We travelled over a mountain to get to this museum… an icy, muddy, rugged mountain. This itself is a journey worth writing about.
And, it’s strange now that I think about it… strange that in the midst of Vermont there is a museum that focuses on every day mundane… but not Vermont’s mundane, which should be maple trees and rusty nails and firewood and farm goodies.
The juxtaposition is that this museum’s mundane comes from places like New York and Anchorage and Los Angeles. There’s a grease-covered ornament from a Brooklyn diner… a collection of matchboxes commemorating the dogs of the Soviet space program from Los Angeles… safety pins fashioned into little animals… and vintage matchbooks from Alaska.
There’s a statement in there somewhere.
The museum may pitch itself as ordinary… but there is nothing ordinary about a wall of clocks, a giant bear with a knife in its chest, and collections of interesting found-things that no one wants to throw out. And, as you start to make your way towards the back of the museum, you discover more unordinary with a sprinkling of je ne sais quoi.
Bells are playing, fuelled by a record player next to a non-functioning piano. This sets the bizarre mood and preps you for the discovery of a Croatian Zvončari that looks like it could spring to life at any moment. Again, not ordinary… more noir than mundane.
There is something sinister with these odd collectables amongst the backdrop of a deserted old barn in the middle of the Vermont wilderness… something very 1980s horror movie.
It’s definitely worth a stop. This is roadside America at it’s very best!
