Posts Tagged With: Metropolis IL

Paducah, KY. March 18

Superman Museum in Metropolis IL

Okay. I will get my grouchy, curmudgeon comments out of the way up front. We visited the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, rated one of the top 20 Southern museums (I forgot who by). They do not allow picture-taking inside the museum which is disappointing but the reason stated is to protect the artists creativity since taking a picture might encourage another quilter to replicate the theme shown. BUT, the museum is plenty willing to sell you a glossy, high quality book (for only $16) that replicates 300 of the quilts on display or in their archives. Yet, those high quality photos would better allow a quilter to replicate the quilts on display more than my humble photograph would. To me, their reasoning is faulty at best and self-serving at worst. In any event, you will see no pictures from this quilt museum

That is a shame because the museum was exhibiting numerous quilts of stunning design, color and quality. Past readers may recall that we visited the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln NE. The Lincoln museum has three to four times as many quilts in its collection and does allow photographs to be taken. However, I believe the quilts on display in Paducah represented a more stunning variety of quality quilts than I recollect seeing in Lincoln. You will have to take my word for it, OR, you could go on the Internet and search for Paducah Quilt Museum images and lo and behold, numerous quilts are available for viewing, many posted by the museum.

The quilt museum is part of the city’s effort to market itself as a “Creative City in Arts”. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sponsors several different categories of specialized communities around the world. These “Creative Ciites” are designated in the areas of craft and folk arts, gastronomy, film, literature, design, music, and media arts. 180 cities have been so designated with Paducah being recognized as a UNESCO Creative City in Craft and Folk Art.

In the U.S., Paducah joins Santa Fe in the Craft and Folk Art category, Detroit in Design, Austin in Media Arts, Tucson in Gastronomy, and Iowa City in Literature. GIven that Trump plans to withdraw the US from UNESCO at the end of 2018 to protest what he calls its anti-Israel bias, Paducah’s claim to fame may disappear.

Superman Museum

Sundays can be a difficult time to sightsee, especially in the off-season. We managed to fit in one other attraction today, a real hokey, tourist stop. Metropolis IL is home to the Superman Museum and Statue. Metropolis is the town’s original name and they have a written agreement with DC Comics to use the Superman name and logo in marketing, etc.

Superman Museum

Downtown Metropolis is home to the Superman Museum, the collection of all things Superman amassed by one collector. Superman was created in the 1930s by two teenage boys in Cleveland Ohio and has gone on to include comic books, newspaper comics, cartoons, TV shows and movies. Oh, yes, and merchandise. The comics, movies and TV shows have varied over the years but Superman is still an internationally recognized figure.

The museum is tacky. It is unorganized. It could use improved displays. It is cheap and 10 miles from our hotel and open on Sunday morning so after church we drove to Metropolis and visited the museum. I mean, how could we be this close and not at least give it a try? It was a diversion while we waited for the Quilt Museum to open. I am not disappointed we went but one does not need to drive out of the way just to see it. We did actually buy a DVD of the history of the Superman story and watched it back at the hotel. The rest of Sunday was slow.

Ed and Chris. March 18

Epilogue: Snippets on life in America from Chris

Day 3: Did you attend a formal worship this weekend? We know that we are living in very disturbing times; however, we were able to participate in a Catholic Mass today without fear of practicing our faith. Perhaps if we were going to a mosque or synagogue it would be different. There was once a time when Catholics were not warmly received in some communities. God bless America!