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Saturday, April 29, 2006
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How could anyone think a teapot museum in Sparta North Carolina was pork? Faithful readers know that UD’s a tea freak who makes pilgrimages to places like Mariage Freres in Paris, orders tea from special online teahouses, and drinks painstakingly brewed loose leaves throughout the day. Mariages Freres has a little tea museum across the street from its main tearoom. Can't we compete? Yet the Washington Post lumps Sparta’s museum (still in the planning stages, but it's got a hell of a website) in with other obvious examples of congressional pork: In Washington, pork has become synonymous with congressional earmarks; in fact, most media outlets -- including The Washington Post -- define it as such. So does the new "Pig Book," which was released this month by Citizens Against Government Waste and catalogs 375 of last year's goofiest earmarks, such as the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative and the Sparta Teapot Museum. I can’t speak to the urinal initiative, but I can certainly tell from its website that Sparta’s got a great collection of pots, and that the museum will be cool: Aside from 12,000 square feet of gallery space for permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum will have education space for adults and children; a lobby/reception hall available for the community; a multi-purpose auditorium for lectures, artist demonstrations, small performances, and film; a museum shop, a tea room/café, and administrative space. What could the small performances be? How often can you do “I’m A Little Teapot”? The collectors who made all of this possible are featured on their own website . The husband says: “On the average, we buy one or two teapots a day.” |