FIELD TRIP: Guided Tour and Behind the Scenes Viewing of The Murtogh D. Guinness Automaton Collection at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey

Field trip, anyone?

FIELD TRIP: Guided Tour and Behind the Scenes Viewing of The Murtogh D. Guinness Automaton Collection at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey
Date: Sunday, February 20th
Time: 12 PM - 4 PM (Bus pickup and drop-off at Observatory)
Admission: $45
*** MUST RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com
*** PLEASE NOTE: Trip limited to a maximum of 30 attendees; Admission fee Includes round trip transportation via chartered bus, tour cost, a Guinness beer, and museum admission.

Many people have no idea that one of the finest collections of antique automata--moving mechanical toys popular in the 18th Century and 19th Centuries-- in the world resides not in London or Paris but 25 miles away from New York City in Morristown, New Jersey.

This collection--compiled over 50 years by Murtogh D. Guinness (1913-2002), heir to the Guinness beer fortune--consists of 700 historic automata and mechanical musical instruments as well as more than 5,000 programmed media, ranging from player piano rolls to pinned cylinders. Guinness regarded the collection as his life’s work, and he traveled the globe to search of the finest surviving pieces of their kind. Many of the automata in the collection were made in France in the 19th Century and represent a broad array of subjects including snake charmers, magicians, singing birds, musicians, animals, and anthropomorphic monkeys enacting a variety of human situations. Together, these objects constitute one of the largest public holdings of automata in the United States.

On Sunday, February 20th, join Observatory and Morbid Anatomy for a special guided tour of this incredible collection, one of the most significant of its kind in the world. Guinness Collection Conservator Jeremy Ryder will lead us on an hour-long tour of the collection; on this tour, he will guide us through of the permanent exhibit Musical Machines & Living Dolls featuring 150 pieces from the spectacular collection, explain the techniques and history of these incredible objects, demonstrate automata in action, and show us pieces rarely on display to the general public.

After the tour, attendees will be given approximately an hour of free time with which to take in the other exhibitions at the museum such as Frank H. Netter, MD Michelangelo of Medicine--featuring more than 40 works of art by this acclaimed master of medical illustrations--and the museum's excellent permanent collection which includes costumes and textiles, fine art, decorative art, dolls and toys, natural science, geology and paleontology, and anthropology; more about the museum can be found at www.morrismuseum.org.

At the day's end, our chartered bus will pick up us and we will enjoy a toast to Mr. Guinness and his fantastic collection with a Guinness beer (naturally!) on our drive back to New York City.

Trip Details: The $45 event cost of this event includes round trip transportation on a special chartered bus from Observatory to the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey and back again, as well as museum admission, tour cost, and one Guinness beer per person. The bus will pick up and drop off in front of Observatory (543 Union Street at Nevins Street). Pick up is 12:00 noon sharp and drop off approximately 4:00 PM. Attendees will have approximately 1 hour of free time to view the rest of the museum collection.

More info here.

Image: Clown Illusionist Automaton; Made by Jean or Henry Phalibois, Paris, France, c. 1890-1900 "], from The Murtogh D. Guinness Automaton Collection

Buried Alive at Coney Island: "Night and Morning," 1907

Playing off the titillating terror of being buried alive--a theme exploited also by Edgar Allen Poe among many others--Coney Island's Luna Park premiered a new attraction in 1907 which allowed the visitor to experience their own premature burial and added a trip through Hades and Paradise to boot.

From a contemporary New York Times report on April 21, 1907:

NEW WONDERS THIS SEASON AT CONEY ISLAND - Beatific Heavenly Visions and Gruesome Scenes in Hell to be Luna Park's Latest Novelty ...

"The real big feature of the revised Luna Park," Mr. Thompson explained, "is going to be what I have named Night and Morning: or, A Journey Through Heaven and Hell." The idea in itself if, of course, not new, but the manner in which it has been worked up in entirely original and is expected to make it a 'thriller.' It shows you the complete journey to Hades and Paradise, and is full of surprises....

"The first room into which the people enter is like a big coffin with a glass top and the lid off. You look up through the roof and see the graveyard flowers and the weeping willows and other such atmospheric things. When everything is ready the coffin is lowered into the ground. It shivers and shakes, and when it tips up on end you hear a voice above give a warning to be careful. Then the lid is closed and you hear the thud of the dirt.

"The man who is conducting the party now announces that they must have a spirit to guide them. A subject is put into a small coffin and in an instant he is transformed into a skeleton. Then a real skeleton appears and delivers a solemn lecture in which he tells the people that they must 'leave all hope on the outside'--a gentle perversion of the old 'abandon hope all ye who enter here.' ...

