Dolls That Come Alive

By Edith McClintock

It’s strictly fun creepy, I promise.

I visited the Tbilisi Doll and Children’s Art Museum mostly because its colorful balconies caught my eye every day on my way to work while I lived in Georgia. But I also thought it might be silly and unique—kitschy.

Based on a previous visit to the natural history museum in Borjormi (a much smaller town in the mountains), I didn’t expect much—maybe a damp, slightly creepy space overcrowded with Chucky dolls—white eyes rolling and pink cheeks curved in evil grins. But the doll museum is actually fascinating (and only a little Victorianish creepy), although best experienced if you speak Russian or Georgian. Later visits to Tbilisi museums proved that most are also quite modern and interesting (I especially loved the icon museum).

The doll museum was created in 1937 by a Georgian children’s author and teacher who donated much of the original collection. Over the years, the museum fell into decline, with theft, flooding and financial problems. But in recent years, many of the exhibits have been restored.

The first level of the museum houses a collection of antique puppets and dolls from around the world, several of them reminding me of flamenco dancers and folk dolls my grandmother used to bring us back from her word travels—long since tossed in the trash due to my mom’s overzealous decluttering (my sister and I are still working on forgiveness).

The best toys in this exhibit are the ones that come alive—the mechanical and musical dolls that dance, sing, blow bubbles and play instruments. Today they seem a curiosity, but intricately constructed mechanical toys built in the 18^th and 19^th centuries presaged modern day robotics, and some of the greatest inventors of that era built mechanical toys.

Up the colorfully decorated stairs on the second floor is the Children’s Art Museum with an ongoing exhibit of children’s artwork created in the museum’s own studios. When I visited, there was also an exhibit of student paintings and sculptures around environmental themes.

My favorite exhibit was on the top floor—beautiful modern dolls, puppets and toys created by Georgia artists, most of them for sale. I wanted to buy pretty much everything in the room, and controlled myself only because I was in Georgia on a Peace Corps salary. The other room on the top floor had a collection of Georgian folk dolls from the 1960s and 1970s, with a great space for doll-making parties. But like many Georgian museums, the rooms were closed and we had to ask staff to open them. 

We weren't allowed to take photos of the mechanical dolls on the first floor, but below is a video with some of the best (dolls start at 00:18).

For more, visit my author website and/or personal blog, A Wandering Tale. Even better, order a copy of Monkey Love & Murder on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the Book Depository (free shipping nearly anywhere in the world).

What Do We Do With All This Stuff?

By Supriya Savkoor

Supriya may live near some of the most famous American museums—chiefly, the Smithsonian—outside Washington, D.C., but she still chose this week to rerun a slightly off-topic post from last year.
 

The Museum of Childhood 
in Edinburgh

This week, while researching our topic of the week, I learned about museums devoted entirely to jars of prepared mustard (in Wisconsin); ham (there are actually two such museums--one in Belgium, another in Spain); arts and crafts inspired solely by owls (Korea); lawnmowers (the UK); bananas (on the island of Martinique); asphalt (California); toilets (India); toilet covers (Texas); mice (Russia); and even phallic symbols (Iceland). There are countless others dedicated to almost any specialty, niche topic you can think of. (Seriously, think of one then do a web search. Chances are, it exists.)

I adore museums, but the problem is I also live in one. I collect books, few of which I plan to read again, clothes I haven't worn in years, old gifts I feel too guilty to donate, baby items I’m hanging onto in case someone else (not sure who) might need them, and an avalanche of papers that need sorting, dealing with, and/or shredding. I know I’m not the only one who lives like this. Most people I know have little museums of some sort or other in their homes. Wine bottles, matchboxes, old photos, cookbooks, gadgets, mementos. We live in a culture of collecting things. It’s what we do. The question is, why?

The Berger Collection with Teapot Museum in
Amorbach, Bavaria, houses countless exhibits
of modern art as well as Europe's largest teapot
collection, featuring nearly 2,500 teapots
and another 500 miniature ones.

A couple weeks ago, a friend told me she lies awake at night worrying about the amount of stuff we collect. Where will it all go? Reminding me of a few years earlier when my then-first-grader was in a panic about her elementary school cafeteria not recycling. What a waste of all those little milk cartons, plastic cutlery, paper bags, and cello paper that went straight into the trash! I’ve been worrying about the same issues, in my own life and all around me. We live in a community filled with pockets of great affluence. Collectively, we keep buying gobs of new stuff, getting rid of the old (the amount of packaging alone gives me the shivers), and I don’t always see as much recycling or re-using as I’d expect from such a resourceful (and well-resourced) community.

