Smirk, I love those pictures. Look at them pretty spider babies! :3
For my B-Day, I dragged my Mom and Step-Dad out to Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. It's like a county fair, an arcade, and a history museum all Frankensteined together... a testament to coin-operated games and automata, hoaxes, carnie culture, and other fun stuff. It's been in operation for longer than I've been alive; my Mom used to come here when she was a kid living near Detroit, back when it was part of Tally Hall. The whole building used to be part of a sort of proto-shopping mall, but Marvin's is it's last remnant.
Some of my favorite features are the Automata, little handmade Glockenspiel-style clockwork shows that you'd pay a Quarter to watch. Once upon a time, some shops would feature them in the same places that Gashapon and Candy Dispensers sit now.
The Automata look better in video. Here are a few!
The Music Machine, playing a MIDI of Another Brick in the Wall on real instrumentsCanadian-made Pub Automata, featuring The EntertainerCircus-themed Automata from 80's England, by Ron FullerThe place is absolutely full of historic relics, pieces of hoax and circus memorabilia, kitschy decor, weird old advertisements, and other bits and bobs. The ceiling was probably 30 feet high, and full of old posters and banners, displays... far more than I could photo and share here.
One of the gals working at the museum explained that Barnum caught wind of the
Cardiff Giant hoax, and created a crude duplicate of it so he could add it to their Circus. Things went great, until Barnum's Cardiff Giant showed up in a town where another small-time hoaxer was showing their own copy of the Giant. Egg all over both their fake-ass giant's faces.
Sorry for the Potato quality on some of these; the lighting was dim, and there was neon and glass everywhere. I just wanted to share some of this delightful weirdness with y'all.
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Topic: Bay12 Photo Share! Let's share photos and cool things. (Read 1665353 times)