Are Museums Laughingstocks?

Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new.

― Thoreau

A new study by the American Association for State and Local History suggests public interest in museums might have hit a brick wall.

Museum attendance declined 70% last year, the study finds. 

Casual observers blame the pandemic, of course; but museum executives are worried. Last year's falloff caps 40 years of decline. (Museum-going had already fallen by 50% between 1980 and 2020.)

The pandemic simply could be the proverbial "last nail" in the coffin.

Just ask any teen: museums are out of fashion, laughingstocks among the new generations. (I'm not sure Boomers and their parents cared for them all that much, either.)

Museum is a 17th-century word borrowed directly from the Latin for "library." Latin borrowed museum from the Greek mouseion, literally a "temple of the Muses."

The decline in museum attendance might signal that the Muses have abandoned us; that today's Americans are content to be a stupid and sluggish herd—a mediocracy.

Or it could mean museums are simply no match for amusements (a 15th-century word borrowed from the Greek amousos, meaning "Muse-less" or "uneducated").

That's more likely the case. 

In the words of media critic Neil Postman, we're "amusing ourselves to death."

Thank goodness at least some museum executives are responding to the crisis.

My wife and I recently visited The Concord Museum in Massachusetts, only two weeks after it had finished a $16 million renovation.

From beginning to end, the experience was a marvel—as engaging as any Disney destination, but with the content unsanitized (as it should be).

Brand-new galleries in the museum feature artifacts from the Transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; from hometown writer Louisa May Alcott; from local Abolitionists like Mary Brooks; from the African Americans who lived in Concord since its founding in 1635: and from the Nipmuc tribe that lived there long before.

Topping these rooms is the gallery devoted to the Battle of Concord, the dustup that ignited the American Revolution. In addition to militaria (including Paul Revere's lantern), it features a remarkable digital display—for narrative drive and subtle drama, far and away the best animation of its kind you'll ever see.

The Concord Museum's grip on innovation is firm, and, for that institution, could be the magic bullet needed to reverse audience decline.

But there's a roadblock to innovation like this: politics.

Politics—as they do many Americans—stymy museum executives, because politics dictate what gets displayed and what doesn't. They also define which museums get funding, and which are starved. Politics even define what a museum is—either a "permanent institution" (the right's definition) or a "democratizing space" (the left's).

Museum executive Thomas Hoving once said, "It's hard to be a revolutionary in the deadly museum business."

He's right. 

It might be asking too much of hidebound museum executives to become revolutionaries, although that is what they need to be, if museums aren't to remain laughingstocks forever.

Above: Thoreau's Desk at The Concord Museum.

Monikers

Monikers have always fascinated me.

The Sultan of Swat. 

The Wizard of Menlo Park.

The Angel of the Battlefield. 

The Desert Fox. 

The Elephant Man.  

Moniker is a hobo's term meaning "nickname." It was borrowed directly from Shelta, the form of Gaelic spoken by Irish gypsies.

But not all monikers are alike.

Sobriquets are praiseworthy monikers. 

Epithets are derogatory ones.

A sobriquet—derived from the Old French word for jest—is bestowed out of fondness (the Old French word sobriquet literally meant a "chuck under the chin.") A sobriquet is also bestowed out of awe. The Man of Steel is an example.

An epithet—derived from the Greek word for added—is bestowed in order to disparage.* The Mutton-Eating Monarch is an example.

Grammarians would say sobriquets and epithets are adjectives (adjectival phrases). But onomasticians insist that, because they substitute for a person's proper name, sobriquets and epithets are in fact pronouns.

If that's the case, I might start insisting my pronoun of choice isn't he, she, or they, but "The Maven of Monikers."

Sadly, fanciful monikers are fast becoming extinct. But some are ageless. 

Among the hundreds of ageless sobriquets, my favorite include:

• The Bard (William Shakespeare)
• The Boss (Bruce Springsteen)
• The Duke (John Wayne)
• The Father of His Country (George Washington)
• The Godfather of Soul (James Brown)
• The Governator (Arnold Schwarzenneger) 
• The Great Emancipator (Abraham Lincoln)
• The King of Rock & Roll (Elvis Presley)
• The Lion of Round Top (Strong Vincent)
• The Man from Uncle (Napoleon Solo)
• The Prince of Peace (Jesus Christ)
• The Swamp Fox (Francis Marion)

Among the hundreds of ageless epithets, my favorite include:

• The Bastard of Bolton (Ramsay Bolton)
• The Boston Strangler (Albert DeSalvo)
• The Butcher of Lyon (Klaus Barbie)
• The Hick from French Lick (Larry Bird)
• The Iron Lady (Margaret Thatcher)
• The Kid (William Bonney)
• The Little Corporal (Napoleon Bonaparte)
• The Louisville Lip (Mohammed Ali)
• The Old Pretender (James Francis Edward Stuart)
• The Tangerine Tornado (Donald Trump)
• The Teflon Don (John Gotti)
• The Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski)

What are your favs?

*Nickname literally means "added name." The word derives from the Old English word ekename. Over time, English speakers garbled it. "Babe Ruth had an ekename" became "Babe Ruth had a nickname."

