ishot: Mint Museum of Toys

We visited Mint Museum of Toys on Seah Street (finally!).

MINT (Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys) Museum of Toys is the world's first museum created specifically for toys and showcases an extensive collection of more than 50,000 pieces of vintage toys and childhood memorabilia from more than 40 countries which ranges from the mid-19th Century to the mid-20th Century.

There are a total of four galleries, each on a separate floor. The museum staff suggested to start at the top with 'Outer Space' and to work our way down.

Check out the photos below =)

LEVEL 5: OUTER SPACE
Here, you can find toys which reflect early 20th century society’s perception of technology and space travel in the future. Pretty cool!!

Space rockets

Police? robot in a space patrol car

Deadly ray guns

Space puppies? Soooo cute!

Space robots

Construction workers in space suits?

Chemistry experiment kit for the curious minds

Dan Dare figures

Star Wars figures

LEVEL 4: CHARACTERS
Here, you can find character toys such as Astroboy, Batman, Popeye, pre-war Japanese toys and Tintin collectables, amongst others.

Astro boy and his little sister, Uran

Tintin and Snowy on the moon

Tintin characters hand puppets

Flintstones

Popeye, Bluto and Oliver Oyl string holders

Battery-operated 'Popeye Rollover tank', one of four known to exist in the world!

Batman

Batmobile, being the only one of its kind known to exist with its box in the world!

Green Hornet with Bruce Lee as Kato

Green Hornet Car (Blue in colour), being the only one to exist in the world!

LEVEL 3: CHILDHOOD FAVOURITES
Here, you can find popular icons such as...

Mickey Mouse.
In his earliest incarnation, Mickey was more rat-like, his head was less rounded, his body thinner, his hands larger and he also featured teeth and was the proud possessor of a tail!

Darkie, the very beginning of Darlie – the icon used in Darlie toothpaste

Bonzo the Dog

Betty Boop

Snow white and the seven dwarfs.
Notice anything strange?? That's right, how come Snow white has black hair??!!

‘Door of Hope’ doll collection

LEVEL 2: COLLECTABLES

Lunch boxes

Die cast metal trains

Die cast metal planes

Cute toys

Skating circus clowns

Die cast metal motorcycles

1840's tumbling toy

Matchbox die-cast toy vehicles, so-named because they were packaged in a matchbox back in the 1950s

Earliest version of the Mickey Mouse Hurdy Gurdy, or Organ Grinder toy. On exhibit is an early prototype made by The Johann Distler Company, Germany in the 1930’s. The later versions have tails, which are ‘spring like’ and the lithographs on the Organs are slightly different in design. This toy is often found missing the small Minnie Mouse dancing figure, as it is not attached to the toy.

LEVEL 1

Astro boy greets you when you enter the museum

'Lenticular panel' lines the walls of the walkway from the museum’s entrance, and depicts a chronological record of comics from the Silver Age to the Platinum Age.

BUILDING

There is no support pillar for Level 4/5 of the museum and the floors are only supported by the side walls. Seems as though the floors are floating in the air!

From Level 3, you can look down directly and clearly to the ground floor through the glass flooring.

The building’s facade comprises of twenty-six glass panels and is unique in that it has been specifically designed to minimize the amount of light into the building to reduce the damaging effect of UV rays on the collections.

Time to back up your previous data

… in your external hard drive to another external hard drive!

My external HDD was working well all the times but suddenly I can't open it anymore! … last night. Argghh!!

Was transferring photos from my camera onto the external HDD when an error message: Insufficient disk space… appeared. This is weird, cos I know for sure there’s at least 200GB of unused space… *scratch head*

So... I re-copied the photos to HDD again, encountered same error *frown*, unmounted HDD from computer and restarted computer…

Really bad move!!

When I plugged HDD into computer again, an error message "You need to format disk in drive before you can use it" appeared, and the hard disk is 0 byte!! Meaning there is no file inside the hard disk??! Meaning all the data inside the hard disk are gone??!!! *horror + panic*

Goggled online and found that it is actually very common for external hard disk to have problems!! And if you are suddenly unable to read certain files on your hard drive or save new files onto the drive, this may be a sign of impending failure. *someone should have told me earlier!!*

Currently HDD is sitting at home with CHKDSK running since 11pm plus last night… *sigh*

Hopefully my data is still recoverable *cross fingers* though I should not have high hopes, cos from what I saw this morning at 7am plus, there were many unreadable files and an “insufficient disk space to recover blah blah” message =(

And when I tried to recall the last time I back up data from my primary external 500GB HDD to secondary external 1TB HDD... I think it was like last year's October! *OMG! THAT long ago??*

May have to lose up to one year’s worth of photos… *very very sian* Hopefully the deleted photos in my camera can be recovered...

Anyway, moral of the story is: Always be diligent to back up your data in many many places

The End.

Classic: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

A book that I am currently reading in my long list of must-read literature... The most fascinating aspect of this novel (Re: novel was written in 1931!) is how many of the imagined future's possibilities have actually come into existence or have very strong parallels to our present world. This includes test tube babies, cloning of humans, the rise of rampant consumerism, the focus on instant gratification, the increasing reliance on mood altering drugs, etc. This is certainly a book that I’d recommended for you to get an idea of how far our current world has moved toward to becoming a world close to, if not identical to World State.

And since I am not good at describing the story to you, you can read the complete review here.

