(photos from mercury and mars)
In addition to my longterm program of blogging from different states, I have decided today to launch a separate initiative to get of photograph of myself by each of the planets in the Boston Area mock solar system by the time I leave the area. The photos above are from me by Mercury (at the Museum of Science) and Mars (at the CambridgeSide Galleria Mall). I didn't want to delay the group I was with, plus I didn't want to get the easy ones all out of the way so easily, so I didn't make them go with me to the top of the museum parking garage to get Venus or into a nearby hotel lobby to get Earth. The Sun, it turns out, is in the Museum Planetarium, which I think means I'll have to pay to get to see it. And here I had thought solar power was free for all.
Pluto is at a T stop out on the Green Line. I will go to it sometime, although I do agree with its demotion. I wonder if there will be some protester chained to it.
BTW, I was invited along to the Museum of Science today by a few friends to see the BodyWorlds2 exhibit, the sequel to the popular BodyWorlds that involves artistically and informatively intended presentations of dead bodies that have been plastinated and sliced up or manipulated in various ways. Given how ridiculously squeamish I am, I was concerned that the exhibit would be so gross I'd need to worry about having a seizure (no, neither am I jumping on the Dorothaleptic bandwagon nor was this a complete impossibility, for reasons I'm not going to share on the blog just now). As it turned out, I didn't find the exhibit that gross, but I also didn't find it that interesting, either. So many people raved about the original that I'm not sure if it's just an inferior sequel or if plastinated bodies aren't my thing.
As for highlights, though, there was a comparison of body slices from an obese and nonobese person of the same height that provides good scared-straight-to-the-salad-bar material, and there was also a selection of embryos in jars that allowed you to insert yourself in the mind of a Supreme Court Justice ("okay, I could see where the same person could see that and think it's a mother's choice, and see that and think it's a little too close to infanticide").
8 comments:
Did you take photos at the exhibit? I'm gonna need more than just your description of that sliced up obese body to get me to pass on the bbq ribs, potato salad and cornbread.
Indeed, I had salad for dinner tonight...
Photos weren't allowed, unfortunately.
i've never understood the big problem with infanticide. are babies really all that much different from squirrels or pigeons?
I just blogged from Tijuana. I'm exceedingly pleased with myself for such a minute accomplishment.
Yes, Dorotha. It's generally thought to be different, unless you were making a sick funny. Congrats on your non-teaching WI job, btw.
Museum of Science, Walden, DeCordova! Good. I think you've picked up some nice companions at Harvard.
Re remarks on the embryos. Have you ever heard/read anything from the Far Right about miscarriages? Seems to me that there's a case to be made against God, if I follow their logic (and maybe I don't). But I'm seriously interested.
Well, have you heard? Pluto has actually been promoted in Madison: "Proclaiming Pluto as Madison's ninth planet." (If there is indeed life on other planets, I'm sure the autographed Dixie Chicks CD will be a big incentive for them to make themselves known.) I guess this will save Madison's tax payers from buying up-to-date science text books.
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