A curious collection

There is a museum for everything -- from the New York Times:

Bright Lights, Wide Eyes: Nostalgic Collections That Speak Volumes
There is nothing quite like the gasp that escapes your mouth as you walk through three small buildings on a residential street here and find yourself mutely stared at by 1,400 eyes and grinned at by hundreds of painted lips over leathery chins. You are sharing company with beings barely this side of cartoon, bearing long proboscises or protruding goggle eyes, shapeless torsos and eerie charm. Lining the walls are photographs of these very figures perched on the knees or cradled against the shoulders of the men and women who once gave them voice: dummies and their ventriloquists.

At the Vent Haven Museum the unsettling amazement is unremitting. In one room you almost feel as if you have bumbled onto a stage surrounded by a peculiar audience, each listener gawking in silence. In another the figures are arrayed in rows like Pinocchios who have finally made it to school. Just as no two humans are smart in precisely the same way, no two of these creatures are dummies in precisely the same way.

The article goes on to talk about a couple other museums as well. Just being in that room would give me the willies. Imagine being in there at dusk with no lights as it got darker and darker and something rustles off in a corner. Very cool that someone is taking care of the lil' guys -- the stories they could tell...