Ologies with Alie Ward - Museology (MUSEUMS) Encore in Memory of Ronnie Cline

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

A very special encore in memory of our favorite Museologist, Ronnie Cline. In this 2018 episode, we talked about the life and work of a great dude and a good pal who passed away this morning. On the agenda of his legendary episode: Museums! Mummies! Paintings! Hot dogs! Alie sits down with her dear internet friend and museologist Ronnie Cline, who manages 30,000 artifacts over 22 California State Park Museums. Get the hot gossip about behind-the-scenes museum life, vintage ghosts, following your dreams, changing the tone of history and the time Alie ruined a 16th Century Dutch portrait. Also: why Jack London is your new dead celebrity crush.More episode sources & linksSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesOther episodes you may enjoy: FIELD TRIP: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, Metropolitan Tombology (PARIS CATACOMBS), Egyptology (ANCIENT EGYPT), Anthropodermic Biocodicology (HUMAN LEATHER BOOKS), Deltiology (POSTCARDS),  Hematology (BLOOD)Sponsors of OlogiesTranscripts and bleeped episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!Follow @Ologies on Instagram and XFollow @AlieWard on Instagram and XEditing by Steven Ray Morris, Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, and Jacob ChaffeeManaging Director: Susan HaleScheduling Producer: Noel DilworthTranscripts by Aveline Malek Website by Kelly R. DwyerTheme song by Nick Thorburn

Oh hey, 2024 Allie here and I did not expect to run an encore presentation this week and I hate that I am, but I found out this morning that this beloved guest who had become a friend to me over the last many, many years has passed away this morning and I haven't heard all the details, but I'm just so sad and shocked and his family asked that we share some memories of him and this is such a fun time that we had and a really great portrait of who he was. So next week we're going to resume with all new episodes, but this week take a walk with me and enjoy getting to know my friend Ronnie Klein, including a really beautiful voicemail from him at the

end. Hey, hi. Hi, it's your buddy Allie Ward. So let's talk about dusty books and stuffed buffalo and relics that would make Indiana Jones just randy. So museums are those hallowed institutions that we use as marble tiled storage lockers for history. In this week's episode, I sat down with someone who gets to wear the gloves and just ignore the velvet rope things and stick around after the crowds filter out and keep watch for vintage ghosts. Let's talk about museology, which is a word. But first, I'd like to thank you listeners for making this podcast possible.

It wouldn't exist without you. So thank you for the Patreon donations, which allow me to pay an editor. Hi, Stephen. And for buying merch at ologiesmerch.com. There are cool t-shirts and stuff up there. Also, you rating and subscribing and reviewing helps so, so, so much because it keeps ologies up in the charts for other people to discover and say, hey, cool podcast. So consider it like voting. It's free and it helps keep good things happening. Also, I'm a creep and I read every review because I'm thirsty and they make my day. This week, the review I want to read is from someone calling himself Nick the Jagoff. Don't need to know why. Such a nice review essentially said that I'm a wild mix between a spirit animal, soulmate, crazy aunt, a devil on my shoulder, and a teacher. Can't get enough, loves the

podcast, and then gave me two stars out of five. I think that was an accident, Nick the Jaggoth, because your review was so glowing and so nice. But I saw that two out of five stars and was like, just a slip of the finger. But I enjoyed your words and I enjoy all of your reviews. Thank you so much for leaving them. Okay, back to museums. So museum, the word comes in the Greek for the muses. These were goddesses who served to inspire poets. Zeus had nine daughters, all muses of different things like poetry and astronomy and dance and comedy and tragedy. So nowadays our muses would be like the muse of tweets and one for memes and a muse for freestyle rap or photo cropping or winged eyeliner parallel parking needs a muse they're

all arts now this ologist has been an internet friend of mine for a few years I feel like we're homies his Instagram museum Ronnie is filled with all kinds of magical antiquities so I was so excited to meet him in person. He's a museum collections manager. He oversees 22 museums for the California Department of State Parks. 22! That's more museums than I have friends. I drove to an industrial district outside of Sacramento one winter's morning to this

huge pristine warehouse. It was filled to its metal gills with immaculate shelves bearing the kind of treasures you'd find in an antique mall if it were also in heaven and you were dead and everything was perfect. He gave me a tour and then we pulled up seats in a conference room and chatted about everything from recent fires in Sonoma threatening his state park museums and evacuations and his favorite museum pieces ever and what curators really think when you take selfies in their exhibits. Also there's information in here about mummies and shrunken heads, the changing attitude toward his story and hot dogs.

He's great. Please ready your ears and behold the precious wonder of museologist Ronnie Klein. I don't think I've ever been interviewed ever. Really? This doesn't work. You can trash it. I'm okay with it. Ronnie, I'm not going to trash this. Tell me about the first museum that you went to.

Do you remember? I do. It was on a field trip. Okay. It was in Sacramento. It was on a field trip. Okay. It was in Sacramento. It was the California State Railroad Museum. And I do remember kind of just being kind of, I don't know, I feel like we were free and just running around like crazy kids, jumping through things and exploring the museum ourselves.

No guidance whatsoever. Where were the docents during this? Docents. They're all asleep this? I mean sweet docents. They're very sweet but sometimes they're a little older than the children that are running around. Do you like any museum movies? I realized that there are no good museum movies. Really? That I've seen. Okay. I even watched a movie this week in anticipation for this question, thinking it was going to be a good museum movie.

You were doing your homework. I was. It's called Bringing Home Baby, Bringing Back Baby. Okay. And it's with Cary Grant. Oh! Audrey Hepburn. Okay.

Romantic comedy. I'm like, okay, this is up my alley. It's going to be great. And then it was just like, it was very frustrating. It has good reviews. What museum did it take place in? In a natural history museum. So Cary Grant was a zoologist and he was putting, well, he was a zoologist, but he was putting

together a dinosaur. Well. Fake news. Yeah, right. What about Night at the Museum? No. I mean, you know, it's fine. And I was researching. I was like, there has to be a good museum.