An exhibit at the Museum for Funeral Customs in
Springfield, Illinois, displays mortician's restorative tools.

I'm trying to do my part. For starters, last weekend, I took my daughter’s Girl Scout troop on a tour of a landfill. My plan was to point out the tall, stinky piles of rubbish and wag a finger at the kids: “Be responsible! Waste not, want not!” And so on. But we were all stunned, kids and adults alike, by how pristine it all was. It turns out that in most parts of the States, landfills are not the tall monuments of debris they once were. It’s highly compressed, mostly covered, and set deep in the ground between an amalgam of liners and tarps to avoid contamination. Not just out of sight, but odorless too. 

In contrast, in many parts of the world (Zabbaleen City in Cairo, Kachri Kundi in Karachi, and the Matuail landfill in Dakka, to name a few), communities spring up on top of exposed landfills and become a meager source of income for its residents (who pluck out reusable and/or resellable items) and even innovation for scientists and city planners.

For generations, we’ve been fascinated with digging up the debris of past cultures through archaeological digs. But what will future generations think about the debris we leave behind? Will we be considered one of the most wasteful generations, not caring about the environment? Or might we be the ones to turn things around and become the generation that rescues Mother Nature? I wonder which of our stuff future generations will choose to collect and build their own museums around.

One Man’s Trash…

By Alli Sinclair

As part of my daughter’s school curriculum they’ve been studying recycling and reusing materials. The topic took me back to a time in Argentina when I discovered a bizarre and fun place in Gaiman, Patagonia.

Long before recycling became mainstream, Joaquín Alonso collected bottles, cans, and all manner of disused household goods to create Parque El Desafío. Desafio means challenge in English, and I’ve never ascertained whether Señor Alonso named the park “challenge” after his project or if it had a deeper meaning.

Although it’s not technically a museum, Señor Alonso’s work contains articles that are decades old. He used these pieces to create a life-sized VW bug, garden of flowers, birds, trees, and a playground for kids, young and old, to use their imaginations and spend an afternoon living in a world of wonder.

There are signs that display his sense of humour, so it helps if a Spanish speaker is nearby to translate. A classic example is at the entrance. When I was there in 2000 he charged USD4 for ‘functionaries of the state, lawmakers, and politicians’ and 40 cents for everyone else.

In 1998, Señor Alonso entered the Guinness Book of Records as the creator of the world’s largest recycled park. With over 50,000 wine and beer bottles, 30,000 cans, 12,000 bottle caps, 5,000 plastic bottles and an array of televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, and various other household appliances, Parque El Desafío, is a great testament to how one man’s imagination and talent can turn trash into a treasure for all.

Unfortunately Señor Alonso passed away in 2010 and as Gaiman is off the well-worn tourist track, his family were unable to keep the property open to the public. The latest I heard is the place is now up for sale and weeds are growing between the artwork. I hope someone can step in and save Parque El Desafío as it is a piece of history that is important not just to Argentina, but to the world. To see Señor Alonso’s labour of love disappear amongst the weeds would be a tragedy.

Even though you can’t enter the gates now, this video might give you an idea of Señor Alonso’s imagination and vision:

Tehran's Museum of Time

Time Museum in Tehran

By Heidi Noroozy

Tucked away on a shady lane in the Zafaranieh district of North Tehran stands a wedding cake of a mansion, painted blue with intricate white trim. Once the home of Hossein Khodadad, a wealthy merchant who made a fortune in shipping and textiles, the estate is now a museum dedicated to that most elusive of subjects: time.

Through the ages, people have devised ingenious ways to measure and keep track of time, from sundials to electronic clocks. When I think of the many practical instruments that we use divide the day into hours, minutes, and seconds, the first thing that comes to mind is the good old tick-tock. The museum’s designers must have been thinking along the same lines, since they filled Mr. Khodadad’s mansion with mechanical timepieces of all types. The collection includes cuckoo clocks hanging on the walls and pendulum clocks with their system of weights and chains housed in plain wooden cases. Others are so ornate they’d be right at home in a European palace—clocks set into porcelain vases, paired with bronze sculptures, and mounted on inlay cabinets.

