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Re: Oh No! It's Friday Funnies Time!



In light of Mr. King's posting, now is a good time to relate about the items I observed in the Musee de Aromes et du Parfum, Graveson-en-Provence, France. I visited this perfume museum in late Sep., agonizing over whether to go to France after 9/11.   However, I went and saw many wonderful things. This museum is a trove of paper perfume bottle labels, packaging (glass...the Lalique is incredible in some of the earlier luxury perfume products), adverts, etc.  Much to my dismay, many labels (very colorful, artsy) and posters/adverts are simply framed and hung on the walls, in rooms with apparently little/no environmental control. I noted foxing or some other nasty detriment on many of the labels which are deserving of preservation. The museum is in a barn formerly used to extract oils from the lavendar and other plants characteristic of this part of France. Outside, one finds numerous (mostly copper) extraction presses and other equipment used in the past. Other equipment, perhaps more prone to damage by the elements, is inside. Also in need of preservation are the wonderful books on perfume manufacture, many of them British. As a librarian, I mourn their sad state in a wooden bookcase. I am unsure of their date, but they are old.  The sales area which is also part of this large barn, seemed to have HVAC or some environmental control, although I am not sure. That part of Provence does get quite cold in the winter. Anyway, the museum does a swell job of explaining, in numerous languages, what this distillation device does, and what that press does. Also the amazing tonnage of petals squished and processed to yield a tiny bit of essence is mind-boggling.   The museum is between Avignon and Arles, and the sales area is really into aromatherapy.  http://www.viearome.com does not get into the museum at all, I am sorry to say.
 
I also visited the Breton Museum in Quimper, and it is monitored extensively environmentally. The Breton costume display is remarkable and worth the drive over just to see that. Quimper ware obviously gets big play, but it paled in comparison to the colorful, tailored, resplendent costume of that region. That museum is a tasteful blend of more contemporary display as well as traditional.
 

Sharon Lee Butcher
Reference Librarian
AEDC Technical Library
100 Kindel Drive, Ste C212
Arnold AFB, TN  37389-3212
931-454-4430
Fax:  931-454-5421
sharon.butcher@arnold.af.mil

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard G. King Jr. [mailto:kingr@U.ARIZONA.EDU]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 10:32 PM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: Oh No! It's Friday Funnies Time!

All right folks.  Time to put out the horse and roll the kids up in a small ball and get ready for Friday Funnies!  So off to the kitchen and get yourself a big plate of groat clusters, slather them up with a big glob of clarified yak butter and come on in and sit down and get ready for another gut-wrenching episode of Friday Funnies.  This week's episode finds kindly, pear-shaped, avuncular Archivist Uncle Dick sitting around a cheery campfire of freshly subpoenaed financial records reminiscing with his highly dysfunctional staff about the old days.  As we tune in we hear him say "And in those days it came to pass...A records manager was in Japan to make a presentation to the Toyota motor people.  Needless to say this was an especially important deal, and it was imperative that he make the best possible presentation.  [If he lost the deal he might have to take a job with some company called ENRON.]  On the morning of the presentation he awoke to find himself passing gas, in large volumes, with the unpleasant characteristic of sounding like "Honda."  The man was beside himself.  Every few minutes "Honda," "Honda"....  Unable to stop this aberrant behavior, and in desperate need to terminate these odious and embarrassing emissions, he sought a physician's aid.
After a full examination the, the doctor told him that there was nothing inherently wrong with him and that he would just have to wait it out.  Being unwilling to accept this state of affairs he visited a second and then a third doctor, all of whom told him the same thing.  Finally, one medic suggested that he visit a dentist.  Well, although he could not see how a dentist was going to be of any help, he visited one anyway.  Lo and behold, the dentist said, "Ah, there's the problem."
"What is it?" the man asked.
"Why you have an abscess," said the dentist.
"An abscess.  How could an abscess be causing my problem?" asked the man.
"That's easy," replied the dentist.  "Why everyone knows....abscess makes the fart go Honda."

Well, let us bid Uncle Dick a fond good by until next week.  [Remember when you need Yak butter, you need Ali's.  Ali's clarified Yak butter in the forty gallon drums...available at your nearest caravan stop.]
Dick King, University of Arizona, Camel Management and Archives