Midway Village is the international leader in preserving and 
disseminating the history of the sock monkey (I wish I was making that 
up). In the course of working on our new exhibit about the city's former 
hosiery industry and the sock and doll that are its legacy, I had 
bisected and mostly unstuffed a sock monkey doll while trying to make an 
articulated  sock monkey puppet (who saw THAT coming in grad school).  
For quite a while its two halves would be laid under the blade of the 
oversize paper cutter in my workspace.

One day shortly before the exhibit opened I tipped back the 600 pound 
knitting machine in the exhibit gallery and tucked the lower half of the 
monkey under it so that it looked like the machine had been set down on 
and squashed the upper half of a sock monkey.  I did this for the 
benefit of our then Curator of Education who was at the time suffering a 
severe case of "monkey fatigue"  Monkey fatigue is an acute 
psychological disorder employees at Midway Village suffer when they have 
heard about /dealt with/ talked about or taught about sock monkeys too 
long without enough other kinds intellectual stimulation.  The most 
effective cure is to witness or participate in some kind of shockingly 
disrespectful act  perpetrated on some poor, lovable, defenseless monkey 
doll.  Anyway I had no sooner put the squashed monkey in place when who 
should wander into the gallery but one of our oldest (literally and 
figuratively) and most active volunteers and donors (also serving on the 
board at the time).  She had in tow a group of her friends and was 
proudly showing off the museum and talking about our upcoming new 
exhibit.  I had no where to run as I was on hands and knees behind a 
plexi barrier next to the machine working on the installation.  All I 
could do was smile, greet the group, sweat and send up prayers to the 
gods of museum pranksters.  Such prayers must work because neither she 
nor anyone in her group spotted the unfortunate monkey.

BTW, the monkey fatigue cure worked its usual magic..

Dan

-- 
Dan Bartlett, BFA, MA
Curator of Exhibits
IMLS Grant Project Coordinator
Midway Village & Museum Center
Rockford, IL

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