One of the great things about living in the national capital is that it’s so easy to go to the “national” version of everything – national library, national botanic gardens, and the national museum.
On the not unreasonable assumption that there’d be something on 1850s Australia, CJ and I went to the National Museum today. I wrote about it at weekend notes.
And we saw a replica bark and iron hut built inside the museum:
In case you’re wondering, it smells like tree.
Think it’s embarrassing to sniff museum exhibits? Think again.
Tomorrow’s entry is the infamous KARAOKE OF LOUISENESS!
Flee! Flee for your dignity!
But did you get any useful info for your research?
W: Most of it was either too old or too young – but yes. It was good to see that wool doesn’t have to look like what modern people think of as “woolen” (heavy, bulky, and scratchy), and I looked at pennies smoothed and engraved by convicts for their loved ones to remember them by.
Personally, I think the National Museum is a near-total failure.
In trying to focus more on (often bizarre and random) ‘personal’ stories, always bizarre and random ‘themes’, and suffocating political correctness, they’ve managed to carefully sidestep anything actually interesting in Australian history (and, let’s be honest, there isn’t too much of interest there anyway).
Going through most of the exhibits feels like nothing more than poking through an unusually old and dull garage sale – only without the voyeuristic thrill.
Agonisingly boring and astonishingly uninformative (did you actually LEARN anything NEW about Australian History or life…?), the architecture (which was ripped off from the Holocaust Museum) is the only non-yawn-worthy bit.
Ben: For me, focusing on personal lives is (a) interesting, and (b) informative. I’ve read two full books that were just on transported convicts, and neither had the detail of the penny tokens.
Glad you like the architecture.