for the 3/4-mile ride to his lodgings in town. The first physician to arrive was Dr. Edward H. Williams:

I first noticed the wound upon the head before I alighted from my carriage, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct. Mr. Gage, during the time I was examining this wound, was relating the manner in which he was injured to the bystanders. I did not believe Mr. Gage's statement at that time, but thought he was deceived. Mr. Gage persisted in saying that the bar went through his head....Mr. G. got up and vomited; the effort of vomiting pressed out about half a teacupful of the brain, which fell upon the floor.

fly cartoons

2010-02-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

Swedish photographer Magnus Muhr makes these amusing cartoons with dead flies. More are posted here.

same sex vs. cousin marriages

2010-02-18T06:55:00.000-08:00

Cool - here in Boston I could marry my female cousin!

make a paper camera

2010-02-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Rubikon is a cut-out, which becomes a functioning pinhole camera (camera obscura) after putting together. Designed by Jaroslav Juřica, it is offered as a free PDF here at huberokororo.

Typographic floors

2010-02-16T06:51:00.001-08:00

what a bitch they must be to clean.....

The floors at The Seattle Public Library designed by Ann Hamilton (second image). According to the library’s website: “The floor mimics the appearance of a raised bed of wooden type and is intended to immerse library visitors in the artwork much as readers are immersed in the material they read…The floor includes 556 lines of text, in reverse, in 11 languages and alphabets, and consists of the first sentences of books found in the collection.”

— Article by Evey Kwong

from kyoorius : Typographic Trees

Posted using ShareThis

CONTEST!

2010-02-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

Want to win a free tote bag with a really cool jellyfish on it? Just follow me on twitter and leave a comment letting me know (if you tweet a link to this post, you're entered twice!). More info on the bag here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35221188

Winner announced next week.

how to hide a bunch of airplanes

2010-02-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

During World War II Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it from a Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting and trompe l’oeil to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.

Found on think or thwim

three legged bear

2010-02-11T06:28:00.000-08:00

"Three legged bear walking upright" seems like a pretty accurate description, but it's still astonishing just HOW upright she is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yZ4fktcuNk

what the hell?

2010-02-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

Found on a blog called "let's be friends".

Arnold Syndrome

2010-02-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting video about a bone mutation known as "Arnold Syndrome". People with these gene have deformed or missing clavicles, some being able to nearly tough their shoulders together in front of their chest. The amazing thing is that it's been traced back to one guy - Arnold (who happened to have seven wives and lots of kids).

crab trash

2010-02-09T07:20:00.001-08:00

That damn crab is in the trash again.

job hunting

2010-02-09T07:15:00.001-08:00

the cruelty of antique dealers

2010-02-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

Two friends found an antique statue worth almost £100,000 in an ancient tomb in China - and then sold it on for the equivalent of just 28p. The pair, Feng and Zheng, were out hunting hares together when they saw a small hole in a field in central China’s Henan province. After a closer look they discovered the statue buried in a tomb along with more than 20 other antiques.

The men decided to sell the entire haul but were unaware that the painted female figure was actually worth approximately £93,000. Feng said: "We don't know the value of the things. The collector said the pottery means nothing so we gave it for free and he paid just 3 Yuan for the pottery woman."

Barbies and boobs

2010-02-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

I can't help it - I'm posting again on Chris Jordan's work because it's so fantastic.

This 5ft x 6ft 6in photograph is made of 32,000 Barbie dolls – the number of women in the US who undergo breast enlargement surgery every month.

tuna statistics & Chris Jordan

2010-02-07T07:32:00.000-08:00

There's a great show tucked away in the Museum of Science in Cambridge going on through May. It's the work of Chris Jordan, an amazing artist who documents consumerism.

Above is a zoom of his piece titled "Tuna", which depicts 20,500 tuna, the average number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes. Did you catch that? EVERY 15 MINUTES.

It's just one of many moving works. In his statement Jordan writes, "The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits."

See more at http://www.chrisjordan.com/

If you love sushi like I do, take a look at this sustainable sushi chart.

vintage tornado shot

2010-02-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

Taken on August 28th, 1884 about 22 miles Southwest of Howard, South Dakota in the United States, this is the world's oldest known photograph of a tornado.

no more glasses falling off

2010-02-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

Another amazing patent - templeless eyewear.

Simply attach MAGNETS (???!!) to the sides of your head to use them. Really?

This patent was filed in 1996 by two inventors working with Nike, Inc.

nosy bird

2010-02-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

A webcam at Szentgotthárd, Hungary captured this curious bird looking into the camera. The webcam is set to shoot only one frame in every minute, and it captured this guy at just the right second.

cassowaries

2010-02-02T07:33:00.000-08:00

A group of flightless Papua New Guinea birds known as "cassowaries" communicate through the dense foliage of the jungle by means of extra-low frequency sound waves - partly below the range of hearing of humans. People near a cassowarie calling in their lowest register, would feel, rather than hear the sound - much like the low-frequency calls of elephants, which can be heard up to 50 miles (80 km) away. Cassowaries are among the world's most dangerous birds: weighing up to 125 pounds (56 kg), they kick when fighting, and have a "spike" on their feet which can rip a person open.

