Tag: museums

A Dialogue by G. et al.

table
The title page of the Table Rock Album


G.:

The best remark is silence.

H.:

Then, pray, why do you break it?

Y.:

For the same reason that you do;
Because ’tis hard to speak it.

Anonymous:

On memory’s page two things will never fade —
Niagara Falls and Barnett’s lemonade!

 

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

Read more about Thomas Barnett and the Barnett Museum 

This link takes you to the scanned version of  the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust

See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Album on this site.

The Assassination of John Lennon as Depicted by the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum, Niagara Falls, Ontario, 1987 by David Wojahn

Portrait of John Lennon & Yoko Ono at Niagara Falls
John Lennon & Yoko Ono at Niagara Falls

Smuggled human hair from Mexico
Falls radiant around the waxy O

Of her scream. Shades on, leather coat and pants, Yoko
On her knees — like the famous Kent State photo

Where the girl can’t shriek her boyfriend alive, her arms
Windmilling Ohio sky.
A pump in John’s chest heaves

To mimic death throes. The blood is made of latex.
His glasses, broken on the plastic sidewalk.

A scowling David Chapman, his arms outstretched,
His pistol barrel spiraling fake smoke

In a siren’s red wash, completes the composition,
And somewhere background music plays “Imagine”

Before the tableau darkens. We push a button
To renew the scream.
The chest starts up again.

Source: David Wojahn. Mystery Train. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, ©1990.

N.B. – The Tussaud Wax Museum does not have an exhibit such as this – in correspondence with the author he imagined this scenario, and figured that Tussaud’s would be the logical place to have it if it existed.