The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is a privately owned museum in Massachusetts whose stated aim is "to celebrate the labor of artists whose work would be displayed and appreciated in no other forum". It has three branches, one in Dedham, another in nearby Somerville, and a third branch in Brookline. Its permanent collection includes 500 pieces of "art too bad to be ignored", 25 to 35 of which are on public display at any one time.
MOBA was founded in 1994, after antique dealer Scott Wilson showed a painting he had recovered from the trash to some friends, who suggested starting a collection. Within a year, receptions held in Wilson's friends' home were so well-attended that the collection required its own viewing space. The museum moved to the basement of a theater in Dedham. Explaining the reasoning behind the museum's establishment, co-founder Jerry Reilly said in 1995: "While every city in the world has at least one museum dedicated to the best of art, MOBA is the only museum dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the worst." To be included in MOBA's collection, works must be original and have serious intent, but they must also have significant flaws without being boring; curators are not interested in displaying deliberate kitsch. (Full article...)
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe was also one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. Poe was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; although he was orphaned at a very young age when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allan's. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian". (Full article...)
Image 35A political and geographical map of New England shows the coastal plains in the southeast, and hills, mountains and valleys in the west and the north. (from New England)
Image 36New England is home to four of the eight Ivy League universities. Pictured here is Harvard Yard of Harvard University. (from New England)
Image 40The MBTA Commuter Rail serves eastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island, radiating from downtown Boston, with planned service to New Hampshire. The CTrail system operates the Shore Line East and Hartford Line, covering coastal Connecticut, Hartford, and Springfield, Massachusetts. (from New England)
Image 48Largest self-reported ancestry groups in New England. Americans of Irish descent form a plurality in most of Massachusetts, while Americans of English descent form a plurality in much of the central parts of Vermont and New Hampshire as well as nearly all of Maine. (from New England)
... that the tugboat R. B. Forbes was the first iron mercantile vessel built in New England?
... that Cora Agnes Benneson, one of the first female lawyers in New England, was rejected by Harvard Law School because "the equipments were too limited to make suitable provision for receiving women"?
... that the First Congregational Church of Litchfield, now regarded as iconic, was replaced in 1873 after being said to have "not a single line or feature ... suggesting taste or beauty"?
... that Nathaniel Ames, publisher of the first annual American almanac, avoided arrest by replacing his vituperative cartoon of local judges with a biblical quotation?
Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost portion of New England. It is known for its scenery—its jagged, mostly rocky coastline, its low, rolling mountains, its heavily forested interior and picturesque waterways—as well as for its seafood cuisine, especially lobsters and clams.
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