So I was asking other museum friends and trying to find, asking other curators, like, what do you know of any museums that feature a curator? There has to be some sort of movie where Tom Hanks is a curator that's sitting with his objects, longing for Meg Ryan, but there was nothing at all. Doesn't Wonder Woman have a day job as a museum curator? I've never seen Wonder Woman. I think she might work in a museum in the daytime, did a little Googling, and yes, Wonder Woman,

AKA Diana Prince, forgot she had another name, is supposed to moonlight, or daylight rather, as an art historian. So her office in the movie, I went and looked, has like ancient swords and a primate skull just hanging out on her desk like a half-eaten bagel. She's got a microscope. It's kind of like my personal Pinterest wonderland. And I remembered it was was cool But I had forgotten that it was supposed to be at this little place called the Louvre She's supposed to work at a Louvre heard of it. Yeah, that part like slipped my dome Oh, and you know who else is um on uh, did you ever see Scandal? No, I'm terrible watching things There's a villain in Scandal who is like a secret operative

But his cover day job is the curator of the Smithsonian and you're like, I'm sorry, if you're the curator of the Smithsonian in DC, like you could never get away with having a second life. So who handles Papa Pope's Outlook inbox and like Wonder Woman's voicemails? Do you know how much work it is to be a curator of antiquities already? You got staff meetings, so much insurance paperwork. Who has time to be a curator of antiquities already? You got staff meetings, so much insurance paperwork. Who has time to be a spy or save the world? I don't know. You're about to find out how much work it is. I gotta calm down. When you go on vacation, do you go to museums? Are you like, enough?

No, I try to go to museums. Yeah. It's funny because I mostly adventure around California. So I do working for California State Parks. So state parks are kind of the best in best of both worlds. You get museum and you get hiking. So state parks kind of like bring it all in. So I kind of stick to those. So tell me the difference between a national park and a state park and just a park park. I'm sorry that I don't know this. No. So a national park is being, their funds are being cut by Trump. Okay, cool. So there are 59 national parks in the United States and they're overseen by the federal

government for better or for worse. But there are also over 10,000 state parks in the US and they're operated by each individual state. Now, don't sleep on state parks, folks. Apparently they're super dope and underrated. So admission is cheaper, they're usually less crowded, they have trails and campsites and museums on them, like the 22 museums that Ronnie oversees. Dude Knows Museums. Do you have a favorite museum ever or is that a dick question to ask? You know it's an interesting question because I do so I got into the museum profession a little bit late in the game I'm 37 now. Oh my god. I know. But I'm one year in too as a museum collections manager. Okay. So on my 30th birthday I went to Jack London

State Historic Park. Quick pause for some much needed context on Jack London. You're going to want to know this. I didn't know this until I just looked it up and now I'm low key obsessed with Jack London too I guess. Like not to step on Ronnie's personal brand but, I love Jack London now. Okay, so Jack London was born in the 1870s, and he was one of the first, like, celebrity writers to really make it big. Like, he predated Hemingway, and he had serialized stories in magazines, and he went on to write a grip of novels like White Fang and Call of the Wild. And his work usually involved nature and adventure.

He was also a war correspondent. He was an advocate for unionization and for animal rights. He had this crazy life that involved his mother surviving a suicide attempt via gunshot while pregnant with him. Then he was raised by Virginia Prentiss, a former slave, and at one point he became an oyster pirate. What? And then went on to go to the Alaskan Gold Rush. He resided in the South Pacific on a boat called the Snark. Dude could live. He could also die early at the age of 40 of kidney disease or

maybe, maybe possibly morphine overdose from managing the pain of it. So he died in his sleeping porch, which I looked this up as a screened off breezy area in his home in Glen Ellyn, California. And on the property, he and his wife's ashes are under a mossy rock you can go look at. Anyway, Ronnie is a fan of Jack London and onward when you hear his name, feel free to take a large swig of whatever beverage is in front of you to honor him or you can do like a small dance with your butt in your chair. I don't care, just celebrate. So before Ronnie started working in museums, he visited this Sonoma Valley Glenn

Ellen property on his 30th birthday just for funsies. Because I really loved Jack London. I wanted to go see that museum. It's a house museum on one end and it's a regular museum on another. So his house museum is my favorite because you get to walk through the halls that he lived in. You get to see the study that he wrote all of his books in and see where you... There's a room where he died in.

No. And so, you know, fast forward seven years later and I'm the collections manager of that museum. Oh, I'm going to cry. It's amazing. It's really cool. So, I look back like on my phone and I look back at all these photos of my 30th birthday of me walking through these halls and never thinking, never imagining that I could be the collection manager of that museum.

So what does it mean to be a museologist and is it a it's a museologist and not a museumologist right? It's interesting in America people say museum studies instead of museology. In Europe museology is more popular but it seems like we're bringing it back up museology back bringing it back to America. It's kind of an old timey term but I mean hell like we're bringing it back up, museology, bringing it back to America. It's kind of an old-timey term. But so. I mean, hell yeah, we're bringing it back.

Yeah. We're bringing it back with this particular episode if I. Well, and I think that, you know, right now it's weird. I think about museums in a different way today than I did maybe two years ago. I think museums, in my mind, have become more important socially than they were two years ago. I think museums, in my mind, have become more important socially than they were two years ago.

And I think it is a museologist's responsibility to take care of collections. But you could be someone that writes exhibit panels, creates exhibits, does the lighting for exhibits. It's very broad. But I think in general it means for me you have the responsibility to invite the public into your space and have it be a space that everyone is welcome. Especially if you're a public museum. That should mean that everyone in the public is welcome no matter who they are. You don't have to be a savant about lanterns to go to a mining museum. Not at all. That's the thing that I think it's a misconception Which I would love to start changing is that anybody should go to every museum to learn something

