WHy, as a matter of fact, I HAVE exhibited alcohol-consumption, thanks also
for the opportunity to self-promote!

In an exhibit addressing the uses of anthropology museums and exploring
their relevance in the world, I set up a series of case studies, matching
one aspect of museum work with an example from teh museums collections (the
Museum is Brown University's Haffenreffer Museum; the exhibit is entitled"
Packrats for Posterity?  Relevance in teh Anthropology Museum").  One
display case was on the uses of cross-cultural comparison, and I illustrated
that through brewing and drinking.  With studies ranging from Etruscan
symposia to honey-beer in East Africa to chicha in Peru to contemporary
homebrewers, I asked visitors to question their own assumptions of "drinking
norms" in a larger context -- who brews?  WHo drinks?  How much is too much,
and what does that mean?  I was extremely fortunate in that Brown's Center
for Alcohol and Addiction Studies had recently received a donation of
personal belongings of one of Alcoholics Anonymous's founders, Dr. Bob.  I
set up his personal coffee pot (an old aluminun percolator, if anyone's
interested -- his family says its THe Pot he and the co-founder used when
they stayed up all night keeping each other sober and working out what AA
could be) in a vitrine facing the floor-to-ceiling wall case filled with the
glory of booze world wide, and used it to bring up the issue of abuse and
how it is handled in the US.

Juliette Rogers
Now at the Stephen Phillips Trust House, Salem MA

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