“It’s A Living” The Museum of Jurassic Technology

In the Offbeat Frontier one does not have to travel far to find adventure. February’s visit to The Museum of Jurassic Technology was equivalent to finding a golden nugget…of grade A awesomeness. To the first time visitor, the museum can seem strange, as if you’re teleported to a twilight zone episode where the main character is shown a hipster’s heaven or possibly a sportscasters’ hell. The Museum’s mission statement sums it up best, the institution “is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciate of the Lower Jurassic.” (For those playing the home game the Lower/Early Jurassic period was about 185-170 million years ago). Automatically when you hear the name, the intellectual side of your sense of humor becomes curious and intrigued.

The collections and exhibits on display are not only educational but also entertaining. Here are some of the highlights that I enjoyed:

Lives of Perfect Creatures: Dogs of the Soviet Space Program

On the second floor of the museum is a memorial of the first living creatures to leave Earth and reach the cosmos. Seven portraits of dogmonauts (Soviet stray rocket dogs) hang from the walls to honor their sacrifice to explore the final frontier. A candle lit vigil burns in front of the portrait of Laika, the first K9 of the Soviet Space Program. The pièce de résistance of the exhibit was a soviet made documentary. Our group of Offbeat Frontier Explorers were the only ones screening the film at the time. As soon as we noticed the quality of the documentary (lacking focus in both content and picture) the theater experience became a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. The humorous commentary we were able to come up with made the hour-long epic (about what we think had to do with the space program and/or dogs) bearable.

Garden of Eden On Wheels: Selected Collections from Los Angeles Area Mobile Home & Trailer Parks

This portion of the museum was dedicated to the culture and history of mobile homes, the biblical reference of the ark in their design and the need for trailers in America. Dioramas of various mobile homes (tornado alley was my favorite), collections from dwellers of trailers, and a map showing all the mobile home parks in the world (USA number one as always) all enable you to have a better understanding and respect towards the Mobile Home culture.

Tell The Bees: Belief, Knowledge & Hypersymoblic Cognition

This exhibit explores practices and origins of superstition. Why you should drape sheets over mirrors during thunder or lightning storms to the method of making sure a child is not born with a hare lip are all revealed. (Both involve ghosts)

Weirdest Item

For the life of me I cannot recall what it was called nor remember it’s purpose (probably scientific), but in a glass case, a head of a wolf or fox is displayed. On the outside of the case a pair of goggles/spectacles are mounted. When looking through the viewfinder you see a projected image of an oversized man sitting on a chair, transparent enough to be over the head of the animal, “the mind of the beast” (I guess). As you watch the projection, the man in the chair begins to bark and growl like an animal. In a nutshell, a man inside the brain of a wolf, making animal noises. I’m not sure what the significance or message was but it sure was entertaining.

Like most adventures associated with Offbeat Frontier, we have no idea what we're getting into, The Museum of Jurassic Technology was the unknown to the nth degree. I would recommended a visit to everyone I know, even to people I meet on the bus. The only downside, at least to our trip, was that other attendees did not see the humor in most of the exhibits and took it too seriously. Though there is a very good possibility that we saw the humor where there was none, the “Two & a Half Men Effect”. Not to say we did not respect either the collections or visitors in the museum, but at times it felt like hidden camera show or physiology experiment. Either way it was fun and educational experience and look forward to returning.