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History
The Main Street Museum] forces one to contemplate the nature of museums and curating. Why do we save what we save? How do we decide what to discard, what to display, what to hide away, and what to destroy.” —Joe Citro, Weird New England, 2004
The Main Street Museum opened on South Main Street in 1992 and immediately attracted a broad cross-section of citizenry: academics, art professionals, musicians, politicians, journalists, the under-employed, habitual evil-livers, and also quite ordinary people (it might as well be admitted, that many in all of these categories were my own blood relatives). Here then was the first site for the museum. It had been the former home of a renown local restaurant, “Lena’s Lunch”. It was a narrow storefront space which had been a public space for over 100 years—a silent picture theater, indoor miniature golf, and a bowling alley, also a restaurant with transvestite waitresses—yes, submarine sandwiches by day and “Judy” and “Barbara” by night. There ought to be a plaque. Here Elvis impersonators and High-Art all enjoyed equal admiration. (or, High-Art claimed as much admiration as it can, when competing with Elvis impersonators.) Our home was directly across the street from an American Legion Hall; and there are no better critics. They would be completely and utterly potted every night. They withheld nothing. learn less...!
Catawiki
The Main Street Museum's Catawiki is a unique digital initiative in material culture studies utilizing open-source code to describe the artifacts in our collections and to create a completely fluid, adaptive taxonomic structure for their interpretation. The Catawiki uses the same "wiki" code utilized by "Wikipedia" and is able to be modified by users from any internet access point. The categoies currently acting as a organizational foundation for these structures are:
- Objects as Evidence of Human Culture, for instance: Pet Toys; Geographically or Historically Significant Items (Relics); Manuscripts; Art; Military History; Textiles and Clothing; Shoes; and "Things, or Fragments of Things Once Owned by, or Associated with, Notable People—Particularly Notable Vermonters".
- Biology: Living, or Apparently Once Living, Objects, including
- Flora: "The Invasive and Native Species of Windsor County" for instance, or "Dried roses from Robert Todd Lincolns House in Manchester, Vermont" and "Roses from the Varina Davis Memorial in Vicksburg, Mississippi".
- Fauna includes: Homo-sapiens; White-tailed Deer and Other Mammalia; Reptiles; Birds; Entomology (Insects); Corals; Flocked Pets; Other, or Unidentified Species; etc.
- Inanimate, or Apparently Inanimate Objects, including Minerals, Man-made Minerals, Silt from the 1927 Flood, Round and/or Rusted Things.
- And, of course, Miscellaneous or Other Things.
- Vinculum (or Overlapping) Categories can be accessed from the sidebar to the left and include: Carbon; Color as a Hysterical Reaction; Cute Things; Flocking; Objects Chewed by Pets; Teeth, More Teeth, Things with Nail-holes; "Things Made from Animals or Parts of Animals" and Tramps and Hobos.
What's Goin On?!
“White River Junction—a beauty spot in the midst of a valley of beauty and cheer.” —Gateway to Vermont, 1903
saturday, 18 october special museum field trip to both view and honor Hartford's Old Pine. an ancient white pine renown for its size and its beauty. join us to learn the history of this noble tree. View it. Honor it. Its a pretty amazing tree that not too many people know about. bring your own poems to read, etc.
5 pm, 18th october. meet at main street museum, 58 bridge street and caravan up the hill.
- rain date 25th october, saturday, 4pm
and later that saturday, the 18th opening reception for douglas i repetto, curious pets. sculpture and bots at the museum 6 -- 8 pm. join us for wine and cheese, cupcakes and champagne! both of these saturday events are free! learn less!
Halloweeeen!—Learn About our Spooky Parade and See the Schedule of Events for Saturday, 1 November!
hey, lets start a band! this halloween we aim to have more musicians in our midst for our halloween parade saturday, 1 nov. 2008! we even thot that we would have some rehearsals for the "band" before the event! join us to learn a few songs, and share a few songs, start a band just like grown-ups do! (-- and eat some pizza too!) at the main street museum, 58 bridge street this sunday, the 19th, from 5 - 6 pm this thursday the 23d, from 5 to 6 pm and sunday the 26th and thurs the 30th all rehearsals will last from 5 to 6 pm and we will have either pizza, or african food afterwards. no experience is necessary. diverse instruments welcomed -- kazoos, ukes, trumpets, drums, harmonicas, guitars, clarinets, washboards, and any others that make noise!
come on down or just show up on the 1st of nov with your instrument of choice and help us make the rio blanco social aid and pleasure club into a truly euphonious organization! best, --the management
Publicity and Press Clippings
Read what we write about ourselves. Read what others write about us.
