Speaker 1: Imagine the place where you can escape for a day,
Speaker 1: get immersed in a world of rooms, inspiration and expertise,
Speaker 1: where you can lay in luxury, accommodation and kids cam
Speaker 1: fees from ninety five sets. Tickets are free to everyone
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Speaker 1: out at the Gaia Tikia the Wonderful every Day.
Speaker 2: Hey, hi, Hi, it's your buddy Alley Ward. So let's
Speaker 2: talk about dusty books and stuffed buffalo and relics that
Speaker 2: would make Indiana Jones just randy. So. Museums are those
Speaker 2: hollowed institutions that we use as marble tiled storage lockers
Speaker 2: for history. In this week's episode, I sat down with
Speaker 2: someone who gets to wear the gloves and just ignore
Speaker 2: the velvet rope things and stick around after the crowds
Speaker 2: filter out and keep watch for vintage ghosts. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about musiology, which is a word. But first I like
Speaker 2: to thank you listeners for making this podcast possible. It
Speaker 2: wouldn't exist without you. This is an entirely independent podcast
Speaker 2: made just this scrappy, old fashioned way by a couple
Speaker 2: of people in no networks, and it's supported only by
Speaker 2: listeners like yourself. So thank you for the Patreon donations
Speaker 2: which allow me to pay an editor, Hi Stephen, and
Speaker 2: for buying merch at ologiesmerch dot com. There are cool
Speaker 2: t shirts and stuff up there. Also, you rating and
Speaker 2: subscribing and reviewing helps so, so so much because it
Speaker 2: keeps ologies up in the charts for other people to
Speaker 2: discover and say, hey, cool podcast. So consider it like voting.
Speaker 2: It's free and it helps keep good things happening. Also,
Speaker 2: I'm a creep and I read every review because I'm
Speaker 2: thirsty and they make my day. This week, the review
Speaker 2: I want to read is from someone calling himself Nick
Speaker 2: the jagof Don't need to Know Why. Such a nice review.
Speaker 2: You essentially said that I'm a wild mix between a
Speaker 2: spirit animal, soulmate, crazy aunt, a devil on my shoulder,
Speaker 2: and a teacher can't get enough loves the podcast, and
Speaker 2: then gave me two stars out of five. I think
Speaker 2: that was an accident, Nick the Jagoff, because your review
Speaker 2: was so glowing and so nice. But I saw that
Speaker 2: two out of five stars and was like just a
Speaker 2: slip of the finger. But I enjoyed your words and
Speaker 2: I enjoy all of your reviews. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for leaving them. Okay, back to museums. So museum the
Speaker 2: word comes into Greek for the muses. These were goddesses
Speaker 2: who served to inspire poets. Zeus had nine daughters, all
Speaker 2: muses of different things like poetry and astronomy and dance
Speaker 2: at comedy tragedy. So nowadays our muses would be like
Speaker 2: the muse of tweets and one for memes and amuse
Speaker 2: for freestyle rap or photocropping or winged eyeliner, parallel parking
Speaker 2: needs amuse. They're all arts. Now. This ologist has it's
Speaker 2: been an Internet friend of mine for a few years.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're homies. His instagram Museum Ranie is
Speaker 2: filled with all kinds of magical antiquities, so I was
Speaker 2: so excited to meet him in person. He's a museum
Speaker 2: collections manager. He oversees twenty two museums for the California
Speaker 2: Department of State Parks. Twenty two that's more museums and
Speaker 2: I have friends. I drove to an industrial district outside
Speaker 2: of Sacramento one winter's morning to this huge pristine warehouse.
Speaker 2: It was filled to its metal gills with immaculate shelves
Speaker 2: bearing the kind of treasures you'd find in an antique
Speaker 2: mall if it were also in heaven and you were
Speaker 2: dead and everything was perfect. He gave me a tour,
Speaker 2: and then we pulled up seats in a conference room
Speaker 2: and chatted about everything from recent fires and Sonoma threatening
Speaker 2: his state park museums and evacuations, and his favorite museum
Speaker 2: pieces ever, and what curators really think when you take
Speaker 2: selfies in their exhibits. Also, there's information in here about
Speaker 2: mummies and shrunken heads that changing attitude toward his story,
Speaker 2: and hot dogs. He's great. Please ready your ears and
Speaker 2: behold the precious wonder of musiologist Ronnie Klein.
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever been interviewed ever. Really, this
Speaker 3: doesn't work, you can trash it. I'm okay with.
Speaker 2: It, Ronnie. I'm not going to trash this. Tell me
Speaker 2: about the first museum that you went to. Do you remember?
Speaker 3: I do. It was on a field trip. Okay, it
Speaker 3: was in the Sacramento It was the California State Railroad Museum,
Speaker 3: and I do remember kind of just being kind of
Speaker 3: I don't know, I feel like we were free and
Speaker 3: just running around like crazy kids, jumping through things and
Speaker 3: exploring the museum. Ourselves, no guidance whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Where were the docents during this?
Speaker 3: I mean sweet docents. They're very sweet, but sometimes they're
Speaker 3: a little older than the children that are running around.
Speaker 2: Do you like any museum movies?
Speaker 3: I realized that there are no good museum movies really
Speaker 3: that I've seen. I even watched a movie this week
Speaker 3: in anticipation for this question, thinking it was going to
Speaker 3: be a good museum movie.
Speaker 2: I think you were doing your homework.
Speaker 3: I was. It's called Bringing Bringing Home Baby, Bringing Back Baby,
Speaker 3: and it's with Carry Grant, oh Audrey Hepburn, romantic comedy.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, this is up my alley. It's going
Speaker 3: to be great. And then it was just like it
Speaker 3: was very frustrating. It has good reviews.
Speaker 2: What museum did it take place in?
Speaker 3: In a natural history museum? So car Grant was a
Speaker 3: zoologist and he was putting well he was a zoologist,
Speaker 3: but he was putting together a dinosaur. Well, so, but
Speaker 3: any bake news?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, what about night at the Museum?
Speaker 3: No? Okay, I mean you know, it's fine. And I
Speaker 3: was like researching. I was like, there has to be
Speaker 3: a good museum. So I was asking other museum friends
Speaker 3: and trying to find asking other curators, like, what do
Speaker 3: you know of any museums that like feature a curator.
Speaker 3: There has to be like some sort of movie where
Speaker 3: Tom Hanks is a curator that's like sitting with his objects,
Speaker 3: longing for Meg Ryan. But there was nothing at all.
Speaker 2: Doesn't wonder Woman have like a day job as a
Speaker 2: museum curator.
Speaker 3: I've never seen a wonder Woman.
Speaker 2: I think she might like work in a museum in
Speaker 2: the daytime. Did a little googling and yes, wonder Woman
Speaker 2: aka Diana Prince. Forgot she had another name. Is supposed
Speaker 2: to Moonlight or Daylight rather as an art historian. So
Speaker 2: her office in the movie I went and looked, had
Speaker 2: like ancient swords and a primate skull just hanging out
Speaker 2: on her desk like a half eaten bagel. She's got
Speaker 2: a microscope. It's kind of like my personal pinterest Wonderland,
Speaker 2: and I remembered it was cool, but I had forgotten
Speaker 2: that it was supposed to be at this little place
Speaker 2: called the Louver. She's supposed to work at a louver.
Speaker 2: Heard of it? Yeah, that part like slip Madome. Oh
Speaker 2: and you know who else is on a Do you
Speaker 2: ever see Scandal.
Speaker 3: No, I'm terri about watching things.
Speaker 2: There's a villain in Scandal who is like a secret operative,
Speaker 2: but his cover day job is the curator of the Smithsonian,
Speaker 2: And you're like Suy, You're the curator of the Smithsonian
Speaker 2: in DC, Like you could never get away with having
Speaker 2: a second life. So who handles popa pope's outlook inbox?
Speaker 2: And like wonder Woman's voicemails? Do you know how much
Speaker 2: work it is to be a curator of antiquities? Already?
Speaker 2: You got staff meetings, so much insurance paperwork. Who has
Speaker 2: time to be a spy or save the world. I
Speaker 2: don't know. You're about to find out how much work
Speaker 2: it is. I gotta calm down. When you go on vacation,
Speaker 2: do you go to museums or you like enough? No?
