Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Mustache Tourism

What? You've never heard of it? People travel all over the globe for their lip doilies. Here's where:

1. Portland, Oregon: It hosts the World Beard and Mustache Championships on Oct. 25. Contestants twist, curl and wax their facial hair into spectacular formations (some with flowers, like this).

2. Budapest, Hungary: The nation has such renowned 'staches it gets its own bushy category at the World Championships. Travel to Budapest, home of the Hungarian Moustache Society, and you'll see the lady ticklers firsthand.

3. London, England: Have a "hirsute appendage of the upper lip, with graspable extremities"? That's the qualification for membership in the Handlebar Club. Join the gents achieving mustache excellence at monthly meetings in a Marylebone pub.

4. Trondheim, Norway: Epic mustache history here. It's Norway's Viking capital - the very dudes who originated badass whiskers. It's headquarters of the Norwegian Mustache Club. And Trondheim has twice held the World Championships.

5. Liverpool, England: A mustache museum! OK, officially it's Merseyside Maritime Museum with a "Mustaches from the Past" exhibit. Most go walrus style. 

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Amsterdam's 7 Oddest Museums

Everyone goes to gape at Van Gogh and ogle Rembrandt. But where are the neck violins and fluorescent rabbits? The bong displays and erotic music boxes? Amsterdam has a sublime assortment of oddball museums. 

1. Kattenkabinet: Art devoted to cats – including works by Picasso and Rembrandt – hangs in this creaky old canal house.

2. Tassenmuseum Hendrikje: The Museum of Handbags and Purses shows arm candy throughout the ages, with lots of sparkling celebrity clutches.

3. Torture Museum: Spooky galleries display skull crackers, finger screws, a guillotine and the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg.

4. Sexmuseum Amsterdam: Good silly fun, especially the penis-encircled baptismal font and automated farting flasher.

5. Electric Lady Land: The world’s first museum of fluorescence lays out glow-in-the-dark rocks, rice and rabbits. Trippy!

6. Pianola Museum: Listen to rare jazz and classical tunes unroll on vintage player pianos.

7. Hash, Marijuana and Hemp Museum: Ganja galore in the Red Light District. Browse the whopping pipe collection and roomful of big-budded plants, then send an e-postcard of yourself in a pot field.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Top 5 Museums a Zombie Would Love

The Walking Dead had record-breaking ratings for its premiere on Sunday. Zombies are hot. Zombies are everywhere. But when they're done face-eating, what do zombies do for entertainment?

Here are the top 5 museums a zombie would love:

1. Indiana Medical History Museum: The room inside an old insane asylum filled with brains in jars is like a cannibal candy shop.

2. Philadelphia's Mutter Museum: Einstein's braaaain is here, in 20-micron-thick slices.

3. Cornell's Wilder Brain Collection: The smorgasbord of juicy lobes includes doctors, suffragists and serial killers.

4. National Zoo: Zombie pets will lip-smack at the pickled brains, from pygmy hippos to blue whales, white-tailed deer to red foxes.

5. Living Dead Museum: This one's for reanimated corpses with a sense of humor. It's set in the house where Night of the Living Dead was filmed and is stuffed with rotting legs, eyeball-less faces and other movie props. 

Photo from jaded-ink