Many of the exhibits are noteworthy because of their owners, such as the timepiece that once belonged to Fath Ali Shah Qajar, who ruled Iran from 1797 to 1834. Others are gimmicky—a tiny clock set into a silver cigarette lighter.

My favorite exhibit in this unusual museum is the Evolution of Time display in the garden surrounding the mansion. It contains replicas of unusual devices from different historical periods and cultures. Here is a selection:

A Sumerian sundial based on a design that is 6,000 years old. The Sumerians, who occupied a part of Mesopotamia now located in southern Iraq, were among the first people to use sundials to track time.

This rather crude clepsydra, or water clock, is a timepiece that measures time by the regulated flow of water into and out of a vessel, where the amount of liquid is then measured.

A candle clock has hour markings set into the wax that show the passage of time as the candle burns down.

Chinese fire clocks like this dragon-shaped one work by lighting a stick of incense strapped to the dragon’s back. As the incense burns, the flame breaks threads connected to balls that drop onto a sounding board and mark the hour.

A most unusual piece is this sundial in the shape of a book. The pages mark the hours, and each sheet contains numbers that represent the minutes. The book’s angle is adjusted according to the position of the sun, and the shadow cast onto the pages shows the current hour and minute. The number marked on the vertical page is a 12, or high noon.

Inside and out, the museum documents the march of time over the course of human history. The building is only 80 years old, but its architecture mimics the style of a 15th century Safavid mansion. It even contains a room that replicates the interior of Shah Abbas’s Ali Qapu Palace in Isfahan. And the history of its former owner is irrevocably linked to the shifting of dynasties, for the Khodadad family fled Iran in the wake of the Islamic Revolution, leaving their property to be confiscated by the new regime. Their textile factories ended up part of the military-industrial complex operated by the Revolutionary Guards, and many of the clocks in the museum’s collection were confiscated from other wealthy Tehran families with ties to the former shah.

If you can’t make it to Tehran to visit the museum in person, you can still take a virtual tour with this video clip from Iran’s English-language network, Press TV:

Off The Beaten Track: Columbus' Anchor

Sangeeta Nancy Boondoo, an attorney with the government of Trinidad and Tobago, is a student of life. She's always on the lookout for something new and interesting to learn and do. She loves to travel, and though she hasn't yet been to India, the land of her ancestors, it's at the top of her list to visit someday. She loves to go to the beach, take nature hikes, and bake. She does not like to cook, but she collects cookbooks anyway, along with all kinds of other books. A girl after our own heart...

It can be difficult to explain to people why a person can like a museum. I know I tried on a few occasions. Why do I like them? Simple. One never knows the treasures and discoveries to be made when a museum is visited!! Last year I visited the National Museum and Art Gallery (Royal Victoria Institute) in Port-of-Spain for the first time as an adult, with all the time in the world to wander around. I “found” quite a few treasures, but one stood out in particular: Christopher Columbus’ anchor.

The National Museum and Art Gallery (Royal Victoria Institute) is housed in a beautiful old building, built at first as a Science and Art Museum to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and hence originally called the Victoria Institute. It was opened on 17th September, 1902 and over a century later Royal Victoria is still a very beautiful lady. 

The building is currently under renovation, with visitors having to walk across the southern courtyard to enter. I didn’t mind because it was right around the corner, and in the recent past the building was marked for demolition. The courtyard is rather inconspicuous, and I remember resigning myself to the fact that only in Trinidad would the entrance to our national museum be like this.

 Passing a white, wiry swan as I entered, I was not deterred, certain that at the very least there were a few cannons scattered around the courtyard, and they were sure to entertain me for a while. The courtyard had a surprise though, neatly tucked away in a corner, next to the swan stood a simple anchor with a metal plate inscribed with some writing. I took the pictures first, and then I went in closer to read the writing. This simple anchor, almost blending in with the shrubbery, was said to be the anchor lost by Christopher Columbus along the shores of Trinidad in 1498—and it had been exhibited as such in Normandy, Paris, Madrid, and Chicago. I was excited, and given that I was not prohibited from touching it either by a sign or the knowledge that I would damage it, I admit I did reach out and touch it, imaging to myself the stories this anchor could tell if it were able to. 

I left the museum quite happy, having photographed and noted the many treasures housed within but saddened at the difficulties that the museum staff faced in maintaining them. It is sad how little we appreciate our history.