Now there is a great clanking of chains and the side of the coffin comes out and visitors pass down into the mysterious caverns. First they see a twentieth century idea of Hell, with monopolists frying in pans and janitors fastened to hot radiators.... After the modern Hell the people come to the Chamber of Skeletons. Though these skeletons haven't a stitch of clothes on them, they smoke cigarettes most unconcernedly all the time just like live men.... Next you come to the panorama of Hell, where you see a vision of all the condemned spirits being washed down by the River of Death. Now comes the big change and you find yourself in a large ordinary room, with cathedral-like windows through which you can look outside and see the graveyard which looms up with a weird effect. Like great mist you can see the spirits rising from the graves and ascending to Heaven...

The great transformation now takes place. The whole grave yard floats off into space with the single exception of an immense cross, where the form of a young girl is seen clinging to the Rock of Ages. Fountains foam with all their prismatic colors, and the air is filled with troops of circling angels. The room itself vanishes and you find yourself in a bower of flowers under a blue sky. At the climax and angel comes down with a halo which she places on the head of the girl who is still clinging to the cross Then all that vanishes and you are within four blank walls once more."

Excerpted fom the April 21, 1907 issue of The New York Times; You can read the entire article here.

For more on the amazing and bizarre attractions of turn of the century Coney Island, check out my new project The Great Coney Island Spectacularium.

Image: Antoine Wiertz, The Premature Burial, 1854. Also the name of an Edgar Allan Poe short story. Image found via a blog called Rouge's Foam.

Frontspiece to "Anatomische Tafeln...", Giulio Casserio Anatomist, Frankfurt, 1656

Anatomische Tafeln...

Frankfurt, 1656. Copperplate engraving. National Library of Medicine

Giulio Casserio (ca. 1552-1616) [anatomist]

This clumsy frontispiece features five notable anatomists posed around a cadaver. In the center of the picture, the image of the Earth, with the continent of "America" visible, signifies that the anatomized body is a "New World," and dissection a voyage of discovery.

Click image to see much finer, larger version. Via Mike Sappol's fantastic Dream Anatomy Online Exhibition (book here) via Darko is Dorko.

Viennese Ecclesiastical Sculpture, 19th Century?

God how I love Catholic ecclesiastical art.

From a random church in Vienna today. Click on image to see larger, more dramatic version.

Antique Japanese Postcards of the Late 19th/Early 20th Centuries

Via Pink Tentacle. Click here to see complete collection, and click on image to see larger version.

Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet, Conference, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, February 5th

For the curious (sic) among you: On Saturday, February 5th I will be presenting a short lecture as part of the very intriguing looking "Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet" conference hosted by Seton Hall University. Lawrence Weschler--author of one of my all time favorite books, Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder--will be giving the keynote address on “A Natural History of Wonder;” my piece will examine the revival of private cabinets of curiosity as explored in my Private Cabinets photo series, from which the above images are drawn. I will also talk a bit about my own Private Cabinet experiment, The Morbid Anatomy Library.

This event is free and open to the public. Full line up and schedule follows; hope to see you there!

Modern/Contemporary Art and the Curiosity Cabinet

10-10:30: Coffee

10:30: Welcome (Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, Seton Hall University)

10:45-11:45: Lawrence Weschler, Keynote address: “A Natural History of Wonder.”

11:45-12:15: Kirsten A. Hoving, Middlebury College, “Thinking Inside the Box: Joseph Cornell’s Cabinets of Cosmic Curiosity.”

12:15-1:15: Lunch

1:15-1:45: Melissa Ragain, University of Virginia, “Wonder as a Way of Seeing: Gyorgy Kepes and the Center for Advanced Visual Studies

1:45-2:15: Matthew Palczynski, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Organizing the Curious Damien Hirst”

2:15-2:45: Patricia Allmer, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), and Jonathan Carson & Rosie Miller (artist collaborators), University of Salford (UK), “Playing in the Wunderkammer”

2:45-3: Break

3-3:30: Joanna Ebenstein, Morbid Anatomy Library, “To Every Man his Cabinet or The Morbid Anatomy Library and Cabinet and the Revival of Cabinets of Curiosity.”

3:30-4: Roundtable with artists, led by Jeanne Brasile, Seton Hall University

4-5:30: Reception

You can find out more here and get directions by clicking here. This symposium is being produced in conjunction with a new exhibition called Working in Wonder at the Walsh Gallery at Seton Hall University; You can find out more about that by clicking here.

