MJT

Ever since reading "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders," I've wanted to visit the MJT. I got the opportunity to check it out last week. I drove up to Venice Beach first to wander about for a little bit. Usually when I'm there, it's bright, Muscle Beach is packed, the crazies are out on the Boardwalk but this morning was chilly and overcast. I was distracted by the waves and by the skaters doing their thing in the skate rink. It was very solitary even though there were people around and I just loved a different beach experience.

Then it was up to Culver City to meet up with the lovely Bethany who I hadn't seen in a good year- possibly since Mindy's California reception, if I recall? We got to the museum a little early so instead we first wandered around for half an hour. She had just gotten off of more than a month of jury duty and she regaled me with stories that made me fear for the justice system of the United States.

At noon, when the museum opened, we went right in. The building front was very inconspicuous but the door was unlocked and there was a quiet man at reception/gift shop that included "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders", which I recognized from class, obviously. We paid our entrance fee and headed in.

The museum was incredibly dark- the corridors were narrow and just kept going further and further back. Just looking at it from the front, you never would have believed this building housed so much "stuff". There were no flashes allowed on the cameras and so at times, it was really hard to see and you would often almost bump into people. There was a video at the beginning introducing the world to the MJT, but went off onto tangents about the wonder cabinets, earlier museums, all things that were referenced in MWCOW.

Then there was the wall of horns, as well as the "human horn".

A whole room dedicated to the letters and telegrams to Wilson's Observatory. This one was my favorite.

The Delani/Sonnabend Halls were a lot larger than I thought. There was one large room that played opera continuously and had photographs of her playbills on the wall as well as a case in the center of the room with her dresses, gloves, and other artifacts. There was, however, not a single explanation about who Delani was. Nor about her connection to Sonnabend.

There was, however, an incredibly long and somewhat confusing video about Sonnabend and his Cone of Obliscence. There were also many examples, such as the one below, about his Cone of Obliscence. This was where we met Mr. Wilson himself! No joke. The video apparently wasn't working properly and this little man came by and said that he would restart it for us because something was off. He was very nice and told us he was glad that we had come to visit. Anyway, I feel that the video was far more confusing that it should have been. Also, the video would have been a lot easier to pay attention to if it had been in just one language (there was German in the background, English dubbed over it and then opera the whole time, which clashed with the opera from the adjacent room.... disaster...) And right next to the video was a replica of Sonnabend's work-desk. Yes again, no explanation about his relationships to Delani. I felt this was not something to bring up to Mr. Wilson....

There was a very large exhibit dedicated to Athanasius Kircher. The exhibit included frontspieces from many of his books, some that were in a case where when you looked at it from one angle, it was just a facade but when you looked at it through two angled mirrors, reflections of figures were seen within the facade. There was also a bell wheel that he had created (below) that constantly chimed (which, I must admit, got a little raucous within the small echo-y room). Again, there was not a lot of explanation about who Kircher was, nor too much about his theory that "The World Is Bound with Secret Knots."

Of course, we had to see the micro-miniatures. Unfortunately, there were only three on display- Napoleon and the Pope within the eyes of the needles and Goofy on top of one. There was a lot more information about Hagop Sandaldjian, the creator, than I expected. Did you know that he turned to microminiatures when he couldn't find work as a music teacher in LA?

This was a bizarre exhibit- it was essentially old dice that this man, Ricky Jay, found over the years and put into interesting displays. And that's the info I got from the website, not from the actual museum. I'm really starting to understand Weschler's confusion over most of this museum :).

One exhibit that I couldn't take pictures of because it was impossible to, was the micromosaics of Henry Dalton. In this one room, there were eight microscopes and through the microscopes were micromosaics of birds, chickens, flowers, suns, etc. There were made with teeny-tiny slivers of glass, an obviously very time-consuming project. They were absolutely incredible.

There was also an exhibit of portraits (do you call it a portrait if it's of an animal?) of the dogs that went to space through the Russian space program, a collection of items from California trailer parks (which included a vvvveeerrrryyyy creepy doll- and we all know how I feel about creepy dolls...), and the exhibits that we read about- the Deeprong Mori (the bat situation), the Stink Ant of the Cameroon (which you could take a picture of but it was soooo dark) and the fruit stone carving.

There was only one room in the entire museum that was lit and this was the Napoleon library. Other than a very cool glass flower arrangement (below), there were just shelves of books about science and Napoleon. And a piano that we were not allowed to touch, unlike the piano I got to play at Chatsworth.

This exhibit of the Floral Stereoradiographs was my favorite. These incredible, almost x-ray pictures of flowers lined the walls. The pictures in the adjacent room needed to be seen through rudimentary 3-D glasses and at first, Bethany and I thought you needed the glasses for these as well but you definitely did not. What you see below is exactly what we were seeing. This was the only room that I was really grateful for the darkness.

The last exhibit we saw was the one I had been waiting for since the start. It was the room with the duck bill in the kid's mouth cure, the bees, the scissors for wishing a husband ill-will on his wedding night, collecting egg shells when you eat them, sprinkling the family with urine, mice on toast, etc. I am so sorry that the pictures are sooooo dark- use your imagination for some of them. It was awfully dark. But so weird at the same time. No explanation for the reason these things were all in this exhibit, not explanation about how these "cures" were discovered, nothing.

Upstairs on the roof, there was a beautiful little courtyard- we thought for a minute that it might be someones garden but you were able to walk around and go visit the birds in the large dovecote area right across the way. The cage below fit in that doorway to the right of the picture. There was also a tea-room with free tea and cookies but there wasn't really anyone around so we declined to have any.

There were way more people visiting the museum that I expected- although at first I thought this was the case because it was so dark and small inside but really it wasn't. There were so many people milling around. Because Weschler's book was written a few years ago, I wonder what has changed since then and now. Do people, like me, visit because they've read the book? What kind of advertising does the MJT do? Where did everybody park? (I personally parked at the Ross/Albertsons complex down the street- did everyone else?) There were people there taking notes, I'm pretty sure a couple was there on their first date, one family even brought their five kids. It was overwhelming and thought-provoking. I'd highly recommend visiting the MJT to anyone who likes something a little quirky, a little different, a little bizarre and a little challenging. All in all, I'm so glad that I went up to visit and would probably go back again if I had the chance.