Offbeat Museums

The Collections and Curators of America's Most Unusual Museums

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by Saul Rubin

Independent Pub. Group

Due/Published September 1997, 237 pages, paper

ISBN 0963994646

Offbeat Museums contains profiles of the curators and collections of America's most unusual museums. From the Banana Museum in California to the Tragedy in U.S. history Museum in Florida, Saul Rubin takes you on a guided tour of the United States strangest institutions, and introduces you to the offbeat people who run them.

Include among the places you will visit are:

• Cockroach Hall of Fame
• The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices
• Mister ED's Elephant Technology
• The Mutter Museum
• Houdini Historical Center
• UFO Enigma Museum
• The Museum of Menstruation
• Nut Museum
• 50 museums in all!

In the age of cable television and the World Wide Web, it's easy to smugly believe that we've seen it all. Such institutions as The Museums of Death, the Museum of Bathroom Tissue, and the Glore Psychiatric Museum suggest otherwise. By stepping outside the mainstream, these offbeat museums meet and even surpass the promise of more traditional museums: To amaze, inspire and enlighten the public.

About the Author:

Saul Rubin worked as a staff feature writer for Copley Los Angeles Newspapers, based in Santa Monica, from 1990 until 1997. Previously, he worked as a news reporter for the Santa Monica Outlook, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the Berkeley Gazette. In addition, he has written feature articles for magazines such as Buzz , Muscle and Fitness and the Berkeley Journal. He is currently a staff member of "Goin' Deep," a new sports magazine show on Fox Sports West. He received both a Master's degree in Journalism and a B.A. degree in English from the University of California at Berkeley. Born in Boston on June 15, 1957, Rubin grew up in nearby Brookline, MA. He moved to California in 1978 and has lived there ever since. When on the road, he prefers his attractions on the offbeat side.