So you don't have to be an aficionado of the topic just go to museum and you might pick up some inspiration or you might Pick up even one fact is worth it. Nowadays with technology and the internet or whatever, you can just go on Wikipedia and read about anything. So like I think it's a goal and it should be a goal for every museum to supply information and an experience that you can't pick up from Wikipedia. Mm-hmm. How do you feel about people who go through museums and photograph all the artifacts? Do you think it's good that they have a picture of it, or are you like, oh, I wish that people were a little bit more in the moment? Then again, you have pictures from Jack London that you're glad that you have, but how do

you feel about the intersection between people's personal technology and these tactile artifacts that you're in a space with? I love it. And I think that's hopefully that's a lot of the younger museologists feel the same way. I mean, my Instagram, I'm constantly taking pictures of things I'm doing in my museum and sharing them and video and putting them in music. Because I think that you just you want to share the experience with everyone. Especially like if you take a picture at Hearst Castle, for example, nothing beats being there and seeing the image, you know, going to Hearst

Castle, walking through the halls, smelling the smells, you know. So yeah, just sharing the images just hopefully excites people to want to come to the museum. STACEY KAPLAN Tell me a little bit about museology. What's the educational structure like? Like, do you study in a classroom about museums? Do you go to museums and a lecture is like, here's how this has been curated? Well, the museum world is very, I don't know, it seems like it's a very, it's almost sometimes

a secret society. It's hard to get into. So I have a major in history. But while I was going to college, I spent four years working as a student archivist at California State Park's photographic archives. And that's where I was introduced to the California State Park's museum world. So from there he graduated in 2009 but the recession hit and he thought, oh

maybe he was gonna be a teacher? I don't know what I was going to do. Something in history. So I ended up leaving and starting a hot dog cart and owning a... What? Yeah, it's very... So I had it on my bucket list to have a hot dog cart. And... I thought I'd already love you. When the recession hit, I was like, well, I guess now is a better time than any to just have a hot dog cart. So I ended up having a hot dog cart on a corner street of downtown Sacramento for two years.

What was it called? State Bear Sausage and Dogs. Okay. I secretly made my own sausages in my home and sold them there illegally, which was a hit. That's amazing. And I had five out of five stars on Yelp when I left. I looked it up and this hot dog cart was legit. Like he served wild boar sausage and he had

a Mediterranean dog with feta and cucumbers. There's a photo I found of a bee apron Ronnie. He's all smiles with a colorful umbrella in the background on a corner in Sacramento. He's holding up a hot dog like a tiny pork trophy. But so anyway, so I did that for two years and then I realized, do I want to be doing this when I'm 50? And I thought, ah, no, I what do I really want to be doing? And it was working in museums. So what was that epiphany like? Was there a moment where you were like, you were like you were like stuffing a sausage casing with a ski mask on because it's illegal and you were like no I can't do this or were you more inspired by something in a museum? Like what what was that moment where you're like?

so okay, so I strategically placed my hot dog cart on the corner of the headquarters for California State Parks in downtown Sacramento. And so I would always have connections with state parks people that I used to work with or even new people. And so I would always have that connection. How fucking genius is this? And the more and more I saw those people, the more and more I realized that I really belonged working for California State Parks. That's so cool. So you'd like sling sausage and then you're like, these are my people.

Definitely. Yeah, totally. That is amazing. Did you put your hot dog cart there on purpose because you like state parks? There were corners to choose from and I knew that was the corner. I scoped it out. I knew that that was the corner. If I had the opportunity, that's where I would be and that's where I was. It was the wind. It's the windiest corner in Sacramento.

Like it's you would not believe how windy it is and you would not believe how much wind affects a hot dog cart that goes off of propane gas. Really? It's very windy, very upsetting. But it was worth it. Oh, yeah, I loved it. I mean, I would probably never do it again, but it was a bucket list thing and it was amazing. I owned a hot dog cart. Laurenie D'Alessio Dude, did you ever read Confederacy of Dunces? Pete Slauson No. Laurenie D'Alessio It's about hot dog carts.

Pete Slauson Really? Laurenie D'Alessio In New Orleans. It's fascinating and it's infuriating and it gives you so many emotions, but it's definitely about like hashtag hot dog cart life. So side note, this book's backstory is as fascinating as its actual plot. So rejected by publishers, the author of Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, tragically committed suicide at the age of 31. And I'm sorry, that's two mentions in one episode. That's the last one, I promise. So his mother Thelma found this shabby, smeared carbon copy of the manuscript atop a cedar armoire after

his death and she made it her mission to get it published. She sent it around and around and around and she was rejected over and over until she badgered one publisher so much that he relented. He promised to read it. He was like, I'm going to read like two pages of this just so I can reject it. And he did. He was like, I'm gonna read like two pages of the list just so I can reject it. And he did. He was like, oh dang, this is really good. So it was published 11 years after Tull's death. The title of the book is based on a line from a Jonathan Swift essay that reads, quote, when a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the Dunces are all in a confederacy against him.

by this sign that the Dunces are all in a confederacy against him. Confederacy of Dunces went on to win a Pulitzer. So that thing you want to do, just go do it. And if you know it's good, don't give up. Keep doing it. Eye on the prize, like Ronnie and museums. When you decided to go into museology, did you have to go back to school for it? You know, I didn't because while I was a student assistant, I was working with people that became curators for California State Parks.

Since I knew where I wanted to work, what I did was I went back and I volunteered for free and kind of apprenticed under people. I helped clean paintings that were taken out of different historic buildings and to help take mold off of different leather objects, briefcases, and doctor's bags. What do you use to clean paintings? And I have a question and confession for you. This is going to be one of my secrets at the end of the episodes, but I'm just going to ask you right now. Okay, forgive me if you've heard this story, but I was in a museum in Santa Barbara and I had to write a paper.

It was for an art class, art history class, and I was taking notes on a Dutch portrait from the 1600s, beautifully done, and I was up close to it. And at the time I used to wear my watch on my right hand. I now wear it on my left. Even though I'm right-handed, I don't know, I was goth. It was like, I thought maybe it was counterculture to wear it on the wrong hand. It was a mistake. I had a pen in my hand, taking notes,

and an overcoat on, because it was raining, and I stretched my hand up to check, to pull my sleeve back, to check my watch, and I heard this zrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr across the face of a Dutch painting from the 1600s. I panicked. It was the worst moment of my life. The worst. And I was thinking, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Like, I'm screwed. This thing is worth like a million dollars. I'm broke. My parents do not have the money to help with this at all. I was borrowing money to buy books. And this is the most dishonest thing I've ever done.