Christopher discovered Trinidad during his third voyage to the new world. The legend is that having sighted land on 31st July, 1498 and seeing three hills, Columbus was reminded of an earlier promise to name the first land he discovered “La Trinity” after the Holy Trinity. La Trinity became Trinidad over the years and has stuck. The three hills Columbus saw are a bit of a myth because that triad of hills which inspired Columbus is yet to be found; fishermen report that in certain conditions they can see the Trinity.

Columbus’ records indicated that he and his crew stopped several times along the Trinidadian coast. On the second day of one such stop, at  “Punta del Arenal,” Columbus and his crew, on noticing a large canoe carrying twenty four Amerindians armed with bows, arrows, and wooden shields, ordered his men to play drums and dance. It was perhaps one of the earliest examples of the tourists not understanding local culture but having done some research, mistakenly thinking that they knew it all. The tourist guides did get it wrong long before the modern-day tourism industry. The Amerindians began showering arrows onto the ships and, according to the records, managed to communicate with a ship captain.  

Later that night Columbus stopped somewhere along the coast near modern day Icacos, at a spot in which the sea was apparently rough and lost the anchor of one of his ships. 

An anchor bearing the date 1497 imprinted on its stock was discovered in Icacos by one Mr. Agostini whilst conducting excavations on his plantation in 1877. The New York Times reported the find on April 12, 1880, stating that, “...it seems by no means improbable that it crossed the Atlantic on board the vessel which in the following year carried the Genoese adventurer outward upon his third voyage...”.

According to the inscription, the anchor’s 15th-century authenticity was confirmed by the French Societé Des Antiquiaries. Mr. Agostini later presented the anchor to the nation on March 9, 1912 and it has been since housed at the National Museum.

I have always heard that you never know what treasures lie waiting around the corner, and having literally discovered a treasure around the corner, I can’t wait to see what lies behind the next corner!

Off The Beaten Track: Notes from a Museum Nut

Leighton Gage writes a series of crime novels featuring Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the Brazilian Federal Police. The New York Times has referred to his books as “top notch… controversial and entirely absorbing” and called the new one, Every Bitter Thing, “irresistible.” Readers can access a video of him at http://www.leightongage.com, and read his weekly contributions on the blog he shares with seven other writers of international mysteries at http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/. He lives and works in Brazil.

I’m a museum nut. Maybe it has something to do with being museum-starved here in São Paulo, where we have so very few.

Although, if you ever come here, you really shouldn’t miss our MASP. It’s got the finest collection of Western Art in all of the Southern Hemisphere. And a very attractive building as well, under which a flea market is held every Sunday.

 

I have made it my goal to visit all of the great art museums of the world and I’ve been pretty successful at achieving it, but there remain two glaring exceptions in my museum knowledge.

The Hermitage...

...and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan.

I’ve never been to either place.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the former, but you may not be familiar with the latter, which has the most precious collection of Chinese Art in the world – and is one of the reasons why mainland China is so anxious to annex the country. You can read about the history of the museum here: http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/about/tradition.htm And, while there, I suggest you click on the “Collection” tab at the top of the page and sample of few of the museum’s delights. Chinese art isn’t everyone’s cup of chai, certainly not mine, but the place is still on my bucket list.

As to the Hermitage, did you know how close it is to Helsinki?

I’ve been in Finland many times, but have yet to make it to St. Petersburg, despite many promises to my wife to do so. The two cities are separated by little more than 180 miles – and there’s a train. But I’ll be in Helsinki again, in September, for the launch of another Finnish version of one of my books – and, this time, I’ve resolved to go.

The thing about museums and me is that, no matter how much I love them, if I’m in one for more than about three hours at a stretch, my level of appreciation drops. And, since I don’t see myself ever spending more than a few days in Taipei, I fear that my visit to the National Palace Museum is going to be an incomplete experience. That’s why I prefer to make extended stays in those cities that have lots to offer in the museum department.

And, being both a writer and a guy whose kids are no longer at home, my wife and I can often get away with it.

In 2009, for example, we spent the time between March and October in Paris. Enough time to see all of the museums, right?

Wrong! Paris has more than 140 of them. Some of them are so small you can do them in a morning.

One such, is the splendid little Museum of Romantic Life: http://news-e.hoosta.com/museum-of-romantic-life-in-paris/

Another is the Museum of Eroticism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Eroticism Warning: that one is “X” rated. They project classic pornographic films in black and white and have a myriad of interesting...objects. Don’t bring the kids.

