One of the highlights of our trip was the chance to see the incredible Bảo tàng Động vật, a little-known French-Colonial era zoological museum in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The museum consists of three rooms – Mammals, Reptiles and Fish, and Birds. While all of the rooms were bursting with charm, the bird room boasted recently installed lights in the antique display cases – the lights were a harsh white shade, yet despite that harshness, they were also quite dim. The resulting photos of eyeless birds and lifeless skin studies in this odd light have a slightly eerie tone that I love.
I have a thing for Natural History Museums – no matter how small, how old, or how new, there is also something inspiring to see. When I realized that Lancaster has one of their own, I decided we should pop in for a quick look. From the website, the museum looks very modern, but the site does not hint at the treasure trove to be found in the basement next to the bathrooms.
The Antique Cabinet Museum is literally a museum within a museum. I attempted to research the history of the antique cabinets, but came up with nothing – I think it’s safe to say that these are the collections from the North Museum before they made a major update into the modern world. They couldn’t throw all those incredible pieces away, but didn’t have room in the museum for them any longer. The solution? Stick them in a basement and slap a a label on it, and the Antique Cabinet Museum was born. It is an absolute gem. I wish all museums put their historic specimens on display in the old style like this.
By far, the best part of the Cabinet Museum was the Dichotomous Cabinet – cabinets with pull-out drawers, each one representing a different category of specimens. Our favorite drawer was the Polycephaly Animals (having more than one head) – just look at that disembodied two-headed calf head! This is antique natural history at its best, folks.
I love old objects. I love the way they look – rusted, chipped, cracked. I love the way they feel – heavy, solid, or ready to crumble. They offer me endless inspiration and comfort. These are some of my favorite objects.
This is my antique wax anatomical model of a child’s jaw. Dylan and I got a large lot of old dental implements and bits and bobs from a man on Craigslist in 2008. He was selling the treasures for a friend whose father had been a dentist in New York in the 1920s. That is the extent of the information we have on our little jaw’s personal history. As to its birth, according to the lovely peeling old labels on the back, it was made in Germany and then imported to New York by a man named Gustav Scharmann. I think the German label translates to something along the lines of “Wax Preparation. Keep out of the sun.” Makes sense, and we’ve complied, keeping in it our dark hallway where nary a ray of sunlight hits.
The label under the jaw reads “Dentes decidui” which I believe translates to deciduous teeth, meaning baby teeth, and apparently, according to the internets, also known as milk teeth.
Little known and sort of boring fact about me, I only ever lost 2 of my baby teeth. The rest refused to fall out, and my permanent teeth started growing in all around them. For awhile I had nearly two complete rows of teeth, earning me the nickname Dragon Teeth, or D.T. for short (actually, that was a pretty good one, Mom). Eventually I had to have the rest pulled, 4 at a time (they could only numb part of my mouth at a time for fear that I might swallow my tongue) which was pretty much the most horrible thing ever. I became very familiar with laughing gas at that time. I remember the first time they gave it to me, the dentist told me to think of something nice like puppies, which I thought was hilarious, and, deciding to teach him a thing or two about little girls, thought of alligators instead. (It didn’t really occur to me that he didn’t know what I was thinking.) He had the last laugh when I left with a drooling bleeding face full of cotton balls. I still love alligators though.
 Travel to wondrous and curious places on Obscura Day 2011.
On April 9th, I’ll be doing my darndest to attend three, count em, three Obscura Day events. If you don’t already know, Obscura Day is put on by the Atlas Obscura, and aims to be a day of expeditions, back-room tours and hidden treasures in your own town. With over 86 events all over the world, Obscura Day 2011 is shaping up to be an epic celebration of the curiosity seeker.
My own Obscura Day will start off racing with Dylan off from Brooklyn to East Shoreham, Long Island to tour Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Laboratory, (Nikola Tesla’s only remaining research facility), then we’ll book it back to Brooklyn in time for the ghost ships of Coney Island tour led by the folks from Underwater New York, and we’ll end the night at the Coney Island Spectacularium. The Spectacularium – run by friend and Morbid Anatomy’s Joanna Ebenstein, and the amazing Aaron Beebe of the Coney Island Museum – sounds like it’s going to be nothing short of incredible. From the exhibition’s website,
At the end of the 19th Century, Coney Island was the pinnacle of an astonishing era of live attractions – pre-cinematic spectacles that brought millions of people to the shores of the Atlantic to see things that were completely unique in their experience. The Great Coney Island Spectacularium will be a live exhibition and experience exploring that momentous age, bringing you sites, sounds, and immersive experiences that can’t be seen anywhere else on earth.
I’m incredibly excited and I’ll be back on April 10th with pictures and full reports from each event. I just hope my lazy self can actually make it to all three events without collapsing!
