Trenton, NJ – It was off to Jersey this weekend to see the giant tooth! I love giant things, but this giant tooth isn’t your average everyday oversized item. It’s part of Grounds for Sculpture, New Jersey’s largest sculpture park. Although I skipped the park, I couldn’t miss the tooth. Titled Comprehension by J. Seward Johnson, it can be seen right as you get off (or on, depending on which way you’re coming from) I-295.
When I came off the highway and saw it I thought that it must be popular, seeing as there were 2 people standing right in front of it. It took me a while to notice that they weren’t people. They were part of the sculpture, and they’re great for determining the scale of the thing. They are a man an a woman looking at the large tooth-like structure with bewildered faces. From one side it’s very obviously a tooth, but from the back it’s a bit of a mutated tooth. A woman who stopped to take pictures with her husband and grandson told me she thought it looked like and elephant. She also mentioned that when they look at the thing both her and her husband feel like they’re making the same faces.
I have to admit the former snotty art student in me loved this sculpture. Not only because it’s a big thing (In fact for years if it wasn’t an Oldenburg I didn’t consider it art, I couldn’t have been more wrong! Now I wonder if Oldenburg is to arty to be an odd find), but because part of the point of art is to push boundaries and making people think. If that means pulling over to the side of the road to take a picture with a Giant Tooth than it’s done it’s job. It doesn’t need to be dipped in formaldehyde to art, it just needs to make people stop and take it in. Weather they like it or not.
Philadelphia, PA – I didn’t have to travel far for this weeks road trip. In fact, I didn’t even need to start my car up (which happens to be further from where I live than this week’s destination). Just a few blocks from my house is the Mummers Museum (not to be confused with the Mütter Museum) and for some time now I’ve been saying I should drop down for a visit.
You may ask what a Mummer is. I’ve been asking this same question for years. Before going to the museum I could only tell you 2 things for certain about Mummers, and they were:
- Covered in feathers and sequins Mummers come out every New Years Day to parade down Philadelphia’s Broad Street.
- Don’t talk smack on Mummers to a native Philadelphian because you might as well be insulting their mother, or the Eagles. Philadelphian’s love the Mummers, even if the only thing they know about them is that they parade down Broad Street on New Years Day.
Now that I’ve been to the museum I can tell you a whole lot more!
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Uniontown, PA – I’m really beginning to dig the muffler men. They’re an easy attraction to spot, which is just fantastic. All you have to do is turn a bend that there they are, larger than life and with a steely grin. This time the muffler man I sought stood guard at a tire store. Seems kinka apropos…too bad they weren’t a muffler shop.
The Paul Bunyan style giant hangs out in front of Import Export Tire and is dressed in a burly red and blue. It doesn’t appear to phase the tire guys that there’s somebody outside snapping pictures, they just continue on with their work. I don’t think they’re rude, just used to it. I imagine they get that everyday.
The best part of the tire shop is the sign above the office door:
The Men Who Know Tires Best
I’m fairly certain that the muffler man knows tires best of all.
