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Though you won’t find it identified as such in its many museum listings, the World Famous Asphalt Museum specializes in tongue in cheek.

Located in a corner of a Sac State office, the “museum,” which bears an eerie resemblance to a bookcase, features an assortment of asphalt chunks from various highways, byways and even the Appian Way. But despite its less than imposing presence, it has drawn international attention from newspapers, television stations and radio stations as far away as Australia, based largely on its hyperbole-laced web page.

The museum’s curator, also known as computer science professor Scott Gordon, says the 15-year-old museum began as a road-trip lark. “We’d see signs for these funky museums and thought, ‘What kind of a museum could we have?’” He decided on asphalt and picked up a piece from each road they traveled— the original Route 66, Highway 70, Highway 40, etc.

After the trip, Gordon assembled and labeled the specimens in a partitioned box, which is now referred to as the “Old Wing” of the museum.

“It was silly. A real museum wouldn’t be organized by highway,” he says.

The fame of the World Famous Asphalt Museum might not have gone beyond the professor’s colleagues were it not for an actual academic exercise. “I was learning how to do web pages and decided to make a web page for the asphalt museum,” Gordon says. The inside-joke soon became a lesson in the power and preposterousness of the Internet.

“I started getting e-mails from people all over the world. Yahoo thought it was a realmuseum and listed it as a wine country attraction.”

Gordon also got serious scientific inquiries from Eastern Europe. “I tried to be polite in responding—I didn’t want to offend anybody.

But if you saw the museum it would be immediately clear that I don’t know anything about asphalt. It grew into a sort of Internet satire.”

And Gordon is definitely in on the joke. He has an I.D. badge that identifies him as “World Famous Asphalt Museum Curator Dr. V. Scott Gordon.” And the museum is guarded by a tiny lion statuette, a gift from his mom who said, “All museums have a lion at the entry.” He also responds, accurately, to all requests for information from indexes of major museums and collections. “When they ask how many ‘acres’ the museum site is, I list ‘three feet.’”

While the museum stays compact, the asphalt collection continues to grow as friends bring back samples from their travels to places like India and Tasmania.

spelled by a spider, but Professor Lu Agosta knows a thing or two about the E.B. White classic Charlotte’s Web. The news apparently reached the producers of an upcoming DVD of the recently released movie version of the book— they interviewed him about his expertise on the book for the “special features” portion.

Agosta, an English professor who has written extensively on, and taught about, children’s literature, says the themes in the story are timeless. “The story in Charlotte’s Web is really about maturation. We see the main characters in the book—Fern, the little girl who loves and cares for Wilbur the pig, as well as Wilbur himself—make a journey and become transformed into self-sufficient individuals by the end of the story.”

The importance of language is another recurring theme in the book, says Agosta, and the story shows how language makes us who we are. “Charlotte’s first message in her web says that Wilbur is ‘some pig,’ although he claims he’s not. Charlotte tells him that to her he is ‘some pig,’ and the language creates reality because he believes it.“

The “New Wing” features asphalt from Missouri, the California Coast, Yellowstone National Park, and Scotland. From his broadcast appearances, he has also picked up specimens from the parking lots of Channels 3 and 31 and a radio station in Australia.

Gordon has become much more selective in his personal collecting. “The last ones I collected myself were from the Great Wall, the Old Appian Way, and from the Lawrence Livermore Lab.”

Gordon’s real work focuses on artificial intelligence, neural networks, and evolutionary and database programming. The goal is to make a better neural network which can be used in a variety of applications.

But, he says with a sigh, “I’m going to be more known for my asphalt museum.”

» See the museum at ecs.csus.edu/~gordonvs.

Palace of pavement Though you won’t find it identified as such in its many museum listings, the World Famous Asphalt Museum specializes in tongue in cheek. Located in a corner of a Sac State office, the “museum,” which bears an eerie resemblance to a bookcase, features an assortment of asphalt chunks from various highways, byways and even the Appian Way. But despite its less than imposing presence, it has drawn international attention from newspapers, television stations and radio stations as far away as Australia, based largely on its hyperbole-laced web page. The museum’s curator, also known as computer science professor Scott Gordon, says the 15-year-old museum began as a road-trip lark. “We’d see signs for these funky museums and thought, ‘What kind of a museum could we have?’” He decided on asphalt and picked up a piece from each road they traveled— the original Route 66, Highway 70, Highway 40, etc. After the trip, Gordon assembled and labeled the specimens in a partitioned box, which is now referred to as the “Old Wing” of the museum. “It was silly. A real museum wouldn’t be organized by highway,” he says. The fame of the World Famous Asphalt Museum might not have gone beyond the professor’s colleagues were it not for an actual academic exercise. “I was learning how to do web pages and decided to make a web page for the asphalt museum,” Gordon says. The inside-joke soon became a lesson in the power and preposterousness of the Internet. “I started getting e-mails from people all over the world. Yahoo thought it was a realmuseum and listed it as a wine country attraction.” Gordon also got serious scientific inquiries from Eastern Europe. “I tried to be polite in responding—I didn’t want to offend anybody. But if you saw the museum it would be immediately clear that I don’t know anything about asphalt. It grew into a sort of Internet satire.” And Gordon is definitely in on the joke. He has an I.D. badge that identifies him as “World Famous Asphalt Museum Curator Dr. V. Scott Gordon.” And the museum is guarded by a tiny lion statuette, a gift from his mom who said, “All museums have a lion at the entry.” He also responds, accurately, to all requests for information from indexes of major museums and collections. “When they ask how many ‘acres’ the museum site is, I list ‘three feet.’” While the museum stays compact, the asphalt collection continues to grow as friends bring back samples from their travels to places like India and Tasmania.	That’s ‘some’ professor spelled by a spider, but Professor Lu Agosta knows a thing or two about the E.B. White classic Charlotte’s Web. The news apparently reached the producers of an upcoming DVD of the recently released movie version of the book— they interviewed him about his expertise on the book for the “special features” portion. Agosta, an English professor who has written extensively on, and taught about, children’s literature, says the themes in the story are timeless. “The story in Charlotte’s Web is really about maturation. We see the main characters in the book—Fern, the little girl who loves and cares for Wilbur the pig, as well as Wilbur himself—make a journey and become transformed into self-sufficient individuals by the end of the story.” The importance of language is another recurring theme in the book, says Agosta, and the story shows how language makes us who we are. “Charlotte’s first message in her web says that Wilbur is ‘some pig,’ although he claims he’s not. Charlotte tells him that to her he is ‘some pig,’ and the language creates reality because he believes it.“
	The “New Wing” features asphalt from Missouri, the California Coast, Yellowstone National Park, and Scotland. From his broadcast appearances, he has also picked up specimens from the parking lots of Channels 3 and 31 and a radio station in Australia. Gordon has become much more selective in his personal collecting. “The last ones I collected myself were from the Great Wall, the Old Appian Way, and from the Lawrence Livermore Lab.” Gordon’s real work focuses on artificial intelligence, neural networks, and evolutionary and database programming. The goal is to make a better neural network which can be used in a variety of applications. But, he says with a sigh, “I’m going to be more known for my asphalt museum.” » See the museum at ecs.csus.edu/~gordonvs.