All of the photos you see here are drawn from my Private Cabinets series; you can see the full collection by clicking here; the first two images are from the collection of Tim Knox and Todd Longstaffe-Gowan; the bottom image is from the collection Evan Michelson of Obscura Antiques (and also more recently the television show "Oddites.")

Oltre il Corpo, L’uomo (Besides the Body, the Man), Florence, Italy

Now up in Florence, Italy through February 12, 2011: a number of waxes and preparations from the amazing and elusive museum of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy; See images and video tour above to get a sense of what this collection has to offer.

More, from the Tuscan Traveler website:

For those visiting or living in Florence, only a short time is left to experience one of the most unique and wonderful exhibits for those interested in either the art of wax modeling or the science of medical-surgical pathology practiced in the 1800s.

The free exhibit, called Oltre il Corpo, L’uomo (Besides the Body, the Man), will end February 12, 2011.

...Whereas the anatomical wax models at [such museums as] Museo La Specola show the body in its perfect and healthy state, the creations at the Pathology Museum, from which curator Elisabetta Susani selected prime examples for Oltre il Corpo, L’uomo, are sometimes shocking representations of diseases that were treated in the 1800s. One of the most interesting is a the wax model side by side with the skeleton of a child with an incurable case of hydrocephalus...

The Pathology Museum was created in 1824 at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, built in 1288 by the father of Dante’s muse Beatrice. It wasn’t until 1742 when there was a move to create a medical academy to formalize the sharing of information among doctors and scientists.

It took another eighty years to establish the Florentine Medical-Physical Society. One of the first acts of the Society was to set up a Pathological Museum. It was not a museum for the public, but rather a repository for information about the pathology and medical-surgical treatment of diseases...

Due to the difficulty of ensuring correct conservation of the pathological materials, it was decided to have some duplicates fabricated in wax. The Museum’s model-makers studied the techniques practiced in the other wax-modeling laboratory in Florence, La Specola.

Surprisingly realistic models were fabricated, providing a fascinating glimpse of the major pathologies in the 19th century. The collection of anatomical wax figures includes numerous wax reproductions, mainly the work of Giuseppe Ricci, Luigi Calamai and Egisto Tortori.

A remarkable example of symbiosis between science and art, the wax models were important, above all, for their value in teaching, allowing professors to illustrate the most important diseases to future physicians without having to depend the dissection of cadavers or the preservation of diseased organs....

Osservatorio dei Saperi e delle Arti (OSA)
Open: Monday – Friday 10am – 5pm, Saturday 10am – 1pm (Free)
Ends: February 12, 2011
Address: Largo Brambilla 3, New Entrance of Careggi Hospital

Click here to read the full story and see more images. Images and video above drawn from the Tuscan Traveler website.

La Maison Mantin, Home of 19th Century Aesthete and Gentleman of Leisure Completely Intact and Open to Public after 106 Years

Louis Mantin was an aesthete and gentleman of leisure who bequeathed his opulent home to the town of Moulins on condition that a century later it be a museum.

After he died in 1905, the mansion was closed up and fell into dilapidation. Now...it has been returned to its original pristine state.

The result is a remarkable time-capsule, combining rich fin-de-siecle furnishings, archaeological curios, skulls and other Masonic paraphernalia, a collection of stuffed birds, as well as the latest domestic gadgets such as electricity and a flushing loo.

19th Century aesthete and gentleman of leisure Louis Mantin willed his mansion--complete with a private museum of art, archaeological and natural historical specimens--to the people of Moulins, to be opened as a museum 100 years after his death. Now, 106 years after his death in 1905--and after a 3.5m euro refit funded by local authorities--the home of this real life Des Esseintes been returned to its original pristine state and is, per Monsieur Mantin's wishes, open to the public.

"In the will," explains Maud Leyoudec, assistant curator of the collection, Mantin "says that he wants the people of Moulins in 100 years time to be able to see what was the life of a cultured gentleman of his day. A bachelor with no children, he was obsessed with death and the passage of time. It was his way of becoming eternal."

Text, video and story from yesterday's BBC. Click here to read the full story and take a video tour. You can find out more (if you read French!) here.

Via Eleanor Crook and Chantal Pollier.

Call for Vendors of the Curious and the Unusual for The Congress for Curious People, 2011

Some of you might remember Morbid Anatomy's coverage of last year's wonderful and amazing Congress for Curious People. I am now in the process of co-organizing this year's Congress, which will also serve as the launch event for my new exhibition at the Coney Island Museum entitled The Great Coney Island Spectacularium.

