Indieweb Carnival March 2026 – Museum Memories
Once a month, someone in Indieweb hosts the "Indieweb carnival", a monthly theme which a bunch of bloggers all write about the same theme, and the links to posts are collected in a page together. This month's theme: Museum Memories click for info. Like many people, I have many fond memories of museums. Here are some recollections. He Really Is Not Spock When I was in about fourth grade, my school's front hall posted photos of various working people posing for portraits: cleaners, carpenters, etc. Mrs. Himmelstein, my art teacher, who let us play records in art class, told us they weren't photos of people... they were ultra-realistic sculptures by Duane Hanson, and if we liked them, there was a whole exhibit at the Whitney Museum. I guess my folks looked into it, and it turned out there was an Alexander Calder exhibit at the Whitney too... it was pretty much a perfect museum double-bill for an 8 year old. Hanson's hyper-realistic sculptures were uncanny. The museum had sprinkled them throughout the building: a tired-looking waitress leaning against a pole in the cafe, a security guard standing by the payphones. More than once my dad got me to go talk to one, thinking it was a person. ("Go ask that waitress where the bathrooms are.") At one point, we looked at one that had a crowd of people gathering around it, an old woman sitting crosslegged on the floor, reading a folded up newspaper. Suddenly, she exhaled, and laughed. She…