This was inspired by the hazmat suit thread…anyway, what’s the weirdest collection you’ve ever heard of?
A few years ago, i saw a guy in Western MA-who collected fire hydrants! talk about a strange hobby.
Have you ever seen a collection of something strange like this ? What drives collectors to accumulate this crap?
Errrm, well, I collect seeds and pods. I love them. Each kind is distinct and beautiful; many are amazing or freaky. For instance, fillaree seeds spring off of their pod with a little spiral-shaped thingie attached that screws the seed into the ground if it lands on soft soil. How cool is that?
But I suspect that’s not what you mean.
There is someone here whom I admire a great deal, whom I believe collects single (orphaned) mittens and gloves.
I think this is more suited for IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
A friend of mine in college collected broken umbrellas that he found after storms, which he hung from a beam in his dorm room. They looked like a colony of huge bats.
He collected them because (not to put too fine a point on it) he was nuts.
In no particular order:
Barb Wire
Picnic Baskets
Light Bulbs
Air Sickness Bags
Several years ago I had the idea that someone should collect all the old video game systems and video games and disply them in a museum. Believe it or not they actually opened just such a museum.
Would a musical collection count? I collect any version of the song “Bei mir bist du schoen” I come across. Doesn’t matter how many versions I have. I’ll still add more.
Why? I like the tune. Sometimes I listen to 4-5 tracks of it in a row.
I collect foreign language versions of musicals. I barely speak English, let alone another language.
Well, the question to me becomes what collections can you name that aren’t going to be viewed by at least some people as crap?
(shrug) My grandmother had a collection of elephants, and we ended up, during her last years, looking for clever, or interesting, or even deliberately kitschy elephants to give her. It wasn’t art, not really, it wasn’t history, or even a view of something useful. It was just something silly she enjoyed.
That’s quite a valid reason, IMNSHO.
Now, if you wanted to talk about forcing every guest, or passing stranger, to view the collection - that’s a criticism I can get behind.
She also had a collection of “erotic sculpture.” At least that’s what the estate sales types called it. We called it just plain weird. I’m not talking what I’d consider the typical African wooden sculptures involving naked women, or even entwined couples. Those we liked, and got divided up among the family. I’m talking the figurines in ebony, with barrels hiding the spring loaded penis, or tits.
People collect to be able to say They have something that few or no other’s have. They collect because the item fascinates them. Some people have collections, because people think they like something, and everybody buys them that item. I worked with a Panda, and guess what people gave her all the time. She hated panda items.
I used to collect orange plastic dinosaurs. Started out withe one, added another 'cause they looked nice, and pretty soon I had a collection. I got rid of most of them when they overflowed onto another shelf 'cause I decided collecting for the sake of collecting is kinda silly.
The quintessential answer.
Wow, cool. I never thought about that notion before, that just as books are translated and movies dubbed, musicals must be…uh…performed in other languages. I wonder what “The Pajama Game” (my favorite!) would sound like in Farsi?
brujaja, while I’m sure that many musicals performed in foreign lands are performed translated, not all of them are. I’m not even sure it’s a safe bet to say that most of them are. Have you seen the international cast version of Les Meserables? The actors were singing in English, no matter which nation they were from.
BZZZTTT! Wrong answer.
Most musicals that are performed in a foreign land are translated into the native language. The symphonic Les Miz was recorded in English. A better recording is the 10th anniversary which, while in English, does feature a rendition of “Do You Hear The People Sing” sung by many different Valjeans in their native languages. Les Miz was original recorded in French, later translated into English, and then translated into damn near every language on the planet, including a second French version.
Translating a musical into another language is really hard. The translation has to convey the story, rhyme, and also have the same rhythm as the original language to fit the musical structure. The people who can do it earn very big bucks.
Any interested in ordering a foreign language verson of a musical can go to Footlight Records and browse to their heart’s content.
A woman I used to work with collected obituaries of people whose names were related to their occupations. Like a man with the surname Rose who was a gardener. She clipped them from actual newspapers (she had been doing this for years) and thought that using the internet would be cheating. These were not obituaries for people she knew, just any random people.
I cannot possibly begin to answer the question Why? anyone would collect this, but I will say that* for a second*, when I first heard about it, I thought “Huh. Maybe I should collect those too.”
Logic is not my friend. :smack:
I was thinking of how difficult it would be to translate the story, while keeping the music the same, and still telling the same story. And that most Opera (not the same thing, I know, but a related art form) doesn’t get translated. And I’d always assumed that was, in part, because of the difficulties of translation you’ve listed. (Not to deny the potential snob factor - “if you haven’t heard Figaro in the native Italian, you haven’t heard it!” just mentioning one more factor.)
I used to collect sugar packet wrappers. I have about 1700 of them in a scrapbook. Really.
I don’t know why I still have them. Shall I chuck 'em out?
On another note: my friend’s mom used to collect the corks from wine bottles, claiming they would be worth a lot of money someday because cork is being phased out. I doubt this.
I collect water! I’ve been to about 60 countries around the world and everywhere I go I get a little bottle of water (and some of the dirt, if I can) of the local river, lake, or ocean. They are all neatly labeled and lined up on one of the shelves in my library. Some of them go back more than 40 years. So if you ever want to find out, say, what microorganisms lived in the waters off the Straits of Gibralter in 1967, I’m the man to see.
My sister collects ducks, ducks drawn onto things. Mostly one form or another of pottery or ceramics.
Are you familiar with this group? I use to live in Long Beach, NY, and they have an annual performance of the Yiddish Mikado.
My dad had a crazy uncle who collected refrigerators (in his bedroom!!).
I’m not much of a collector. I collected sand for a while. And teeth.
I collect a few things, only 2 of which have repeatedly been called “weird” by others.* The first is my collection of Crayola crayons and products. Mostly it’s crayons, but some markers and stuff have found their way in there over the years. I started collecting them because I’ve always enjoyed coloring – even after I moved out on my own I’d sit on the floor in front of my coffee table and color – and I wanted to have all of the colors available to me. So I don’t collect boxes/colors that I already have, only new stuff (new to me, anyway). And only Crayola: I’ve developed a kind of crayon snobbery over the years. grin Unfortunately I hardly ever sit and color anymore, because I got rid of my old coffee table, started grad school, and got TiVo (all things that affected how I spend time in my living room), but I’m hoping that when grad school is done and I move into my boyfriend’s place I’ll start coloring again on his coffee table. Anyway, all of my coloring books and crayons are in a small plastic container, and they will definitely not be getting tossed any time soon. I even have a Crayola crayon maker these days, thanks to my brother.
The collection that gets the blankest looks, though, is the hotel “do not disturb” signs. I’ve been collecting those for about 10 years. I only have them from hotels I’ve stayed in, and only if the hotel’s name or logo is on the sign. Right now they’re all in a photo album, but I’m at the point where I’m deciding whether to scan them all or just throw them out. I think I started collecting them as simple mementos, kind of like a postcard from the hotel: I believe the first one I took was from the Imperial Palace in Biloxi, where I stayed during my first business trip. The most recent one I have is from an October trip to Las Vegas, where my boyfriend and I stayed in Treasure Island. Despite having recently gotten that one, I think I’m leaning toward pitching this collection.
*The “non-weird” things include crystals and ticket stubs (theatre, concerts, etc.; I stopped collecting movie ticket stubs a while ago, and now just keep a list of the movies I’ve been to). The ticket stub collection is in the process of being scanned and digitized.