Back when we first began Observatory (the lecture space I co-run), we had a wine-soaked brainstorm session of all of the amazing events, lectures, screenings, shows, and classes we wanted to host in our then-empty room. Of all of the many ideas, the one I was most excited about was hosting a taxidermy class. 2 years later, after searching far and wide, Joanna finally found an amateur taxidermist to teach it!
Last night, I was able to squeeze into one of only 4 classes, and only then because I’m a member of Observatory. Otherwise it would have been the waiting list for me – these classes have been incredibly popular. I guess I’m not the only girl in Brooklyn interested in pulling the guts out of animals. (The class of about 15 was comprised entirely of girls…there were a few boys in the previous class, but it’s so interesting that taxidermy seems to so strongly attract the ladies. Pay attention fellas looking for a cute, hip girl with a strong stomach – they’re all at Observatory stuffing mice!)
*DISCLAIMER* I love animals, and I do not believe in the killing of animals to create new taxidermy – I only collect antique and vintage pieces that have been dead many years. These mice are no exception. Sue, the teacher of the class, gets her mice from a place where mice are raised to feed pet snakes and other reptiles. The mice she receives are too old to sell as food for pets and would literally be thrown away otherwise.
To be honest, the taxidermy process, at least for a little mouse, was much less gross than I expected. It’s a lot less about guts and a lot more about very gentle, tiny work. Well – de-braining was a bit disconcerting, but it only lasted a second and then it was over.
Here I am preparing to put my clay form into my mouse skin with a small group of strangers doing the same.
One girl putting the finishing touches on her Houdini mouse.
This mouse captain was pretty cute.
I had a time trying to work out how to keep tiny glasses on a mouse whose ears wouldn’t stand up.
My mouse! He is a young, bookish Victorian gone a-courting. I was going to give him away as a gift, but I don’t think I can ever part with him. Just look at that face! Just look at it!
More info here on the Taxidermy Classes at Observatory
A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to tag along with the Atlas Obscura team on a backstage tour of the Explorer’s Club in Manhattan. I’ve been dreaming about seeing the inside of this place for years, and I can assure you that it far exceeded my expectations.
The globe on which the Kon-Tiki route was (rumored to have been) planned! A sperm whale penis bone charmingly mounted on a cutout of a sperm whale! Pith Helmets galore! Numerous piles of rocks from exotic locales haphazardly balanced on every shelf! A mounted walrus head (which I took about 765 pictures of because I want to marry it)!
It’s a truly inspiring and remarkable place, and knowing that there are death-defying expedition stories of exploration and adventure behind every object in the place makes it a priceless collection. Sadly, our tour guide knew nothing of these stories (“What expedition is this arctic sledge from?” “An important one.” “Do you know anything about this tusk?” “It’s very old.”)
I was able to figure out, with no help from the tour guide, that this flag was taken to the Gobi Desert in 1925 by famous paleontologist, Roy Chapman Andrews.
The trophy room. Mark my words, one day my living room will be an exact replica of this room. Does anyone have a spare woolly mammoth tusk they want to give me to start things off?
My boyfriend.
Who doesn’t love a pith helmet and a puka shell mask?
Polar bear on the second floor landing! Our guide managed to impart some information here – “It’s not a very big one.”
This is obviously an extreme close up, but this globe is huge. Like if you took 4 exercise balls and stuck them together to made one big ball out of them (I’ve never been very good at similes).
It’s a library full of books solely on the subject of exploration. YES. (Books are on the other wall, not pictured. I promise, they were there)
I love this little guy with his harpoon.
I think the big antlered one is a caribou.
Who knew there were stones on Mt. Everest?
Explorers Club Research Library: even more books on exploration!
The aforementioned sperm whale penis bone. It kind of looks like a carrot. A huge, giant carrot.
Lots more pictures of our tour can be seen in this here Flickr Set.
If you know anything about me, it’s probably that I love taxidermy, and I love discovering surprisingly curious places. This summer I was able to take in some of the local color in Hayward while at my fiance’s grandparent’s cabin. Perhaps my favorite stop – shockingly not the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, with its 4.5 story fiberglass and steal muskelunge (affectionately known as a muskie, one of the ugliest fish I’ve ever seen), but a humble dive bar nearby.
The Moccasin Bar may have the standards – a pool table, flat screens, and extremely cheap pitchers, but what makes this bar special is its “nature museum.” Its walls are completely covered in taxidermy dioramas, and many of the cases are anthropomorphic scenes. Poker playing raccoons and rabbits, the backwater country life of chipmunks, a courtroom scene with a fox judge, and a boxing match between two raccoons – all haphazardly flung around the bar, right next to Big Buck Hunter and an electronic poker game.
I asked the young bartender about the dioramas – who made them? Why were they here? He only shrugged dismissively. “They were here before I was born.”
