Museum notes - European Village

This past Monday I went to the Milwaukee Public Museum yet again. Today we're going to talk briefly about the European Village.

The European Village is located on the first floor of the Museum. The exhibit is attached to the Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit by a common hallway. While details in the exhibits have been updated over the years, the exhibits themselves have remained intact since my first visits to the Museum. The Third Planet (prehistoric area with the dinosaurs) and the Rain Forest exhibits that are across the hall came later and replaced existing exhibits. For that matter, the first floor used to hold the entryway to the Museum up until the remodel in the mid-90's. That's conversation for other days.

The European Village strives to show what the living quarters for immigrants from various European countries looked like, presumably as they arrived in Milwaukee in the 1800s-early 1900s. I've not seen a dating for the exhibit whereas the Streets of Old Milwaukee is set at the beginning of the 1900s, right at the turn of the century (the audiotour dates it as 1903, which would make sense but, since the audiotour is from 2003 and therefore offers a easy hundred years reflection, I'm not sure that was the original intent). Each room in the European Village shows decorations, foods, dress, etc from the culture in question. Each room is identified in the windows you peek through. Yes, the exhibit makes you a bit of a Peeping Tom.

The last couple times I've been, I've discussed a possible game to play in the Village: Find the Creepy Jesi (as I believe Jesi to be the plural of Jesus). Nearly all of the rooms have some sort of representation of Jesus on display and none of them look, well, comforting. They're either sad or in pain or dying. Apparently focusing on all the suffering Jesus did was popular at the time as opposed to considering the guidance he offered. While there are some creepy Jesi elsewhere in the Museum, they mostly hang out in the Village.

What we've yet to do is figure out the rules to this game, to determine if just any religious looking art in the Village counts or if there are specific details to look for in a Creepy Jesus. Then we'd have to document each one and count them so that others can play as well and that seems almost like work.

Hey! Who said 'Like you've got anything better to do?' Why I oughta...