Speaker 3: I try to go to museums. Yeah, it's funny because
Speaker 3: I mostly adventure around California, so I do working for
Speaker 3: California State Parks. So state parks are kind of the
Speaker 3: best and best of both worlds. You get museum and
Speaker 3: you get hiking, so state parks kind of like bring
Speaker 3: it all in, So I kind of stick to those.
Speaker 2: So tell me the difference between a national park, and
Speaker 2: a state park and just a park park. I'm sorry
Speaker 2: that I don't know this.
Speaker 3: No, So a national park is being their funds are
Speaker 3: being cut by Trump.
Speaker 2: Okay, cool. So there are fifty nine national parks in
Speaker 2: the United States and they're overseen by the federal government
Speaker 2: for better or for worse. But there are also over
Speaker 2: ten thousand state parks in the US and they're operated
Speaker 2: by each individual state. Now, don't sleep on state parks, folks.
Speaker 2: Apparently they're super dope and underrated, so admission is cheaper.
Speaker 2: They're usually less crowded. They have trails and campsites and
Speaker 2: museums on them, like the twenty two museums that Ronnie
Speaker 2: overseas dude knows museums. Do you have a favorite museum ever?
Speaker 2: Or is that a dick question to ask?
Speaker 3: You know, it's an interesting question because I do. So.
Speaker 3: I got into the museum profession a little bit late
Speaker 3: in the game. I'm thirty seven now, oh my god,
Speaker 3: I know, but I'm one year into as a museum
Speaker 3: collections manager. Okay, So, on my thirtieth birthday, I went
Speaker 3: to Jack London stat Historic Park.
Speaker 2: Quick pause for some much needed context on Jack London
Speaker 2: you're going to want to know this. I didn't know
Speaker 2: this until I just looked it up. And now I'm
Speaker 2: low key obsessed with Jack London too. I guess like
Speaker 2: not to step on Ronnie's personal brand, but dude, I
Speaker 2: love Jack London. Now, Okay. So Jack London was born
Speaker 2: in eighteen seventies and he was one of the first
Speaker 2: like celebrity writers to really make it big, like he
Speaker 2: predated Hemingway and he had I realized stories in magazines
Speaker 2: and he went on to write a grip of novels
Speaker 2: like White Fang and Call of the Wild, and his
Speaker 2: work usually involved nature and adventure. He was also a
Speaker 2: war correspondent. He was an advocate for unionization and for
Speaker 2: animal rights. He had this crazy life that involved his
Speaker 2: mother surviving a suicide attempt via gun shot well pregnant
Speaker 2: with him. Then he was raised by Virginia Prentiss, a
Speaker 2: former slave, and at one point he became an oyster
Speaker 2: pirate what and then went on to go to the
Speaker 2: Alaskan gold Rush. He resided in the South Pacific on
Speaker 2: a boat called the Snark. Dude could live, he could
Speaker 2: also die early at the age of forty of kidney
Speaker 2: disease or maybe maybe possibly morphine overdose from managing the
Speaker 2: pain of it. So he died in his sleeping porch,
Speaker 2: which I looked this up as a screened off breezy
Speaker 2: area in his home in Glen Ellen, California, and on
Speaker 2: the property he and his wife's ashes are under a
Speaker 2: mossy rock you can go look at anyway. Ronnie is
Speaker 2: a fan of Jack London and onward. When you hear
Speaker 2: his name, feel free to take a large swig of
Speaker 2: whatever beverage is in front of you to honor him.
Speaker 2: Or you could do like a small dance with your
Speaker 2: butt in your chair. I don't care, just celebrate. So
Speaker 2: before Ronnie started working in museums, he visited this Sonoma Valley,
Speaker 2: Glen Ellen property on his thirtieth birthday just for funzies.
Speaker 3: Because I always really love Jack London. Wanted to go
Speaker 3: see that museum, and you like, it's a house museum
Speaker 3: on one end and it's a regular museum on another.
Speaker 3: So his house museum is my favorite because you get
Speaker 3: to walk through the halls that he lived in, You
Speaker 3: get to see the study that he wrote, you know,
Speaker 3: all of his books in and see where you there's
Speaker 3: a room where he died in No. And so you know,
Speaker 3: fast forward seven years later and I'm the collections manager
Speaker 3: of that museum.
Speaker 2: Oh I have.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, it's really cool. So I look back, like
Speaker 3: on my phone, and I look back at all these
Speaker 3: photos of my thirtieth birthday, of me walking through these
Speaker 3: halls and never thinking, never imagining that I could be
Speaker 3: the collection manager of that museum.
Speaker 2: So what does it mean to be a musicologist? And
Speaker 2: is it it's a musicologist and not a museumologist.
Speaker 3: Right. It's interesting In America people say museum studies instead
Speaker 3: of musiology. In Europe, musicology is more popular. But it
Speaker 3: seems like we're bringing it back, musicology back, bringing it
Speaker 3: back to America. It's kind of an old timey term, but.
Speaker 2: I mean, hell yeah, we're bringing it back. Yeah, with
Speaker 2: this particular episode.
Speaker 3: If I well, and I think that, you know right now,
Speaker 3: it's weird. I think about museums in a different way
Speaker 3: today than I did maybe two years ago. I think museums,
Speaker 3: in my mind, have become more important socially than they
Speaker 3: have the war two years ago. And I think it
Speaker 3: is a musicologist like responsibility to take care of collections.
Speaker 3: But you could be someone that writes exhibit panels, creates exhibits,
Speaker 3: does the lighting for exhibits. It's very broad, but I
Speaker 3: think in general it means for me, you have the
Speaker 3: responsibility to invite the public into your space and have
Speaker 3: it be a space that everyone is welcome. Especially if
Speaker 3: you're a public museum, that should mean that everyone in
Speaker 3: the public is welcome, no matter who they are.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be a savant about lanterns to
Speaker 2: go to a mining museum.
Speaker 3: Not at all. That's the thing that I think it's
Speaker 3: a misconception which I would love to start changing, is
Speaker 3: that anybody should go to every museum to learn something.
Speaker 2: So you don't have to be an aficionado of the topic.
Speaker 2: Just go to museum and you might pick up some inspiration,
Speaker 2: or you might pick up even one fact is worth it.
Speaker 3: Nowadays with technology and the Internet or whatever, you can
Speaker 3: just go in Wikipedia and read about anything. So like,
Speaker 3: I think it's a goal behicle for every museum to
Speaker 3: supply information and an experience that you can't pick up
Speaker 3: from Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about people who go through museums
Speaker 2: and photograph all the artifacts. Do you think it's good
Speaker 2: that they have a picture of it, or are you like, oh,
Speaker 2: I wish that people were a little bit more in
Speaker 2: the moment. Then again, you have pictures from Jack London
Speaker 2: that you're glad that you have. But how do you
Speaker 2: feel about the intersection between people's personal technology and these
Speaker 2: tactile artifacts that you're in a space with.
Speaker 3: I love it, and I think that's hopefully that's a
Speaker 3: lot of the younger musiologists. I feel the same way.
Speaker 3: I think. I mean my Instagram, I'm constantly taking pictures
Speaker 3: of things I'm doing in my museum and sharing them
Speaker 3: and video and putting them in music, And because I
Speaker 3: think that you just you want to share the experience
Speaker 3: with everyone, especially like if you take a picture at
Speaker 3: Hurst Castle, for example, nothing beats being there and seeing
Speaker 3: the image, you know, going to Hurst Castle, walking through
Speaker 3: the halls, smelling the smells, you know. So yeah, just
Speaker 3: sharing the image just hopefully excites people to want to
Speaker 3: come to the museum.
Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit about museology. What's the educational structure, like,
Speaker 2: like do you study in a classroom about museums? Do
Speaker 2: you go to museums and a lectures like here's how
Speaker 2: this has been curated?
Speaker 3: Well, the museum world is very I don't know, it
Speaker 3: seems like it's a very It's almost sometimes like a
Speaker 3: secret society. It's hard to get into. But so I major.
Speaker 3: I have a major in history. But while I was
Speaker 3: going to college, I spent four years working as a
Speaker 3: student archivist at California and State Park's photographic Archives, and
Speaker 3: that's where I was introduced to the California State Parks
Speaker 3: Museum World.
Speaker 2: So from there he graduated in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: But the recession hit and he thought, oh, maybe he
Speaker 2: was going to be a teacher.
