Let's Visit the Museum (Virtually)

A wide variety of museum options are available.

Dedicated Rule of Three readers often ask me: “Say Bill, how do you decide what to write about each week?” Alright, if I’m honest with you, that question is rarely posed to me. And, given Rule of Three’s niche, I’m fortunate in that I can write about whatever I wish; I don’t have editors standing over me, yelling at me to: “Go cover that school board meeting!” or “We need three inches on the ‘Monroeville Miss Pierogi Festival Pageant’ results!” or “You didn’t take the bottle of bourbon out of my desk drawer, did you?”

Generally, we are strict adherents to Rule No. 3 (you know, the one about amusing oneself), and that guides our editorial decisions. In fairness, we’re also pretty religious about Rule No. 1 (you know, the one about securing a beverage, and, no, I did not take the bottle of bourbon out of your desk drawer) and Rule No. 2 (you know, the one about not being a douchebag) as well, but those rules have less bearing on the selection of column topics.

Readers do offer suggestions regarding topics for which they believe Rule of Three is uniquely positioned to provide its own skewed perspective. And, being the caring, responsive organization that we are, our typical response is to ignore the suggestion for a minimum of six months, and then, if we are so inclined, prepare and publish a piece, and pretend as if it were our own idea.

Not so this week, however. A dedicated Rule of Three reader, whom I will call “Sam,” because that’s his name, indicated to me that he had become aware of the existence of many bizarre, niche museums, and he thought that might appeal to our inner Rule No. 3, and that it might make for an interesting column. Sam included the picture of the Spam Museum above, although it wasn’t clear to me whether or not Sam has ever physically visited the Spam Museum, which opened in Austin, Minnesota in 1991, and, according to Wikipedia, “. . .tells the history of the Hormel company, the origin of Spam, and its place in world culture.” Doesn’t that sound like a hoot? Perhaps there is a bus tour operator in your area who is promoting a weekend trip to the Spam Museum right now; if so, my advice to you is to jump in. . .unless you’ve got something better to do, like reorganizing your sock drawer. Also, I’m amused by the sculpture outside the museum of the farmer ambling with a couple of his pigs; that is analogous to placing a sculpture of Leonardo da Vinci poised in front of a blank canvas with a paintbrush, preparing to paint the Mona Lisa, in front of the Louvre.

In order to execute on Sam’s vision, we naturally turned to atlasobscura.com, which has published an article entitled, “Museums in the United States: Discover 1,149 unusual museums in the United States.” Are you daunted by the prospect of digesting information on 1,149 unusual museums in the United States? I know we were. But then we reflected on our professional commitment to a surface-level, lackadaisical, cursory research process, exemplified by cherry-picking a handful of items only, and snarkily commenting on them, and decided that we could accomplish the task.

The very first listing caught our eye, inasmuch as the “Weightlifting Hall of Fame,” located in York, Pennsylvania is more commonly recognized as the home of a retailer, “York Barbell” (pictured below). . .

Although, our exhaustive (and, by exhaustive, I mean surface-level, lackadaisical and cursory) research reveals a much more impressive entrance (pictured here). . .

All I can say is, I’m not going to travel all the way to York, Pennsylvania to sort out this controversy - our travel budget will simply not allow it.

Next on our journey is a truly American creation: the “Jesse James Bank Museum,” located in Liberty, Missouri. To be clear, the museum doesn’t venerate an institution founded by Jesse James; no, it was the first bank robbed by Jesse James and his gang (atlasobscura.com qualifies this robbery as the “. . .first daylight, peacetime bank robbery by the James gang,” which I find confusing, because it makes me wonder if Mr. James and his compadres had previously perpetrated bank robberies after dark, during a war, and those who maintain such records had turned up their nose at those exploits, and applied an asterisk to them, much like Major League Baseball did with Roger Maris’ sixty-one home runs in 1961).

But at least there’s a gift shop.

