We Interrupt This Music Blog To Talk About A Penis Museum
the old location in reykjavik
That’s the Icelandic Phallological Museum up there. It’s a museum for penises. Whales, bears, seals, and other assorted mammals: they all have penises. And you can find them all at the penis museum.
Back in 2001, I watched a travel show about Iceland with my sister in a hotel room in London. The host of the show did a segment where he visited the museum and ended up signing a contract donating his penis to the museum after he dies (they don’t have a human penis yet). The show made an impression – when I found myself in Iceland a year later, I made sure to pay it a visit.
As the caption states, the picture above was taken when the museum was located in downtown Reykjavík. Since then, the museum has moved to the town of Húsavík, which is on the other side of the country. Their Wikipedia page states that “As of september 2009, the museum houses 272 specimens from 92 species of animals displayed, like hunting trophies, embalmed in formaldehyde, or dried in display cases.” I don’t know how many penises they had back in 2002, but it sure seemed like a lot.
I’m writing about this now because my memory of the Icelandic Phallological Museum had faded away for many years, until last night. Through an above-and-beyond act of kindness on Stuart’s part, I recently got a massive amount of photo negatives inexpensively transferred to the digital realm. About a third of these 800-or-so pictures were from that Iceland trip. As I started sorting through them last night, the picture of the penis museum popped up, and the memory came back. And I couldn’t stop laughing. The picture changed the entire complexion of what had, up to that point, been a bad day for me.
I wasn’t going to write about this for the blog because this obviously has nothing to do with music. But then I went to the museum’s website, scrolled down a little bit, and was met with this:
Wolfgang Muller – Das Pe-Pe-Penismuseum von Reykjavik
It’s a song! About the penis museum!! You don’t know how happy that song has made me. Oh my goodness, I hope hope hope this becomes popular on Hype Machine. Please make this happen!
Before I left the museum, I bought a couple miniature, wood-carved, penis figurines. They were souvenirs for my sister. She thought they were really cool.
We’re an odd family.
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Hello fellow Canuck,
Great post, and great song. Thanks for finding and thanks for sharing.
Two queries.
(1) May I download your picture to use as the image on my ipod for this song that you have so wonderfully found and shared with us? (I am a bit of a fanatic regarding IP rights, even if I am known on occasion to ask forgiveness before permission…)
(2) When I repost this song in a couple of weeks, which I think that I will do as I am thinking of adding music to my blog, may I repost your image on the blog with rollover and ‘alt’ giving credits to your blog and registering your creation and authorship rights in the image, and, of course, including a link to this particular blog post of yours?
Please let me know.
And, again, I have been cheerfully snorting over this song. It is so German schlagerisch, yet with a pop edge. The Flippers had best watch out…
Cheers, oder Tschuess,
Chris
chris,
feel free to download, repost, and link to whatever you wish.
i’m not a canuck – hope that’s not too disappointing. i did, however, spend 3 years working for air canada, so i’ve spent a lot of time there. it’s been 6 years since i was last in canada, which means that it’s been 6 years since i last had poutine, which kinda makes me sad.
thanks for the comment. greetings from nashville.
HAHAHA
That song is too much I too feel the german schlagerisch reference. Sounds like black fooss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qHovGCP9uU
I hope to read more blog posts about your interesting travels. Memories are like delicious candies.
Great stuff I feel I’ve heard daft punk sample this.