Exhibitionism

Enhance museum-going with books and records

by Sally Cragin

In the fall, days get shorter while attention spans lengthen. Part of this phenomenon is due to the back-to-school mentality that settles over the region. Even if you're not in class -- and consider formal schooling as appealing as dental hygiene -- don't ignore the yearning for intellectual fulfillment that erupts in the autumn months.

When was learning fun? When you went at your own pace and pursued a subject in which you were interested. There are plenty of opportunities for off-campus study here in New England. Regional museums and galleries offer a variety of exhibitions to feed the mind and the soul, and you can enhance your museum-going experience before and after the trip with the following suggestions of reading and listening material.

National Plastics Center and Museum, 210 Lancaster Street, Leominster, (978) 537-9529. Dozens of plastics companies have made their home in Leominster, so this really is a "hometown" museum. Gorgeous picture books celebrate the versatile polymer that transformed life in the 20th century. But for sheer drama, dip into Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century (HarperBusiness). Author Stephen Fenichell begins his saga with information about various "proto-plastics," including rubber and celluloid, but the drama of the story comes with the great petroleum-based eternal substances of vinyl, nylon, and polyethylene. Plastic also commemorates the rowdy gadgeteers who developed the substances. Fenichell ponders the implications of a substance that can be molded into anything. A visit to the NPC after a dip into this book will augment your appreciation of this uniquely American story. As for soundtrack music -- anything by the Belgian punk band Plastic Bertrand or Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable (better-known as the Velvet Underground), who you'll find on, of course, a variety of plastic.

Higgins Armory Museum, 100 Barber Avenue, Worcester, 853-6015. Plague, short-life expectancy, getting your protein from the bugs in the bread dough, and church rule -- what could be more glamorous than the Middle Ages? Then think about illuminated manuscripts, King Arthur's Court, chivalric code, and jousting knights clanking picturesquely on mighty steeds. There are countless works to increase your enjoyment to the unique Higgins Armory, which contains dozens of suits of armor dating from the glittery pre-Renaissance -- the real "heavy metal" era. As for supplemental reading, we've all read (or heard of) Beowulf and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but consider browsing devotional epics like Revelations of Divine Love, by Dame Julian of Norwich (circa late 14th century), or Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis. And, if you want a smorgasbörd of tidbits, sumptuously illustrated about every aspect of this era, read Medieval Britain: The Age of Chivalry, by Lloyd and Jennifer Laing. Farming, costumes, medicine, rules of inheritance, this catalogue provides a fascinating overview of every aspect of medieval life. Your soundtrack might include Gregorian chant and music by newly rediscovered composer/writer Hildegard of Bingen, an abbess who lived 900 years ago and wrote some brilliant and enjoyable music.

Peabody Museum at Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, (617) 495-2248. This museum offers fossils and glass flowers, minerals, and a genuine preserved coelacanth in a charming, traditional setting. No bells, no whistles, just incredible specimens under glass. A recent fiction work by author Albert Alcorn is in a grand tradition: a groves-of-academe mystery in which amusing characters rate as highly as plot. Murder in the Museum of Man (Zoland Books) is set at Wainscott College, where the ethnography museum is under threat from university restructuring. A ghastly murder occurs, stirring up ill will among the dotty professors and administrators. And peculiar experiments are happening at the Primate Pavilion. Can there be cannibals on campus? Longtime museum administrator Norman de Ratour is a droll and fussy narrator, and there are plenty of amusing interjections: "I had been describing my visit to the Primate Pavilion over a postprandial concoction that Kevin, the Club's excellent barkeep, has been trying out. (Gorillas in the Mist I think he called it -- a mixture involving coffee liqueur rising from the chartreuse depths of a chilled glass. Sounds like a hangover, the good Lotte remarked and kept to her brandy.)"

Fruitlands, 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, (978) 456-3924. This Harvard institution is actually a quartet of museums that celebrates a variety of 19th-century experiences. The Fruitlands Farmhouse is both a museum of the Transcendentalist movement, and the home base of Bronson Alcott's short-lived Utopian community. Shaker artifacts and architecture is seen in another site, and Native Americans and Hudson River school of painters are also on the property. With nature trails surrounding the property, a visit to Fruitlands can be a full day of enjoyment and history. There's no shortage of material from the period and intervening 150 years to learn about this extraordinary place. Work by Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott, and various Fruitlanders will augment a visit. Louisa May Alcott's spoof novella, Transcendental Wild Oats, is a humorous reminiscence about living off the land without benefit of animal labor or warm clothes. A soundtrack would, of course, include the classic Shaker hymn, "`Tis a Gift to be Simple."

New England Quilt Museum, 18 Shattuck Street, Lowell, (978) 452-4207. Of course, you can read books about quilting, textiles, and homecrafts, but consider other literary efforts that are assembled in a similar piecework manner. Many books are like quilts -- mystery novels start with random events and eventually make a pattern, think of the "non-fiction novel," like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which stitched together blocks of information that seemed random before the pattern is revealed. But if you're a handwork person, a visit to the museum will inspire you to open your sewing basket. The most inspirational reading for crafters is an imaginatively luxe magazine called Handcraft Illustrated, filled with incredibly elegant sewing and crafting projects. The Christmas issue offers, among other tips, instructions for making beeswax candles that look quilted. Best of all, the four-color pictures are high quality. (Send $5 for sample issue to Boston Common Press, 17 Station Street, Brookline 02146).

American Sanitary Plumbing Museum, 39 Piedmont Street, Worcester, 754-9453. Admission is free for this extraordinary collection of plumbing artifacts that include tubs, toilets, pipes, and tubes. Think of the exhibits as practical sculpture (remember Marcel Duchamps's famous urinal) and see how long you can enjoy the display without requiring use of a functioning restroom. As for literature -- anything connected with Watergate (remember G. Gordon Liddy's band of "plumbers"?), hydrology, or the historic city of Bath (Jane Austen, anyone?) will offer some perspective. A soundtrack might include Handel's "Water Music" or the skirling bagpipes of Scotland.

Sally Cragin collects museums.

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