Still the best banana picture ever.
I met Ken “Bananaster” Banister about six years ago, when I was beginning to research my book. At that point, his museum occupied a storefront in Altadena, California (a suburb of Los Angeles.) He’d been running the museum for decades, and it was the most amazing repository of banana items I’d ever seen. But Ken was retiring, and was trying to sell the place. At that point, he was asking several hundred thousand dollars for the facility; an eBay auction resulted in no takers.
A couple of years later, with the future of the museum in jeopardy, he moved it to an exhibition center provided by the city of Hesperia – a high-desert town between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. All seemed well when I visited in 2008. But earlier this year, Hesperia told Ken that his collection – now reduced – could no longer be accommodated. The search for a new home was on, again. Last week, that home was found: Virginia Garbutt, who owns a liquor store near Salton Sea – a dry lake bed and former resort area south of Palm Springs – picked up the collection, and hopes it will be a tourist attraction.
I hope so too, and I’m optimistic. I also hope that the new owners will maintain Ken’s sunny and wacky demeanor. Sunny, as in “a banana looks like a smile” (he told me that when I first met him) and wacky, as in the picture below.
CNN did a comprehensive report on the saga; the picture illustrating the story is from my collection.
Here’s an account of my visit to the Hesperia museum.
Here’s a chapter from my book that didn’t make the final cut about Ken and his museum.
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman 