Cassowaries are very shy, but when disturbed, they are capable of inflicting serious injuries to dogs and children.The one documented human death caused by a cassowary was that of Phillip Mclean, aged 16 years old, and it happened on 6 April 1926. He and his brother, aged 13, were attempting to beat the cassowary to death with clubs. They were accompanied by their dog. The bird kicked the younger boy, who fell and ran away. Then the older boy struck the bird. The bird charged and knocked the older boy to the ground. While on the ground, Phillip was kicked in the neck, opening a 1.25 centimeter wound. Phillip got up and ran but died shortly afterwards from the hemorrhaging blood vessel in his neck.

cassowary: 1 Phillip: 0

fortune cookie

2010-02-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

Fortune cookies: Whenever you need the obvious spelled out, they never let you down.

Courtesy of http://weirdfortunecookies.com

diet innovation

2010-02-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

This is an actual patent that was filed in 1980. Guess that was before we knew about low carb diets.

An anti-eating face mask which includes a cup-shaped member conforming to the shape of the mouth and chin area of the user, together with a hoop member and straps detachably engageable with a user's head for mounting the cup-shaped member in overlying relationship with the user's mouth and chin area under the nose thereby preventing the ingestion of food by the user.
I love the helpless blinking of the model when the hoagie bumps against the mask.

Edwin Booth

2010-01-31T14:24:00.000-08:00

An interesting story I have posted in my Etsy shop with a collage I did of Edwin Booth.

In an interesting coincidence, Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert, from serious injury or even death. The incident occurred on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865, shortly before Edwin's brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Lincoln. Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine. “ The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name. ” Booth did not know the identity of the man whose life he had saved until some months later, when he received a letter from a friend, Colonel Adam Badeau, who was an officer on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. Badeau had heard the story from Robert Lincoln, who had since joined the Union Army and was also serving on Grant's staff. In the letter, Badeau gave his compliments to Booth for the heroic deed. The fact that he had saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son was said to have been of some comfort to Edwin Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.

knee slapping laugh

2010-01-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

He sipped his tepid coffee and pondered how to tell her that, in fact, the pants made the sack dress even less appealing.

Oh, thank you, unhappyhipster.com - a site that makes scathing captions for Dwell photos.

public art, consumerism, TV, etc

2010-01-27T18:06:00.000-08:00

I was sent a link today for an artist's website that had some ingenious public art projects. Her name is Colleen Ellis, and here's a link to a great video she had installed in public spaces about contemporary marketing toward youth culture. The statistic I found most haunting was this:

99.5 households in America have at least one TV. Some of these homes are without running water.

Since moving to Boston, I've been living for the first time in my life without a television (except travel and 6 months spent studying abroad), and I'm not missing it like I thought I would. I'm also not reading nearly as much as I thought I would... probably because I waste so much time on the computer.

Pictured above is from another one of her projects, private thoughts/public spaces : "Excerpts from a series of interviews about childhood memories are printed on common objects, replacing a commercial message with a unexpected personal one. "

curiosa

2010-01-26T06:44:00.000-08:00

I am relishing a book I took out of the library on the art of Barton Lidice Benes, titled "Curiosa - Celebrity Relics, Historical Fossils, & Other Metamorphic Rubbish". I love this guy. I wish I was him. I'm at a loss to describe his work any better than the dust jacket does... I would say he is truly a lover of things.

"Barton Benes imbues mundane objects with the mystical power of holy relics. He assembles modern-day curiosity cabinets, or reliquaries, out of everyday items that have been touched by fame."

The best part about the book is the occasional story he tells about the objects. Here is my favorite:

"I once had an original Picasso lithograph. I say “once” because one night when I was a little high, I thought I was being very clever and scribbled on the lithograph. When I came to, I freaked and realized I had destroyed my Picasso. It hung there like a nasty stain on my wall for about a week. I'd paid a lot of money for that lithograph - like so many others I had wanted a piece of Picasso. Then, either inspiration or desperation made me put it into a blender and grind it up. I got some cocaine bottles and filled them with the Picasso, telling people I was selling Picasso by the gram. After they were all sold, a dealer in Sweden wanted to know if I had any more grams of Picasso. I just had the one left that I was keeping for myself, so I decided to put that little bit back into the blender with some plain paper, and I sold a "cut" Picasso."

the evils of flour

2010-01-25T18:18:00.000-08:00

I've been on a diet lately. The plethora of nutritional advice raining on me from all angles of media is just soaking in. I've got a pretty good idea of the things that are bad for me, and I've been trying to avoid them: white flour, sugar, meats and processed crap. Yesterday my boyfriend asked me why white flour is so bad, as he made a large roll quickly disappear. I stumbled around, but didn't really have a good answer.

Here's a good answer, from a review of Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food":

It began with refined flour in the 1870s which removed bran and wheat germ to produce long-lasting snowy white flour. Consumers loved it because flour no longer turned rancid, and it didn't become infected with bugs.