More

My life will be in your keeping, waking, sleeping,
laughing, weeping.

— Norman Newell

As a kid, I often watched "Million Dollar Movie," a nightly broadcast on New York's WOR-TV.

The show comprised mostly old B movies like The Crawling Eye, Cat People, Godzilla, Mighty Joe Young and Tarzan and the Mermaids.

My pal Mookie, also a fan, called the show "Hundred Dollar Movie."

One particularly arresting movie aired on "Million Dollar Movie" was a new one at the time, an Italian film called Mondo Cane.

Mondo Cane was a depressing Cold War-era "shockumentary," elevated above other nonfiction films of the day by virtue of its schmaltzy theme song, "More."

The most arresting segment of Mondo Cane depicted the nuclear nightmare America had recently visited upon the wildlife of Bikini, where in the 1940s and '50s the US Air Force had dropped a series of atom bombs—23 in all—to test their lethality. (Click here to watch this segment.)

Who would have thought in 1962 that industry, and not the American or Soviet nuclear stockpiles, would bring about Armageddon?

But it seems like industry will—unless checked by government.

Yesterday, President Biden proposed to spend $555 billion on climate programs designed to check industry, the largest sum ever proposed by any chief executive to address global warming.

He wants not only to cut carbon emissions, but to do more.

He wants to create more forests. More farms. More jobs. 

But a two-bit chiseler, Joe Manchin, stands in the way.

Without Republican support in the Senate, Manchin's vote is needed to pass Biden's proposal into law. 

That's unlikely. 

Manchin, a puppet of the nation's fossil fuel producers, plans to rip Biden's proposal to shreds.

Have no doubt that Manchin is a crook. 

He has not only received more political donations from fossil fuel producers than any other senator—more than twice the second largest recipient—but is becoming rich from coal. 

Disclosures show he earned over $5 million as a coal broker in the past 10 years.

If Biden's proposal fails to become law, we know precisely who to blame.

The skunk from West Virginia. 

Red Tape

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

— Honoré de Balzac

It took me five trips to Delaware's DMV recently to get a new driver's license and registration.

Five.

At every step in the months-long process, the clerks provided verbal and printed instructions to follow, both of which were always—always—wrong.

The procedures were Byzantine and no one I encountered knew what he was doing.

Complexity and frightening incompetence prolonged my agony—although I must admit I grew fond of the hot dogs. 

(There was a long queue at the entrance to the building, where a vendor sold Polish dogs from a cart. Two dollars bought you a hot dog, chips, and a soda; by my third trip, I’d become a regular. Mo and I were on a first-name basis.)

My ordeal's origins were evident from the start.

Although the DMV used yellow tape to demarcate the queue, the underlying problem was red tape.

"Red tape has killed more people than bullets," novelist Ben Bova once said.

It almost killed me. (The hot dogs didn't help.)

The expression red tape enjoys a six-century history.

It originated in the 1600s, when nobles and lawyers began—literally—to bind batches of paperwork with red tape.

To open a batch, you had to "cut through the red tape."

Red tape went from literal to metaphorical use three centuries later.

Dickens, Carlyle, Longfellow and other writers all used the expression in the 19th century to deride bureaucracies.

During the American Civil War, bureaucrats in Washington, DC, took red tape to new lengths, using roll after roll after roll of it to seal envelopes and bundle documents, according to the National Archives.

In fiscal year 1864 alone, the War Department purchased 154 miles of the stuff—nearly twice the length of Delaware.

HAT TIP: Ann Ramsey, no friend of red tape, suggested this post. 

Unbundled

The creator economy allows people to unbundle from traditional employment and still be successful.

— Destinee Berman

Ageism is a thing. 

Indeed, a basic tenet of Critical Age Theory (CAT) holds that ageism is systemic.*

It begins to affect you the day you're no longer carded for an alcohol purchase.

Things go downhill from there.

By your late 60s (my age), ageism rears its ugly head every day. 

Waitresses give you the senior discount without asking; kids hold open doors for you; your mailbox is stuffed with offers for long-term care; your spam filter is clogged with emails about ED; and all the TV and Facebook ads feature Tom Selleck.

Worse, whenever you're asked for the name of your employer, the only answer the clerk will accept is "retired."

I'm not retired; and never will be, Lord willing. 

I'm unbundled.

To be unbundled is to be part of the gig economy.

A perhaps creaky part, but a part nonetheless.

Currently, I consult to clients; advise three nonprofit boards; tutor a high-schooler; write occasionally for magazines; and, first and foremost, paint original still lifes in oil.

Just ask the IRS whether I'm "retired."

I have no issue with anyone who's really retired, but only with those binary people who believe everyone over 60 must be retired, when in truth a lot of us are unbundled.

Why isn't that on your form, punk?

*NOTE: Bob James' Critical Age Theory (CAT) is not to be confused with linguist Eric Lenneburg's Critical Age Theory. The latter pertains to children; the former, to geezers. Lenneburg's theory is, in addition, widely accepted, while James' theory is still controversial.