Speaker 3: I don't know what I was going to do, something
Speaker 3: in history, So I ended up leaving and starting a
Speaker 3: hot dog art and onea very So I had it
Speaker 3: on my bucket list to have a hot dog.
Speaker 2: Cart, and I already love you.
Speaker 3: When the recession hit, I was like, well, I guess
Speaker 3: now is a better time than any just have a
Speaker 3: hot dog cart. So I ended up having a hot
Speaker 3: dog cart on a corner street of downtown Sacramento for
Speaker 3: two years. What was it called State Bear Sausage and Dogs. Okay,
Speaker 3: I secretly made my own sausages in my home and
Speaker 3: sold them there illegally, which was a hit. But it's
Speaker 3: amazing and I had five out of five stars on YELP.
Speaker 2: When I left, I looked it up and this hot
Speaker 2: dog cart was legit, like he served wild boar sausage
Speaker 2: and he had a Mediterranean dog with feta and cucumbers.
Speaker 2: There's a photo I found of a b aproned Ronnie
Speaker 2: This is all smiles with a colorful umbrella in the
Speaker 2: background on a corner in Sacramento. He's holding up a
Speaker 2: hot dog like a tiny pork trophy.
Speaker 3: But so anyway, so I did that for two years
Speaker 3: and then I realized do I want to be doing
Speaker 3: this when I'm fifty? And I thought, ah, now, what
Speaker 3: do I really want to be doing? And it was
Speaker 3: working in museums.
Speaker 2: So what was that epiphany? Like, was there a moment
Speaker 2: where you were like, you were like stuffing a sausage
Speaker 2: casing with a ski mask on because it's illegal and
Speaker 2: you were like, no, I can't do this, or were
Speaker 2: you more inspired by something in a museum, Like what
Speaker 2: was that moment where you're like.
Speaker 3: So, okay. So I strategically placed my hot dog cart
Speaker 3: on the corner of the headquarters for California State Parks
Speaker 3: in downtown Sacramento, and so I would always have connections
Speaker 3: with state parks people that I used to work with
Speaker 3: or even new people, and so I would always have
Speaker 3: that connection.
Speaker 2: How fucking genius is this?
Speaker 3: And the more and more I saw those people, the
Speaker 3: more and more I realized that I really belonged working
Speaker 3: for a California and state parks. That's so cool.
Speaker 2: So you'd you'd like sling sausage and then you're like,
Speaker 2: these are my people? Definitely, Yeah, totally, that is amazing.
Speaker 2: Did you put your you put your hot dog cart
Speaker 2: there on purpose? Because you liked to state parks?
Speaker 3: There was there were corners to choose from, and I
Speaker 3: knew that was the corner. I scoped it out. I
Speaker 3: knew that that was the corner. If I had the opportunity,
Speaker 3: that's where I would be, And that's where I was.
Speaker 3: It was the wind. It's the windiest corner in Sacramento.
Speaker 3: Like it's you would not believe how wendy it is,
Speaker 3: and you would not believe how much wind affects a
Speaker 3: hot dog cart that goes off of propane gas. Really
Speaker 3: very wendy, very upsetting, but it was worth it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I loved it. I mean I would probably never do
Speaker 3: it again, but there was a bucket listening and it
Speaker 3: was amazing. I owned a hot dog cart.
Speaker 2: Dude, did you ever read Confederacy of Dunces. No, it's
Speaker 2: about hot dog carts, really New Orleans. It's fascinating and
Speaker 2: it's infuriating and it gives you so many emotions. But
Speaker 2: it's definitely about like hashtag hot dog cart life. So
Speaker 2: side note, this book's backstory is as fascinating as its
Speaker 2: actual plot. So rejected by publishers. The author of Confederacy
Speaker 2: of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, tragically committed suicide at the
Speaker 2: age of thirty one. And I'm sorry, that's two mentions
Speaker 2: in one episode. That's the last one, I promise. So,
Speaker 2: his mother, Thelma, found this shabby, smeared carbon copy of
Speaker 2: the manuscript atop a cedar armoire after his death, and
Speaker 2: she made it her mission to get it published. She
Speaker 2: sent it around and around and around. She was rejected
Speaker 2: over and over until she badgered one publisher so much
Speaker 2: that he relented. He promised to read it. He was like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna read like two pages of this just so
Speaker 2: I can reject it, and he did. He was like
Speaker 2: oh dang, this is really good. So it was published
Speaker 2: eleven years after Toole's death. The title of the book
Speaker 2: is based on a line from a Jonathan Swift essay
Speaker 2: that reads, quote, when a true genius appears in the world,
Speaker 2: you may know him by this sign that the Dunces
Speaker 2: are all in a confederacy against him. Confederacy of Dunces
Speaker 2: went on to win a Pulitzer. So that thing you
Speaker 2: want to do, just go do it, and if you
Speaker 2: know it's good, don't give up. Keep doing it. I
Speaker 2: own the prize. Like Ronnie and museums, When you decided
Speaker 2: to go into museology, did you have to go back
Speaker 2: to school for it?
Speaker 3: You know? I didn't because while I was a student assistant,
Speaker 3: I was working with people that became curators for California
Speaker 3: State Parks. Since I knew where I wanted to work,
Speaker 3: what I did was I went back and I volunteered
Speaker 3: for free and kind of apprenticed under people. I helped
Speaker 3: clean paintings that were taken out of different historic buildings
Speaker 3: and help take mold off of different leathered good leather objects.
Speaker 3: Briefcases and what do doctors bags?
Speaker 2: What do you use to clean paintings? And I have
Speaker 2: a question and confession for you. This was going to
Speaker 2: be one of my secrets at the end of the episodes,
Speaker 2: but I'm just going to ask you right now. Okay,
Speaker 2: forgive me if you've heard the story. But I was
Speaker 2: in a museum in Santa Barbara and I had to
Speaker 2: write a paper. It was for an art class, art
Speaker 2: history class, and I was taking notes on a Dutch
Speaker 2: portrait from the sixteen hundred. It's beautifully done and I
Speaker 2: was up close to it. And at the time I
Speaker 2: used to wear my watch on my right hand. I
Speaker 2: now wear it on my left, even though I'm right handed.
Speaker 2: I don't know I was goth. It was like I thought,
Speaker 2: maybe it was counterculture to wear it on the wrong hand.
Speaker 2: It's it was a mistake. I had a pen in
Speaker 2: my hand taking notes at an overcoat on because it
Speaker 2: was raining, and I stretched my hand up to check
Speaker 2: to pull my sleeve back to check my watch, and
Speaker 2: I heard this zrush and ballpoint pen across the face
Speaker 2: of a Dutch painting from the sixteen hundreds. I panicked.
Speaker 2: It was the worst moment of my life, the worst.
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, what am I gonna do? What
Speaker 2: am I going to do, Like, I'm screwed. This thing
Speaker 2: is worth like a million dollars. My I'm broke. My
Speaker 2: parents can do not have the money to help with
Speaker 2: this at all. Like I was borrowing money to my books,
Speaker 2: and this is the most dishonest thing I've ever done.
Speaker 2: I just left. I left the museum. I couldn't handle it.
Speaker 2: I was so afraid. And someone from the same class
Speaker 2: is like, hey, did you that pen mark? And I
Speaker 2: was like, and she was the old Linda. She was
Speaker 2: the only person I ever told about it in class
Speaker 2: until years later. But how screwed was that painting?
Speaker 3: Why would you tell? For one? Like? Who would you tell?
Speaker 3: I would run? I would run really fast. I don't
Speaker 3: know who I would tell. No, I mean, geez, you know.
Speaker 2: I was like, if if I tell someone, then maybe
Speaker 2: they'll arrest me. But either way, they're going to have
Speaker 2: to clean it or they're gonna have to throw this
Speaker 2: paint in the garbage. But it was just like it
Speaker 2: was a it was a moral quandary, unlike any I've
Speaker 2: ever been in. What can they do?
Speaker 3: They take it to a conservator?
Speaker 2: Okay, side note, I didn't know what a conservator was
Speaker 2: during the interview, but I just looked it up, and
Speaker 2: it's a person who helps restore shit that gets messed
Speaker 2: up in museums, so boom, there is a person for that, and.
Speaker 3: Then the conservator gives it back to them. Okay, and
Speaker 3: it looks like it's never been touched by at before.
