The other weekend Boyfriend-A, his housemates and I visited Manchester Museum. Manchester Museum is on Oxford Road, in the heart of Manchester City Centre and has free entry. It has lots of history to see including (click on any picture for full size image):
Gorgosaurus Skeleton
Gorgosaurus Information Board
Mammoth Skeleton (front)
Mammoth Skeleton (side)
Many vases, bowls, etc. to View
A great Classic Weapons Collection – If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, I’m looting my weapons from here.
Slavery Chains
My two favourite sections were the Egyptian section and Geology section. In the Egyptian section I was fascinated by the Soul Homes (photo below) and creepy looking mummy (also photographed below):
Egyptian Artefacts
Egyptian Soul Homes
Egyptian Sarcophagus with creepy looking Mummy
In ancient Egypt soul homes were for people who couldn’t afford a tomb to be built. Somewhere for their soul to live during the afterlife. Boyfriend-A couldn’t believe how bad my geography was, after I thought Egypt was in Europe. Apparently it’s in Africa.
We moved on to Geology section, with this rather nice quartz crystal cluster that I wanted to take home:
Geology Section
Geology Section: A Large Quartz Cluster
We finished with the main attraction a complete T-Rex Skeleton:
T-Rex Skeleton
A Random Room-sized Fish Skeleton
There’s lots of history to see at Manchester Museum, but more interactivity e.g. videos/staffed tours would have added to the experience.
Even so we had a great time. If you’ve never been, go and check it out. Oh and it has a good gift shop that is reasonably priced to.
Henry Darger (1904-1973) was an Chicago-based artist, who was completely unknown in his lifetime. He created pieces of art that depicted children. In some of the art children were innocently enjoying life and in others they were being horrifically tortured. Darger also completed two fantasy manuscripts entitled The Realms and Crazy House. Many critics dubbed Darger as a mentally unstable individual who may have thought about harming children.
But as Jim Elledge uncovers in Henry Darger, Throw Away Boy that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Elledge has spent a decade researching and writing this book which gives a comprehensive insight to the life of Darger. It is well researched, which is indicated by the extensive bibliography and notes sections.
The book starts by describing the poverty, dangerous street life and Darger’s lack of supportive loving parents. Darger’s mother died in childbirth and his father was an alcoholic. It is suspected that Darger was sexually abused on a number of occasions throughout his childhood. This commonplace abuse, did make uncomfortable reading at times. His behaviour, even as a young child was feral which is understandable given the emotional trauma he experienced. His bad behaviour led to his father putting him in a religious mission and later an asylum institution.
Darger escaped the institution and became a Janitor in a hospital. He began to create his art and write his manuscripts, as a way to fictionalise his traumatic childhood experiences. In his manuscripts he wrote about a number of secret societies, all that have one mission: to protect children. He fell in love with a man (Whillie) and continued to work tirelessly on his art over the decades that followed. But after some early criticism, he didn’t feel able to share his work with the world. It wasn’t until after his death that his landlord discovered the work.
Essentially Elledge tells the story of a gay man filled with fear and shame because of societies attitudes towards children, child abuse and gay people. Glossy pages show some of Darger’s work, but more would have been welcome.
Elledge brings Darger’s story to life through his engaging writing style. If you’re into gay art – in all it’s forms, you’ll love Henry Darger, Throw Away Boy which is available to buy on Amazon.
Saunders takes us through her childhood as an RAF child to the present day. She shares her obsession with animals (mostly horses, but also dogs & chickens), aimless career and her family life.
Career wise she is completely honest (almost too honest) and gives the impression that she was dragged along for the ride, especially in the early days. She admits that she’s a procrastinator and easily distracted from any form of work (well play that she calls work ha ha).
In Bonkers Saunders often goes off on enjoyable tangents, telling stories and even the occasional mini-rant. For the record, I completely agree with everything she said in her mini-rants.
Saunders light, warm and engaging writers voice made Bonkers a captivating read that I finished a few days after starting. It had the average glossy photo pages, but a few more would have been welcome.
There are some great stories, some of which are told in this interview with Clare Balding (who Saunders completely blames for Bonkers):
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