Mixed Topic Monday

Today's entry will be a little different than my usual posts as it consists of a few topics rather than just one, partially due to being busy over the past couple of days and the desire to talk about all of the topics without turning them into separate posts and spreading them out over the next week.

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First, the artist of the week is Joan Miro. This artist has been featured at the bottom of my blog since finding him late last week. Now that Dali week is over, Miro has taken the spot at the top of my blog. Coincidentally, this morning, I discovered via twitter that there had been an exhibit at the MoMA from November to January. (I'm sorry I can't remember who tweeted this but thank you.) Feel free to follow the link to view the online portion of the exhibit at http://media.moma.org/subsites/2008/miro/flashsite/index.html. I had chosen Miro to feature this week because of the colors used in much of his work. I love color and surrealism and whimsy and Miro, who I had never heard of before (I'll admit I am very much an art novice) really fits what I like yet breaks out of my constraints into so much more. Here is a link to the blog I got the museum link from because this blog can do Miro much more justice than I can http://www.artsjournal.com/man/.

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Also from twitter courtesy of @PresNation about one of the few places in Newport I haven't gotten to visit. A sign of the times, the Touro Synagogue will no longer be giving public tours aside from the ones already booked for the summer. The Touro Synagogue is the oldest Synagogue in America and just cannot afford to pay the two tour guides who were let go last week as stated in the Providence Journal article found here: http://www.projo.com/ri/newport. Having spent almost three years in and about Newport including two summers (and being an RI native) I had only seen one actual tour group in passing and two advertised. Maybe I just never knew where to look, but I am sad that I didn't take the opportunity to go there when I could have. The article does go on to say that tours should recommence come the summer when the new museum on the property opens, the Loeb Center for Religious Freedom.

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Also a belated Happy International Women's Day! I was off celebrating my Aunt's birthday yesterday and did not post about it. I wanted to post a link to this museum that I found via twitter and am now following. Fittingly for the day and month (and year round in my opinion) is the The Women's Museum in Dallas, TX. The link to the museum is here and the link to the twitter feed is here @TheWomensMuseum. It is most certainly one of the museums that I mentioned in my previous posts about twitter- very much a place I would go to during a road trip to that area.

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In honor of the movie Watchmen, which opened up on Friday, here is the link to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. http://www.moccany.org/ Currently the museum has an exhibit up featuring a collection of things related to the Watchmen movie and comic. The museum is located in New York City and if you are interested in the movie, the comic or the museum in general the exhibit, The Art of Watchmen, is open now until May 2nd.

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Lastly, the Please Touch Museum which I featured in an earlier post also has a twitter page which can be found here @pleasetouch.

Isn't twitter great? Back to the usual sort of posting next time.

Random Search Result: The Please Touch Museum

I stumbled upon the Please Touch Museum located in Philadelphia, PA by chance: through doing a random search for the word please. I don't even remember why I searched for it, but the Please Touch Museum was at the top of the results list. Similar to my finding the Canon Camera Museum, I stumble upon museum related things when I'm not looking for them.

The Please Touch Museum is a children's museum and if I were little, this place would be a lot of fun to go to and spend hours. This so does not look like a museum where one brings their kids for an hour or two. I don't think that I would want to leave. They also have a playhouse theater with original performances and a carousel. Age wise, I think the museum is geared towards the toddler to kindergarten age group, at least it looks that way from the pictures that the website provides.

One of the things I like about the museum website is that for every listed exhibit, there is a list of children's books that fit the theme of the exhibit. It's a great idea especially for when kids find a particular exhibit really fun, parents can then bring home some of that fun in books dealing with similar topics. I wonder if these lists are provided at the exits of these exhibits for parents to take with them. Some of the books listed are for a slightly older age group than what I would have guessed based on the pictures, so far I've seen a book recommended for up to age 8, but there is nothing wrong with that in the slightest. It is just another way to expand one's imagination and knowledge. It also gets older children (maybe older siblings) involved with what the younger kids had fun with at the museum.

I am impressed by just about everything that I see on the website, and am further impressed by the food offerings in the Please Taste Cafe. Everything listed seems healthier than one would find in any other cafeteria like atmosphere for both kids and adults, and all of the prepared foods are nut free. It is also fully wheelchair accessible. Now a days, I think that these things are so important.

If you are in the Philadelphia area, I certainly recommend checking it out if you like what you see on their website.

They also have a blog, detailing the history of some of the more popular children's toys, which can be seen at http://www.toysandplay.blogspot.com/. The most recent post chronicles the history of the Easy Bake Oven.