Museum Dr. Guislain, Ghent, Belgium

When in Belgium a few weeks ago, I visited a really wonderful museum called The Museum Dr. Guislain. The museum is housed in a 19th Century pschiatric hospital and feels like an Edward Gorey drawing come to life. It is an amazing musuem, containing a few different collections: The first is outsider art, the second is an ongoing inquiry into how photography reveals attitudes about madness past and present, and the third is a history of the hospital and Dr. Guislain and, thus, the cultural history of madness.

In addition to being a really cool museum with ingeniously placed artworks in an atomospere of real 19th madhouse menace--you can almost hear footsteps ringing in the abandoned corridors--they have a wonderful museum shop featuring titles from past exhibitions, many with English translations.

More images here.

Absinthe in The New York Times

From today's New York Times:

Dear reader! Should this column impress you as being more than usually lyrical, recalling perhaps the imagery and elegance of poetry by Baudelaire or Verlaine; should it seem a bit decadent, redolent of Oscar Wilde’s withering hauteur; should it have a touch of madness or perversity, combining, say, the tastes of Toulouse-Lautrec with the passions of van Gogh; should it simply sound direct and forceful and knowing like one of Ernest Hemingway’s characters; should it do any or all of that, let me credit something that each of these figures fervently paid tribute to: the green fairy, the green goddess, the green muse, the glaucous witch, the queen of poisons.

Read the whole article, filled with fascinating information (and purchasing tips!) here.