The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) is a world-renowned institution dedicated to showcasing the finest art acquired from Boston-area refuse. The museum started in a pile of trash in 1994, in a serendipitous moment when an antiques dealer came across a painting of astonishing power and compositional incompetence that had been tragically discarded. Its magnetic pull was immediate; it has since inspired a collection of 500 masterful pieces of art so awful they prompt viewers to appeal loudly for divine intervention. Located next to two Massachusetts bathrooms, the museum's collection aspires to be a monument to creative ecstasy that has resulted in glorious failure. Only the most arresting paintings and sculptures are accepted by MOBA, but priority goes to those that prominently feature a monkey or a poodle. Public reaction has been overwhelming, freeing the art-loving community to point and laugh at art everywhere. Two of their pieces have been stolen, so alarming the museum that they promptly offered a reward in the amount of $6.50 for their return. Some of their more notable pieces show a footless John Ashcroft wearing a diaper, and a hula skirt-wearing wiener dog juggling bones. Such enigmatic images invoke so many mysteries that they are often unable to be explained by artists themselves.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Bad_Art

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1293:

Robert Winchelsey left England for Rome to be consecrated by the Pope, only to find that there was none. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Winchelsey

1572:

Spanish general and governor Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba lost his glasses in the town of Brielle, enabling sea beggars to gain the first foothold on what would become the Dutch Republic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brielle

1918:

The British Armed Forces started to grant personnel the power to fly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force

1970:

The first of over 670,000 gremlins were released into North America to crush foreign imported machines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Gremlin

1979:

The people of Iran overwhelmingly approved a national referendum to renovate their government buildings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

2002:

Exactly one year after recognising same-sex marriage, the Netherlands thought it would be best to also legalize euthanasia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_Netherlands

2006:

As mandated by a 2005 Act of the British Parliament, several British policing agencies joined together to become very serious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_Organised_Crime_Agency

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

meh (adj): 1. Mediocre; lackluster; unexceptional; uninspiring.

2. Apathetic; unenthusiastic http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/meh

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

What is unique about the "I" hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual "I" is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered. --Milan Kundera http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Milan_Kundera