The Museum of Obsessions

June 28, 2010

Obsession

The Museum of Obsessions accepts donations on loan from collectors, enthusiasts and the sentimental.

The things that enthral us, but which we cannot give a home to; our treasured possessions from which we cannot bear to be parted, yet cannot keep: these are the contents of the Museum. If you have no more room in your house, if you lack the means to store the essential things of your life, then the Museum was established to help you.

The contents of the Museum, even cumulatively, are worth little on the open market. The value of each item lies explicitly and only in an individual’s obsession with it. Such items are accepted on temporary loan and their return may be requested at any time.

No gift is refused, although the curators have their tastes and know their audience: the Gallery of Childrens’ Drawings is much visited and constantly rearranged; the Hall of Old Phone Chargers echoes only occasionally with the bootheels of its devotees.

By far the largest collection within the Museum of Obsessions is the book depository. Here are to be found acre upon acre of stacks, mile after mile of shelves, repositories fathoms deep. Minor works of forgotten authors, first novels, the privately published, the great, thick and well-thumbed, the worthless, the obscene.

A catholic taxonomy is employed. Classifications mean little and are subject to frequent revision. Occasionally, random storage is employed: each object, tagged, is distributed randomly among all others. In this way, the collection more closely resembles the order of the real world.

4 Comments

  1. How much room yah got????

    Comment by Dad — June 28, 2010 @ 8:02 pm

  2. Please let this become a real place!

    Comment by JRSM — June 28, 2010 @ 11:47 pm

  3. Dickens should write about this. But he’d pare it down.

    Comment by Shelley — June 29, 2010 @ 3:33 am

  4. […] Membership department was excited to learn about a new institution called The Museum of Obsessions. We hope to arrange reciprocal admission for our members. COLLECTION CONNECTION Sister […]

    Pingback by museum of folly » Sister Institutions: The Museum of Obsessions — July 12, 2010 @ 6:32 am

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