Mr. Wilson's Cabinet Of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on… (1995)

A fun book about weird stuff. Makes me want to throw it all away and study museology instead. ( )

Not exactly what I expected but not a bad book. The first portion, I believe, was a magazine article Weschler had written specifically about the Museum of Jurassic Technology. The second part of the book expands on the concept of cabinets of curiosities, their history, etc. And a big chunk of the back of the book is extended notes by the author as well as a bibliography, etc. So it was a quick read.

This book contained a lot of interesting information, although at times it felt more like I was reading someone's scholarly paper or thesis; it got a bit dry and didactic at times, and I had to run to the dictionary more than once to look up unfamiliar words. I also sometimes felt as if I weren't in on the joke; part of the gimmick of Wilson's museum is that the visitor never knows if what he is reading/seeing is fact or fiction. Is it truly a historical or biological phenomenon, or is it something Wilson created or twisted? And maybe I'm a little dense, but I think I needed some of the answers spelled out more clearly for me. There were times when the author would mention a fact that related to an exhibit described earlier but he would not specifically say, "Aha! So this part of The Museum of Jurassic Technology exhibits is correct," or "Aha! Wilson was pulling our legs." Perhaps I need to reread the book to make all the connections.

The subject of cabinets of curiosities, or Wunderkammern, interests me. I'd like to find a more accessible, entertaining book with discussion of these collections. ( )

The books begins when Lawrence Weschler wanders into the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California, where he encounters an oddly fascinating collection of exhibits. Beginning with the Cameroonian stink ant and the spores of a fungus, which when inhaled, cause the ant to climb upward, eventually grabbing onto the vine or trunk with his mandible, where he dies. The fungus then sprouts from the ant's forehead, raining spores down on the unsuspecting ants below. Other exhibits include a theory of memory, a very small bat and a collection of antlers, which includes the horn of Mary Davis of Saughall.

Weschler is understandably intrigued, and speaking with David Wilson, the museum's owner and curator, adds to his curiosity. Professionally presented, the museum nonetheless awakens seeds of doubt in his mind, which sprout when he researches the exhibits. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder looks at our ideas about museums and looks at how museums came to be; originating from the wunderkammern of the early enlightenment, where wealthy men collected interesting items and grouped them together in a room or cabinet for the wonderment of his guests. Classification was optional and certainly different, with one collection including

two huge ribs from a whale (out in the courtyard); "a goose which has grown in Scotland in a tree"; "a number of things changed into stone" (in other words, fossils); the hand of a mermaid; the hand of a mummy; a small piece of wood from the cross of Christ"; "pictures from the church of S. Sofia in Constantinople copies by a Jew into a book"; "a bat as large as a pigeon"...

There is a lot packed into this slender book, from the nature of wonder itself to the history of those fascinating and eclectic cabinets of curiosity, which sprang up when explorers to the far east and the Americas began returning with things never before seen and as superstition gave way to reason. ( )

Expanded from a Harper's magazine article, this short and entertaining book introduces readers to the strange Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, California. With nary a trace of irony the proprietor, David Wilson, has stocked his storefront museum with weird and mind-boggling curiosities (a bat embedded in a solid block of lead, illuminated from the inside, no less!) and accompanies the exhibits with pitch-perfect museum quality explanatory texts and recorded remarks. The MJT is a Chinese box of fiction and reality - an elaborate puzzle begging to be deciphered.

The MJT is a modern iteration of the Renaissance and Enlightenment Wonderkammer, private museums which can consist of (as the name suggests) a collection of curiosities exhibited in a cabinet or an entire suite of rooms given over to the bounty of natural oddities encountered during the first centuries of European exploration and discovery. David Wilson's cabinet is chock full of imaginative and awe-inspiring panoramas and exquisitely detailed minutiae, and has a healthy cult following among museum professionals. Weschler's fascination with the MJT is genuine and his story (which he seems reluctant to put to bed) is enthusiastically told.

The second half of the book, an expansion of the narrative, looks at the history of the Wunderkammer in general, and Weschler doggedly runs down connections and convergences between some of the more famous ones and the MJT. One feels admiration for Wilson's having pieced together such a remarkably seamless reality, while still feeling a tinge of regret for seeing some of his minor secrets revealed. Weschler also cites some apparently remarkable books on the history of wonder cabinets, works which are, alas, ridiculously rare and expensive, but to which Wilson clearly had access. This book is a good exposition of our ancestors' curiosity about the world of wonders around them, and a reminder that our world is no less wonder-full.

This turned out to be better than I expected. Quite good actually. It attempts to share a taste of the Museum of Jurassic Technology with the reader. I've been to the Museum (located in Los Angeles) which is not like any other museum I've been to. The book does a good job reproducing the seamless blending a fact with fantasy that happens there even as the author retells his attempt to sort the truth from the fiction in the museum's exhibits and history. I can't imagine a more perfect approach to a book about a contemporary wunderkammen. ( )