All Things Weird and Wonderful

Toilet seat art, things made of hair, circus artifacts and the life of Liberace all star in these nine offbeat U.S. museums. Don’t miss the giant colon.

By John Rossheim for MSN City Guides

You know the feeling: You’re looking for a brief cultural diversion in town, maybe one that won’t even take up a whole morning or afternoon. You’re not up for the crush or even the decision-making that comes with a visit to a major museum, but you want to see something new and different.

Lucky for you, the U.S. of A. is dotted with an enormous variety of idiosyncratic little museums that offer a very particular slice of civilization, often from the personal point of view of a very small number of curators or curatorial subjects.

So if you’re in the mood for a serving of intellectual frisson that won’t fry your brain, these offbeat museums should be just the ticket—and a cheap or free ticket at that.

Don't open that jar
Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum says its mission is to educate the public on medical history. But for most visitors, viewing the collection of the College of Physicians is about indulging their gruesome fascination in a unique collection of human anatomical abnormalities preserved in glass jars.

From the tumor extracted from the jaw of President Grover Cleveland to safety pins pulled from careless patients’ throats, the Mütter is a showcase of everything that can go wrong with us. It’s hard to miss the giant colon, but make sure you don’t.

The museum is also notable for its displays on the history of medicine and changing exhibits on contemporary medical science.

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• Slide show: Offbeat Museums
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• Message board: Strange Attractions

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Step right up
New Yorkers may think of Bridgeport, Conn., as merely a bedroom community, but the city has at least one claim to fame: The Barnum Museum.  This collection of artifacts from the life and work of circus impresario P.T. Barnum ranges from the marriage bed of 33-inch Tom Thumb and his 32-inch wife, to one of the most elaborate hand-carved miniature circuses ever created.

The three-floor edifice, built in a mix of Byzantine, Gothic and Romanesque architectures, also houses Victorian toys, correspondence between the grand promoter and his would-be peers, and even an Egyptian mummy. For a small museum, the Barnum is unusually well-suited to visitors of all ages.

A one-of-a-kind collection
It’s not hard to get the bottom of the story at Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas: Smith has created more than 700 folk-art collages on the lids of commodes.

Throne covers hang from every surface of his garage, presenting assemblages of everything from keys that have lost their purpose to a million dollars’ worth of shredded legal tender, straight from the Federal Reserve Bank. Other seats collect horseshoes, eyeglasses (with a few hearing aids thrown in) and bullets. A recent addition pays tribute to Pope John Paul II.

When you want to visit, call Smith at (210) 824-7791 to arrange a time. He’ll show you his one-of-a-kind collection at no charge.