Prairie Landing
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Colliculus's parents came to visit this weekend. Once again they spoiled us rotten, buying us dinner, the aforementioned grill, admissions to stuff, and literally everything else except train fare, which they no doubt would have insisted on buying if we didn't have fare cards already. They also helped us wash a couple of windows and plant some tomatoes I had been neglecting on the deck. They even bought the potting soil for the tomatoes. Damn, I married well.
I was thrilled that we were able to persuade them to go to BodyWorlds. This is a new exhibit in which almost every item on display is real, plasticized human tissue. It's not as gross as it sounds and really amazing. There are whole skeletons in which everything but the circulatory system is stripped away, or the nerves, or the muscles -- you get the picture.
A disturbing thing was that every so often, something about the setup would remind you that this wasn't just a display; it used to be a live person. Like the lungs would be black from smoking, or the person would have a knee replacement. The most unnerving one was the pregnant woman with fetus. She looked perfectly healthy and fit, as did the fetus. But I guess they weren't.
At the end there was a museum docent with a couple of random, plasticky organs you could pick up. A guy came over and started squeezing a lung with both hands, like a stressball, while he chatted with her about how the display was made. He asked, "So these are replicas, right?" She had to explain three times before he understood that no, they were real organs that had gone through the same process as everything else. The moment he got it, he put the lung right down. I poked it. It did feel just like a stressball. I didn't want to pick it up either, though.
I was thrilled that we were able to persuade them to go to BodyWorlds. This is a new exhibit in which almost every item on display is real, plasticized human tissue. It's not as gross as it sounds and really amazing. There are whole skeletons in which everything but the circulatory system is stripped away, or the nerves, or the muscles -- you get the picture.
A disturbing thing was that every so often, something about the setup would remind you that this wasn't just a display; it used to be a live person. Like the lungs would be black from smoking, or the person would have a knee replacement. The most unnerving one was the pregnant woman with fetus. She looked perfectly healthy and fit, as did the fetus. But I guess they weren't.
At the end there was a museum docent with a couple of random, plasticky organs you could pick up. A guy came over and started squeezing a lung with both hands, like a stressball, while he chatted with her about how the display was made. He asked, "So these are replicas, right?" She had to explain three times before he understood that no, they were real organs that had gone through the same process as everything else. The moment he got it, he put the lung right down. I poked it. It did feel just like a stressball. I didn't want to pick it up either, though.