Speaker 2: Oh so many years years.
Speaker 3: No one will no, I mean, you know you did
Speaker 3: ruin it. It will be roomed forever. At the at
Speaker 3: the heart of the matter, the painting is ruined. It's
Speaker 3: never going to be the same. The original artwork is ruined.
Speaker 3: But to the public it looks the same.
Speaker 2: Oh is it really ruined?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not the same.
Speaker 2: They just to paint over it or do they clean
Speaker 2: the ink off?
Speaker 3: I am not a conservator, but I would hope that
Speaker 3: they can remove the ink somehow, you know, like distilled water.
Speaker 3: Water and distilled water and a Q tip does amazing
Speaker 3: things with patients.
Speaker 2: Go okay. You know, there was a video that was
Speaker 2: going around the internet recently about a painting that was
Speaker 2: being cleaned and they were taking off years of varnish
Speaker 2: and it had yellowed and it had a really cepia
Speaker 2: color and underneath the painting was very like vibrant and
Speaker 2: had a lot more, you know, had cooler tones. Is
Speaker 2: that real when they take it?
Speaker 3: When they really it's amazing in dresses like I've seen
Speaker 3: videos of dresses where they like just submerge these dresses
Speaker 3: that kind of have a yellow tinge to them and
Speaker 3: then they bring them on their beauty white. So and
Speaker 3: what we think of like how things looked back in
Speaker 3: two hundred years ago, because we do have a varnish
Speaker 3: over everything. Yeah, but no, everything was bright.
Speaker 2: I know we have such a cpa memory very much.
Speaker 2: So do you have a favorite artifact or one that
Speaker 2: you just every time you see it or think about it,
Speaker 2: you just go, that's so cool.
Speaker 3: There's quite a few. I mean, like I said about
Speaker 3: Jack London that does have a special place in my heart.
Speaker 3: And his wife Charman is starting to have takeover my
Speaker 3: love for his stuff. I'm starting to love her stuff
Speaker 3: more and more the more I know about her. So
Speaker 3: anything that she had. There's a holster that she had
Speaker 3: and she wore during their trips to the Pacific Islands,
Speaker 3: which was amazing. There was there's a photograph of her
Speaker 3: in the hulster which I think it was Cosmopolitan magazine.
Speaker 3: I cannot remember yea back in the old days, like
Speaker 3: in the early nineteen hundreds, wouldn't published the photograph because
Speaker 3: it showed a woman wearing a holster, so it was
Speaker 3: very like risque.
Speaker 2: But they probably had a whole article on like four
Speaker 2: chain ways to tickle his his bottom so he loves
Speaker 2: you exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. And she was very progressive like an equestrian.
Speaker 3: She was like very adamant to not ride side saddle,
Speaker 3: and she even like altered her dresses and like she
Speaker 3: was the first person to start altering her dresses so
Speaker 3: she can ride normal, like not ride side saddle.
Speaker 2: What a bam.
Speaker 3: She's really awesome. Yeah, and when after Jack London passed away,
Speaker 3: then she had like all of these like fun affairs
Speaker 3: with like Harry Houdini and.
Speaker 2: Hell whoa exactly time machine party with her?
Speaker 3: Yeah totally. Charm was her charmian.
Speaker 2: Charmian.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She was Jack's second wife and was five years his senior. Scandaled, gasp,
Speaker 2: smelling salts, fainting couch. She was also a new woman
Speaker 2: in which was the old timey late eighteen hundreds term
Speaker 2: for feminist. I'm going to rename myself charmian.
Speaker 3: She feel her life I do I do. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: anything of hers you can still go to her powder
Speaker 3: room and there's like a secret entry and a secret
Speaker 3: spiral staircase that is like it goes into her powder room.
Speaker 3: It's really neat.
Speaker 2: Oh man, can the public access.
Speaker 3: That they cannot and they don't know where it's at?
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Okay, So this brings me to a
Speaker 2: question that I feel like I didn't know until I
Speaker 2: started working with the Natural History Museum. But what you
Speaker 2: see on display and in these like acrylic cases and
Speaker 2: with these placards that say what it is is a
Speaker 2: fraction of what a museum actually has in collections. We
Speaker 2: just toured a warehouse full of stuff that I like
Speaker 2: was boggled by, Like everything for bascinet or bassinets? Is
Speaker 2: that a basinet?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: What do you?
Speaker 3: I'm sure there were bast nets there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to lanterns, to wagons and stuff like why how
Speaker 2: do you choose what goes on display versus what stays
Speaker 2: in these collections that are off limits.
Speaker 3: It's a very interesting selection. Well, where we toured today,
Speaker 3: like we walked past probably one aisle that we walked
Speaker 3: through had I don't know, two hundred more or more lanterns.
Speaker 3: So you know, unless you're a lantern museum, you really
Speaker 3: can't display two hundred or more lanterns. But we do
Speaker 3: keep them because people donate them, and we don't want
Speaker 3: to turn down donations. Researchers are more than welcome to come.
Speaker 3: And I think it's like this pretty much with most
Speaker 3: museums that if you're a researcher, or if you're just
Speaker 3: someone that's researching your family history, you don't have to
Speaker 3: be like a professional researcher. You can just be a
Speaker 3: new bit that's interested in something just as long as
Speaker 3: you search it out. I would have more than happy
Speaker 3: to open my doors and show you. But then also
Speaker 3: there's also rotating exhibits too, and I think those I
Speaker 3: want to do more of those in my museums where
Speaker 3: because I don't just have one museum. It's a very
Speaker 3: unique experience that I'm working in where I manage the
Speaker 3: collections of over thirty thousand items in twenty two different parks.
Speaker 3: What so we can't get to them all unfortunately, Like
Speaker 3: it's very hard to get to most of them, but
Speaker 3: most of them are collected in like a lump of
Speaker 3: five different locations.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's so many items. Wait, twenty two different parks,
Speaker 2: thirty thousand items. Yeah, do you how do you keep
Speaker 2: a records or spreadsheet?
Speaker 3: Well, there's multiple spreadshee. We use what's called the TMS,
Speaker 3: the Museum System Database, okay, and many museums use it.
Speaker 3: The Smithsonian uses it. We are opening it up so
Speaker 3: that the public can go on if they want to
Speaker 3: research lanterns, or if they want to research anything really
Speaker 3: fimbles or wigs or dairy containers. We have them so
Speaker 3: you can just find them and then you can come
Speaker 3: and look up all your dairy containers and you'd be
Speaker 3: you know, what is your house?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: Are you very organized? Are you do you like nick knackery?
Speaker 2: Or do you are you very clutter free?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: How is being a musiologist changed the way you live?
Speaker 3: That is a good question. My house is orderly until
Speaker 3: you get into the very back room, like it's you know,
Speaker 3: some people have like a junk drawer. I I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say in the backroom is a junk room, but it's
Speaker 3: just a room at the end of the day where
Speaker 3: you like open the door up and throw something and
Speaker 3: close it really quick. But other than that, I do
Speaker 3: like older paintings or even if it's like a painting
Speaker 3: that a husband made of his wife in the nineteen
Speaker 3: fifties that I found in a thrift store, Like, I
Speaker 3: appreciate that, and I'll maybe purchase that and put it
Speaker 3: up in my house.
Speaker 2: What was it like getting the job of being a
Speaker 2: curator of all this? Like? What was the interview process like?
Speaker 2: And how did you know you were qualified for it?
Speaker 2: And what happened when they said you have the job?
Speaker 3: Oh? So okay. This is the very unique situation to
Speaker 3: the California State Parks, which I encourage a lot of
Speaker 3: people who are interested in the field to look into
Speaker 3: because a lot of people miss it and it's a
Speaker 3: really great opportunity. So what I did was and gain
Speaker 3: all this experience. I had four years of experience as
Speaker 3: a student assistant, and then I also apprenticed for a while,
Speaker 3: and so an exam opened up.
Speaker 2: So to get a job with the state park system,
Speaker 2: you don't just interview and like charm your way into
Speaker 2: a ranger sat. You have to take an exam first
Speaker 2: before they will even sit down with you, no matter
Speaker 2: how much they liked your hot dog cart.
