Note: This post originally appeared in January of 2011 on an outdated blog, now fairly defunct. The extreme excellence of these museums, however, is more relevant than ever. If the state of the world, and especially politics, is getting you either wholly worked up or down in the dumps, just remember that people are still building fantastical, phenomenal things for the sheer fabulous hell of it. It will help with the panicking. Trust me. Now, one day I will build a museum that is the delighted child of every collection of the marvelous, a gracious bow to the old cabinets of curiosity in how they strove to show the great harmony of being, a grand new dance of entrancing exhibition...but in the meantime, here is a selection of some other magical locations in which the dust of fascination sinks slowly through the dark...