The Stuff of Nightmares

Today I decided to not continue my trend of waking up at 11am by setting my alarm for the bright shiny hour of 8 in the morn...although not leaving the apartment until 1030.

I decided to see The Museum of Childhood this morning (I know what you're thinking 'Aviva, you were just writing about how you hate children!' and you're right! But this isn't a Children's Museum it's a Museum of Childhood, see? A difference)

I was particularly excited about this exhibit called The Stuff Of Nightmares (The Darker Side of Fairy Tales) which looked scary. But I was disappointed when I got there since the exhibit was made by children and was basically a forest scene on a wall with trees and dolls next to it. Upon closer inspection, I realized that yes, this is quite insane. There were dolls with mis-matching bodies sitting around a campfire, dogs with buttons glued on their eyes and a 3 foot bear wearing flippers with a babies face. In a word: Terrifying.

The rest of the museum was pretty cool, giant doll houses from the 1700's, children's fashions from the 1890's until today, rocking horses from all over the world. Everything had a little tag explaining the date or a little bio of the toy. Although...there were some disturbing things about the museum that were not in the 'Stuff of Nightmares' section...

5 Disturbing/Weird Things from the Museum of Children:

1. There were two dolls dressed as priest and nun from the 1800's. The nun was about twice the size of the priest and they were both looking with wide-eyes suspiciously to the right, like "Uh-oh...God's coming." How can you even play with dolls that are always looking the other way like something horrifying is just...over...there...

2. There was a detailed wax baby doll from 1901. Not anything out of the ordinary here. Except this little tag said "John Florence's son died as an infant so he made an exact replica of his son, shown here." Ok tag, you're missing some details such as, how many people did John Florence murder as he is clearly an insane person. Also, he didn't make the doll until AFTER his son had died which means he had to sit and stare at his dead son while making the doll, which he then..what? Gave to his daughter? His wife? Disturbing.

3. As with the Clink museum, this one had little questions all over to get the kids engaged (Although it's hard to imagine a child being bored in a museum full of things to play with). One was over a phalanx of toy soldiers: "These soldiers were painted with lead paint which is poisonous! It has been replaced with much safer plastic alternatives. Which material would you use?" I think they question also doubles as a good test to see if your kid is a psychopath.

4. There was a giant tapestry which had jumprope songs from all over the world, from every culture, with little picture of children playing. I couldn't find the US's and Russia's was vaguely racist so I tried to scan the giant thing for the children's song from Israel. I didn't see it, but some Hebrew did catch my eye. In block letters next to the song it said Aramaic and I was surprised to find that I did in fact recognize the song, as we sing it every year on Pesach: "Chad Gadya, Chad Gaday ....וְאָתָא שׁוּנְרָא, וְאָכְלָה לְגַּדְיָאחַד גַּדְיָא, חַד
"גַּדְיָאI hadn't realized we had been singing a nursery rhyme at the Seder all these years...maybe next year we can incorporate Miss Mary Mac.

5. This isn't so much disturbing as just rude. I know I've been getting anti-American vibes from this place lately but I swear I'm not imagining this when I say the Barbie section was bitter. In the case next to Barbie, first there's Sindy, a "British doll debuting in 1963, Sindy was much more girl-next-door than her American rival Barbie". First of all, rival? Have any of you even heard of Sindy? And weird that you debuted 4 years after Barbie Sindy, wonder where you got that idea from. Another generic plastic doll had the tag "Pre-Barbie dolls were dressed more conservatively." Then they show Sindy in long sleeves and jeans next to what appears to be Roller-Disco barbie with her sparkly bralet and hot pants. Sure, it's not like you have hundreds of Barbies to choose from, from Wedding Barbie to Engineering Barbie, pick the one that looks like a hooker. Even GI Joe wasn't safe. Apparently his name was changed to Action Man, not because playing with a US soldier wouldn't make sense to a British child but because they "wouldn't like the name." Kermit didn't even get a tag or explanation.

I would still recommend the museum though if you have a free hour. It's not in such a great neighborhood though, I went to a little cafe across the street to drink some lemonade but left after people kept asking me for change.

Tonight I visited a Cabaret called the Cellar Door with some friends as a quirky thing to do. It was great, the Drag Queen (Michael Stanford) was very entertaining, although we were literally next to her (his?) mic, so close he was sharing our table. I tried absinthe for the first time, a sip basically since it tastes disgustingly like black licorice, so no Eurotrip like adventures for me sadly (or gladly).

Sorry the post was so long. I have to go sleep since I have my very first day of Interact tomorrow. XOXO.