I just left. I left the museum. I couldn't handle it. I was so afraid. And someone from the same class is like, hey, did you see that pen mark? And I was like, ugh. And Linda, she was the only person

I ever told about it in class until years later. But how screwed was that painting? Why would you tell for one? Like who would you tell? I don't know! I don't know! I would run. I would run really fast. I don't know who I would tell. Oh no! I mean, geez. I don't know. I was like, if I tell someone, then maybe they'll arrest me, but either way they're gonna have to clean it, or they're gonna have to throw this painting in the garbage,

but it was just like, it was a moral quandary unlike any I've ever been in. What can they do? They take it to a conservator. Okay. Side note, I didn't know what a conservator was during the interview, but I just looked it up and it's a person who helps restore shit that gets messed up in museums. So boom, there is a person for that. And then the conservator gives it back to them.

Okay. And it looks like it's never been touched by a ballpoint pen before. Oh, so many years. So many years I've felt it. No one will ever know. I mean, you know, you did ruin it. It will be ruined forever. At the heart of the matter, the painting is ruined.

It's never going to be the same. No, don't say that. The original artwork is ruined. But to the public, it looks the same. No, is it really ruined? I mean, it's not the same. Do they have to paint over it or do they clean the ink off? I am not a conservator, but I would hope that they can remove the ink somehow. You know, like, distilled water and a q-tip does amazing things with patience

Okay, you know there was a video that was going around the internet recently about a painting that was being cleaned And they were taking off years of varnish and it had yellowed and it had a really sepia color and underneath the painting was Very like vibrant and had a lot more, you know had had cooler tones. Is that real? When they take it? Really? Yeah. It's amazing in dresses. Like I've seen videos of dresses where they just submerged these dresses that kind of have a yellow tinge to them. And then they bring them out and they're beautifully white. So what we think of like how things looked back in 200 years ago, because we do have a varnish over everything. But no, everything was bright.

I know we have such a sepia memory. Very much so. Do you have a favorite artifact or one that you just, every time you see it or think about it, you just go, oh, that's so cool. There's quite a few. I mean, like I said about Jack London, that does have a special place in my heart. And his wife Charmin is starting to have take over My love for his stuff. I started to love her stuff more and more the more I know about her So anything that she had there's a holster that she that she had and she wore during their trips to the Pacific Islands

Which was amazing. There was there's a photograph of her in the holster, which I think it was Cosmopolitan magazine. I cannot remember. Damn. Back in the old days, like in the early 1900s, wouldn't publish the photograph because it showed a woman wearing a holster. So it was very like risque. But they probably had a whole article on like 14 ways to tickle his his bottom so that he loves you more. Exactly, yeah totally. And she was very progressive like an equestrian. She was like very adamant to not ride side saddle and she even like altered her dresses and like she was the first person to

start altering her dresses so she can ride normal like not ride side saddle. What a bamf. She's really awesome. Yeah. And when after Jack London passed away, then she had like all of these like fun affairs with like Harry Houdini and stuff. Hello. Exactly. Time machine, party with her. Yeah, totally. Charmin was her name?

Charmian. Charmian. Yeah. She was Jack's second wife and was five years his senior. Scandals, gasp, smelling salts, fainting couch. She was also a new woman, which was the old timey late 1800s term for feminist. I'm going to rename myself Charmian. I'm going to steal her life.

S.J. I do. I do. Yeah. So anything of hers, you can still go to her powder room and there's like a secret entry and a secret spiral staircase that is like it goes into her powder room. It's really neat. Oh man. Can the public access that? They cannot and they don't know where it's at. Oh my god. Okay, so this brings me to a question that I feel like I didn't know until I started working with the Natural History Museum, but

what you see on display and in these like acrylic cases and with these placards that say what it is is a fraction of what a museum actually has in collections. We just toured a warehouse full of stuff that I like was boggled by like everything from bassinet, bassinets, is that a bassinet? I'm sure there were bassinets there, yeah. To lanterns, to wagons and stuff, like why, how do you choose what goes on display versus what stays in these collections

that are off limits? It's a very interesting selection. Well, where we toured today, like we walked past probably one aisle that we walked through had, I don't know, 200 more or more lanterns. So, you know, unless you're a lantern museum, you really can't display 200 or more lanterns. But we do keep them because people donate them. And we don't want to turn down donations. Researchers are more than welcome to come. And I think

it's like this pretty much with most museums that if you're a researcher, or if you're just someone that's researching your family history, you don't have to be like a professional researcher You can just be anybody that's interested in something Just as long as you search it out. I'm I would be have more than happy to open my doors and show you But then also there's also Rotating exhibits too. I think those I want to do more of those in my museums. Where, because I don't just have one museum, it's a very unique experience that I'm working in where I manage the collections of over 30,000 items in 22 different parks. So we can't get to them all. Unfortunately, like it's very

hard to get to most of them, but most of them are collected in like a lump of five different locations. Wow. That's so many items. Wait, 22 different parks, 30,000 items. Yeah. Do you, how do you keep a record? Is there a spreadsheet?

Well, there's multiple spreadsheets. We use what's called the TMS, the Museum System Database. Okay. And many museums use it. The Smithsonian uses it. We are opening it up so that the public can go on if they wanna research lanterns or if they wanna research anything, really,

thimbles or wigs or dairy containers. We have them. So you can just find them and then you can come and look up all your dairy containers and you'd be, you know. What is your house like? Are you very organized? Are you, do you like knickknackery or do you, are you very clutter free? Like how has being a museologist changed the way you live? That is a good question. My house is orderly until you get to the very back room. Like it's, you know, some people have like a junk drawer.

I don't, I wouldn't say in the back room is a junk room, but it's just a room at the end of the day where you like open the door up and throw something and it closes real quick. But other than that, I do like older paintings or even if it's like a painting that a husband made of his wife in the 1950s that I found in a thrift store. Like I appreciate that and I'll maybe purchase that and put it up in my house.

