Main Page
Contents
- 1 Halloweeeen!
- 2 Los Ríos Acuden
- 3 Main Street Museum Floodraiser with Joseph A. Citro and H.P. Lovecraft
- 4 The Flood of 2011
- 5 News! Slavic Studies!
- 6 What We Are and What We Do
- 7 Rent the Museum! Click here for more info!
- 8 Shoppe with Us! The Museum Gifte Shoppe
- 9 Books, Books, Books!
- 10 Hours
- 11 Admission
- 12 Directions and Parking
- 13 Volunteer at the Museum
- 14 Upcoming Events!
- 15 Catawiki
- 16 Publicity and Press Clippings
- 17 Material Culture Studies, Including The Electric Organ
- 18 Links
Halloweeeen!
Los Ríos Acuden
Amada de los ríos, combatida
por agua azul y gotas transparentes,
como un arbol de venas es tu espectro
de diosa oscura que muerde manzanas:
al despertar desnuda entonces,
eras tatuada por los ríos,
y en la altura mojada con nuevos rocíos.
Te trepidaba el agua en la cintura.
Eras de manantiales construíday te brillaban lagos en la frente. —Neruda
Main Street Museum Floodraiser with Joseph A. Citro and H.P. Lovecraft
We are celebrating and putting on the VERMONT PREMIERE for "The Whisperer in Darkness." Located at the Hotel Coolidge on Thursday October 20th we have a tiered event. From 5-8pm, check out our flood show at the Main Street Museum featuring an Exhibition Preview, “Lost Components from Providence, Rhode Island Jewelry Salesmen,” models from the movie “The Whisperer in Darkness” based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft, and other Pivotal Artifacts from the Great Vermont Flood of 2011.
6pm-8pm $100 Reception and Dinner for special benefactors at the Hotel Coolidge dining room, Downtown White River Junction, Vermont. Includes silent auction, special gifts and illuminated lecture by Joe Citro and Steve Bissette AND a ticket to the 8pm movie.
Followed by the 8 PM Premiere of "The Whisperer in Darkness" presented by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Film version of the short story, based on the flood of 1927 in Vermont. $25 General Admission for the film only.
10:00 p.m. – Second Seating of “The Whisperer in Darkness” $15 General Admission for all you late night folk. In the lobby of the Hotel Coolidge we'll have Lovecraft collectibles, a Limited Edition chapbook for sale, a cash bar and the beautiful musical stylings of a Victrola.
Purchase tickets by clicking on the links above via Paypal.
The Flood of 2011
Further details of the devastating Flood of 2011 can be found on our Public Events Page. We are currently closed for the month of September and October, with the exception of Special Fundraising Events! Here's how our friend Peter Money phrased it, 1 September, 2011.
To Whom It May Concern:
I am a poet with a publishing office in White River Junction. From time to time I venture to the Main Street Museum, dipping below the ancient railroad bridge to walk into time past and time present. I have read and performed there, I have simply walked and stared, and I have listened and danced to others’ performances. I have admired the gumption and verve, the originality and wit, the careful curatorial assembly and culturally timely panels and community discussions.
I read with care about volunteers showing up to help the museum dig out from the river flow that had roared into the building’s belly (an old fire station, as I understand [there are fewer and fewer of these left in our states]) after “storm Irene” brought a surprising blow. I had pumped myself up, more than usual, to stroll over to The Main Street Museum to try to provide some relief: Over a shoulder I brought a child's guitar, and in a pocket I had a pro's harmonica. I was ready to support and strengthen the workers, for I had imagined the volunteers might need what poetry and music had to offer in the pause of minutes. Maybe, I planned, I’d even read from William Carlos Williams’ great poem “Paterson” (whose own Passaic Falls overflowed in Irene). Instead, crossing what had become a dust bowl street to the museum, I stood sobered by what I saw.
The Main Street Museum houses culturally significant outposts in the Upper Valley. Among them, the cartoonists’ library and a zen center. But by swift upset of weather, today the museum also houses an enormous upturned cargo container—the large ones we see on massive transportation carriers—lodged in the armpit of the museum's neighboring arched bridge, only feet away from the northeast corner of the museum itself. The sight, to say nothing of the dried and caked mud indoors, was gruesome—a war-like assault near a semi-circle of small umbrellas. I stood, a sort of zombie of my former self, writing down what I saw for the next ninety minutes. If there is something to be saved, The Main Street Museum Saves it or bids it be well. This place is heart where heart is often so hard won. Disaster has not stopped this museum’s spirited mission, but the rot of impartial weather will have consumed much of its volunteers’ energy; necessary parts of the physical space will have been compromised and the whole clean-up will surely strain a budget for an outpost that represents the keystone to this region’s most inventive and lasting central meeting place for the creative economy. No doubt, now: The Main Street Museum will need support. Yet, music and poems will animate the glass cases again soon.
