Vent Haven Museum

I liked Vent Haven already because of all the memorabilia and history dedicated to my art. Now there is even more to love about it.... there are "ghost" stories associated with it.
In a late night conversation with Lynn Joy, Al Semock, Lisa Sweasy, and Annie Roberts the subject of discussion turned to ghost stories. It seems the Museum is not immune to such legends. I guess I never really thought of it since ventriloquism has such an other world reputation and past anyway; And Vent Haven is housed in old historic buildings. But here is the way I heard it last night from Annie, who literally grew up in the museum.
One of the members of the Advisory board was doing some video taping late one evening in Building one. (If you do not know building one then you have to come to the Museum and experience it yourself.) Along with Annie the job at hand was to catalogue some of the older vent puppets on video for posterity. At one point during the filming the lights went out suddenly casting them in total darkness.
The building has no windows and it was night time as well. It was only a few minutes before Annie's husband showed up with a lit candle and the appropriate breaker switch was restored and there were no voices, sitings or contact from the other side. However, none of the images of that evening survived. The video was blank. Cue the spooky music.
Now it is an old building and breakers are made to turn off, in fact that is their function. And logically one might say that the extra power used by the camera was enough to throw the breaker. Although, that problem is more associated with toasters or hairdryers which pull massive amounts of power, much more than a video camera. And one might argue that the very power surge that tripped the breaker was enough to erase the magnetic tape. But what can not be argued is the timing of the entire event. Those old puppets in that old building have the most varied and colorful history. For me it was a phenom to be lumped in the category of mysterious. For others it was an electrical problem. To those naysayers I suggest that the problem is not a continuing one and it has not repeated itself since.
One more reason to love Vent Haven Museum....

Posted with Blogsy