Museum Monday

Museum Monday: SPAM Museum reopening

If you’re a fan of the tinned meat product known as SPAM – or just enjoy a good offbeat museum – then you have a new reason to plan a trip to southeastern Minnesota: the Spam Museum is set to reopen on April 22, 2016.

Hormel's SPAM MUSEUM reopens April 22 in a new spot in downtown Austin, Minnesota.

The museum is located in Austin, Minnesota – home of SPAM manufacturer Hormel Foods Corporation – and has been closed since September 2014 in preparation for a move from just outside of Austin’s downtown to a spot right in downtown.

One of the new exhibits in the SPAM Museum - opening April 22 in Austin, Minn. Courtesy SPAM Museum

Some new galleries have been created, but Hormel made sure to keep the more popular exhibits, including one exploring Spam’s connection to the military and the production line game where guests can simulate making Spam.

SPAMples, the Spam Museum’s version of free samples, will continue as well.

Why did they move the Spam Museum?

To be neighborly.

Since 2001, the Spam Museum welcomed visitors first from a spot in a local mall and later from a building attached to Hormel corporate headquarters, just off Interstate 90.

But stopping at the museum didn’t require a drive through Austin (population: 25,000), which meant most visitors never ventured into the town’s historic shop and restaurant-filled downtown.

So when it came time for a new and bigger spot for the museum, members of Vision 2020 – a community group working to improve the quality of life in Austin by the year 2020 – urged Hormel to move the museum to Austin’s Main Street.

Hormel agreed. And now finishing touches are being put on the Spam Museum, which has scheduled its soft opening for April 22 and a grand opening in July as part of Hormel’s 125th anniversary celebration.

SPAM production line

Museum Monday: odd Amsterdam

AMS WOODEN TULIPS

Heading to Amsterdam?

Put the canal boat rides, flower markets, cheeses shops, (maybe some “coffee shops”) and tours of the recently-reopened Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House on your list.

But for a taste of Amsterdam’s more offbeat side, give some of these museums I profiled for Mashable.com a try as well.

Sex and drugs are covered in the Sexmuseum and in its kissing-cousin, the Erotic Museum, in the Red Light District, while there’s also a museum exploring the history of hash, marijuana and hemp.

1_Cat Cabinet

Feline fans will adore the Cat Cabinet (Katten Cabinet) – a museum filled with artwork devoted to cats – while the Museum of Bags and Purses tells the story of pouches, pockets, clutches, suitcases and bags through the ages. Museum of Bags and purses (2)

Micropia is a museum that tells the story of microbes and bacteria in a way that will have you rushing home to replace your toothbrush and kitchen sponges, while the Dutch Funeral Museum and the Museum Vrolik (a medical museum filled with anatomical anomalies) may leave you a bit shaken, but happy to be alive.

5_Skeletons at Museum Vrolik

For more details – and a bonus museum (the John & Yoko shrine at the Amsterdam Hilton) – see my full story – You can get weird in Amsterdam without getting high – on Mashable.com.

Museum Monday: suitcases in a museum

Spotted in Amsterdam’s Museum of Bags and Purses:

Museum of Bags and Purses

In addition to a large display of trunks and suitcases ( part of the “bags” part of the collection) the museum is a treasure trove of purses, clutches, wearable pockets, backpacks, satchels and other accessories people have used to carry their daily necessities around.

Here a few other bags and purses on view:

Museum of Bags and purses (2)

P1040581

 

 

Classic football memorabilia at SFO Museum

SFO Football helmet museum

Helmet worn by Leo Nomellini (San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle, 1950-63) c. 1962 Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 1969 Courtesy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame & SFO Museum

More than one million people are expected to attend the week-long festivities in the San Francisco Bay Area leading up to Super Bowl 50 on February 7, 2016, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

In preparation, the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport is hosting a football-themed exhibition featuring memorabilia and game-worn artifacts from each of the league’s thirty-two franchises, with most items on special loan from the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Among the objects on display are items belonging to Hall of Famers – including Joe Montana’s home jersey, Walter Payton’s helmet and Jim Brown’s shoulder pads.

Shoulder pads worn by Jim Brown (Cleveland Browns running back 1957–65) c. 1963 Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 1971 Courtesy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Collection & SFO Museum

Shoulder pads worn by Jim Brown (Cleveland Browns running back 1957–65) c. 1963
Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 1971
Courtesy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Collection & SFO Museum

Look for the exhibit: The Nation’s Game – The NFL from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the Terminal 3 – post-security departures level through February 2016.

Cleats worn by Sam Huff (New York Giants linebacker, 1956–63) during his rookie season 1956 Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 1982 Courtesy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Collection & SFO Museum

Cleats worn by Sam Huff (New York Giants linebacker, 1956–63) during his rookie season 1956
Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 1982
Courtesy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Collection & SFO Museum

Museum Monday: Cancun’s underwater museum

It’s been far too long since I visited Cancun and the Cancun International Airport , but the news about a fresh set of sculptures being submerged at Cancun’s Underwater Museum of Art (MUSA) puts the area back on top of my “go soon” list.

Since 2010, some 500 sculptures have been submerged in the bottom of the ocean to create a marine life-friendly museum that can be visited only by divers, snorkelers, parasailers and those in glass-bottomed boats.

The sculptures are of everything from life-size humans to a full-size VW Beetle.

Here are two sculptures by Elier Amado Gil that will be submerged during September and October. The first is titled El Entendimiento (Understanding), the second is called Reposo (Rest).

MUSA_ENTENDIMIENTO_

MUSA_Reposo-