Okay. Why didn't bugs chomp down on this new flour? Quite simply because the nutrients, the bran, wheat germ, carotene, were gone. Pollan explains, ". . . this gorgeous white powder was nutritionally worthless, or nearly so. Much the same is now true for corn flour and white rice." Take a look at a package of white flour and count the additives that make up for the loss of natural ingredients.

the death of literature

2010-01-24T16:37:00.000-08:00

Today there was an interesting cover story in the New York Times Magazine by Jonathan Mahler, regarding the author James Patterson. His name wasn't even the least bit familiar to me, but he is apparently the best selling currant author in the United States. He's had 51 books on the best seller list (which won him a mark in the Guiness Book of World Records), 35 of which went to #1. Since 2006, one in every 17 hardcover books sold were written by Mr. Patterson.

He works in something like 5 genres (including a recent foray into the young adult market), 9 books just last year, and he now has a team of "co-authors". He also systematically tried to conquer different geographical areas - when he learned Grisham was selling more than he on the west coast, he made the setting of his next book in San Francisco. Upon learning that he wasn't selling in Scandinavia, he invited Sweden's best selling crime writer to collaborate with him on an international thriller.

At some point he was an ad executive, and he masterminded the advertising and placement of his books. He actually was in a graduate program for English literature, but dropped out because he felt that becoming a professor would kill off his love for reading and writing. Apparently his earlier work was more fanciful, and now he "avoids description, back story and scene setting whenever possible, preferring to hurl readers into the action." He says, "I'm less interested in sentences now and more interested in stories."

It is suggested that Patterson created a template for the modern blockbuster author. There were many before him, but they had never been marketed essentially as consumer goods. Patterson himself says of his work, "this is not high art". But he fulfills a need: "A lot of people in this country go through their days numb. They need to be entertained. They need to feel something."

While it's depressing that literature has turned into such a commodity, at the same time it's reassuring that people are still reading. I think I might try one of Patterson's books, as I'm very curious after reading about him. It's got to be better than "Eat, pray love", which is on the best seller list for it's 153rd week but made me absolutely ill.

Phineas Gage

2010-01-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

Years ago I read about Phineas P. Gage, an American railroad construction foreman now remembered for his incredible survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying one or both of his brain's frontal lobes, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior—effects said to be so profound that friends saw him as "no longer Gage."

On what I kind of consider to be my first date with my other half, I visited the Harvard Medical Museum and saw Gage's skull and the cast of his head. I was really excited when a friend gave me a Smithsonian magazine with an amazing article about a recently discovered photo of Gage. A couple of photo collectors had owned it for 30 years, and imagined him to be a whaler holding a harpoon. After posting the image on Flickr, eventually someone made the connection and suggested the identity. Here's the article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html

pangolin

2010-01-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

I had a great time at the Harvard Museum of Natural History today. There was an artist talk on the current exhibition of photographs by Amy Stein. Afterwards, a pleasant surprise was wine and snacks. Walking around all that taxidermy with free wine AND potato chips?? My idea of a perfect evening.

Anyway, I could spend days in that place. For some reason I was particularly taken with the pangolins this time around. A walking pinecone, they roll up into balls when threatened, have crazy long tongues, and walk hunched over on their hind legs (because their claws are so long, for ant-digging). This video is worth a look if this at all interests you.

The cute little bastard in the photo above is one that was smuggled by American tourists visiting the Congo. Apparently it fell off it's mother's back as she was chased by hunters, and since it was too small to eat, they decided to sell it to some tourists. Authorities intercepted and it was given to the LA zoo (sadly, it died at 10 months). The tourist had no idea that she had bought an endangered species, but thousands are poached knowingly for their meat or various body parts. The biggest violators being the Chinese, who believe pangolin blood is a cure for erectile dysfunction.

According to wildlife groups, China is the main market for illegally traded exotic species, which are eaten or used in traditional medicine. As a result of demand, the pangolin populations of China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been wiped out. It is a similar story for many species of turtle, tortoise, frog and snake.

Here is an article about a boat found a few years ago with over 5000 endangered animals headed to China. Many were crushed in their cages or died of dehydration.

and so it begins

2010-01-20T12:01:00.000-08:00

I registered www.museumofcuriosities.com after getting an epiphany of sorts during a Schubert piano concert at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. Really it was just an idea, which was to create a small museum of oddities, with an art gallery and attached store selling interesting things. I've always loved all sorts of museums, but especially odd small ones. Ideally it would be in an old house. But while finding an old house with commercial zoning in an accessible location in Boston MIGHT be possible, chances are slim it would be anywhere close to affordable. Rents are steep here.

And there's another issue, a big one - where and how will I acquire all these curiosities?

While I keep an eye out for the right spot, I will collect things (much to my partner's dismay).

And in the mean time I will blog to keep the idea alive (as I tend to drop most of my ideas like used tissues).

Once I was told a story of a man who grew up with a father that insisted all the children would share something that they learned that day at the dinner table. If he hadn't learned anything of interest, he would go to the encyclopedia and search until he found something he could share. He continued this habit all his life, which kept up his love for learning.

You can see where I'm going with this, right? I'm going to try and learn something new everyday, and post it here on this blog.