I had a good opportunity to revisit the Museum of Bad Art in Dedham Mass earlier this week. Above is my buddy Corey, but I was amused to find that visitors appear to be leaving their own works for the collection.

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I found Germaine across from the Prudential Center Friday. His sound was good and I especially liked his snare drum.

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I found myself wandering about Boston Public Library for longer than I expected Friday. Part of it was the map exhibit and part of it was the architecture (and simply a place to relax for a bit). Amusingly, stairs and stairways seem filled with drama at BPL, and if the guard hadn’t just warned me about taking flash photos, I might have tried to sneak a peak behind that door.

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These pictures are mostly foolish, but here’s a small point: none of us had ever seen a cop pull over a cab — certainly not a cab with passengers — before this, so we were all rather curious about why. In front of us stood a question, an example of the many questions we all encounter every day, and it’s the kind of question that few of us would ever suggest going to the library to answer.

Later on we found Jason, who taught us a bit of history we probably should have known, and clearly could have taught us some more. But when asked about how he’d settle a bar bet, he said he’d likely go to Google. He noted that he’d look at the search results carefully, but admitted that he probably wouldn’t be found going to his library for answers.

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Edward Gorey is known for having created the Gashlycrumb Tinies, an alphabet of ways young children can meet an early end. That, and the bumper animations for public television’s Mystery! (here, have some games).

Gorey is dead now, but his house in Yarmouth is open to the public. Admission is $5 for adults (http://edwardgoreyhouse.org/, phone 781-768-8367). I found out about the house at Odd New England.com.

Tours are lead through the main floor of the house, with thorough explanations by active docents. They’ll leave at the end, and visitors are left to wander the few small rooms on their own.

My visit to the Gorey House was part of my mid-October Weird Travel Tour.

tags: alphabet, animation, cape cod, edward gorey, edward gorey house, elephant house, gashlycrumb tinies, gorey, gorey house, macabre, massachusetts, mystery!, strawberry lane, yarmouth, yarmouth ma

Dick Porter, of Onset MA, has been building his collection of over 5000 thermometers since the mid-80s, though the collection has nearly doubled since 1998 when it was just over 3000. He calls it the world’s largest and only thermometer museum. He’s certainly passionate about them, and he’s been an invited speaker at more than a few thermometer and weather related events, like the christening of the world’s largest thermometer in Baker California.

The collection, which Porter values at about $4 per piece, fills his home’s small basement, and visitors should expect him to be an active docent. He has stories about many of the thermometers, even some memories of the day the scientific community decided to honor Anders Celsius by eponymously renaming his centigrade scale. Thinking of scales, Porter even has a few Reamur thermometers. Impressive, yes, though Wikipedia notes a few more temperature scales he didn’t mention. I guess it’s challenges like that that get a guy through the day.

It’s all at 49 Zarahemla Road Onset, MA 02558, and visitors should probably give Mr. Porter a call (508) 295-5504 to confirm he’ll be home to host you. All info current as of my October 2005 visit, more info at Roadside America and Odd New England.

tags: attractions, dick porter, massachusetts, museum, onset, onset ma, thermometer, thermometer museum, thermometers, tourism, tour, travel

I was in Cambridge today attending the Digital Library Systems Group presentation on their fancy scanners and imaging workflow software. We have no digital collections program going yet, but we’re part of a university system plan to acquire either Ex Libris’s Digitool or ENCompass for Digital Collections (sample sites). But getting the collection management software just creates another problem: we don’t have any imaging resources to use to fill the new digital archive.

It’s not an area that I have much experience in, so all I can really say is it might be a good way to spend $75,000.

tags: cambridge, cambridge ma, digital library systems group, dlsg, document imaging, document scanning, image access, imageaccess, imaging workflow, massachusetts, planetary scanner

Hey, doesn’t the IKEA near Boston open today? Sure does. The company has 226 stores worldwide.

According to a story in the Pheonix:

Oddly enough, IKEA flopped when it opened its first US store in 1986. But by making concessions to American expectations (softer couches, American bed sizes, good thread counts) it gradually won over low-budget consumers attracted to its upmarket design, with its subtle implications of class mobility. That they were willing to bruise their toes lifting those deceptively heavy boxes speaks to the brand’s participatory appeal [...]. It’s all part and parcel of IKEA’s goal “to create a better everyday life for the many people.”

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A visit to The Paper House will run $1.50 and takes you out to a beautiful corner of the Massachusetts coast, 52 Pigeon Hill Street Rockport, MA 01966, just up the hill from Pigeon Cove. Call (978) 546-2629 if you’ve got questions. More info at Odd New England.

Pictures tell quite a story, so take a look at the photoset showing details of the fireplace, curtains, and exterior walls. Here also: the porch, lamp, desk, and piano.

The official website answers the question: “how do you make a paper house?”

Well, let me see. (Elis Stenman) started out making a house for the summer. The framework to the house is wood-just like any other house-it has a regular wood-en floor and wooden roof. The wall material, which was supposed to be insulation really, is pressed paper about an inch thick. It’s just layers and layers of newspaper, glue, and varnish on the outside That keeps it pretty water-proof actually. This was done in 1924 and he lived here in the summertime up until 1930. Actually, I guess he was supposed to cover the outside with clapboards, but he just didn’t. You know, he was curious. He wanted to see what would happen to the paper, and, well, here it is, 70 some thing years later.

tags: massachusetts, newspaper, paper, paper house, rockport, rockport ma, weird passion, weird travel

An unconventional panorama in Rockport’s Pigeon Cove. From left to right stand Will and Corey. Of course, it looks better bigger.

Note: this was just a sideshow on our Weird Travel Tour.

tags: corey, cove, group portrait, massachusetts, ocean, pano, panorama, pigeon cove, portrait, rockport, rockport ma, seaside, will

It was raining today in Rockport, but that didn’t stop Corey (top) or Will (bottom) from doing a little jumping on the seawall.

Note: this was just a sideshow on our Weird Travel Tour.

tags: action, air, corey, jump, jumping, massachusetts, rockport, rockport ma, will

The Korea Garden is on 20 Pearl Street somewhere behind the Middle East in Cambridge, Mass. It’s the sort of place that attracts local Asians and very few white boys (like me). So it’s hard to say what they must have thought when Cliff and I walked in one night this winter.

An argument broke out in the kitchen as the waitress presented our order. We joked and smiled among ourselves about it, but my smile fell as my dinner was delivered. A quivering mound of raw red beef topped by a glossy raw yellow egg yolk graced a pile of rice and sprouts. All this was delivered in a hot stone pot with a side of chili paste.

It may be difficult to understand how I ordered such a thing. It’s number 41 on their menu (not available for take out), but, like number 42, the description is rather limited. If I was more awake to things, I might have figured it out before ordering. But such is not the case, and I ordered it, so bit by bit I ate it.

And the more I ate, the more I liked.

Here’s the rest of their (takeout) menu:

Cambridge, MA. Korea Garden Takeout Menu

UPDATE: More about Bi Bam Bab here.

tags: asian food, cambridge, cambridge ma, korea garden, korean food, massachusetts, restaurant