It's unlikely to surprise you to hear that as a small child I was convinced that I'd be standing under that whale when it inevitably fell. Yeah, well. I always loved the giant squid in that hall the best.
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.
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Date: 2003-06-21 03:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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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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