Malm whale

Post-lunch, I googled the Malm whale, the world’s only stuffed blue whale.
It stranded an unfortunate afternoon back in 1865. You had that civil war thing going on, we had eternal cold and famine. A stuffed whale was big news. Especially since the whale was eventually touched by the gifted hands of interior decorators, spiffing up the whale interior with wall papper and a little cafe.

Little did the stuffers know that a long dead whale cafe can be a turn on to some people. The cafe was shut down after an amorous couple got caught going at it inside the whale.

You think I’m making this up?

I couldn’t

I saw this, at the Naturhistoriska Museet in Goteborg, Sweden, last weekend. If the Houston Museum of Natural Science is a modern technicolor wonder, the Goteborg Natural History Museum is a homage to the Victorian era and bad (or primitive) taxidermy skills. The room with the whale (which also had a narwhal skeleton!) smelled like decomposition. Many of the rest of the animals, mounted over 100 years ago, had shrunk so badly on their frames that they had wicked smiles and grimaces. In short, it was awesome.

The museum also has a curio cabinet featuring a set of (human) Siamese twins in a pickle jar. I’m telling you this so you can get a feel for the place.