One reason I have not been blogging as much as I would like lately is because I have been on the road more than usual. But even when I am traveling for pleasure I keep my eyes open for guns and gun culture. And sometimes I find them in the unexpected places. Like the Montreal Musee des Beaux-Arts (Museum of Fine Arts).

In the permanent collection, I found a display of miniature firearms made by a Poland-born Montrealer David Kucer. The artistry and craftsmanship is stunning.

The museum also had a special exhibition running called “You Say You Want a Revolution,” which explored the cultural ferment of the 1960s around the world (but especially in the US and Canada) through music, movies, fashion, social movements, and political conflict.

One of the cool features of the exhibition is that you wore hi-fi headphones (thanks, Sennheiser) which automatically played different 1960s songs as you worked your way through different parts of the galleries.

The war in Vietnam and the war at home obviously involved guns, and I was impressed to see displayed a mannequin adorned with a Black Panther uniform and rifle.

Doesn’t immediately concern gun culture, but it was cool to see a couple of pieces of historical technology. I always remember when my dad used to bring a calculator home from work back in the 1970s. It was powered by an AC plug and could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. We had so much fun playing with it.

Another decade later, my first personal computer, purchased in 1986 when I was a college freshman, was an Apple IIc. Cool to see one of the original Apple computers displayed at the museum.