What was it like getting the job of being a curator of all this? Like, what was the interview process like? And how did you know you were qualified for it? And what happened when they said, you got the job? So okay, this is a very unique situation to the California State Parks, which I encourage a lot of people who are interested in the Parks, which I encourage a lot of people who are interested in the field to look into because a lot of people miss it and it's a really great opportunity.

So what I did was gain all this experience. I had four years of experience as a student assistant and then I also apprenticed for a while and so an exam opened up. So to get a job with the State Park system, you don't just interview and charm your way into a ranger's hat. You have to take an exam first before they will even sit down with you, no matter how much they

liked your hot dog cart. And you have to qualify within the top three rankings to be reachable to have an interview for the job. Oh my god. Yeah. So it was very intense and I took the exam. I ranked one. Yeah.

Which is amazing. I was very happy about that. And then once you take the exam, you have to wait for a job to open up. Oh my god. So a job did open up. Oh my god. So a job did open up. Did you kill someone? No, but I, you know, the job that opened up was an hour and a half drive away from my house.

That's as laborious as doing a hit on someone. Yeah, totally. But, you know, I don't mind. It's a very peaceful drive. But so I live in Sacramento and the job that opened up was in Sonoma. And it was also my dream job because it involved Jack London's status dork park. So I applied for the job and then I got it. And that's how it works.

How did they tell you that you got it? Did they send over like a carrier pigeon or did they do something with antiquity to like send you a telegram? And no, I just heard my boss get the call. The call, the reference check call. Oh my god. It was amazing. I was in the other room at my desk,

and I just heard her like, oh, so good. Was she sad to lose you, though? Yeah. I think she hung up the phone and said, damn it, Ronnie. Oh my gosh. Did you celebrate? Oh, it was amazing. Yeah.

What did you do? Did I actually celebrate? I'm sure I just probably went for like unlimited sushi Yeah, that's my celebration So what is your day like like day to day do you come in like see like if anything's been missing or broken or needs Attending to or like, you know, you're up in Sonoma I know that we had this scheduled for last month around Thanksgiving But Sonoma was

going through some of the worst wildfires in state history. Yeah. So my day-to-day schedule for since then, since October, has been kind of not day-to-day schedule. Like we did evacuate. We were able to, we have an emergency evacuation plan. The fires were coming. It was very intense. And we were able to evacuate all of the threatened areas, which

included six moving trucks of objects. Oh my god. And we brought them to the facility we're at today, which as you can see, this place is huge. So it was able to house all of those artifacts and all of those objects. So we were able to get out. How did you pick though?

I mean, you can't move several different homes worth of artifacts. Like, how do you pick what to take? It's like that horrible thing, like if you had to evacuate your house in a fire, what would you take? And you're like, I'm a stuffed animal. But that, but with like priceless artifacts in many locations. So the curator that I work with, who's been there for 30 years,

she devised a disaster preparedness plan, and which included a laminated sheet of objects to take first in the emergency, in any kind of emergency. So we just grabbed those laminated sheets, and then we started evacuating those immediately. We had more volunteers than we knew what to do with. So before we knew it, we got everything that was on the list out. And so we just, then what?

So then we just started evacuating everything. And we did get out everything, which was amazing. Like down to what? Like down to the rugs and stuff? Down to the rugs, down to boxes of books and stuff. We did a great job. It was really cool and things thankful to her because she had it all planned out. So it was amazing. And then what's the process of moving that stuff back in? And none of the structures burned down? None of the structures burned

down. We actually were thermo-jelling which is like spraying this big hose full of jello over all of the houses, the historic houses and structures to, if the fire came, then it would like not burn them. So we did that, the fire didn't come, and we had to remove all that. But we were able to get everything here, and then the process of moving it back has been,

that's what's taken so long. You know, it took like one day to get everything out, two days to get everything out, but it takes months to actually organize it and put it all back in. Oh, is there anything else that you're discovering in moving out? Like, oh, I didn't realize we had this comb that was falling under a floorboard. I know, I don't think so. No cool discoveries. You know how when you move, you're like, oh my god, I forgot I

had this bracelet. Well, one thing that has been pretty cool is we're go- we were- we've had time to go through the diaries of day-to-day occurrences at the museums from the 80s. Oh my god. Because, I don't know, when do you have time to go through these? So we were just flipping through a book and at one time in the 80s, California State Parks had a wine tasting bar set up in a museum, which is not allowed now. So now I'm thinking we need to bring back wine tasting bars. Just don't do it in like a historically preserved area with a bunch of red wine and hair gel.

Yeah, it's amazing. Like when I worked at the Photographic Archives as a student assistant, going through photographs of like the 1950s of curators smoking and drinking or well mostly smoking over like historic artifacts, it's amazing. Yeah, I wonder about that sometimes like how much damage was done to artifacts just from people smoking indoors. Totally, it's yeah. Like all the yellowing and stuff. You're like, how much of that is just like Winston Salem's?

Well, even like archaeologists. I was talking to an archaeologist the other day, and he's been doing it for 40 years. And he said that back in the early days, they would take the dung of different animals and just throw it at each other for fun. But now you can find out so much information You know things you didn't know back then

From there's this one archaeologist on Twitter. I follow that I want to get she's a bio archaeologist and she digs through old toilets And and like some graves to figure out things about people and I'm like, I'm not gonna get her on I'm looking at you bioarchaeologist slash osteologist Steph Hamm Hofer, aka bones underscore Canada on Twitter. Yeah, what's the difference between a museologist and an archaeologist? Well, museologist is just focuses on the museum itself. Archaeologists are more out in the field working. They have more of a science background. And so museologists have a focus on the care and collection of objects, integrated

pest management systems to monitor the objects, make sure they're doing okay. That's one of the worst things about my job is that you have to kill so many insects. Like I'm setting up pheromone traps for moths and you know, but it has to be done. I think in one of your previous episodes, like someone said said like bugs are the worst Yes, and the ornithologist who had been held up at gunpoint on the job. So the worst thing about his job was carpet beetles Yeah, carpet beetles are terrible cigarette beetles carpet beetles. The Beatles have fun names to within the museum community What do they call them? Well, just like cigarette beetles cigarette beetles So you have to set up firm on pheromone traps where they're like, oh smells like ladies and then they hop in there and they're like,

Yeah, exactly. It's kind of sad too, but you know, you take these special pheromone capsules and you put them in the sticky traps. Can you smell anything? No. Okay. You don't have long enough antenna. I guess not. They can smell like a molecule of a pheromone from miles away. Moths are amazing. They can detect it with their antenna. Let's talk about moth horniness. So a female moth releases one billionth of a gram of pheromones to signal like a tiny winged Tiffany haddish. And researchers have reported that a male Indian Luna moth can locate a female 6.5 miles,

11 kilometers away. They are like, let's get this on. So pheromone traps are like getting messaged by a bot and then the bot kills you. Do you want to do some rapid fire? Sure. Okay. Now you've listened to the podcast before. We got so many questions on Patreon.