The Mother of All Paris Museums is, of course, the Louvre.

If you’re living in Paris, as we were, one of the first things you should buy for yourself is a membership in the Société des Amis du Louvre: http://www.amisdulouvre.fr/index.htm

They have a little shop in one of the galleries you’ll pass on your way from the Metro to the ticket booths. Drop in, and for a mere ninety Euros, you can buy a family membership, valid for two, for a year. And, with one of those, you get to bypass the long lines at the ticket windows and visit for as long as you like, whenever you like. The normal entry fee to the Louvre is 14 Euros a person, so you and your spouse, if you have one, are going to spend 28 Euros a visit. Do the math. In four visits, the membership pays for itself. But with your membership card you can drop by for an hour or so without it seeming like an indulgence. Which is what we did, several times a week between March and October of 2009. I can honestly say that I now know the Louvre better than any other great museum in the world.

Finally, folks, a suggestion. If you haven’t yet visited Paris’s Jacquemart-André, you really should check it out: http://www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com/en/jacquemart/

They have a truly splendid collection of paintings by Italian and Flemish masters housed in what used to be a private mansion back in the Belle Époque. The art is fantastic, but the place is well worth-seeing for the building alone.

At Last, We Meet

On my recent trip to the UK, I took a train to Edinburgh, Scotland, much anticipating the red and green plaid skirts and a few old tales about Mary, Queen of Scots. I expected to find a charming old city, but I didn’t expect to visit one of my favorite writers of all times: Robert Louis Stevenson. More so, when I was reading his books in Russian translation, in my ignorance, I thought him an Englishman. Not only was he a Scot, but Edinburgh was his hometown.

The Royal Mile – Edinburgh’s main street – leads down from the Edinburgh Castle, the former residence of legendary Mary Stuart, to the Scottish Parliament and the Holyrood Palace, which King James converted from a medieval monastery into a royal residence. Packed with little museums that feature everything from weaving to childhood toys, the Royal Mile can easily monopolize your attention, but it’s the little narrow side streets that lead to the off-the-beaten paths and undiscovered treasures. 

Edinburgh’s Writers’ Museum is one of them. You can’t even quite see it from the main drag; you have to be a wanderer at heart to find it. And perhaps, a writer too – to notice the hanging sign in the shape of a scribe, jotting down those precious words with an ink feather as fast as he can. A writer’s words are always fleeting, by quill or by keyboard. 

The entire first floor of the Edinburgh’s Writers’ Museum was all about Stevenson.

I've always loved Stevenson’s books and admired his poems. As a child, I liked his work so much, I even read the preface for The Treasure Island – and, surprisingly, found out we had something in common! We were both sickly kids who spent days in bed, watching others play outside while our own caretakers wouldn’t open our windows even a crack. He seemed to be susceptible to the cold and damp Edinburgh weather, I suffered from tonsillitis and pneumonia in the icy Russian winters. So we let ourselves get lost in books, invented our own little worlds and created imaginary friends, with whom we embarked on the most incredible adventures. I wrote mine down sometimes. I’m pretty sure he did the same. “When I suffer, stories are my salvation,” he wrote. “I take them like opium.” 

The son of Thomas Stevenson and Isabelle Balfour, Stevenson was born to a family of engineers. So was I. Only his engineering dynasty specialized in lighthouses while my kinfolk built planes, trains, and automobiles. He didn’t do well in technical sciences in school, and I spaced out in my math classes. He became a writer, and so did I. I even learned to write with a fountain pen in school.  

And now, we’ve met at last. 

Originally built in 1622 as a private home for one of the city's wealthiest families, the museum also hosts exhibitions to two more of Scotland's great literary figures: Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, whose books I also love. The dining room of Scott's North Castle Street home has been reconstructed, complete with the his own chessboard and dining table. 

Yet I kept going back to the Stevenson’s exhibit, with its collection of photographs, many of which came from the Island of Samoa where he used to live later in life. I spent the majority of my time at the museum there, in fact. It was as if I'd been able to travel 150 years back in time. As I read his letters and eavesdropped in on his thoughts, I learned something else he and I had in common: he was an explorer too. “I travel not to go somewhere – but to go,” one of his scribbles said.  

You never know what you may find and who you may meet when you travel foreign lands. I met Robert Louis Stevenson. I even told him his books had once been my opioid salvation.