Speaker 3: And you have to qualify within the top three rankings
Speaker 3: to be reachable to be to have an interview for
Speaker 3: the job. So thank god. Yeah. So it was very
Speaker 3: intense and I took the exam. I ranked one, which
Speaker 3: is amazing. I was very happy about that. And then
Speaker 3: and then once you take the exam, you have to
Speaker 3: wait for a job to open up. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: so a job did open up?
Speaker 2: Did you kill someone?
Speaker 3: No? But I I you know, the job that opened
Speaker 3: up was an hour and a half drive away from
Speaker 3: my house.
Speaker 2: That's as laborious as as doing a hit on someone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, but you know, I don't mind. It's very
Speaker 3: peaceful drive. But so I live in Sacramento in the
Speaker 3: job that opened up was in Sonoma, and it was
Speaker 3: also my dream job because it involved Jack London status
Speaker 3: dorg Park. So I applied for the job and then
Speaker 3: I got it. That's how it works.
Speaker 2: How did they tell you that you got it? Did
Speaker 2: they send over like a carrier pigeon or did they
Speaker 2: do something with antiquity to like send you a telegram?
Speaker 3: And I just heard my my boss get the call,
Speaker 3: you know, the call, the reference check call. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: it was amazing. I was another at my desk and
Speaker 3: I just heard her like, oh, so good.
Speaker 2: Was she sad to lose you though?
Speaker 3: Yeah? She I think she hung up with the phone
Speaker 3: and said, damn it, Ronnie, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Did you celebrate?
Speaker 3: Oh? It was amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what'd you do?
Speaker 3: Did I? Actually, cell, I'm sure I just probably went
Speaker 3: for like unlimited sushi. Yeah, that's my celebration.
Speaker 2: That's so dope. So what is your day like? Like
Speaker 2: day to day? Do you come in like see like
Speaker 2: if anything's been missing or broken or needs it tending
Speaker 2: to or like, you know, you're up in Sonoma. I
Speaker 2: know that we had this scheduled for last month around Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: but Sonoma was going through some of the worst wildfires
Speaker 2: in state history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my day to day schedule for since then,
Speaker 3: since October has been kind of not day to day schedule.
Speaker 3: Like we did evacuate. We were able to we have
Speaker 3: an emergency evacuation plan. The fires were coming, it was
Speaker 3: very intense, and we were able to evacuate all of
Speaker 3: the threatened areas, which included six moving trucks of objects
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, and we brought them to the facility
Speaker 3: we're at today, which you know, as you can see,
Speaker 3: this place is huge. So it was able to house
Speaker 3: all of those artifacts and all of those objects, so
Speaker 3: we were able to get out.
Speaker 2: How did you pick though, I mean you can't move,
Speaker 2: you can't move several different homes worth of artifacts, Like
Speaker 2: how do you pick what to take? It's like it's
Speaker 2: like that horrible thing, like if you had to evacuate
Speaker 2: your house in a fire, what would you take? And
Speaker 2: you're like, I'm a stuff by stuffed animal, but that
Speaker 2: but with like priceless artifacts in many locations.
Speaker 3: So the curator that I work with, who's been there
Speaker 3: for thirty years, she devised a disaster preparedness plan and
Speaker 3: which included a laminated sheet of objects to take first
Speaker 3: in the emergency, any kind of emergency. So we just
Speaker 3: grabbed those laminated sheets and then we started evacuating those immediately.
Speaker 3: We had more volunteers than we knew what to do with,
Speaker 3: so before we knew it, we got everything that was
Speaker 3: on the list out and so we just then then
Speaker 3: what So then we just started to evacuating everything, and
Speaker 3: we did get out everything which was to.
Speaker 2: What like down to the rugs and.
Speaker 3: Stuff or down to the rugs down to boxes of books.
Speaker 3: So we did a great job. It was really cool
Speaker 3: and things thankful to. I'm very thankful to her because
Speaker 3: she had it all planned out, so it was amazing.
Speaker 2: And then what's the process of moving that stuff back in?
Speaker 2: And none of the structures burned down.
Speaker 3: None of the structures burned down. We actually were thermal gelling,
Speaker 3: which is like spraying this big hose full of jello
Speaker 3: over all all of the houses, the historic houses and
Speaker 3: structures too. If the fire came, then it would like
Speaker 3: not burn them. So we did that. The fire didn't
Speaker 3: come and we had to remove all that, but we
Speaker 3: were able to get everything here and then the process
Speaker 3: of moving it back has been that's what's taken so long.
Speaker 3: You know, it took like one day to get everything out,
Speaker 3: two days to get everything out, but it takes months
Speaker 3: to actually organize it and put it all back in.
Speaker 2: Is there anything else that you're discovering and moving out, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize we had this comb that was fallen
Speaker 2: under a floorboard.
Speaker 3: I know, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: No cool discoveries. You know when you move you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I forgot I had this bracelet.
Speaker 3: Well, one thing that has been pretty cool is we're
Speaker 3: going we've had time to go through the diaries of
Speaker 3: day to day occur at the museums from the eighties OAU.
Speaker 3: I don't know when do you have time to go
Speaker 3: through these? So we were just flipping through a book
Speaker 3: and at one time in the eighties, California State Parks
Speaker 3: had a wine tasting bar set up in a museum,
Speaker 3: which is not allowed now. So now I'm thinking we
Speaker 3: need to bring back wine tasting bars.
Speaker 2: Just don't do it in like a historically preserved area
Speaker 2: with yeah next time and hair gel and yeah.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, Like when I worked at the Photographic Archives
Speaker 3: as a student assistant, going through photographs of like the
Speaker 3: nineteen fifties of curators smoking and drinking or well mostly
Speaker 3: smoking over like historic artifacts. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder about that sometimes, like how much damage
Speaker 2: was done to artifacts just from people smoking indoors totally?
Speaker 2: It's yeah, like all the yellowing and stuff. You're like,
Speaker 2: how much of that is just like Winston Salem's.
Speaker 3: Well even like archaeologist. I was talking to an archaeologist
Speaker 3: the other day and he's been doing it for forty years,
Speaker 3: and he said that, you know, back in the early days,
Speaker 3: they would take the darn of different animals and just
Speaker 3: throw it at each other for fun. But now you
Speaker 3: can find out so much information. You know, things that
Speaker 3: you didn't know back then from.
Speaker 2: There's this one archaeologist on Twitter I follow that I
Speaker 2: want to get. She's a bioarchaeologist and she digs through
Speaker 2: old toilets and like some graves to figure out things
Speaker 2: about people. And I'm like, oh my god, I got
Speaker 2: her own. I'm looking at you. Bioarchaeologist slash osteologist Steph
Speaker 2: ham Haffer aka Bones Underscore Canada on Twitter. Yeah, what's
Speaker 2: the difference between a musiologist and an archaeologist.
Speaker 3: Well, a musiologist is just focuses on the museum itself.
Speaker 3: Archaeologists are more out in the field working. They have
Speaker 3: more of a science background, and some musiologists have a
Speaker 3: focus on the care and collection of objects, integrated pest
Speaker 3: management systems to monitor the objects make sure they're doing okay.
Speaker 3: That's one of the worst things about my job is
Speaker 3: that you have to kill so many insects, Like I'm
Speaker 3: setting up pheromone traps for moths. Oh and you know,
Speaker 3: but it has to be done. I think in one
Speaker 3: of your previous episodes, like someone said, like bugs are
Speaker 3: the worst.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the ornithologist who had been held up a
Speaker 2: gunpoint on the job. So the worst thing about his
Speaker 2: job was carpet beetles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, carpet beetles. A terrible cigarette beetles, carpet beeles. The
Speaker 3: beetles have fun names too within the museum community.
Speaker 2: What do they call them?
Speaker 3: Well, just like cigarette beetles, cigarette beetles.
Speaker 2: So you have to set up pheromone traps where they're
Speaker 2: like ooh, smells like ladies, and then they hop in
Speaker 2: there and they're like.
Speaker 3: Dah, yeah, exactly. It's kind of sad too. But you know,
Speaker 3: you take these special pheromone capsules and you put them
Speaker 3: in the sticky traps and can.
Speaker 2: You smell anything? No, okay you don't have long enough antenna,
Speaker 2: I guess not. They can smell like a molecule of
Speaker 2: a pheromone for miles away. Moths are amaze there. They
Speaker 2: can detect it with their antenna. Let's talk about moth horniness.
