There was a similar hall in the Smithsonian natural history museum, where I spent much time as a child. I know the feeling about looking at the whale that the author describes quite vividly (and I also liked the giant squid there best). I eventually followed my love of ancient and lost peoples more than my love of ancient and lost animals, but both were a surprisingly important part of my life growing up.
I've also visited the NY natural history museum several times and dearly love it - once I went there with Aaron which is even better than going to a museum alone. I remember (I think it was in this museum) an exhibit with a cave bear skeleton standing upright with raised paws in the middle of the room. I stood before it looking up and for a brief instant touched a feeling of what it must have been like millennia ago to walk into very much the wrong cave.
That museum also contains what I regard as one of the most perfect objects in the entire world - a armor vest made by some Pacific Northwest tribe (perhaps the Kwakiutl [which I shockingly spelled correctly on my first try]) made of Chinese copper cash (the coins with the square holes in them) that the maker got from Russian traders, the coins were sewn onto mountain goat leather.
I love the cross-cultural mixing and just seeing it made me imagine a different history where admiral Zheng He's early 15th century fleet expanded and eventually traveled West to create a new Chinese PNW culture that I would some day love to write about.
Museums are sacred and while I can see some virtues in the better modern museums (the one's with as few electronics as possible), too many gadgets and gimmicks defile their wonder.
The one in DC was always less run down and emotionally strange than the one in NYC, but also figures prominently in a weird little book called Winterlong that you should read.
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Date: 2003-06-22 01:47 am (UTC)I've also visited the NY natural history museum several times and dearly love it - once I went there with Aaron which is even better than going to a museum alone. I remember (I think it was in this museum) an exhibit with a cave bear skeleton standing upright with raised paws in the middle of the room. I stood before it looking up and for a brief instant touched a feeling of what it must have been like millennia ago to walk into very much the wrong cave.
That museum also contains what I regard as one of the most perfect objects in the entire world - a armor vest made by some Pacific Northwest tribe (perhaps the Kwakiutl [which I shockingly spelled correctly on my first try]) made of Chinese copper cash (the coins with the square holes in them) that the maker got from Russian traders, the coins were sewn onto mountain goat leather.
I love the cross-cultural mixing and just seeing it made me imagine a different history where admiral Zheng He's early 15th century fleet expanded and eventually traveled West to create a new Chinese PNW culture that I would some day love to write about.
Museums are sacred and while I can see some virtues in the better modern museums (the one's with as few electronics as possible), too many gadgets and gimmicks defile their wonder.
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Date: 2003-06-22 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 09:22 am (UTC)