The Miracle of America

Darcy and I met up with my parents in Polson to check out the Cherry Festival (which was pretty non-eventful, except that we found a couple of great used books) and tour the Miracle of America museum. Outside was a what appeared to be a tribute to Joey Lawrence.

The main building was a hodgepodge of lots of junk, going in a very loose chronological order starting with the Revolutionary war. After that it sort of broke down to being a WWII museum with little pieces of freak show-like exhibits.

I was glad to see they had a fool-proof security system in place. Although I'm not sure that asking a question about an exhibit is an "integral" part of security. Maybe you use it to alert the old lady at the front who takes your money that the two-headed calf has come to life and is wreaking havoc on tourists.

The overall theme of the tour was patriotism. I don't remember exactly how one sign put it, but it declared that after a war with the United States, those nations that accepted our way of life and followed the principles of democracy "usually prosper." Hmmmm. Maybe...

Outside was hodgepodge of vehicles and buildings that would be an amazing set for a horror movie. Think the creepy town in "The Hills Have Eyes" meets a haunted carnival from Scooby-Doo. They even had old, creepy sounding music blaring and armored personnel transports from the army driving around.

Now I'm back home listening to the last strains of Arcade Fire's "Neon Bible." Which is good, but doesn't compare to "Funeral," which I listened to yesterday. Sandwiched between the two albums were a couple of Arcade Fire covers I'd completely forgotten about - "Naive Melody" by the Talking Heads and "Born on a Train" by the Magnetic Fields. Both great songs, and I think Arcade Fire do them both justice. You can find them both here.

Before that I tackled my Aphex Twin collection and the self-titled Apollo Sunshine disc. Apollo Sunshine are a decent band, but not very noteworthy. Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) however is one of my favorite electronic producers. I won't go too far into what he does, but I've always found him to be cutting edge, original and a little bit creepy. When the "Come to Daddy" video came out, it flat out terrified me.



...and now, on to some Architecture in Helsinki.