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Why Don’t Minnesotans Have a Word For This Thing That Gives Us So Much Joy?

March 6, 2021 by Museum Fatigue

Every year as late winter begins the transition to early spring, Minnesotans enjoy a morning landscape punctuated by a unique ice formation. The ice I’m referring to exists as a function of the melting winter snow, when daytime temperatures rise well above freezing creating puddles on the sidewalks, and the partial refreeze as evening temperatures dip for a good portion of the evening. The result are early morning encounters with cold wet puddles capped by thin sheets of ice. When […]

Categories: Everyday Things, Video clips • Tags: chice, Minnesota, winter

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Selling Lucky Telephone Numbers in Shanghai

July 10, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

  “13661588868” “I want to bring forth wealth, wealth! I want fortune, fortune, fortuuunnneeee to arise! Let fortune flow!” While going through images on my office computer, I found some photos I shot in Shanghai quite a few years ago that I should post here to share. Following up on previous posts about lucky red sashes on cars in Shenyang and avoiding unlucky floor numbers in a hotel in Chengdu I thought I should post some of the images of this young […]

Categories: China, Everyday Things, Mythologies • Tags: 1, 6, 8, fortune, good luck, lucky numbers, superstition, telephone numbers, wealth, 八, 六, 一

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Adjusting Floor Numbers to Avoid Bad Luck in a Chengdu Hotel

June 19, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

When I teach Introduction to Anthropology I often like to use simple examples to relativise taken-for-granted categories. “Common-sense” examples usually communicate these the best—so I might talk, for example, about what categories of animal constitute food or how daily life is inflected by tiny habits, rumors or superstitions. I often mention, for example, lucky numbers in China—most often used for phone numbers or car license plates that have variations of one, six and eight in them. I usually also mention […]

Categories: China, Everyday Things, Mythologies • Tags: 4, bad luck, Chengdu, Chengdu Qixin Da Jiudian, elevator floors, hotel elevator, superstition, unlucky numbers, 四, 死

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Memories: 128 Megabytes, $125 Dollars, Circa 2002

February 16, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

There is something melancholy about old technology. A few days ago, while cleaning my office, I came across a small, black, USB-powered, flash drive. It wasn’t just any drive, but the first drive—the first flash drive that I ever purchased. It brought back memories of my first teaching experiences, and its memory size amazed me. Back in the fall of 2002, I used a bit of one of my first real paychecks to buy the drive at CompUSA. It was […]

Categories: Everyday Things, Technology • Tags: Flash Drive, melancholy, Smart Drive, USB Drive, www.universalsmartdrive.com

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Ghosts in the City

January 16, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

This month I am finally whittling away at a few of the books in my pile. Among these is the second volume of The Practice of Everyday Life—Living and Cooking. I have been meaning to read it since visiting de Certeau’s grave back in 2012. And now that I am in the middle of it, I’m embarrassed that I waited so long. I didn’t expect that most of the book consists of two projects by the book’s co-authors, Pierre Mayol and Luce […]

Categories: Consumption, Everyday Things, Mythologies, Photo Essays, Urban • Tags: Ghosts in the City, Michel de Certeau, museums, neighborhood, nostalgia, Pierre Mayol, The Practice of Everyday Life, urban planning

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Mystery Object #13: Everyday Face Mask

October 31, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

The air pollution in Beijing regularly approaches apocalyptic levels many times those considered healthy by the WHO. The other day a cloud of smog so huge that it could be seen from space, blanketed the entire area. With the PM 2.5 count pushing 500, it was shocking to observe sunset conditions in the middle of the afternoon. Even the extraordinary, however, can become normalized and marketized. Case in point, the 7-11 around the corner from my hotel had a whole […]

Categories: End of Times, Environment, Everyday Things, Mystery Objects • Tags: 7-11, Beijing, face mask, pollution, smog

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Good Luck With Your New Car in Shenyang

June 19, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

During a few days in Shenyang I noticed a number of cars that had little pieces of red cloth tied on their tires. Actually, once I noticed the pieces of cloth I started seeing them everywhere. A local acquaintance explained to me that it was a local custom to tie a piece of red cloth in this way on the tires of new cars—to bring the driver of the car good luck. Often the cloth was then left on the […]

Categories: China, Everyday Things, Material Culture • Tags: automobile, local custom, red cloth, Shenyang, tires, 沈阳

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An Apple is an Apple, Except When It’s a Sign of Satan

November 12, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

As an anthropology professor who regularly teaches classes dealing with material culture and issues of representation, every semester we discuss the ways that humans ascribe meanings to objects—reading them in the terms of the preexisting cultural categories they bring with them. In the context of museums Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (2000) describes these groups as “interpretive communities.” I like this phrase because it foregrounds the fact that interpretation is never entirely individual—but is informed by sociocultural context. It also emphasizes that there is never […]

Categories: Discipline, Everyday Things, iPad, Mythologies • Tags: Apple Computer, Fundamentalism, Religion, satan, technology

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油条: The Simplicity of Oil and Dough

October 26, 2012 by Museum Fatigue

I have always been impressed with the charm of the Chinese youtiao (油条). I find poetry in the simplicity of taking a strip of dough, plopping it in a wok of hot oil and frying it to a golden brown. No spices, no salt, no sugar. No fuss. Just hot oil and dough doing their thing. Youtiao are quick, easy and utilitarian. They are made of the most basic ingredients, can be effortlessly produced by the dozens, and quickly snatched up […]

Categories: China, Everyday Things, Food, Video clips • Tags: food, translation, youtiao

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