Have You “Bean” To A Museum Lately?

I don’t know why I voluntarily threw myself down this rabbit hole again, but in a moment of weakness I tweeted “I don’t know what to blog about tonight.” (The last time I did that, I ended up blogging about my sock drawer (which, by the way, is still perfectly organized almost five years after that post!)). Faster than you can say “Look, Teddy!” my friend Sean Parker had tweeted “Mr. Bean.” I responded back that literally all I knew about Mr. Bean was that he had just posted this picture of him on Facebook.

As to how I ended up blogging about Mr. Bean, let’s just say I’m not one to back down from a challenge!

To be totally honest, I still don’t have a great grip on Mr. Bean. I’ve learned it’s a British television sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson, that the first episode aired June 1, 1989, that he’s “hilarious,” and that the theme song is Ecce homo qui est faba. <== all of these facts gathered via basic searching on the interwebz. I trust you can find out more accurate and minute details at the Mr. Bean Website.  

Okay, time for the tie-in and transition to something I have a clue about! Today is International Museum Day.  Sponsored by the International Council of Museums, this year’s theme is “Museum Collections Make Connections.” Apparently Mr. Bean recently went to a museum, where he may or may not have created a bit of havoc:

The caption was “Mr. Bean can’t be trusted in the National Gallery. He rearranges paintings and even tries to take a ‘selfie’ in front of one!”

A few of my favorite museums include:

Anything Smithsonian. I enjoyed visiting the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, in March of this year:

Anything Metropolitan Museum of Art, but I’m especially a fan of The Cloisters.  I love the medieval tapestries, such as The Unicorn in Captivity:

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

The most difficult, yet among the most necessary: the Holocaust Museums in St. Petersburg, FL (the Florida Holocaust Museum) and Washington, DC (the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).

And, closer to home (home being Tallahassee), our awesome local museums here, including:

LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts (yes it’s technically a gallery and not a museum but it’s my blog and heck I think Mr. Bean would like it!):

Smokey Hollow (yes, it’s DONE (or maybe I’m the only one who has been driving around wondering when the building will be complete)). The story is here.

And there are many more options in Tallahassee, in our state, in our nation, in our world. I agree with the International Council of Museums: Collections Make Connections.

(and p.s. all of the exhibits in the museums I’ve mentioned above are legit. Don’t know if I could say the same for anything Mr. Bean had a hand in ……….)

And this? Probably not likely to show up in any museum on this side of the pond:

Credit: Wappsuwapp

Paula Kiger

Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.