It's our annual end of year parade of all the extra good stuff this year's podguests talked about, including a mythical disappearing island, geese, human dictionaries, the dubious history of the Body Mass Index, Victorian death department stores, and much more.
Read moreAllusionist 9: The Space Between
I know this is a show about words, but forget the words for a moment; look at the spaces between the words.
Without the spaces, the words would be nigh incomprehensible. And yet, they're a relatively recent linguistic innovation.
Read moreAllusionist 6: The Writing on the Wall
Those words on museum walls that you can't be bothered to read? They're more important than you think...
Exhibition-maker Rachel Souhami tells us why.
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL:
Read more about artist Fred Wilson and his 'Mining the Museum' exhibition and other works at the Maryland Historical Society.
Read a lengthy precis of the history of museums, if that's your bag.
Here's the etymology of the word 'museum'.
A few years ago, I went on a museums crawl in Vienna and saw such marvels as priapic armour, pickled conjoined foetuses, and meat animations. What's the weirdest museum you've been to?
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD OF THE DAY:
caprine
Say hi at facebook.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/allusionistshow, and come back in a fortnight for the next episode.
- HZ
CREDITS
Presented and produced by Helen Zaltzman, ie me.
Rachel Souhami designs and curates exhibitions, produces Museums Showoff, and tweets @rachelsouhami.
MUSIC:
'Allusionist Theme' - Martin Austwick
'Wonderful World' - Sam Cooke
'The Writing's On The Wall' - OK Go
'Live As If Someone Is Always Watching You' - Smog