Another interesting museum is housed within “Slow Down,” a shop in New Orleans, Louisiana, known as “The Snail Museum of Miniature Art,” or “sMoMA, an apparent homage to New York’s MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). This diminutive museum, which clearly requires a smaller footprint than your standard, human-sized museum, features tiny paintings on the walls - how cute is that? I didn’t notice a tiny gift shop, however - a missed opportunity? Also, I feel a little bit misled - I see absolutely no snails pictured here, do you? Although, upon reflection, that might be a snail hoisting the “E” out of the word “Miniature;” at first glance, I thought it was a cat, but, perhaps it’s a snail. If that’s the case, sMoMA, all is forgiven.

The “Museum of International Propaganda” is located in San Rafael, California, and appears to be the ground floor storefront of a cheap, roadside motel. Until they opened the museum in 2016, Tom and Lilka Areton included pieces such as a stone bust of Joseph Stalin in their living room; the museum is a far better (and, less creepy) place to display their wares. And, likely to avoid awkward conversations with guests to their home: “You two have a lovely home. This shrimp puff is quite tasty. Say, is that Stalin over there?”

Where else would you expect to find a museum devoted entirely to the humble wingnut, but Berkeley, California? I find it somewhat ironic that this display in “The Wingnut Museum” includes a sign which reads, “Please don’t touch the wingnuts;” isn’t that the attraction to wingnuts, that they can be easily used by hand to tighten things?

The “Poozeum,” a museum dedicated to the study of fossilized dinosaur poop (that’s right, poop) is located in Williams, Arizona. The dinosaur perched on the toilet is an amusing touch, as is the slogan: “#1 For Fossilized #2.”

File this one under the heading of “Two Museums in One.” “The James Dean Museum and Garfield Museum” honors two natives of Fairmount, Indiana: the actor, James Dean, and the cartoonist creator of “Garfield,” Jim Davis. Talk about synergy - that fat, lazy, lasagna-loving cartoon cat and the rebellious young actor who died in a car accident go together like {insert ironic opposites illustration here}. It makes me wonder what sort of museum would make sense here in my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Perhaps the concept needs a little more work, but I believe there’s a market for “The Andy Warhol and Roberto Clemente Museum.”

Having never actually seen the “North American Bigfoot Center,” purportedly located in Boring, Oregon, I can neither confirm nor deny its existence.

And, the winner in the category of “Least Descriptive Museum Name Ever,” we have the “Working Mens Institute,” located in New Harmony, Indiana. What would you imagine is displayed within this stately structure? The original concept appeared to be geological specimens, but its website informs us that “From the Harmonist wagon, the skeleton of a Civil War horse, to the unusual “eight-legged calf,” every object on display at the Working Men’s Institute has a unique story.” Okay. . .

The “Missouri Quilt Museum,” in Hamilton, Missouri features the “World’s Largest Spool of Thread,” seen here outside the museum. Visitors are encouraged to add more thread to the spool, which already contains more than one million yards of thread. Deploying that spool of thread could produce the “World’s Largest Button-Down Dress Shirt.” (Ed. note: An entire column could be devoted to “World’s Largest. . .” items, such as the “World’s Largest Pistachio” (Alamogordo, New Mexico); “World’s Largest Ball of Sisal (what the hell is “Sisal?”) Twine (Cawker City, Kansas); “World’s Largest Teapot” (Chester, West Virginia); “World’s Largest Basket” (Newark, Ohio); and “World’s Largest Frying Pan” (Rose Hill, North Carolina). I know, I know, I can wait a minimum of six months, and then, if you are so inclined, you will prepare and publish a piece, and pretend as if it were your own idea.)

Well, that’s our wrap-up of the vast collection of museums available here in the United States - boy, professional journalism is exhausting! How’d we do, Sam? Does this column meet your expectations?

What’s that? You think it sucks? You think you could have done better, with your eyes closed, and both hands tied behind your back? Oh yeah! Come here and say that to my face! Or, better yet, craft your own column, and we’ll publish it as a special Rule of Three Guest Column. That goes for any one of you: simply email your guest column to us at: ruleofthreebs@gmail.com, and we’ll slap it in here and share it with our dozens of dedicated readers. No, this is not some sophisticated identity-theft, phishing scam intended to hijack your personal banking records; we simply wish to take a week off - think about it - this could be your big break!

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