For this year's 10-day Congress--which begins on April 8 and ends on April 17th, 2011--Coney Island USA is keen to add a kind of arts, crafts, and curiosities fair featuring all things uncanny, unusual, or sideshow related.

Below is the official call for vendors. Please feel free to pass this along to interested parties:

The Congress of Curious Peoples is seeking unusual vendors for it’s Colonnade of Curiosities. April 8-17. High end, low brow and things in between. But your products must be interesting. Art, Jewelery, sideshow related items, the strange, the bizarre and the macabre...

Please email: congressvendors@gmail.com with a full description of your work and a link to a website and or photos. Due to the many submissions and limited space, we will contact only those we are considering.

To find out more, or if you would like to submit work, please email: congressvendors@gmail.com. To find out more about last year's Congress, click here; to find out about The Great Coney Island Spectacularium, click here.

Image: From Obscura Antiques and Oddities

Take "A Voyage to the Arctic" Tomorrow Night at Observatory

If you are free tomorrow night, why not come down to Observatory to take in a talk with James Walsh, artist behind the current exhibition The Arctic Plants of New York City, for a discussion about collecting, botanicals, and the artistic process?

Full details follow; very much hope to see you there.

An artist’s talk with writer and artist James Walsh
Date: Tuesday, January 18
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5

Artist and writer James Walsh will talk about the making of his current installation, The Arctic Plants of New York City, and its place in his larger project of discovering the surprising number of plants that are common to both New York City and the arctic. As an introduction to the project and a demonstration of how it evolved, Walsh will read selections from a series of letters he wrote to friend while his plans for the project were just beginning to form. After that, he will speak a little about how the plants, texts, and images he collected were distilled down into the present installation.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Pressed Trifolium repens, or White Clover, by James Walsh

Body Voyaging or, A Short Excursion Through the History of Fantastic Anatomical and Physiological Journeys Through the Body: This Monday, Observatory

Body voyaging through anatomical history this Monday at Observatory! Full details follow; hope to see you there.

An illustrated lecture with Kristen Ann Ehrenberger
Date: Monday, January 17th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

We human beings have a seemingly insatiable desire to experience the bodies underneath our skins. While many scholars have treated the subject of looking into or through bodies via medical imaging, one perhaps understudied trope is that of “body voyaging.” A few writers and artists have imagined what it would be like to travel inside a body, to be a searching body in a body as landscape. This presentation will use images and text from a few more and less well-known 20th and 21st-century “fantastic voyages” to ask questions like, Is the purpose of such “biotourism” to make these spaces foreign or familiar? What kinds of relationships between our bodies and ourselves are being promoted? And perhaps most pressing of all, could you really do that?

Kristen Ann Ehrenberger is a Doctoral Candidate in History and a Third-Year Medical Student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary research interests lie in the creation and circulation of scientific and medical knowledge in professional and lay communities, but she has also used her interdisciplinary proclivities to develop a theory of memory consolidation with some neuroscientists and an anthropologist (MIT Press, forthcoming). She is currently living in Dresden and researching her Dissertation, “The Politics of the Table: Nutrition and the Volkskörper in Saxon Germany, 1900-1933″ with the support of a Travel Grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). She is thrilled Observatory has given her the opportunity to try out this project on an audience of the enthusiastic and curious.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: From Heumann Heilmittel, “Eine Reise durch den menschlichen Körper” (1941)

The Osteology Lesson of Dr. Sebastiaen Egbertsz, Nicolaes Elias Pickenoy, 1619

The Osteology Lesson of Dr. Sebastiaen Egbertsz by Nicolaes Elias Pickenoy, 1619.

Via Elettrogenica.

"Burlesque: Exotic Dancers of the 1950s and 60s," Illustrated Lecture at Observatory, This Thursday, January 13th

Please join Morbid Anatomy for a night of burlesque at Observatory this Thursday, January 13th!

Full details follow; hope to see you there.

Burlesque: Exotic Dancers of the 1950s and 60s
An illustrated lecture and book signing by director, collector and author Judson Rosebush
Date: Thursday, January 13 Time: 8:00 Admission: $5
*Books will be available for sale and signing

Burlesque dominated the landscape of sexual performance throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Tonight, join collector, author, and director Judson Rosebush as he shares with us a brief illustrated history of the art form as explored in his new book Burlesque Exotic Dancers of the 50s & 60s. The book–which will be available for sale and signing–traces the history of Burlesque from its traditional forms through its transformation into go-go dancing in the 1960s. Included within are nearly 200 “booking photos”–publicity shots commissioned by the dancers and distributed to booking agents, managers, theaters, press, and fans–of 125 burlesque queens and belly dancing stars from the 1950s and 1960s including Crystal Blue, Bella Dona, Sunny Day, Dixie Evans, Lala Jazir and Dusty Summers among others.