Speaker 2: So a female moth releases one billionth of a gram
Speaker 2: of pheromone to signal like a tiny winged Tiffany Hattish
Speaker 2: and researchers have reported that a male Indian luna moth
Speaker 2: can locate a female six point five miles eleven kilometers away.
Speaker 2: They are like, let's get this on. So pheromone traps
Speaker 2: are like getting messaged by a bot and then the
Speaker 2: bot kills you. Do you want to do some rapid fire?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, now you've listened to the podcast before. We got
Speaker 2: so many questions on Patreon, and I think you're a patron.
Speaker 2: I think did you do that so that you could cheat?
Speaker 2: And look at the questions first.
Speaker 3: Fifty fifty I did just support you and so also
Speaker 3: know what I'm getting into.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Okay, But before we take questions from you,
Speaker 2: our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break
Speaker 2: for sponsors of the show. Sponsors. Why sponsors? You know
Speaker 2: what they do? They help us give money to different
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Speaker 1: Imagine the place where you can escape for a day,
Speaker 1: get immersed in a world of rooms, inspiration and expertise,
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Speaker 2: Okay, your questions these are patrons have asked Colin mccarvill
Speaker 2: wants to know how do you feel museums have evolved
Speaker 2: and how do you think they're going to change in
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 3: Well, museums in America, for one, have we're set up
Speaker 3: by rich white men to promote rich white men, so
Speaker 3: you know, go fast forwarding to modern day. They're evolving
Speaker 3: because I think museums need to interpret not what the
Speaker 3: rich white men's perspective is, but what the person of
Speaker 3: that time, the average person or the person like everyone's perspective,
Speaker 3: including the rich white men's perspective, but also including the
Speaker 3: poor person that maybe isn't white's perspective. So I think
Speaker 3: that's where museums right now are changing. And even in California,
Speaker 3: the school curriculum is changing with it as well, which
Speaker 3: is going to be pretty amazing in the next five years,
Speaker 3: you know, to see the change. So when you walk
Speaker 3: into maybe a museum that like as a mission, it
Speaker 3: talks more about the Native American life, not as someone
Speaker 3: that was saved by the mission, but someone that was
Speaker 3: you know, their against their will. So it's going to
Speaker 3: be pretty exciting, you know, exciting to be able to
Speaker 3: expand that education.
Speaker 2: So the narrative is getting more objective than it has
Speaker 2: been in the past. So his his story is not.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about that last night, like I couldn't
Speaker 3: sleep last night, and the word his story, it just
Speaker 3: kept coming back to me, and I'm like, God, damn it.
Speaker 3: I wish we could change the name of history. Just
Speaker 3: how do we change it? And I was just going
Speaker 3: through my head and I was like our story, their story,
Speaker 3: like what can you change it to?
Speaker 2: And mytory?
Speaker 3: But you know what, that sounds kind of weird or now,
Speaker 3: but probably his story, his story sounds weird too if
Speaker 3: you ever heard it. So if you just keep calling
Speaker 3: it our story, then everyone will call it our story.
Speaker 2: I mean, language is elastic, so yeah, it evolves. So
Speaker 2: that's interesting. That's that's good to know that it's evolving
Speaker 2: like that. I'd never thought about it.
Speaker 3: It'sn't it weird to think about women's history, women's his
Speaker 3: story like that seems so weird to me.
Speaker 2: That just gave me anger and goosebumps. It's so crazy,
Speaker 2: how barely out of the dark ages like you still
Speaker 2: are in so many dark as, like this is still
Speaker 2: a dark age. This is a dark We're in a
Speaker 2: dark age.
Speaker 3: We're in a dark age.
Speaker 2: Laura Eisen wants to know have you ever used cool
Speaker 2: or weird stuff from the museum to impress a date?
Speaker 3: Ooh, unfortunately I haven't.
Speaker 2: God, Ronnie, I know you could steal so much cool stuff.
Speaker 2: What's the most expensive artifact you've ever dealt with or handled?
Speaker 2: That's such a cheesy question, but I'm sorry I'm going
Speaker 2: to ask.
Speaker 4: You.
Speaker 3: Know, it's interesting because some of the artifacts are priceless. Yees,
Speaker 3: so we don't know how much you know. So I'm
Speaker 3: just just from the sentimental point of view. Like just
Speaker 3: the other day, I was holding Jack London's camera, which
Speaker 3: He's an amazing photographer and took photos of the what
Speaker 3: was it the nineteen oh eight seven.
Speaker 2: Earthquakes oh six six San Francisco.
Speaker 3: And San Francisco, and his photographs are amazing.
Speaker 2: So these photos appear in a book, The Paths Men Take,
Speaker 2: published in twenty sixteen and on the state park's website,
Speaker 2: which I'm going to add to all the episode links
Speaker 2: at aliward dot com, slash ologies and side note. Ronnie
Speaker 2: also says that some artifacts that aren't on display can
Speaker 2: get loaned to museums all over the world, kind of
Speaker 2: like a shirt that you lend to your roommate before
Speaker 2: a trip, hoping she doesn't get mustered on it.
Speaker 3: We do, you know, share them so other museums can
Speaker 3: display them and share the story of Jack Linton as well.
Speaker 2: Like, Hey, we're doing a canoe exhibit. You got anything cool?
Speaker 3: And you're like do we totally? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like you send? Can you send it over?
Speaker 1: Get it?
Speaker 3: Canoes? Send it over?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I don't know what that was about. Okay.
Speaker 2: Mary Anne Moss wants to know how do you recommend
Speaker 2: tackling visiting museum when you're short on time? She always
Speaker 2: feels like she hasn't. She says, I always feel like
Speaker 2: I haven't done a place justice unless I've seen everything,
Speaker 2: but a lot of time that's not possible. And also
Speaker 2: follow up question, what do you do about museum fatigue?
Speaker 2: Sometimes you're like, I'm so tired, I've seen so much stuff.
Speaker 3: I think you have you know the technology, you let
Speaker 3: it work for you. So before you go. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're the passenger of a car and you're driving
Speaker 3: there with like your boyfriend or girlfriend, you have an
Speaker 3: hour to kill, just look it up on Instagram, on
Speaker 3: Yelp and something and see what is there, and then
Speaker 3: you know, if you want to breeze through a lot
Speaker 3: of it, fine, but I think you should find one
Speaker 3: thing that you are interested in and really focus on it.
Speaker 3: So have you heard of this thing called museum Sage. No,
Speaker 3: So there's this thing called museum Sage that it's like
Speaker 3: a program that someone started where and they're doing it
Speaker 3: at certain museums to where they'll take you and in
Speaker 3: the lobby and they'll blindfold you what and you start
Speaker 3: you pick like locations like turn left here, turn right here,
Speaker 3: to whatever, and they guide you up to whatever you choose,
Speaker 3: whatever painting or sculpture or object, and before you take
Speaker 3: the blindfolds off, blindfold off, you think of a question
Speaker 3: you should like ask yourself deeply, something that struggling with.
Speaker 3: It could be like, you know, will will I ever
Speaker 3: get this job? Or wish I do with my life?
Speaker 3: Or what kind of car should I buy? Whatever you
Speaker 3: want to do. But you just think of it yourself,
Speaker 3: and they take off the blindfold and you stare at
Speaker 3: whatever they show you and you find the answer. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, and that painting or whatever.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: So I think always focus on one You should always
Speaker 3: just choose one thing to really focus in on, because
Speaker 3: I think you can really find a lot about yourself
Speaker 3: or about anything you want in that one thing.
Speaker 2: I looked on their website, which is conveniently Museum Sage
Speaker 2: dot com, and they have videos, you guys, videos like
Speaker 2: this one where a woman named Kim asks a twelfth
Speaker 2: century of oz what to do with her career.
Speaker 3: So whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes. Christmas,
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is not what I expect. What will Kim do?
Speaker 2: I'm so invested.
Speaker 3: We have a tribe liaison who coordinates with the governor's
Speaker 3: liaison with Native Americans, and so it's very We're probably
Speaker 3: a little bit different in that regard since we are
Speaker 3: a government agency.
Speaker 2: Zoey Trepplick, great question. Have you ever encountered any haunted
Speaker 2: artifacts or any objects that just gave you the willies?
Speaker 3: So there's a house museum that I take care of,
Speaker 3: and it's the Valeo Home in Soinema, And Valeo's wife
Speaker 3: is known to haunt the house what and hate English speakers,
Speaker 3: So anytime you speak English in there, she gets very mad.
