A Museum By Any Other Name...

Well, it's been busy, busy, busy here. I've been working madly on the dreaded dissertation. Already 542 words written (there's yer introduction, mate!) and only about 14,458 words to go. *sigh* Does it sound as llloooooooooonnnng to you as it does to me?

And.... there are approximately 58 days, give or take a half-hour, in which to finish the whole blasted thing. Did I mention I tend to procrastinate? Gah.

Really, I make it sound worse than it is. Once I get to writing, it does become more interesting. It's just that the siren lure of Word Twist on Facebook keeps mucking with my resolve.

One sentence at a time. One sentence at a time. Too bad I can't bind my freakin' blog in leatherette and turn that in!

Anywhatsit, I should be inspired, because whilst while in Santa Barbara, I visited one of my University of Leicester friends, Lynn.



She does about 50 different art-related things for a living, but she also finished, finished her dissertation!




So it can be done, people. See how gleeful she looks?

She's given me the confidence.

She also let me touch it.


Just a touch of bald-faced envy from my seat over here.

Interestingly, her topic was "A museum by any other name is still a museum" and the premise looked fascinating. Not to mention that she got very high marks. I was slavering all over it.

I do hope she's polished my drool stains off it by now.

Thinking about her dissertation came in handy when, on the next leg of the trip, we visited another old friend up in Oregon who has his own museum. Because Dan has either "a helluva lotta stuff in his barn that he on occasion shows to his very bestest old friends" or "a pretty durn cool very private museum"... and I'm going with the latter description.

Dan's museum mimics the form of an old-fashioned Wunderkammer. Collections of oddities and strange specimens from far and wide are gathered together, compared and contrasted, to the astonished wonderment of the viewer.

Here's the University of California Santa Barbara's version of a classic Wunderkammer, in the on-campus museum. Just to give you an idea of what the classical model is...



Weird things, beautiful things, amazing things, horrifying things...

are displayed in collector's cabinets for our collective awed gaze.

Dan's museum is similar in many ways. Old things, beautiful things....







Mysterious and unnamed things...









The only thing this museum needs is perhaps a bit more frequent dusting?




But that dust could have been Mt. St. Helen's ash, rather than dust, per se.



Because Dan's got some of that stuff too! So he's probably right to leave it all alone.





There were surprises around every corner at Dan's place. Antique cars, anyone?


An unbelievable flying machine?





A thriving watch repair business?

It's all there, and lots more.







And what else? Wait for it...

a DeLorean!

Back to the Future, anyone?

The reason Aphrodite's laughing so hard is that the sound track from Back to the Future is playing from inside the car. Because it's got to be a complete and total sensory experience at Dan's Homestyle Museum!


I've known Dan for about 30 years now, and he's always been full of surprises. The first surprise was that he actually hired me for one of my first real jobs, a decision he apparently didn't regret. I must have made him laugh often enough to make it worthwhile. You can't tell from any of my pictures, but he has the twinkliest Irish eyes you'll ever be lucky enough to see.

It's nice to know I still have a friend in Oregon.

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