By Joe Fasbinder
The museum exists. At least, it does as a modern art museum in Culver City. The wonders on display may or may not exist. Probably not.
Take, for example, the story of Bernard Maston, Donald R. Griffith and the Deprong Mori of the Tripscum Plateau.
“On his return in 1872 from anthropological field work with the Dozo of the Tripiscum Plateau of the Circum-Caribbean region of Northern South America, Bernard Maston reported having heard several accounts of the Deprong Mori, or Piercing Devil, which Maston described as a ‘small demon which the local savages believe able to penetrate solid objects.’”
Of course, the story, contained in the permanent collection of the museum, goes on to account of how the Piercing Devil was found to be a real thing, a small bat that can penetrate walls at will. Only one been captured and it’s encased in a mass of solid lead.
It’s not on display. It’s under renovation.
The permanent collection also recounts the sad life of the Stink Ant of the Cameroon of West Central Africa. ‘In the Rain forest of the Cameroon in West Central Africa lives a floor dwelling ant known as Megaloponeera foetens, or more commonly, the stink ant. This large ant – one of the very few to produce a cry audible to the human ear – lives by foraging among the fallen leaves and undergrowth of the extraordinarily rich rain forest floor.”
The account in the catalog goes on to how this ant is sometimes infected with a fungus that makes it climb trees, and finally die with the fungus producing a horn coming from its head, ready to infect more unlucky ants. There’s even a picture.
Wonders abound at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. And of course, anyone who has seen Jurassic Park knows there’s no intrinsic technology from that period.
It doesn’t matter.
This, from the museum’s opening web page:
Like a coat of two colors, the Museum serves dual functions. On the one hand the Museum provides the academic community with a specialized repository of relics and artifacts from the Lower Jurassic, with an emphasis on those that demonstrate unusual or curious technological qualities. On the other hand the Museum serves the general public by providing the visitor a hands-on experience of “life in the Jurassic.”
The museum came into being in 1984, at first a traveling collection, and came to rest at the current address in 1988. It was founded by David Wilson and Diana Wilson, and David is still the director,
“One of our most recent acquisitions is an 1890s Mozart reed organ, which was lovingly refurbished for us by a man in Pasadena,” Administrative Director Hana Van der Peyur said.
Other exhibits from the permanent collection include: No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again: Letters to Mt. Wilson Observatory, 1915-1935, Tell The Bees:
Belief, Knowledge & Hypersymbolic Cognition, Rotten Luck: The Decaying Dice of Ricky Jay, Tell The Bees: Belief, Cognition.
“Many of our exhibits are built for the museum,” said Van der Peyur. “Some are creative models and objects.”
The Museum is located at 9341 Venice Blvd. in Culver City. Ph. 310.836.6131 and the collections are open Thursday from 2 p.m. to
8 p.m.; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Admission varies, with adults asked to contribute $8 while seniors, students and disabled persons enter at significant suggested discounts. Children 12 and under are free. The Museum of Jurassic Technology does not allow cell phone use, including text messaging and photography while in the Museum.
