Friday, October 12, 2012
Museums
I stumbled across a website for the Jerry Lewis museum and I
was surprised. An entire museum for this
guy? In America? (I might understand it in France.) I know he has a fanbase and his movies are
seen as comic masterpieces by some, by a whole museum for Jerry Lewis? Sure he has raised a lot of money to cure
muscular dystrophy (and really, why haven’t they cured that yet?), but a
museum?
It turns out there is no physical museum, but merely a
website devoted to Jerry Lewis. That
does not surprise me as there are websites devoted to all kinds of things and
people. Museums should be reserved for
only the most important people of all time. Presidents, for example, all have
their own presidential library and museums. (At least recent presidents do,
even Gerald Ford. The old guys didn’t
have the benefit of legislation encouraging these sorts of things. So Carter, Nixon, Clinton, all these guys have
them, Teddy Roosevel just has his home preserved but no library.)
Babe Ruth has a museum dedicated to him, which is fitting for
the greatest baseball player of all time, as does Yogi Berra. Yogi is a hall of famer but not on the same
level as the Babe, but he gets one for being the most quoted athlete, and
perhaps the most quoted person, of the 20th century. (Which of you has not said “it ain’t over till
it’s over” or “déjà vu all over again.”
I mean presidents say that stuff.)
There is a Thomas Edison museum, and a Henry Ford museum, and
one for Ray Charles. Elvis, of course,
has Graceland, but, strangely, there is a Beatles story museum in Liverpool.
That is all fitting.
These sorts of things tend to be given more to entertainers
than other contributors. So there is a
Buddy Holly Center, but no Jonas Salk museum.
I did find a Sigmund Freud museum in London, but also one for Glenn
Miller. Equivalent contributions? It does seem to help if the person died an
early and tragic death (see, Buddy Holly, above). There is a Patsy Cline museum but not one,
alas, for the Beach Boys (two of them did die young so they should get some
credit for that). The standards for
these things is pretty low, as the Three Stooges have a museum dedicated to
them called The Stoogeum. (Really.) I did notice that a few years ago they were
trying to collect enough money to create a Marx Brother museum, but I guess
they didn’t. Too bad.
Margaret Mitchell has a museum dedicated to her and her
masterpiece, Gone With The Wind. Ernest
Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all have museums, but not Raymond
Chandler, Dashiell Hammett or Agatha Christie.
More and more of these things will probably crop up in the
future. Not only will future presidents
get these things in their honor, but as society gets more trivial lesser and
lesser figures with have them, along the lines of the Three Stooges. I have no doubt there will be a Madonna
museum, a J. K. Rowling library, and a John Belushi Animal House.
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