Product Description

Pronged ants, horned humans, a landscape carved on a fruit pit--some of the displays in David Wilson's Museum of Jurassic Technology are hoaxes. But which ones? As he guides readers through an intellectual hall of mirrors, Lawrence Weschler revisits the 16th-century "wonder cabinets" that were the first museums and compels readers to examine the imaginative origins of both art and science. Illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73765 in Books
• Published on: 1996-11-26
• Released on: 1996-11-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780679764892
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Amazon.com Review
In the non-Aristotelian, non-Euclidean, non-Newtonian space between the walls of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles exist bats that can fly through lead barriers, spore-ingesting pronged ants, elaborate theories of memory, and a host of other off-kilter scientific oddities that challenge the traditional notions of truth and fiction. Lawrence Weschler's book, expanded from an article for Harper's, is, at turns, a tour of the museum, a profile of its founder and curator, David Wilson, and a meditation on the role of imagination and authority in all museums, in science and in life. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder is an exquisite piece of "magic realist nonfiction" that will prove utterly captivating.

From Publishers Weekly
New Yorker staff writer Weschler probes into L.A.'s highly unusual Museum of Jurassic Technology in this NBCC finalist.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
You have to search for the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a small storefront operation located on Los Angeles's less than noteworthy Venice Boulevard. Despite its awkward location, this quirky museum now has a cult following, and Weschler, a staff writer for the New Yorker, attempts to explain why. The driving force behind this nondescript institution is the accordian playing, filmmaking, computer wiz David Wilson, a man whose imagination rivals that of George Lucas. His bizarre exhibits feature spore-inhaling ants, peach-pit carvings, sculpture so small it fits into the eye of a needle, and a horn that once sprouted from the head of an English midwife. Weschler's research indicates several stretches of the truth in Wilson's exhibits, but most contain some modicum of authenticity. Weschler's journalistic style enhances this monograph's odd subject, and this slim volume will no doubt be enjoyed by the same fringe element that is making Wilson a cult hero in the museum world. Recommended where interest warrants.
Jonathan Jeffrey, Western Kentucky Univ., Bowling Green
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A new way to view museums
What is a museum? Are the things we see in a museum "the truth", and how did they come to be so? These questions and others fill Lawrence Weschler's marvelous extended essay, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder. Weschler takes as his jumping-off point the very real "Museum of Jurassic Technology," privately owned and operated in Los Angeles by David Wilson. In this book, Wechsler tells how European museums began as private collections of "wonder-ful" objects, with the focus less on whether the object was "true" than whether it evoked amazement. Many of the objects in Wilson's "Museum" appear real, and are described in the dry, precise prose known to museum viewers around the world. But they are not real. Or are they? This short (168 pages, with endnotes) book examines both the "wonders" of Wilson's storefront museum and the even more astounding wonders of the real world in gifted and sprightly prose. Not to be missed!!

A wonderful book, highly recommended.
This is a wonderful book. It's beautifully written and captures perfectly the spirit of the Museum of Jurassic Technology. By the way, the Museum is real -- I've been there. I wandered in not knowing what it was and was immediately hooked. Having read this book, I like the Museum even more. David Wilson is a national treasure.

One recommendation to anyone lucky enough to read this book: don't flip through and look at the pictures first. Read it from beginning to end as it was intended, or you'll ruin the story.

An artifact of the wondrous Jurassic
I read this book after visiting the beautiful and strange Museum of Jurassic Technology. I was first discomfited to find that the Museum's wonders could be -- how could they be? -- frauds and hoaxes. I was at first crushed and a little annoyed at Mr Weschler's seeming cynicism-- unlike me, he had apparently rushed immediately out to fact-check the exhibits' provenance, and gleefully points out how most visitors had been hoodwinked. However, Mr Weschler moves from simple cynicism to a greater appreciation of the Museum's gnomic aims, and the reader moves with him from everyday disbelief and sour disgruntlement to a rapturous awe. A magnificent book, and a worthy addition to study of the Lower Jurassic.