Extract:
... Brave New World revolves around the idea of totalitarianism and is set in a futuristic world where a combination of science and pleasure form a rather feudalistic society. This idea of totalitarianism is achieved through test tube babies, and hypnotism, resulting in a pre-ordained caste system consisting of intelligent humans suited to the highest positions and conversely, serf-like beings genetically programmed to carry out menial works. In this world of Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and the unfortunate Epsilons, exists drug-induced happiness, caused by what is known as soma. Here, "everyone belongs to everyone else" emphasizing the system of forced promiscuity, brainwashed into the people from the moment of birth. At the core of this book is the horrific idea of eugenics and despite being written several decades ago, its message remains valid for our generation.

Brave New World explores the negatives of a ostensibly successful world in which everyone appears to be content and satisfied, with excessive carnal pleasures yet really, this stability is only achieved by sacrificing freedom in its true sense and the idea of personal responsibility.

I think this book is really interesting as it explores the dangers of technology and what it can do to a whole world; indeed, Huxley is trying to convey the idea that technology does not have the power to save us successfully. This theme is what makes the novel controversial - yet a classic that we can relate to, especially in today's world, where technology is close enough to ruling our lives, what with high tech computers, music players and gaming consoles fast becoming a natural part of our lives. Additionally, Brave New World explores the idea of just how far science can go without being immoral. Would we really want to live in a world where eugenics rule and despite everyone being equal on the surface, deep underneath bubbles the idea of inequality and unfairness? Not for me, thanks! The novel presents the contradictory idea of a Utopia, a perfect world, yet the word "utopia" is derived from two Greek words meaning "good place" and "no place"; this suggests that the perfect world is impossible.

ishot: The Adventures of Tintin

@ Singapore Philatelic Museum... from 5 November 2011 - May 2012.

The Adventures of Tintin is a series of comic albums created by Belgian artist Remi Georges (1907–1983), who wrote under the pen name of Hergé.

Tintin is the famous young reporter in the comic series created by Belgian Georges Remi, also known as Hergé (22 May 1907 - 3 March 1983). Tintin and his dog companion, Snowy, enjoyed exciting adventures that took them to various places in the world such as Tibet, Congo, America, Russia and even the moon!

View the full range of Tintin postage stamps issued by Belgium, France and the Netherlands from the museum's Universal Postal Union Collection. Rarely seen original stamp artworks, colour trials, and other philatelic materials from the Museum Voor Communicatie, the Netherlands, and Musée de La Poste in France are on display for the first time in Singapore.

Enjoy the photos =)

Pencil sketches of the comics

Zoom in for a closer look

Rarely seen original stamp artworks, colour trials and other philatelic materials from the Museum Voor Communicatie in the Netherlands and L’Adresse Musée de La Poste in France.

Pop up books give a new dimension to the classic adventures of Tintin.

Figurines based on the comics.

You can browse Tintin comics for free here! (PS: Only 2 books available.)

The 24 official comic strip albums written by Hergé.

An interesting read that I found online; Click here to read the mini-Tintin FAQ, because the Tintinverse can be a weird and unwelcoming place for newcomers.

ishot: Dreams and Reality

My fav artworks from the exhibition - Dreams and Reality: Masterpieces of Painting, Drawing and Photography from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris - that was held at NSM last year. Enjoy!

The Birth of Venus
…is from a famous episode from classical mythology when Venus is born of sea-foam and carried ashore. This theme, very popular in the 19th century, provided some artists with the opportunity to introduce eroticism without offending public morality, under the pretext of representing a classical subject. For Cabanel, the mythological theme is indeed a pretext for the portrayal of a nude figure, which, though idealized, is nonetheless depicted in a lascivious pose.

The Knight of the Flowers
…depicts the moment when Parsifal, the chaste hero destined to find the Holy Grail, has just struck down the guardians of the castle of the magician Klingsor. He moves away into the enchanted garden, deaf to the calls of the flower maidens, femmes fatales scantily clad in narcissi, peonies, roses, irises, tulips, violets and hydrangeas.

Illustration for The Dream using pencil, pen, chinese ink and watercolor

The Seige of Paris
The figure of Paris - represented by Madame Meissonier, draped in a black veil and a lion skin, in front of a tattered French flag – rises above the ruins of a barricade. Above her, in a sky of billowing clouds of ash and unfolding tragedy, the spectre of famine hovers over a Paris destroyed by fire.

Photograph of a group of paperboys

Boats: Regatta at Argenteuil

The Boy with the Cat
...has not given up all its secrets. This male nude has no equivalent in Renoir's work. The identity of the model seen from the back cuddling the cat is unknown. His sly glance at the spectator remains mysterious. The scene does not seem to have any mythological reference.

Le chemin de la Machine
The illusion of three-dimensional space is particularly spectacular thanks to the road stretching into the distance, perpendicular to the surface of the painting. The row of trees gives rhythm to the composition, and accentuates the impression of depth, whilst an interplay of lines is achieved through the vertical trunks, echoed by the horizontal lines of the shadows. The slight rise in the road is used to create a vanishing point slightly off centre, and to obtain a plunging view over the sunlit background.

The Port of Rouen, Saint-Sever

Starry Night
View of the Rhone in which Van Gogh marvelously transcribed the colors he perceived in the dark. Blues prevail: Prussian blue, ultramarine and cobalt. The city gas lights glimmer an intense orange and are reflected in the water. The stars sparkle like gemstones. The serene atmosphere reinforced by the presence of a couple of lovers at the bottom of the canvas.

The Young Girl and Death
…depicts a young girl in white, surprised in her bed by Death, in the guise of a black angel with huge wings. The medieval aspect of the room, the composition and attention to detail, the depiction of the young girl in profile, the angel’s gesture and even the curved shape of the picture, all give this work an archaic feel typical of Pre-Raphaelitism in Britain at the time.