Dylan and I had a wonderful time putting together our bird themed show, Hollow Bones, at the Widow’s Watch in Kill Devil Hill last month. It was sad to take it down, and sadder still to have our unwieldy white peacock now blocking our entire hallway. We’ll get it back up on the wall eventually, but for now it’s easier to continuously run into it in the dark on the way to the bathroom at night.
Anyway, here are some images from the show!
Dylan did this silhouette of a woman in a bird costume. Isn’t it wonderful?
The bird we found on the street 3 years ago has finally graduated from our freezer to a jar. It is also very illegal for us to have it, so SHHHHH.
(I dropped the glass ball of quail eggs and spanish moss when I got home – shattered glass and shells everywhere. It was sad.)
Birds! I frantically finished up the tiny bird drawings in the paint pigment drawer the night before we put up the show.
Photo wall
Dylan’s paintings on the back wall
Eggs! Ostrich and quail encased in glass.
His name is Hooty.
Pigeon feathers collected in Greenpoint! It’s art! Also a turkey skull mounted on an antique brass dollhouse candlestick (at least that’s what the antique vendor said it was…)
I have discovered a new reason to visit the Twin Cities as often as I can with as empty a suitcase as possible. The Ax-Man. Yes, my boyfriend’s family lives there, and yes, Minneapolis is a beautiful city, and yes there are a million lakes. But the Ax-Man is on a whole ‘nother level.
Apparently there are four Ax-Men scattered around the Twin Cities, but we visited the St. Paul variety. It is a huge store of aisle after aisle of surplus stuff – lots of electronic bits and bobs, but also 1997 moon posters, old oscilloscopes, a bucket of plastic figurines of gulper eels, about 50 different colors of masking tape, art supplies, well, just a lot of random fun stuff. I meandered around for awhile, poking at this, handling that, and then I got to the chemistry isle. Holy Moly! Every sort of beaker, test tube, petri dish, and flask you could ever ask for at dirt cheap prices. I started stocking up on vials and little corked bottles, wishing I had more space in my suitcase for various glass instruments when I heard right behind me Dylan’s voice, “Uh…Michelle? You should come over here…” And there it was, a shelf full of botanical shadow box collections. Prices ranging $5 – $15 for the real big ones. If we thought we could get them all on the plane we would have cleaned the Ax-Man out. But we restrained.
A shot of the loot we somehow managed to carry on the plane with us in addition to 10 days worth of clothes, a video camera, a still camera, 2 laptops, and more books than anyone needs for 10 days.
Common Lichens, my favorite shadow box. “I lichen this” jokes were made all the way home. This was too big to put in our giant backpacks, so I carried it under my arm, much to the curiosity and delight of many a traveler.
Types of Pteridophytes, which, thanks to wikipedia, I now know are vascular plants which reproduce using spores instead of seeds or flowers.
A neat bottle for Benzinum – this seems to be Eastern European judging from the text – possibly Czech?
One of my favorite finds – Slime Mold sample. There were about 7 of these at Ax-Man and great care and time was put into choosing the best one. I love Slime Molds because they remind me of Egon in Ghostbusters. He collects “spores, molds, and fungus.”
Can never have enough test tubes and tiny bottles. Now if I can find something I can get through the minuscule opening of those bottles I’ll be set.
I love this box of Soap, Surgical. Just use as you would any ordinary soap!
A small metal box of glass-topped specimen tins – it’s travel sized! I’d love to go on an expedition and collect plant and insect life and fill each one of these. It’ll happen.
Dylan’s favorite is the Diseases of Grain shadowbox. Probably because he’s Midwestern and grain runs through his veins. Grain Veins.
 Kill Devil Hill Presents:
Hollow Bones
By Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras
Opening : August 13th Friday 6pm-9pm
On View : August 13th – September 8th
“In the style of a cabinet of curiosities, Enemark and Thuras have carefully curated a new installation for the Widows Watch. Combining photography, drawings, sculptures and taxidermy, the two pay homage to our flying feather friends.” (via Kill Devil Hill)
……………
I am so excited to announce the opening of a new exhibit I’ve been working on. Our favorite shop in Brooklyn, Kill Devil Hill, has recently transformed their intimate back room into an art salon and asked Dylan and I if we’d like to show some of our work there. After sharing total enchantment with David Attenborough’s Life of Birds, we decided to conjure up a wunderkammer of birds. I’ve got lots of different works in the show, from photography and drawings to some mixed media displays – and hopefully, if all goes well…my first attempt at a wet specimen. We’ll have some pieces from our collection on display as well.
Scroll down for a sneak peak of some work in the show. And please join us, this Friday, August 13 (Friday the 13th!) from 6-8. Hendrick’s gin will be sponsoring, so come sip a summer cocktail and enjoy some birds the way an 18th century gentleman naturalist might.
Kill Devil Hill is located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on Franklin Street between Java and Kent. Just one block off the Greenpoint G train.
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