Voice Critique: Museum of Dust

For this voice critique assignment, I have chosen to discuss the blog Museum of Dust, which has a sense of character unlike any other blog. In fact, the blog, or "museum", is written and maintained by several characters: Ms. Incognita de Plume, the "founder and director of MoD"; Master Studley Wilcox-Lusher the III, the "Minister of Defence of MoD"; the anonymous "Head of the Administration", all of whom may or may not actually be the same person. The various voices of the different characters is maintained throughout the blog.

Museum of Dust (MoD) is frequently written in language similar to that used by a venerable institution, for instance, its vision statements. Here, the "What":

MoD's activities provide a benchmark for all other museums in the scope of the collection, unique conservation and storage challenges, the provision of public programs, and in its innovative associates program.

This high tone is set in almost surrealistic, post-modern relief, however, by the "Why", which explains how

The world needs somewhere that all the dust, shards, fragments and shadows can be gathered, displayed and conserved in an appropriate environment. MoD is laying down a heritage for future generations. History will be our judge.

This strange and unsettling mix of the authoritarian, "museum" voice, combined with the surreal, continues throughout the blog. Reports of the U.S. declaring war on dust are written in the objective, matter-of-fact tone of newspapers. Some posts read more like poetry, such as The Bone Room:: Gallery of Comparative Anatomy and Paleontology, Musee D'Histoire Naturelle:

For the rest, it is endless vistas of bare gleaming bone. Prehistoric dinosaur bone. Modern bone. Mammel bone and reptile bone. Head bones, hip bones and tiny tiny foot bones. Bones from mega-fauna and bones from tiny marsupials smaller than a
teaspoon. Beautiful bones.

The short sentence structure, combined with the repetition, sets a tone of awe for the collected objects, and creates more of a personal quality than the objective, detached, "museum" voice.

Another post consists of a long sentence, written in German; this contributes to the growing sense of disorientation and confusion.

The sense of mystery is continually fostered by the author's word choice; s/he makes a reference to Flickr by writing, "Buried deep in the shadowy underbelly of picture-sharing community Flickr...", to which one could certainly make a much more boring reference. A true sense of a real person exists here, because the author uses rich, descriptive, and unique language:

Drab, dull-eyed, stricken, defiant, hopeless, unceasing, split-lip broken-head other person pain. mmmmmmmm.....

Other posts, such as the author's musings on a mysterious character named Inky (aka Inky-Blinky, a spider, Master Studly Wilcox-Lusher the III), contain more informal language, and self-references. There are even posts, such as Publicity:: Newsflash, in which she rages about supposed goings-on within the museum and its staff:

And what happens? They start the campaign – no launch, no fanfare, NOTHING – in the Oubliette! The OUBLIETTE!!! Well, that was obvious insubordination. And then consider the patronising, not to mention dishonest, rubbish scrawled on it! And then to cap it all off, that nasty snide little caption. They hate me. They’re trying to demoralize and destabilize me. I suspect they’re Fifth Columnists. Maybe even Musrum’s Fellow Travellers.

The writer really builds a character (several characters, actually) by revealing her/their thoughts and emotions, as well as the more official museum postings.

The content of the blog posts varies, from memos about upcoming staff meetings, clips of interesting artworks or museum displays, pseudo news items, and of course, posts about dust.

Thanks to all of these interesting voice techniques and experimental forms of writing, Museum of Dust makes for a delightful, surprising, and thought-provoking read.