Holy Mechanical Museum, Batman!

I would consider myself a fairly avid museum patron. I've been to the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Musee d'Orsay, Tate Modern, Reina Sophia...yadda, yadda, Prado. I have even been called a "friend of the arts" ( although, it's an admittedly shallow relationship based primarily on schmoozing and eating hors d'oeuvres with pinkies out; it's not like the arts ever call me at home or invite me over for dinner).

However, in all my years of wandering through these great echoing marble halls of canonized genius, gazing upon the artistic achievements of human skill and creativity, falling piously silent in the presence of captured perfection, still one question has remained. Where are all the robots? That question has now been answered.

While out exploring an unknown corner of Seoul, 3 friends and I found ourselves looking up in reverent astonishment at the foot of The Seoul Robot Museum. This sacrosanct reliquary housed a collection of priceless masterpieces to match any of the esteemed galleries of Europe. Ok- well, maybe not, but it was still wicked cool. The visit began with a bit of philosophical aperitif about man's insatiable desire to create life. These deistic tendencies have, throughout modern history, spawned such miraculous creations as Pinnochio, Frankenstein, C3PO, AstroBoy and Al Gore. All, with the exception of the last, of whom were proudly on display under glass...Al Gore had his own special room.

We spent a few hours touring through the exhibit which included everything from a first edition copy of the "Wizard of Oz" (...ahem, Tin Man, Robot) to the hamburgers and french fries transformer toys from McDonald's HappyMeals, now evidently priceless collectors items. I used to have the complete set...I think I melted them down with a magnifying glass one sunny Saturday afternoon.

So lessons and cultural experiences gathered from this last outing: The word "robot" came from a Czech term which means "forced labor," and comes from Karel Capek's play "Rossum's Universal Robots" translated in 1923. Robots are the natural evolution of human theological progress and physical laziness. And, finally, HappyMeal Toys are not the worthless cheap pieces of plastic my mother always told me they were.