Fun_People Archive
12 Dec
Daddy, can we go to the sanitary plumbing museum?

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri, 12 Dec 97 15:53:57 -0800
To: Fun_People
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Subject: Daddy, can we go to the sanitary plumbing museum?

Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: Scott Patrick <transplex@pol.net>

    When you go on vacation, you're expected to visit museums. It's
obligatory. But for many people, the thought of standing in line to see
important art or ancient artifacts reminds them of all the boring lectures
they were subjected to in school. For those folks, there is an answer.  For
instance, while in Chicago, they could visit the International Museum of
Surgical Science (That's something to tell the 'ER' fans about back home).
Or, in Connecticut, there's the Nut Museum in Old Lyme, the Barnum Museum
(as in P.T.) in Bridgeport and the Children's Garbage Museum in Stratford.
All of the above institutions are featured in 'OFFBEAT MUSEUMS' by Saul
Rubin (Santa Monica Press/238 pgs./$17.95, out now), which profiles oddball
collections and curators around the country. There are museums devoted to
cockroaches, Houdini, hamburgers, questionable medical devices, bananas,
menstruation, rattlesnakes, duck decoys, toilet seat art, rosaries,
burlesque dancers and funeral services. This volume has a glib tone and
should have been more fun to read (the subject was done better in 'America
Off the Wall' by Kristan Lawson and Anneli S.  Rufus, published by John
Wiley & Sons in 1989). But 'Offbeat Museums' has the advantage of a large,
glossy format to display its cockeyed wares.  Get a gander at the car Lee
Harvey Oswald drove to the John Kennedy assassination (at the Tragedy in
U.S. History Museum in St. Augustine, Fla.) without leaving your comfortable
couch.

© 1997 Peter Langston