Study of penis, deformed babies, and other weird museums around the world

In case you are sick of what art museums have to offer (I am with you; there is only so much Monet one can take in a lifetime,) you should try one of the truly bizarre museum options out there.

Here are a few tips from the site Atypical Events:

  • Mütter Museum aka “Random body parts”, Philadelphia: museum of historical pathology containing about 20,000 fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens, models, medical instruments, and memorabilia of famous scientists and physicians (the secret tumor of Grover Cleveland, the thorax of John Wilkes Booth and a really big 9-foot colon, for example)
  • Museum Vrolik aka “Dead babies in a jar”, Amsterdam: It contains more than 5,000 specimens of congenital anomalies, human and animal anatomy, embryology and pathology.
  • Phallological Museum aka “Penisland”, Húsavík, Iceland: museum completely devoted to the field of phallology, the supposed ancient study of the penis and its role in society and history. Home to 200 penises and penile parts.
  • Meguro Parasitological Museum aka “Parasites, warms and leeches”, Tokyo. Glass jars filled with formaldehyde preserve these pesky parasites, while terrifying photographs like that of a Japanese dude with elephantiasis of the scrotum depict the damage that they are capable of (see photo)
  • Museum of Menstruation and Women’s Health, Maryland. The museum walls were covered in tampon and pad advertisements, while female mannequin torsos dressed in rubberized panties and menstrual belts hung from the ceiling or sat on tables in a similar fashion.

Menstruation? Maybe Monet is not so bad, after all.

[via Eventective.com]

Baked Bean Museum of Excellence and Captain Beany

Perhaps you have a can of baked beans in your kitchen cabinet. There is one place in Wales where baked beans have taken over the place. At the Baked Bean Museum of Excellence in Port Talbot there are 200 items that pay tribute to this every person’s foodstuff. The guy who owns this museum, Captain Beany (I kid you not, this is his legal name) filled a two-bedroom flat with cans of baked beans of various sizes and baked bean paraphernalia as a way to draw attention to his fundraising efforts and earn his place on the list of eccentrics who do good work. Plus, the museum is a tribute to the concept that just about anything can be interesting.

Captain Beany’s love of baked beans started somehow with the music group The Who and the photo of Roger Daltry that was taken while he was sitting in a bathtub of baked beans and used for the 1960s album cover The Who Sell Out. Inspired, Captain Beany, (then Barry Kirk) sat in his own bathtub of baked beans in the Aberavon Beach Hotel lobby in Port Talbot in a fundraising stunt. There’s a lot to this guy who has transformed himself into an oddball superhero. He’s earned awards from the department of tourism for promoting his town. If you go to the museum you get a personally signed certificate that says you were there.