Testimonials
“The Main Street Museum—White River Junction’s answer to the Library of Congress.”
—Peter Welch, U. S. House of Representatives, 2007.
“It is only due to organizations such as yours that the important works of our Country are brought to the attention of the public.”
—Marie Reilly, Museum of Bad Art, Dedham, 1998. learn less...!
The (Virtual) Restroom
The Virtual Restroom of the Main Street Museum was begun in the mid-1990's as an interactive digital resource for the creation and storage of online grafitti. Now that we have our own, actual, restroom in the fire station building, the restroom of the Museum has a both virtual and physical presence. Please feel free to add to both. Please remember however, that only one blackboard coated wall in the actual museum is suitable for writing (in chalk only please) and that general standards of civic-mindedness, and decency should guide your musings and observations. —The Management.
1 August 2008:
Hakuna Matata!
don't mess!
Pariah Beat!
Just like Jack the Ripper Just Like Motjo Hand Just Like Billy Sunday In a shotgun ragtime Band
Wash Hands
I am.
This is where We become Us
Material Culture Studies, Including The Electric Organ
Read what we've written about objects. Read what the experts have said as well. This is just a starting point. We have only just begun to really think about things, and our relationships to things.
Our fully functioning blog features discursions on material culture studies, miscellanea and much more! Museumology Blog continues the heartfelt commentary of the previous blog of the Main Street Museum at Blogspot. You can read the latest entries, musing about roadtrips, history, collections and collective insanity, and post your own responses here.
A German critic, W. Bürger [writes] "Our Museums...are veritable graveyard-yards in which have been heaped up, with a tumulour-like promiscuousness, the remains which have been carried thither...all are hung pell-mell upon the walls of some noncommittal gallery—a kind of posthumous asylum, where a people, no longer capable of producing...come to admire this magnificent gallery of débris.”
- —G. Brown Goode, Museums of the Future, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 1891: p. 427
"History is false. It has to be." —Jules David Prown
Shoppe with Us! The Museum Gifte Shoppe
The Museum Gifte Shoppe features things that no one in their right mind would purchase!
Main Street Rummage; The Thrift Store!
What's concentrated at our Rummage? Chic-ness... Hip-ness... New ideas and concepts—created from recycled things... Nowadays—its Thrift Stores! They just make sense! And think about it. Dont you need shirts, Pants, Suits, Blouses, Shoes, Jackets, A small assortment of housewares and books Clean, cut and bagged rags at affordable prices (use them over and over—theyre cheaper then paper towels!) and selected items from the Main Street Museum’s unusual Museum Gift Shoppe: Latte mugs, White River Junction t-shirts, “Post-Modernism is Killing Us!” caps, Genuine silt specimens from the 1927 flood, the super-cute, Japanese “Humping Dog” (must be seen to be believed)
Clothes, Great Gifts! O My! Where will you ever see anything like it? This is true locally-controlled, resourceful retail. We are wide awake. You won’t find us napping. And we promise you will get your money’s worth at our stores—the best looking Thrift Stores youll ever see! All proceeds help the Museum succeed in the 21st century; but best of all, its a Fun Place to Shop! learn less...!
Places we Like; Links/Lynx on the "World Wide Web"
Places around world that we like, Cyber and Real. Links to Old and New. Above click there—or here...!
- "As in totemism, we participate in each other as we participate in the object." —Sartre, Les jeux sont faits, 1943, and Norman O. Brown, Love's Body, 1966.
The Main Street Museum, 58 Bridge Street, White River Junction, Vermont, 05001-1909, info@mainstreetmuseum.org, 802.356.2776