And I think you're a patron. I think, did you do that so that you could cheat and look at the questions first? 50-50. I did it to support you and to also know what I'm getting into. That's amazing. Okay. But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show.

Sponsors? Why sponsors? You know what they do? They help us give money to different charities every week. And for every episode we donate to A Cause of the Allogist's Choosing, and this week we're standing by to see if we can contribute to a memorial fund for our friend Ronnie Klein. So thanks for listening and thanks sponsors.

Okay, your questions. These are patrons have asked, Colin McArville wants to know, how do you feel museums have evolved and how do you think they're going to change in the future? Well museums in America for one have were set up by rich white men to promote rich white men. So you know go fast forwarding-day. They're evolving because I think museums need to interpret not what the rich Whiteman's perspective is but what the Person of that time the average person or the person like everyone's perspective including the rich Whiteman's perspective

But also including the the poor Person that maybe isn't whites perspective. So I think that's where museums right now are changing. And even in California, the school curriculum is changing with it as well, which is going to be pretty amazing in the next five years, you know, to see the change. So when you walk into maybe a museum that like is a mission, it talks more about the Native American life, not as someone that was saved by the mission, but someone that was held there against their will. So it's going to be pretty exciting to be able to expand that education. So the narrative is getting more objective than it has been in the past.

So his story is not... I was thinking about that last night. I couldn't sleep last night. And the word his story, it just kept coming back to me. And I'm like, God damn it. I wish we could change the name of history. How do we change it? And I was just going through my head and I was like, our story, their story, like what

can you change it to? Our story. But you know what? And that sounds kind of weird right now, but probably his story, his story sounds weird too if you've never heard it. So if you just keep calling it R story, then everyone will call it R story. I mean, language is elastic, so it evolves. So that's interesting that that's good to know that it's evolving like that. I'd never thought about that. Well, isn't it weird to think about women's history? Women's his story. Like, that seems

so weird to me. That just gave me anger-induced goosebumps. It's so crazy how barely out of the dark age is. Like, we still are in so many dark ages. Like, this is still a dark age. This is a dark age. We're in a dark age. We're in a dark age. Laura Eisen wants to know, have you ever used cool or weird stuff from the museum to impress a date? Ooh. Unfortunately, I haven't. God, Ronnie. I know.

Jeez. You could steal so much cool stuff. What's the most expensive artifact you've ever dealt with or handled? That's such a cheesy question, but I'm sorry. I'm going to ask. You know, it's interesting because some of the artifacts are priceless.

Yes. So we don't know how much. So just from the sentimental point of view like just the other day I was holding Jack London's camera, which he's amazing photographer and took photos of the what was it the? 1908 7 earthquake Oh 6 06 San Francisco San Francisco and his photographs are amazing so these photos appear in a book, The Paths Men Take, published in 2016 and on the State Parks website, which I'm going to add to all the episode links at alleyward.com slash ologies. And side note, Ronnie also says that some artifacts that aren't on display can get loaned to museums

all over the world, kind of like a shirt that you lend to your roommate before a trip, hoping she doesn't get mustard on it. We do, you know, share them so other museums can display them and share the story of Jack Linton as well. Like, hey, we're doing a canoe exhibit. You got anything cool? And you're like, do we? Totally. Yeah.

Like, can you send can you send it over? Can you send it over? Can you send it over? Sorry. I don't know what that was about. Can you send it over? Can you send it over? Sorry. I don't know what that was about. Okay, Marianne Moss wants to know, how do you recommend tackling visiting a museum when you're short on time?

She always feels like she hasn't. She says, I always feel like I haven't done a place justice unless I've seen everything, but a lot of time that's not possible. And also follow up question, what do you do about museum fatigue? Sometimes you're like, I'm so tired. I've seen so much stuff. I think you have, you know, the technology, let it work for you. So before you go, you know, if you're the passenger of a car and you're driving there with like your

boyfriend or girlfriend, you have an hour to kill. Just look it up on Instagram on Yelp and something and see what what is there. And then, you know, if you want to breeze through a lot of it, fine. But I think you should find one thing that you are interested in and really focus on it Okay, so have you heard of this thing called Museum Sage? No So there's this thing called Museum Sage that it's like a program that someone started where and they're doing it at certain museums to where they'll take you and In the lobby and they'll blindfold you. What? And you pick locations, like turn left here,

turn right here, turn whatever. And they guide you up to whatever you choose, whatever painting or sculpture or object. And before you take the blindfold off, you think of a question you should ask yourself deeply, something that you're struggling with. It could be like, will I ever get this job? Or what should I do with my life?

Or what kind of car should I buy? Whatever you wanna do. But you just think of it yourself. And they take off the blindfold. And you stare at whatever they show you. And you find the answer. Oh my God! In that painting or whatever.

Oh my God, that's amazing. So I think always focus on one, you can always just choose one thing to really focus on because I think you can really find a lot about yourself or about anything you want in that one thing. I looked on their website, which is conveniently museumsage.com and they have videos, you guys, videos.

Like this one where a woman named Kim asks a 12th century vase what to do with her career. So whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes. I'm going to say Christmas. I know. Yes. Okay. Okay.

This is not what I expected. What will Kim do? I'm so invested. We have a tribe liaison who coordinates with the governor's liaison with Native Americans. So it's very, we're probably a little bit different in that regard since we are a government agency. Zoey Treplyk, great question. Have you ever encountered any haunted artifacts or any objects that just gave you the willies?