Judson Rosebush is a director and producer of multimedia and computer animation projects in New York City and is well-known as a pioneer in computer graphics and animation. His screen credits include the original TRON, the feature documentary The Story of Computer Graphics, and hundreds of television commercials and documentaries. Rosebush is also the co-author of at least two seminal books in the field of computer graphics, Computer Graphics for Designers and Artists and The Computer Animator’s Technical Handbook. Throughout the 1990s he directed CD-ROM and multimedia products including Gahan Wilson’s Haunted House, The War in Vietnam (with the New York Times and CBS), and Issac Asimov’s Ultimate Robot, and multimedia products for places a diverse as the Whitney and the Internet. Rosebush’s interest in all things sexual is coupled with a developing classification scheme for sexual images and literature, and he has published widely on sexual media under the name The Mad Professor.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Upcoming Morbid Anatomy Presents Event: A Brief Introduction to Haitian Voodoo, Tuesday, January 11

Next Tuesday at Observatory! Hope to see you there.

A Brief Introduction to Haitian Voodoo
An illustrated lecture by photographers Stephanie Keith and Shannon Taggart
Date: Tuesday, January 11
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5
**Copies of Stephanie Keith’s new book Vodou Brooklyn: Five Ceremonies with Mambo Marie Carmel will also be available for sale and signing

Voodoo is a religion that merges West African traditions and Roman Catholic Christianity. Created by African slaves brought to the Americas in the 16th century, today its various forms are practiced by over 60 million people worldwide. The purpose of Voodoo ceremony for its practitioners is to make direct contact with the metaphysical realm of the universe by allowing human beings to interact with a pantheon of gods and spirits via spiritual possession.

Photographers Stephanie Keith and Shannon Taggart have long been documenting Voodoo ceremonies within the Haitian community of Brooklyn, New York. Tonight, the two photographers will present a general introduction to Voodoo. Over the course of the this illustrated lecture, they will show historical imagery and discuss the myths of Voodoo generated by sensationalist tales, Hollywood movies and popular culture; they will also introduce us to the major Spirits in the pantheon, describing their historical qualities and elucidating their individual personalities and preferences. In addition, they will share samples of their own haunting work documenting this fascinating and largely misunderstood religion.

Stephanie Keith received an Anthropology degree from Stanford University in 1988, and began her photography career after earning a Master’s in photography from New York University in 2003. She has worked for newspapers such as the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, and the NY Daily News. Her interest in religion and pop culture has resulted in two previous projects: “Jesus Rocks” about Christian teen rockers and “Prime Time Ramadan” about the importance of Egyptian Soap Operas for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. For the past four years, she has been documenting immigrant life in New York City focusing on Haitian Vodou ceremonies performed in Brooklyn. Her latest series about Vodou in Brooklyn has been exhibited in at the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Safe-T Gallery in Brooklyn, the Caribbean Cultural Center in Manhattan, published in the Village Voice and developed into an audio slide show for American Public Media’s “Speaking of Faith” program. The Caribbean Studies Press has just published her photos about Vodou as a book, entitled: Vodou Brooklyn: Five Ceremonies with Mambo Marie. For more about Stephanie Keith, visit http://www.stephaniekeith.com.

Shannon Taggart is a freelance photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA in Applied Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her images have appeared in numerous publications including Blind Spot, Tokion, TIME and Newsweek. Her work has been recognized by the Inge Morath Foundation, American Photography, the International Photography Awards, Photo District News and the Alexia Foundation for World Peace, among others. Her photographs have been shown at Photoworks in Brighton, England, The Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Redux Pictures in New York, the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles and at FotoFest 2010 in Houston. Her essay Basement Voodoo was recently published as a feature in Yvi Magazine. For more about Shannon Taggart, visit www.shannontaggart.com.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Top Image: Stephanie Keith; Bottom Image: Shannon Taggart

Snow Cancellation: "A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein," Tonight, January 7th

Sorry folks. The snow won, and tonight's event--described below--is being postponed. Our sincere apologies, and new date to be posted very soon.

