New Blog Carnival: Cabinet of Curiosities

At 2,830 and counting, what the world needs now is undoubtedly not another blog carnival; nevertheless here I am launching a new one.  There are carnivals for customer service professionals and the godless and something called abundance thinking, but still I sense a void. 

Introducing Cabinet of Curiosities, the blog carnival where each month we will proudly feature posts from across the blogosphere on the oddities in your attic, the back story behind the bric-a-brac, the tale of the 130-year-old tortilla someone sent your ancestor whose heirs inexplicably decided it was worth keeping for posterity. I find that I post frequently along these lines, but surely I'm not the only one who mines the utter clutter of our lives for fascinating and illuminating subject material?  How else will future archaeologists make sense of that chip of concrete that only you know is a piece of the Hindenburg Line brought back from the Great War by your Great Grandfather in his old kit bag?  What else is in your attic?

What I have in mind is show and tell for grown ups.  As with the Wunderkammer of old, the curiosities in this virtual cabinet will include oddities and marvels of natural history, cryptozoology, archeology and ethnography, historical or religious relics, artifacts, mementos, talismans, specimens and ephemera: in short, a carnival that plays P.T. Barnum to your unique and marvelous accumulations, or to what you virtually stumble upon in your travels through deepest blogistan.  Animate the inanimate.  Astound and astonish.  Maybe you do not actually possess the most valuable vomit in the world, but if you can blog engagingly about ambergris it belongs in our virtual Cabinet of Curiosities.  If every picture tells a story, think of the stories you have to tell behind the ticket stubs and giraffe teeth and that lock of  Washington's hair or whatever else is unusual and of interest on your mantle or deep in your desk drawer.

The inaugural edition of Cabinet of Curiosities will be at this very blog on Monday, November 19th, 2007. You can submit your nominations here.  If it turns out to be worthy of continuation I shall be looking for future hosts and may set up a new carnival home page. So what do you think?  Better yet, what have you got, and what's the story behind it?

More (11/19/2007):  1st edition here.

        (12/17/2007):   2nd edition here.

        (1/21/2008):     3rd edition here.

        (2/18/2008):     4th edition here.

        (3/17/2008):     5th edition here.

        (4/27/2008):      6th edition here.

        (5/19/2008):      7th edition here

        (6/16/2008):      8th edition here.

Comments

[Nikki-ann]

I think it's a great idea! You've now given me an idea for my next post, so hopefully you'll have at least one submission (and, obviously, I'll advertise the Carnival, help get it going)!

[MoultrieCreek]

I'm in! What fun this will be!

[elementaryhistoryteacher]

I'm so glad I stopped by.....what a great idea. You've got my creative juices flowing. I hope I can come up with something.:)

[Thomas MacEntee]

I can't wait either - I have so much stuff, some of it very bizarre, some of it very sentimental.