Weschler, Lawrence - Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder

[oyceter]

(subtitle: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology)

This is on the Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT) in Culver City, which I visited in October. If you have the chance to go to the museum yourself, I highly advise doing so, with no expectations whatsoever. It is strange and wonderful and an experience unlike any other. (Also, if you go, read my posts after. Ditto with the book.)



Like so many others, Weschler stumbled unknowingly into the MJT. Unlike most, he actually started researching assorted footnotes and attributions, only to find while some were improbably true (horned humans), some seemed to be fabricated out of nothing (Sonnabend). The complete lack of irony in David Wilson, the curator and creator of the museum, also doesn't help distinguish fact from fiction.

I didn't quite catch on to how much the museum was a commentary on museums and metatextuality until reading this; knowing that some of the displays have been broken since the book was written (1995) means it's deliberate, and wow. Strange. It reminds me of me and Rachel looking at little exhibits, only nothing was in the space, only a view of the wiring in the back of the walls. I'm now wondering how long that's been there too!

Weschler very quickly enters a space in which he begins to doubt everything, from the bat which flies through solid lead to the existence of the opera singer (both very founded doubts) to the existence of pronged ants and miniature sculptures positioned within the eyes of needles (unfounded doubts). It's particularly interesting reading about him investigating; when I visited, there were enough things I had previously known in several exhibits that I didn't doubt their accuracy, and when I read about the pronged ant and the weird behavior inhaling a certain parasitical spore invoked, I was completely convinced, given how much other weird parasitical behavior I have read about (Peeps, Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation). But Weschler had me doubting that the miniature sculptures of Hagop Sandaldjin and the floral radiographs of Albert G. Richards were real for a while.

I'm still not entirely sure, but that is the wonderful, Heisenbergian (I am probably woefully misusing this term) effect of the museum.

Weschler also discusses the evolution of museums from cabinets of wonder, which displayed things like pieces from the cross to evidence of psychic phenomena to bizarre freaks of genetics together, no irony to the juxtaposition. He briefly mentions other interesting museums in the notes, and I was so incredibly disappointed to discover that there used to be a Barbie Hall of Fame in South Bay, run by a private collector. Only it is closed now, and has been for years! WOES! So close, and yet, so far...

If you haven't figured out yet, I am the sort of person who would totally take a side trip to see the world's largest ball of string.

Recommended for anyone interested in that fine line between science, freaks of nature, weird but cool things people do, and sheer bogglement. I love it.

Links:
- rachelmanija's review

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder had -- to me -- the delightful and rare quality of making a wonderfully mysterious and inexplicable thing more wonderfully mysterious, not less, through investigation and explanation. I'm still not sure what to make of David Wilson and his museum (besides enjoying the experience, of course), and I'm glad of that.

(I'm also a sucker for the history of museums and 'natural philosophy' collections, which helps.)

[oyceter]

I know! It was really great having already gone to the museum and then having a brand new museum experience via the book, because he made me rethink everything I saw there!