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Summary: Premod Meets Postmod at Museum of Jurassic Tech
Review: Wechler's exploration of wonder through the objects contained in David Wilson's store-front museum in Culver City, California is truly thought-provoking, often subversive. Gratefully, we are often suspended in the what seems to be the same world of belief/disbelief created by Mr. Wilson's remarkable conjurations. Part mystery story (what items in the museum are actual, what are embroideries of facts and what are out and out hoaxes, and more mundanely, where did Wilson get the idea for that strange collection of cities listed in the frontispiece of his catalogs) and part meditation on the history of wonder (and anti-wonder) as exemplified in the museum from the early modern period to the present day, Mr. Wechsler tells us about the work David Wilson in such a way as to excite our enjoyment and intellectual play. One can only hope that this book will create enough interest in the work of Museum of Jurassic Technology to keep it going for a long, long time. Next time I'm in Los Angeles, it'll be my very first stop. Great illustrations, too!
Rating:
Summary: Premod Meets Postmod at Museum of Jurassic Tech
Review: Wechler's exploration of wonder through the objects contained in David Wilson's store-front museum in Culver City, California is truly thought-provoking, often subversive. Gratefully, we are often suspended in the what seems to be the same world of belief/disbelief created by Mr. Wilson's remarkable conjurations. Part mystery story (what items in the museum are actual, what are embroideries of facts and what are out and out hoaxes, and more mundanely, where did Wilson get the idea for that strange collection of cities listed in the frontispiece of his catalogs) and part meditation on the history of wonder (and anti-wonder) as exemplified in the museum from the early modern period to the present day, Mr. Wechsler tells us about the work David Wilson in such a way as to excite our enjoyment and intellectual play. One can only hope that this book will create enough interest in the work of Museum of Jurassic Technology to keep it going for a long, long time. Next time I'm in Los Angeles, it'll be my very first stop. Great illustrations, too!
Rating:
Summary: *gasp* How has no one reviewed this brilliant book?
Review: Well, the editorial reviews above tell you about as much as you should know about this book pre-reading it. Put abstractly, this book is about what is real and what isn't, who says so and most importantly, about _wonder_. You know how you think you have a handle on how big the world is and what it contains? And then you see or read or hear something than makes you realize how small your view is? After reading this book, I felt the space inside my head get bigger to accomodate all the things I hadn't considered. I'm a small lending library with several copies of this title around to get more folks reading this brilliant book. Although this should be required reading for all inquisitive types, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder is a fantastic read for folks heading off to college - especially grad school - because it gets you asking good questions about schalorship, what we know and what we don't know.
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Summary: A thrilling intellectual odyssey
Review: Weschler's animated look at the 'asthetically just' museum curator David Wilson and an examination, in the book's second part, of the history of 'Wonder-cabinets' from the sixteenth century to the present day is a fascinating mix of profile, historical inquiry, and detective story. David Wilson and his museum are almost too good to be true and should encourage anyone who can get to Los Angeles to visit the MJT. The prose throughout is superb: Weschler is a master at making people talk on the page, and his own thoughts are conveyed in a prose that mimics colloquial speech -- a murderously difficult thing to do. I have read all of Weschler's books, and this, I think, is his very best.
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Summary: marvelous!
Review: weschler's interest in (re)discovering the wonder of the marvelous in both nature and culture is beautifully written and highly entertaining. i have read this book three times now (in addition to seeing is forgetting and shapinsky's karma) and i am still thoroughly entertained by it. i give this book as a gift to anyone i know who still dares to wonder.
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Summary: A new way to view museums
Review: What is a museum? Are the things we see in a museum "the truth", and how did they come to be so? These questions and others fill Lawrence Weschler's marvelous extended essay, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder. Weschler takes as his jumping-off point the very real "Museum of Jurassic Technology," privately owned and operated in Los Angeles by David Wilson. In this book, Wechsler tells how European museums began as private collections of "wonder-ful" objects, with the focus less on whether the object was "true" than whether it evoked amazement. Many of the objects in Wilson's "Museum" appear real, and are described in the dry, precise prose known to museum viewers around the world. But they are not real. Or are they? This short (168 pages, with endnotes) book examines both the "wonders" of Wilson's storefront museum and the even more astounding wonders of the real world in gifted and sprightly prose. Not to be missed!!
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