Sincerely, Peter Money
News! Slavic Studies!
The Main Street Museum is proud to announce that the Likhachev Foundation (St. Petersburg, Russia) together with Committee on External Relations of Saint Petersburg and B. Yeltsin Presidential Center (Moscow, Russia) for study and cultural exchange in St Petersburg, has awarded Main Street Museum director and founder David Fairbanks Ford a fellowship to study Museums and other heritage sites in St. Petersburg for the month of May, 2011.
I was overwhelmed by the hospitality of my hosts while in Russia. While in Saint Petersburg I gave a lecture (in English but with Russian translation), and I even had a chance to curate both Russian and Main Street Museum artifacts in the Anna Akhmatova Museum in St. Petersburg and at the Navicula Artis art center on Ligovsky Prospect alongside the art installations of Peter Shvetsov. I did bring back loads of artifacts and gifts that were given me by directors and officials of various museums in Petersburg. Come and see them and celebrate them at our annual summertime Russian art show and symposium. Sing songs to them. Recite Pushkin to them.
Also I would like to announce, at this time, that the year 2014 is the 300th anniversary of the Kunstkamera, an amazing Cabinet of Wonder founded by Peter the Great. It was one of the first public Museums, and the structure that houses it is the earliest structure built specifically to house a Museum. In recognition of this event the Main Street Museum will be also celebrating the birth of this odd, very old--yet very Modern--museum.
But I know that together we will add another link in the chains that bind Slavic culture to the creative community of Vermont, and of White River Junction, in ever more odd and unpredictable ways. It could only happen at the Main Street Museum!
- "Spasibo Bolshoi” to the Likhachev Foundation. --David Fairbanks Ford. April, 2011.
What We Are and What We Do
The Main Street Museum is a small, public collection of curiosities and artifacts, each one is significant and each one tells some kind of story about human beings and the complex, sometimes baffling universe we are a part of. The aim of the Museum is the study of an accumulation of small details, cultivating among both specialists, and among the general public, a sense of wonder at the big questions that arise when we study and categorize objects and our reactions to them. We believe that our relationships with objects are more complex than usually acknowledged; indeed sometimes far more complex.
Located in central Vermont, our collections are accessible by visiting us in person, or through our online "wiki" style catalog. As well as studying and cataloging objects we present live music, glass lantern slide presentations, vaudeville shows, films and Spectacles to the public.
Rent the Museum! Click here for more info!
Shoppe with Us! The Museum Gifte Shoppe
The Museum Gift Shoppe features "White River Junction; Its not so Bad!" t-shirts, mugs, souvenirs, a wide variety of books on museums and museum-y things, our own booklets—hand-stitched, rail-road date nails, gumball machine charms and wonky gifts that "must be seen to be believed!"
Books, Books, Books!
Come see our books!
- Weird New England, A wonderful book about a Weird Region and all the Weird things in it, it even includes a write-up and pictures of the Main Street Museum. Signed by the author, Joe Citro. Yours for only $20.00!
- The new Vermont Monster Guide—Its all part of our in-depth scholarship dealing with cryptids, therespids and the "Other" in aquatic biological classification systems. Signed by the authors Steve Bisette, Joe Citro and Cat Garza the copiously illustrated tome give us schpeels about the Giant Eels, the Connecticut River Monster, (Hydrohippokampos athesphatos lymanae), the Fur Bearing Trout, Fish With Pincers and other anomalies and wonders of the Aquatic Fauna Department of the Museum. In our Gifte Shoppe—only $21.00, us!
- Pamphlets, What is It? We Have It? You Want to See It!, and the Description of the Collection both newly and nicely bound with hand stitched bindings! $3.00 and $5.00 respectively.
- A fine new Pictorial History of the Town of Hartford, Vermont, published this year by Arcadia Press, and full of historic pictures of our town, only $21.99!
