Mofo Store Manager Kenneth Whirlow is pleased to announce the acquisition of a special addition to our store’s rare books selection. The book is a rare signed first edition of Plato’s Republic. Whirlow (acting on a tip from famous book scout Nico) was able to acquire the book from EBay of all places; the original listing follows:
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Indonesia, Tegal, Central Java
Wood, cloth, and mixed media
via Asian Art Museum; From the Mimi and John Herbert Collection
Jesters or clowns are among the most popular figures in the folk puppet traditions of Java, Indonesia. The rod puppets (wanage golek) — not to be confused with the more aristocratic shadow puppets (wayang kulit) — are made of brightly painted, carved wood, and are often dressed in batik clothing and bedecked with sequins and beads.
New York City (publisher), Hong Kong (printer)
Fragment of a page from a book; ink and colors on paper
Via the New York Times
The Museum of Folly was, regrettably, unable to purchase the original painting by Pablo Picasso of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). This reproduction was torn out of an art history textbook.
David Galenson, an economist at the University of Chicago, has proposed an exquisitely stupid method of determining the greatest artworks of the twentieth century. He simply counts how often a work is reproduced in textbooks. “Quantification,” Galenson complains, “has been almost totally absent from art history.” Using this method, Galenson has definitively determined that the top five most important artworks of the twentieth century, in order, are:
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Lake George, Minnesota
Digital photograph; colored pixels
Via Mail Online
This unfortunate Ursus arctos recalls the fictional bear of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh series, who got his head stuck in a honey jar.
While Mr. Milne’s Pooh was, admittedly, a bear of very little brain, our curators do not feel that there is a compelling reason to make a space for him in our already crowded MoFo galleries. Rather, the fools this image evokes are the Lake George police, who shot and killed the bear out of a conern for public safety.
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This photo of our employee entrance is from zarylla’s photostream.
If you came in through the employee entrance you can, if you wish, exit and view our front facade and public entrance.
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MEMO
FROM: Anita Gidway, Visitor Services manager
TO: Director’s office
Dr. Thom:
As you know, we have begun providing comment cards for visitors to fill out when they leave the museum. So far we have accumulated 33 cards. I thought you might like to review the comments, which I have sorted by department in the attached spreadsheet. We will continue to monitor this.
AG
Durham, North Carolina
Titanium compounds, urethane, and other synthetic materials
Via SFGate
The Museum of Folly is pleased to have in its collection this golf ball, believed to have been struck by Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York City mayor Rudi Giuliani, during his attempt to secure a position on the Duke University golf team. The ball was located deep in the rough by a teenage boy, who generously donated it to the museum; it has been marvelously restored by the museum’s conservators.
Errant shots such as the one that caused this ball to become lost may have contributed to Mr. Giuliani failing to make the team. Upon being notified of this decision, Mr. Giuliani filed a 198-page lawsuit, which “claims the coach has interferred with Giuliani’s efforts toward becoming a professional golfer.” The museum’s curators hope someday to add the would-be golf pro’s legal brief to our collection.
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San Francisco, California
Plastic with steel reinforcements
Via SFGate
This car, deaccessioned from a fleet belonging to the city of San Francisco and acquired by the Museum of Folly at auction, was used by a city employee for her daily commute between the Central Valley and the city. According to the Matier and Ross report cited in the credit line above, “San Francisco city records show that no fewer than 246 workers, including police brass, airport employees and Muni managers, have take-home car privileges.”
But the city’s generosity does not stop with merely providing vehicles — it also offers free gas to the commuters. The museum’s Finance office, generously granting the eight-cylinder vehicle a combined 20 mpg, calculates that a commuter logging a 150-mile daily commute would probably ding the city for 35-45,000 miles in a year, or 2,000 gallons of gasoline at a cost of more than $8,000 at current prices. According to noted scholars of folly Matier and Ross, “It’s just one reason why San Francisco’s gas bill is on pace to hit $7.6 million this year - $1.8 million over budget.”
It is not known what percentage of this gasoline was obtained through the Bush administration’s misadventures in Iraq, which were expected (by the oil executive-headed adminstration) to result in lower gas prices.
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MEMO
FROM: Membership department
TO: Director’s office
Dr. Thom:
Have you seen something call the stupid filter? We are concerned that this insidious software, which “can detect rampant stupidity in written English,” will interfere with our current membership drive. By filtering stupidity out of the internet, materials for new acquisitions may diminish, and we will have difficulty hosting special exhibitions. Also, according to our colleagues in Marketing and PR, if stupidity is removed from the internet our ability to promote the museum will negatively impacted.
Listen to this:
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Keizer, Oregon
Concrete
Via katu.com
In July 2007, Residents of Keizer, Oregon, complained about the erection of this traffic post in their sleepy town. The thrust of their argument was that something about its shape was offensive to the bedroom community.
The object’s shape may actually allude to the scepter that is a traditional attribute of the fool.
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