Speaker 3: No way, Yeah, have.
Speaker 2: You been there?
Speaker 3: I have been there.
Speaker 2: What does it feel like?
Speaker 3: I wait for her to yell at me, and she
Speaker 3: hasn't yet. I think, you know, when you want a
Speaker 3: ghost tale year, it never happens.
Speaker 2: They're such jerks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I always wanted, though, there is. I also take
Speaker 3: care of a building called the Tuscano Hotel. And one
Speaker 3: time I was trying to film a video for Instagram
Speaker 3: and the music wasn't working, and I was like trying
Speaker 3: to do like a Billie Joel song to like some
Speaker 3: sort of weird thing or something, and then the music
Speaker 3: didn't work. But when I replayed it, there were men
Speaker 3: voices talking in the background and there are definitely no
Speaker 3: men there.
Speaker 2: What do you believe in ghosts?
Speaker 3: Sure? Sure, yeah, sure, I'm open to it. I would
Speaker 3: love to see a ghost.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't be freaked out.
Speaker 3: I know. I would love for Jacqueline to come hang
Speaker 3: out with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just like your ghost.
Speaker 3: Homiem hm, totally.
Speaker 2: Hannah wants to know what is your favorite exhibit you've
Speaker 2: worked on.
Speaker 3: I was getting preparing an object to be on display
Speaker 3: and it was a dress made of human hair and
Speaker 3: so so I was picking out dead bugs from the
Speaker 3: early nineteen hundreds from this dress with like tweezers and
Speaker 3: microstan like so I had a lot of fun working
Speaker 3: on that. All it is is work.
Speaker 2: Jennifer Overbe wants to know. I've heard museums have basements
Speaker 2: chock full of cool stuff hidden away. She so, in
Speaker 2: terms of the collections, why are you so sneaky with
Speaker 2: your stuff? And how do I get down there.
Speaker 3: Come see my stuff?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Always yes, if you're interested in anything that is, it's
Speaker 3: not hidden away as much as it's taken like in
Speaker 3: proper conditions, the climate is proper for them to be stored.
Speaker 3: And like, like I said, if we have two hundred lanterns.
Speaker 3: You know, you want to be able to take care
Speaker 3: of the lanterns and have the minimum proper environment that
Speaker 3: can They can be there forever, so if someone does
Speaker 3: want to research them, they'll be there for them to
Speaker 3: look at.
Speaker 2: So just ask for more tours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can. You can get a tour if you asked.
Speaker 3: If you ask, you can see stuff.
Speaker 2: Blake Hawkins wants tona on average, how many pieces in
Speaker 2: a museum's collection are authentic versus well crafted replicas.
Speaker 3: Now, if it's an actual museum, I would say most
Speaker 3: of it is authentic. But house museums are a different
Speaker 3: story because you do need to set up the house
Speaker 3: and make it look like it's from that time, and
Speaker 3: a lot of times you acquire houses maybe one hundred
Speaker 3: years after the year you want to interpret, so you
Speaker 3: do piece together objects from that time period, but maybe
Speaker 3: not necessarily from that house specifically.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there might be a phone on the wall
Speaker 2: that is of the same year, but it wasn't that
Speaker 2: particular phone that was used.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you can go off of like photographs,
Speaker 3: you try to match things up as much as best
Speaker 3: you can.
Speaker 2: Claudia Louis wants to know if you ever feel overwhelmed
Speaker 2: by the amount of history around you.
Speaker 3: No. Never. I love the amount of history around me,
Speaker 3: though I do feel overwhelmed that I should know everything.
Speaker 3: So I guess in a sense, yeah, because there's so
Speaker 3: much to know, and especially with my position having thirty
Speaker 3: thousand objects and twenty two different parks. Each park has
Speaker 3: its own, like hundred history that spans hundreds of years,
Speaker 3: so it is I guess that is overwhelming in a sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you get texts or calls in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night, like, ah, something broke or is it like.
Speaker 3: From the fire. Yeah, when we have the fire, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's rally the troops and let's get this going.
Speaker 2: Oh I was so worried. You were like, can we
Speaker 2: postpone the interview? And I was like, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that's fine. Like your entire city's on fire and you
Speaker 2: are a curator of museums. Yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker 2: Jason Newman from the Facebook group also know is there
Speaker 2: a friendly rivalry between different museums of the same type,
Speaker 2: like or do natural history museums make jokes about modern
Speaker 2: art museums?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Actually, I think that there's a good relationship between the museums.
Speaker 3: For me especially, I think that it works. We work
Speaker 3: great together.
Speaker 2: You guys play nice. Yeah, totally, You're not like super
Speaker 2: museum bitches. Britt Pitcher wants to know. Can I come
Speaker 2: be your friend?
Speaker 3: Of course?
Speaker 2: Nick van Aker wants to know. Do you have an
Speaker 2: artifact or specimen that you would love to see on
Speaker 2: display in a museum that never will be because it's
Speaker 2: too gross or too big or too fragile.
Speaker 3: Hmm, right now? There are some you know, Native American
Speaker 3: objects that are used for ceremonial purposes. They probably want
Speaker 3: every be displayed. Oh wow. And also there are like
Speaker 3: there's we have a shrunken head from an island that
Speaker 3: probably won't go on display right now. So what are
Speaker 3: some really neat stuff?
Speaker 2: Do you have a lot of human artifacts?
Speaker 3: Surprisingly, it's very interesting, not necessarily human bones, but hair.
Speaker 3: Hair is big, I mean especial Victorian era. You have
Speaker 3: a lot of human hair.
Speaker 2: They made a lot of memento Maury's things out of that,
Speaker 2: right Yeah. I need to look up how shrunken heads
Speaker 2: work because I.
Speaker 3: Don't even know.
Speaker 2: I'm like, do they.
Speaker 3: Take the skull out? I don't get it. I saw
Speaker 3: my first one when I was like ten and I
Speaker 3: Ripley's Believe It or Not exhibit, And I don't know.
Speaker 2: Does it haunt Does the image of it haunt you?
Speaker 3: It's creepy. Yeah, it's very creepy. You know.
Speaker 2: There's a curios store in Seattle that's just like on
Speaker 2: the pier that has a couple of mummified humans and
Speaker 2: I'm like, how does it work? I'm like, is that legal?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I don't understand how that works.
Speaker 2: A corpse in like a dead it's very weird. Side
Speaker 2: note on that, so yes, to make a shrunken head,
Speaker 2: one first removes the skull and then stretches the face
Speaker 2: skin over a small wooden ball and boils it. So
Speaker 2: in terms of DIY project, I give this one a pass. Now,
Speaker 2: these were ceremoniously made in the Amazon rainforests. They were
Speaker 2: thought to harness an enemy's power. And then the tourism
Speaker 2: trade caused a bump in sales both real and of
Speaker 2: fakes in the early nineteen hundreds, and that is where
Speaker 2: we get the term headhunting ding horrifying. Also, that shop
Speaker 2: on Seattle's waterfront is called ye old Curiosity Shop, very
Speaker 2: on the nose, and it's been there, owned by the
Speaker 2: same family for four generations since the eighteen nineties. And
Speaker 2: the mummy that's just straight up on display in a
Speaker 2: glass case like a fucking croissant is named Sylvester, and
Speaker 2: I just went down. I want you to know a
Speaker 2: two hour rabbit hole about him, but I'm just going
Speaker 2: to condense it and say he's thought to be a
Speaker 2: wild West outlaw who was shot in the gut and
Speaker 2: quickly embalmed in Arsenic by a con man named Soapy.
Speaker 2: But then he fell into the hands of the Seattle
Speaker 2: Curio Emporium in the nineteen fifties. Also, he got shot
Speaker 2: in the face with buckshot at one point in his life,
Speaker 2: never went to a doctor, and his skin just healed
Speaker 2: over it. He's not for sale, but evidently it is
Speaker 2: legal to buy and display human remains. However, birth control
Speaker 2: pills are not available over the counter, and you can't
Speaker 2: buy wine coolers in some counties. Oh well, okay, back
Speaker 2: to rapid fire. These are great questions.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Heather Crowther wants to know who writes the blurbs next
Speaker 2: to the artifacts. Is it a curator a historian who
Speaker 2: gets that.