So there's a house museum that I take care of and it's the Vallejo home in Sonoma and Vallejo's wife is known to haunt the house and hate English speakers so anytime you speak English in there she gets very mad. No way. Yeah. Have you been there? I have been there. What does it feel like?

I wait for her to yell at me and she hasn't yet I mean, I I think when you know when you want a ghost tale you never happens. They're such jerks Yeah, I always want it though. There is I also take care of a building called the Toscano Hotel. Mm-hmm and One time I was trying to film a video for Instagram and the music wasn't working and I was like trying to do like a Billy Joel song to like some sort of weird thing or something and then it didn't the music wasn't working and I was like trying to do like a Billy Joel song to like Some sort of weird thing or something and then the music didn't work But when I replayed it there were men voices talking in the background and there are definitely no men there

Do you believe in ghosts Sure sure. Yeah, sure. I'm open to it. I would love to see a ghost You wouldn't be freaked out. I Know I would love for Jacqueline to come hang out with me. Yeah, he's just like your ghost homie. Mm-hmm, totally. Hannah wants to know, what is your favorite exhibit you've worked on? I was getting, preparing an object to be on display.

And it was a dress made of human hair. What? And so I was picking out dead bugs from the early 1900s from this dress with like tweezers and micros and like... I had a lot of fun working on that. All in a day's work. Jennifer Overby wants to know, I've heard museums have basements chock full of cool stuff hidden away. So in terms of the collections, why are you so sneaky with your stuff and how do I get down there? Come see my stuff. Okay. Always. Yes. If you're interested in anything that is, it's not hidden

away as much as it's taken like in proper conditions. The climate is proper for them to be stored. And like you like I said, if we have 200 lanterns, you know, you want to be able to take care of the lanterns and have them in a proper environment that can, they can be there forever. So if someone does want to research them, they'll be there for them to look at. So just ask for more tours. Yeah, you can, you can get a tour. If you asked, if you ask, you can see stuff. Blake Hawkins wants to know on average, how many pieces in a museum's collection are authentic versus well crafted replicas?

Now if it's an actual museum, I would say most of it is authentic. But house museums are a different story because you do need to set up the house and make it look like it's from that time. And a lot of times you acquire houses maybe 100 years after the year you want to interpret. So you do piece together objects from that time period period but maybe not necessarily from that house in specifically Okay, so there might be a phone on the wall that is of the same year But it wasn't that particular phone that was used Yeah

And if you can go off of like photographs you try to match things up as much as best you can Claudia Louise wants to know Do if you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of history around you? No, never. I love the amount of history around me. Though I do feel overwhelmed that I should know everything. So I guess in a sense, yeah, because there's so much to know. And especially with my position having 30,000 objects in 22 different parks, each park has its own like 100 history that spans hundreds of years. So it is, I guess that is overwhelming in a sense. Yeah. Do you get texts or calls in the middle of the night like, ah, something broke? Or

is it like... From the fire. Yeah, when we had the fire, it's like, okay, let's rally the troops and let's get this going. Oh, I was so worried. You were like, can we postpone the interview? And I was like, yeah, I think that's fine. Like your entire city is on fire and you are a curator of museums. Yeah, that's a good idea. Jason Newman from the Facebook group wants to know, is there a friendly rivalry between different museums of the same type? Like, or do natural history museums make jokes about modern art museums?

No, actually, I think that there's a good relationship between the museums. For me, especially. I think that it works. We work great together. You guys play nice? Yeah, totally. You're not like super museum bitches. Britt Pitcher wants to know, can I come be your friend? Of course. Nick Van Acker wants to know, do you have an artifact or specimen that you would love to see on display in a museum that never will be because it's too gross or too big or too

fragile? Hmm, right now there are some, you know, Native American objects that are used for ceremonial purposes that probably won't ever be displayed. And also there are like, we have a shrunken head from an island that probably won't go on display right now. There's some really neat stuff. Do you have a lot of human artifacts? Surprisingly, it's very interesting.

Not necessarily human bones, but hair. Hair is big. I mean, especially in Victorian era, you have a lot of human hair. They made a lot of Memento Mori things out of that, right? Yeah. I need to look up how shrunken heads work. I don't even know.

Because I'm like, do they take the skull out? I don't get it. I saw my first one when I was like 10 in a Ripley's Believe It or Not exhibit. And I've been, I don't know. Does it ha- does the image of it haunt you? It's creepy. Yeah. It's very creepy.

You know, there's a curio store in Seattle that's just like on the pier that has a couple of mummified humans and I'm like- How does that work? I'm like, is that legal? Yeah, I don't understand how that works. It's just a corpse in like a dead, it's very weird. Side note on that, so yes, to make a shrunken head, one first removes the skull and then stretches the face skin over a small wooden ball and boils it.

So in terms of DIY project, I give this one a pass. Now these were ceremoniously made in the Amazon rainforest. They were thought to harness an enemy's power. And then the tourism trade caused a bump in sales, both real and of fakes, in the early 1900s. And that is where we get the term headhunting. Ding! Horrifying. Also, that shop on Seattle's waterfront is called Ye Old Curiosity Shop. Very on the nose. And it's been there, owned by the same family, for four generations since the 1890s. And the mummy that's just straight up on display in a glass case like a fucking croissant is named Sylvester. And I just went

down, I want you to know, a two-hour rabbit hole about him. But I'm just going to condense it and say he's thought to be a Wild West outlaw who was shot in the gut and quickly embalmed in arsenic by a con man named Soapy, but then he fell into the hands of the Seattle Curio Emporium in the 1950s. Also, he got shot in the face with buckshot at one point in his life, never went to a doctor, and his skin just healed over it. He's not for sale, but evidently it is legal to buy and display human remains. However, birth control pills are not available over the counter, and you can't buy wine coolers in some counties.

