Memorial Day marks the start of the summer season here in the United States where people sit around on lawn chairs in the boiling heat and grill hamburgers and hot dogs. What fun! Speaking of burgers, did you know there is a Hamburger Museum in Daytona, Florida? “Hamburger Harry” Sperl, an immigrant from Germany, has over one thousand hamburgers in all shapes and sizes and smells. Cookie jars, hats, trays, badges, magnets, music boxes, salt and pepper shakers, posters, glasses, cups, bowls, stuffed toys, t-shirts and of course…a cheeseburger-shaped waterbed. Not sure which items are rare, medium and well done?
Anyway, Hamburger Harry’s Burger Bike is quite special. Created on a Harley chassis using Styrofoam and fiberglass, it has neon lighting, steam that rises from the patty, and a stereo that plays the sound of sizzling burgers. Right now he’s working with an architect to create a burger-inspired building to house the future International Hamburger Hall of Fame. In the meantime you’ll have to make a special appointment to visit his collection at his non-hamburger home.
(Source: thisbelongsinamuseum)
Tom Crouch, Senior curator in the National Air and Space Museum’s Aeronautics Division, discusses Thaddeus Lowe and the birth of American aerial reconnaissance during the Civil War. This presentation was recorded on May 11, 2011 on the National Mall.
A Diplodocus and a horse compare skulls at The World’s Largest Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. Read my review here.
Do you have a drawer full of barely used utensils? Well, I know I do. Unlike Surendrabhai Patel, I probably won’t display my utensils in a mud hut. But you can’t compare my old, crusty spoons to those from India. We’re talking about real craftsmanship here. Utensil is defined as a tool used for cooking and baking or serving a set purpose. I bet those smoking hookah utensils serve a real purpose.
Part of the Vishala Environmental Centre for Heritage and Arts in Ahmedabad, India, the Utensil Museum displays more than 2,000 traditional utensils of all imaginable shapes and sizes. Besides the brass ware, there are over 600 betel-nut crackers, various water containers (or lotas) and hookahs from all over India.
P.S. There’s also a Rice Cake and Kitchen Utensil Museum in South Korea.
(Source: thisbelongsinamuseum)
The Mystery Notebook at the Manchester Museum, found and investigated by the Curatorial Trainee. Go read her blog to find out how she tracked the author.
Kentucky, my grandmother’s homeland. I may have gone there as a child, not like I would remember, as I have tried to block out specific memories of my times in the south. But if and when I ever find myself in the “Bluegrass State” again, I might have to make a stop in Marion. At the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum, there’s the “World’s Largest” collection of Fluorite. From 1920 until his death in 1980, Mr. Clement assembled over 50,000 pieces of fluorite, also known as fluorspar. Shit…that’s a long time to collect anything and not just minerals. Fluorite gave its name to flouresence, I don’t know, you might have heard of it. Anyway, back to Kentucky. This part of the world was the largest producer of fluorspar, before they lost the contest to China (of course) who now produces 99% of all fluorspar. You know what? I like that word. Fluorspar. Maybe that will be the name of my future child. I can always say it’s in honor of my grandma’s Kentucky roots or something.
(Source: thisbelongsinamuseum)
Here is my review of the new Wellcome exhibition Dirt for New Scientist. I was particularly struck by the fascinating exhibits to do with the mid-nineteenth Century outbreak of cholera, sewers and ‘social cleansing’.
Credit: Wellcome Library
Time Lapse video of the construction of the Dan L Duncan Wing at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
(Source: blog.hmns.org)
Fakes, Forgeries, and Mysteries: Rembrandt’s Son
A video series by the Detroit Institute of the Arts
(Source: youtube.com)