Speaker 3: Job probably depends on the museum for California State Parks.
Speaker 3: We have an interpreter who writes the exhibit panels, does
Speaker 3: the research and everything. And so for me, I'm a
Speaker 3: curator right now, so or museum technician technically, which is
Speaker 3: pretty much a curator. So I don't get to do that,
Speaker 3: but we do have input.
Speaker 2: Our museum people. Chill, this is my own question.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: So are they uptight because they're like everything has to
Speaker 2: be perfect?
Speaker 3: I think it depends, okay on age. Okay, no, it
Speaker 3: really doesn't. I mean I'm not agous, but yeah, I
Speaker 3: think the honestly, I think the older someone is has
Speaker 3: worked in the museum, you know, they've been there for
Speaker 3: like thirty years or something, so it's their baby. And
Speaker 3: then when something's your baby, you do become protective of it.
Speaker 3: So you know, you have these new young museum professionals
Speaker 3: that are like, what, let's give the world this, and
Speaker 3: then you know people that have been there for thirty
Speaker 3: years are just a little more protective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Amy ten bergs ten Bears, I'm sure I'm saying
Speaker 2: that wrong. Great question. What are the most annoying things
Speaker 2: visitors do? She says, people so often dampen her enjoyment
Speaker 2: of museums with their behavior. How do you stay sane
Speaker 2: working with that every day? Like, what do visitors do that?
Speaker 2: You're like what no touch?
Speaker 3: Touch touch, like reach across any kind of velvet rope any.
Speaker 2: Standien side note, those velvet ropes that are used in
Speaker 2: museums and nightclubs to convey just like don't are called
Speaker 2: stanchions and they come from the French for beam or support.
Speaker 2: And did you know you can buy them on Amazon
Speaker 2: for like ninety dollars, So for less than a Benjamin,
Speaker 2: you can erect a velvet rope on your own porch
Speaker 2: and you can feel like a very elite baller every
Speaker 2: time you come home. Okay, back to museum etiquette.
Speaker 3: People don't care and selfies are fine, but you know
Speaker 3: selfie is over the stanchion or trying to touch things
Speaker 3: that you shouldn't. It boggles my mind. Like you can
Speaker 3: go on YouTube and watch all these crazy mishaps. If
Speaker 3: people just wanting to touch things, it's so weird. I
Speaker 3: don't get it.
Speaker 2: Shannon Feltis says, real talk, do you have that ancient
Speaker 2: tablet that makes the museum come to life at at night? No,
Speaker 2: to be fair, he's probably lying. He probably does have
Speaker 2: an ancient magical tablet and it's just not telling us. Okay,
Speaker 2: so your job. What is your least favorite thing about
Speaker 2: your job?
Speaker 4: What sucks? Oh?
Speaker 3: I know you were going to ask this, and I
Speaker 3: guess it would just have to be the paperwork when
Speaker 3: you're you know, filling out loan agreements. That's not fun,
Speaker 3: But it doesn't like suck suck. I mean, even if
Speaker 3: I'm like working on something out like a gravestone or
Speaker 3: out in the rain in the middle of both a
Speaker 3: Napa State Park, you're still in the middle of book
Speaker 3: a Napolis State Park and next to a gravestone. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So it's mostly the desk et sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd been ye desk stuff. Who wants to new
Speaker 3: desk stuff when you can just go across the hall
Speaker 3: and photo around with an object?
Speaker 2: Yeah, although, yeah, and you're allowed to touch it because you're
Speaker 2: wearing gloves and stuff, right, totally, right, and because you're
Speaker 2: responsible if it breaks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: A favorite thing about your job.
Speaker 3: Just honestly just going. So I get to my work
Speaker 3: every day before the sun comes up. Really yeah, I
Speaker 3: get there at seven in the morning, woof, And so
Speaker 3: I leave the house at four or I get up
Speaker 3: at four to fifteen every day. Oh my god, I know,
Speaker 3: so it's pretty crazy. But I get there and I
Speaker 3: get to like I'm the first one there, and I
Speaker 3: love just like having the keys and opening the door
Speaker 3: to my building and it's like a wooden door in
Speaker 3: these eighteen hundred barracks and it's just really I just
Speaker 3: like walking into it. It's it's fun.
Speaker 2: This is a I should figure this question out myself.
Speaker 2: I might have to google this. But why do museums
Speaker 2: smell so good? Why do old books smell good? What
Speaker 2: are we smelling when we smell old cool stuff?
Speaker 3: I just think we're smelling history. Yeah, I think history
Speaker 3: smells good. Yeah. I was just Oh, I just got
Speaker 3: a cologne that I never haven't tried yet, but it's
Speaker 3: called book what. Yes, it's amazing, so I'm like excited
Speaker 3: to try it so that I don't even know who
Speaker 3: makes it. I just got it for Christmas, like a
Speaker 3: little sample of it.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: But someone was like, oh, I know you would like
Speaker 3: this and this is book.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I would need to order that, okay,
Speaker 2: quick aside, why do old books smell so good? Well?
Speaker 2: I just Google the shit out of this, and it
Speaker 2: turns out that paper is made of cellulose and lignin
Speaker 2: from wood pulp, and when they degrade, they throw off
Speaker 2: volatile organic compounds that smell a lot like vanilla and almonds.
Speaker 2: So it turns out there are a few colognes formulated
Speaker 2: to smell like old books, and they have names like
Speaker 2: paperback in the Library, book and dead Writers, but I
Speaker 2: applaud all of them for not opting for the less
Speaker 2: huff friendly name of bookworm. Do you have any future goals, Like,
Speaker 2: is there any in terms of being a musologist that
Speaker 2: you're like, I want to do this before the end
Speaker 2: of my career totally.
Speaker 3: I do think that a lot of exhibits can be
Speaker 3: updated and can be more inclusive, and I do want
Speaker 3: to change that, So I do have that as a goal.
Speaker 2: To see what Ronnie Clein's day to day life as
Speaker 2: a musiologist entails, follow his very wonderful Instagram. It's Museum Ronnie,
Speaker 2: and as long as you're there, you might want to
Speaker 2: check out Granny the Dog, which is his scruffy rescue
Speaker 2: pup who is very cute. I am proud to say
Speaker 2: I was her first follower. I was on that he
Speaker 2: was like, hey, I've got it, boom follow. You can
Speaker 2: also follow Ologies or Ali Ward with one L on
Speaker 2: Twitter or Instagram. You can join the amazing Facebook Ologies
Speaker 2: podcast group, which is admined by Aaron Talbert. Thank you
Speaker 2: and Hannah Liippo, who just moved to Boston in case
Speaker 2: anyone in Boston needs a new awesome smart friend. Ran
Speaker 2: to miss her so so much in California. I can't
Speaker 2: even talk about it without crying. But I'm so proud
Speaker 2: of her for this adventure and for her work as
Speaker 2: an attorney for the ACLU. There, Hello, Boston, I am
Speaker 2: relying on you to be cool and make her feel
Speaker 2: at home. Okay, thank you Steven Ray Morris for editing
Speaker 2: this on a very very tight turnaround while I succumbed
Speaker 2: this week to various shit storms such as a New
Speaker 2: York blizzard and the flu very very slow hotel WiFi.
Speaker 2: The theme song was written and recorded by Nick Thorburn
Speaker 2: of the band Islands, And if you make it through
Speaker 2: the credits, you know I share a secret with you. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's this secret for this week. I've shoplifted one time
Speaker 2: in my life because I can't deal with the guilt
Speaker 2: of doing it otherwise. And it was when I had
Speaker 2: very low blood sugar and I was in a write
Speaker 2: aid and I had to get a cliff bar, like immediately.
Speaker 2: I was feeling very woozy and the line was out
Speaker 2: the door they were taking forever and I stole the
Speaker 2: cliff bar. Uh. It was carrot cake flavor. I feel
Speaker 2: bad about it still to this day. And at one
Speaker 2: point I thought about getting a carrot cake cliff bar
Speaker 2: and somehow anti shoplifting it and smuggling it back in,
Speaker 2: but I thought that would be weirder, So write aight,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I owe you probably two dollars and sixty
Speaker 2: nine cents or something, okay forbye Packidermatology, hobbiology, crypto zoology,
Speaker 2: lithology and technology, meteorology, paratology, apology, zeriology, elinology.
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