Public History Everywhere

Last night I was indulging in a little bit of SNL.

Do you know how once you learn a name, or a trend, you start seeing it everywhere. I have determined that I got to that point with my Public History classes, and I couldn't help but notice the relevance that SNL episode had to my classes.

The first, most obvious thing was during Weekend Update Seth Meyers talked about the Cockroach Hall of Fame and Museum in Plano Texas: "A man in Texas has opened the cockroach hall of fame museum that features collections of the dead bugs in tutus and sunglasses, though just because you call it a museum inside your head doesn't mean you're not just a crazy son of a bitch with a gluegun."

I couldn't help but go back in my head to our discussions in class about what constitutes a museum. I actually came to the conclusion that yes, I would consider this a museum in my mind. Here is some of the information about that museum:



The second reference was to something that I came across in interactive exhibit design, about interactive physical computing. We looked at the 40 top arduino projects on the web, and the top one was this interactive laser harp. The musical guest, Kesha, actually used this harp in her first number. I probably felt cooler than I should have at that. Check out the video. The harp is used at the 3 minute mark.



Here is the video of the original laser harp:



It's official. I will now look for Public History in everything.