Oh, well. OK, back to rapid fire. These are great questions. OK, Heather Crowther wants to know, who writes the blurbs next to the artifacts? Is it a curator, a historian? Who gets that job? It probably depends on the museum. For California State Parks, we have an interpreter who writes

the exhibit panels, does the research and everything. And so for me, I'm a curator right now, so museum technician technically, which is pretty much a curator. So I don't get to do that. but we do have input. Are museum people chill? This is my own question. I think so. Or are they uptight because they're like, everything has to be perfect?

I think it depends. OK. On age. OK. No, it really doesn't. I mean, I'm not ageist, but I think the, honestly, I think the older someone is that has worked in a museum, they've been there for like 30 years or something.

So it's their baby. And then when something's your baby, you do become protective of it. So you know, you have these new young museum professionals that are like, what? Let's give the world this. And then, you know, people that have been there for 30 years are just a little more protective. Yeah. Amy Tenberg, Tenberg, I'm sure I'm saying it wrong.

Great question. What are the most annoying things visitors do? She says people so often dampen her enjoyment of museums with their behavior. How do you stay sane working with that every day? Like what do visitors do that you're like, what? No. Touch, touch, touch.

Okay. Like reach across any kind of velvet rope, any stanchion. Side note, those velvet ropes that are used in museums and nightclubs to convey just like don't, are called stanchions. And they come from the French for beam or support. And did you know you can buy them on Amazon for like $90? So for less than a Benjamin, you can erect a velvet rope on your own porch and you can feel like a very elite baller every time you come home.

Okay, back to museum etiquette. People don't care. Selfies, selfies are fine, but you know, selfies over the stanchion or trying to touch things that you shouldn't, it boggles my mind. Like you can go on YouTube and watch all these crazy mishaps of people just wanting to touch things. It's so weird I don't get it. Shannon Feltes says real talk. Do you have that ancient tablet that makes the museum come to life at?

At night. No, no to be fair. He's probably lying. He probably does have an ancient Magical tablet and it's just not telling us. Okay, so your job. What is your least favorite thing about your job? What sucks? Oh, I knew you were going to ask this. And I guess it would just have to be the paperwork when you're, you know, filling out loan agreements. That's not fun, but it doesn't like suck, suck. I mean, even if I'm like working on something out like a gravestone or out in the rain in the middle of both in Napa State Park out in the rain in the middle of both

in Napa State Park. You're still in the middle of both in Napa State Park and next to a gravestone. So yeah, I don't know. So it's mostly the deskie. Sure, yeah. Yeah, desk stuff. Who wants to do desk stuff when you can just go across the hall and fiddle around with an object? Yeah, although yeah and you're allowed to touch it because you're wearing gloves and stuff, right? Totally. Right. And because you're responsible if it breaks. Yeah, exactly. Favorite thing about your job?

Oh, just honestly, just going. So I get to my work every day before the sun comes up. Really? Yeah. I get there at seven in the morning. And so I leave the house at four or I get up at 415 every day. Oh my God. I know.

So it's pretty crazy, but I get there and I get to like, I'm the first one there. And I love just like having the keys and opening the door to my building and it's like a wooden door and these 1800 barracks and it's just really I just like walking into it it's it's fun um this is a I should figure this question out myself I might have to google this but why do museums smell so good why do old books smell good what are we smelling when we smell old, cool stuff? I just think we're smelling history. Yeah.

I think history smells good. Yeah. I was just, oh, I just got a cologne that I haven't tried yet, but it's called Book. What? Yes. It's amazing. So I'm excited to try it.

So I don't even know who makes it. I just got it for Christmas, like a little sample of it. But someone was like, oh, I know you would like this. And it's this book. Oh my gosh, I would need to order that. Okay, quick aside. Why do old books smell so good? Well, I just Googled the shit out of this

and it turns out that paper is made of cellulose and lignin from wood pulp. And when they degrade, they throw off volatile organic compounds that smell a lot like vanilla and almonds. So it turns out there are a few colognes formulated to smell like old books and they have names like paperback in the library, book and dead writers. But I applaud all of them for not opting for the less huff friendly name of bookworm.

Do you have any future goals? Is there anything in terms of being a museologist that you're like, I want to do this before the end of my career? Totally. I do think that a lot of exhibits can be updated and can be more inclusive. And I do want to change that. So I do have that as a goal. To see what Ronnie Klein's day to day life as a museologist entails,

follow his very wonderful Instagram. It's museumronnie and as long as you're there, you might want to check out Granny the dog, which is his scruffy rescue pup who's very cute. I am proud to say I was her first follower. I was on that. He was like, hey, I've got a boom follow. You can also follow Ologies or Allie Ward with one L on Twitter or Instagram.

You can join the amazing Facebook Ologies podcast group, which is adminned by Erin Talbert. Thank you. And thank you, Stephen Ray Morris for editing this on a very, very tight turnaround while I succumbed this week to various shit storms such as a New York blizzard and the flu, very, very slow hotel Wi-Fi. The theme song was written and recorded by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands. And if you make it through the credits, you know I share a secret with you. Okay, here's the secret for this week. I've shoplifted one time in my life because I can't deal with the guilt of doing it otherwise and it was when I had very low blood sugar and I was in a Rite Aid and I had to get a Clif Bar

like immediately. I was feeling very woozy and the line was out the door. They were taking forever and I stole the Clif Bar. It was carrot cake flavor. I feel bad about it still to this day and at one point I thought about getting a carrot cake Clif Bar and somehow anti shoplifting it and smuggling it back in but I thought that would be weirder. So Rite Aid, I'm sorry. I owe you probably two2.69 or something. Okay. Bye bye. And of course, a 2024 secret. Ronnie had left me a voicemail last summer that I had still saved and I listened to it this morning and he was talking about this 84 year old journalist, Tom Brokaw, who has the same kind of cancer that my dad had.

So he had left me a message about him. It's the cancer multiple myeloma. We did a hematology episode about that. But Ronnie leaves me this message and apologizes for rambling. And then at the very end of the message, Ronnie said this about Tom Brokaw. And when I listened to it this morning, it just destroyed me. But it feels like the best way to end this episode. So thank you, Ronnie, for being our favorite museologist and a great friend. He is such an amazing person that we should never forget him, you know. So anyway, bye.