A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein
A screening and lecture with film-maker Jim Fields and Mike Lewi
Date: Friday, January 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In an eventful and successful career spanning 40 years, Dr. Robert White–pioneering neurosurgeon and Professor at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University–did many things. He participated in Nobel Prize-nominated work, published more than 700 scholarly articles, examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved brain in Cold War Russia, founded Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics, went to mass daily, and raised 10 children. He also engaged in a series of horrifying and highly controversial experiments reminiscent of a B-Movie mad scientist, experiments which pushed the limits of medical ethics, infuriated the animal rights community, and questioned notions of identity, consciousness, and corporeality as well as mankind’s biblically-condoned dominion over the animal kingdom.

Tonight, join film-maker Jim Fields–best known for his 2003 documentary “End of the Century” about the legendary punk band The Ramones–and Mike Lewi for a screening of Fields’ short documentary about the life and work of this real-life Dr. Frankenstein whose chilling “full body transplants” truly seem the stuff of a B-Movie terror. Fields will introduce the film–which features a series of interviews with Dr. White discussing his controversial experiments–with an illustrated lecture contextualizing the doctor’s work within the history of “mad scientists” past and present, fictional and actual; scientists whose hubris drove them to go rogue by tampering with things perhaps best left alone.

Jim Fields made a few documentaries, one of which, “End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones” is particularly long. He’s currently a video journalist at Time Magazine and Time.com.

Mike Lewi is a filmmaker, event producer, and disc jockey.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Drawing by Dr. Harvey Cushing, early 20th Century, found on the Yale Medical Library website.

holiday, observatory, science, spectacle

Tonight at Observatory: "A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein," Tonight, January 7th

Tonight at Observatory, snowstorm be damned . Hope to see you there!

A: Head on B: Body: The Real Life Dr. Frankenstein
A screening and lecture with film-maker Jim Fields and Mike Lewi
Date: Friday, January 7th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In an eventful and successful career spanning 40 years, Dr. Robert White–pioneering neurosurgeon and Professor at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University–did many things. He participated in Nobel Prize-nominated work, published more than 700 scholarly articles, examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved brain in Cold War Russia, founded Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics, went to mass daily, and raised 10 children. He also engaged in a series of horrifying and highly controversial experiments reminiscent of a B-Movie mad scientist, experiments which pushed the limits of medical ethics, infuriated the animal rights community, and questioned notions of identity, consciousness, and corporeality as well as mankind’s biblically-condoned dominion over the animal kingdom.

Tonight, join film-maker Jim Fields–best known for his 2003 documentary “End of the Century” about the legendary punk band The Ramones–and Mike Lewi for a screening of Fields’ short documentary about the life and work of this real-life Dr. Frankenstein whose chilling “full body transplants” truly seem the stuff of a B-Movie terror. Fields will introduce the film–which features a series of interviews with Dr. White discussing his controversial experiments–with an illustrated lecture contextualizing the doctor’s work within the history of “mad scientists” past and present, fictional and actual; scientists whose hubris drove them to go rogue by tampering with things perhaps best left alone.

Jim Fields made a few documentaries, one of which, “End of the Century: the Story of the Ramones” is particularly long. He’s currently a video journalist at Time Magazine and Time.com.

Mike Lewi is a filmmaker, event producer, and disc jockey.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: Drawing by Dr. Harvey Cushing, early 20th Century, found on the Yale Medical Library website.

Morbid Anatomy Library New Regular Open Hours: Saturdays, 12-6, Beginning This Saturday, January 8

The Morbid Anatomy Library--a private research library and collection I make available to the interested public in Brooklyn, New York--is pleased to announce new regular open hours every Saturday from 12-6.

The library and cabinet--pictured above in a series of photos by Shannon Taggart--makes available a collection of curiosities, books, photographs, artworks, ephemera, and artifacts relating to medical museums, anatomical art, collectors and collecting, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and society, natural history, arcane media, and curiosity and curiosities broadly considered. The present Morbid Anatomy Library Scholar in Residence is Evan Michelson of Obscura Antiques and Oddities and the new television show "Oddities."

If you would like to know more, you can read about the library in Newsweek, Time Out New York, or The Huffington Post and watch videos about it produced by Newsweek, Rocketboom Media, and WPIX's Toni On! New York.

The library is located at 543 Union Street at Nevins in Brooklyn New York. Enter via Proteus Gowanus gallery or by buzzing buzzer 1E. Click here to view map.

To find out more about the Morbid Anatomy Library, click here.

Photos by Shannon Taggart.