I am really enjoying my new job. It does strike me though, how odd some of the things are that I work with. In grad school we learned about the best of the best—so one might imagine that getting a real job would mean being buried in Chanel and 16th century embroidery. But working in a regional history museum the story is a little different. For someone who doesn’t care about the history of Seattle, a lot of the stuff we have is just weird old junk—not monetarily valuable in the way an art museum’s collection usually is. Here are some of the Seattle treasures I’ve been working with recently.
-Socks made out of burlap
-Puppets from a local children’s TV show
-Giant shoes used by someone in from the Seattle Sonics
-A 1991 CD single of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
-The first down jacket made by Eddie Bauer
-Cardboard signs from the 1999 WTO protest
-A pair of 1890s button boots made by Nordstrom
-Hiking pants from REI
-A plaid Eddie Bauer shirt with sleeves cut off, worn by a gay activist in the 1970s
-A turquoise sequin gown (with matching sequin shoes) worn by Miss Seafair 1997
-A briefcase phone from the 1980s (which weighs about 25 pounds)
-And my favorite “only in Seattle” artifact: A toy hydroplane decorated with Mariner Ichiro Suzuki’s number and name, as well as a logo for sponsor Oh Boy! Oberto, local makers of beef jerky. Where else in this country would those things together even begin to make sense?
Oh wait, I found an ad for it:
Keep it weird Seattle. Keep it weird.
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