Hours
The Museum is now open from Thursday through Sundays from 1 to 6 p.m. on a fairly regular basis. There is usually someone in the building, so appointments are easy. Email info@mainstreetmuseum.org or call 802.356.2776 before your visit. And please respect our neighbors wishes and do not park or trespass for any reason on properties adjacent to our building! —Thanks!
Admission
The Museum suggests a $5 donation for visiting our collections. (Members of the Museum and children under 12 are admitted free of charge). No one is turned away for lack of funds, however. Volunteer for an hour at the Museum and receive free admittance to the Museum, or to our live events!
Guided tours of the Museum and its collections include a demonstration of the Museum's 1926 Orthophonic Victrola. Suggested donations for the tour is $8.00 (us). Discounts are available for groups.
Directions and Parking
Museum Headquarters are located at 58 Bridge Street, in downtown White River Junction, adjacent to the Lehman Bridge, between the railroad underpass and the White River. Parking for Museum patrons is available on the street nearby on "Railroad Row" or in the Courthouse/Depot Parking lot.
Volunteer at the Museum
The Main Street Museum is a great place to visit, and a great place to volunteer. You can do everything from staffing open hours (Thursday - Sunday, 1 - 6 p.m.), to helping out with arranging and maintaining displays, researching and writing museum labels, bringing the refreshments or setting up for special events like concerts and First Fridays open house nights, or helping create special exhibits and special events. Internships are occasionally available for meaningful projects. Field/study trips may be scheduled around Vermont and New Hampshire—to Burlington, to St. Johnsbury and the Fairbanks Museum, in Vermont, and to the St. Gaudens National Park in nearby Cornish, N.H.—as well as conducting in-depth tours of the areas' varied historic houses and sites, thrift stores and other repositories of material culture for collection excursions on behalf of the Museums ever-enlarging categories of artifacts. Whether it be free-wheeling research, carpentry, photography, event planning, landscaping, or music - whatever it is that you like to do, we'd love to talk to you.
E-mail us at info@mainstreetmuseum.org for more information, or call us at 802-356-2776.
Upcoming Events!
Check out our full schedule here!
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 categories 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 "Camellia Blossoms and Leaves from the Varina and Jefferson Davis Memorial".
- 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, or Boxes of Rocks 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.
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 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
Material Culture Studies, Including The Electric Organ
History is false. It has to be. —Jules David Prown
Its really all about questions. We are a museum. We collect and preserve objects. (And other things too. But objects, mainly.) And then we do what all museums are supposed to do. We discuss the objects. We have conversations with you, the viewer, about the objects. And we have found, over the years, as we do this, that each object raises a number of questions. Sometimes it seems that each object has about five or 10 questions associated with it. And each question we research raises five or 10 more questions. And we might do this five or ten times for each object. And it also seems that we only end up answering about one question for each ten that we ask the object, or the object asks of us. But with so many questions—just multiply 5 to the 5th power—that still means that we have come up with a lot of answers in spite of ourselves. All in all, we think that the questions are more fun than the answers. But you are free to decide for yourself.
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 debris. —G. Brown Goode, Museums of the Future, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 1891: p. 427
Links
Other Museum-things.
- "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.
Just fyi, your contributions in the coming year will fund, among other wonders: • Enlargement of our collection of Russian art and artifacts focussing on the Kunstkamera of Peter the Great. • The paintings of Daisy Rockwell exhibited alongside artifacts from selected sites pertaining to domestic terrorism and significant contemporary individuals. • A continuing live music series highlighting an eclectic mix of ukuleles, banjos, washboards, jawharps and other assorted old tyme-music, rock, honkey-punk, country and klezmer sounds! • Our wonderful Tuesday Night Film Series, curated by Chico Eastridge. • Help us sponsor the Gory Daze Halloween Parade, "12th Night" Tree Burn, Community Burlesques and more! • "South of the Border; Roadside Attraction", Kitsch, and the Diaspora in the Southern United States, a show of artifacts, photos and films from Dillon, interstate 95, South Carolina. • &c, &c, &c.
Hate has no place in the Upper Valley, or anywhere else for that matter. And our neighbors have asked that we don't park on their property, so, please Dont Park at our Neighbors! For More Information about our neighbors click here...
The Main Street Museum, 58 Bridge Street, White River Junction, Vermont, 05001-1909, info@mainstreetmuseum.org, 802.356.2776
