Monday, December 12, 2005
Fun With Natural History
Checked out the Pompeii exhibit at the Field Museum this weekend. I was kind of surprised by how sad it made me; I mean, I certainly wasn't expecting dancing cartoon characters and cotton candy, but I guess I had mentally skipped over the whole "massive loss of human life" part straight to the awesome explosions and cool old buildings. I blame James Cameron. Ever since he turned the senseless freezing death of thousands into the Entertainment Spectacle of the Century, Featuring Leonardo DiCaprio's Dreamy, Dreamy Eyes, it's been kind of hard to keep perspective. Or that crappy Celine Dion song out of your head.
But anyway, the exhibit was really interesting. It turns out they had really cool jewelry back in Roman times, and much better frescoes than your average Wicker Park loft. And I don't care if they did plagiarize their gods straight from the Greeks, they're still way cooler than Jesus. When was the last time he took the form of a bull? They're like Transformers! Plus, I put in the extra $5 for the audio tour, so I got to hear people with undefinable accents discuss the finer points of Roman bathing. The upshot is that they did a lot of it, but still weren't all that clean. Kind of like back when Courtney Love got that makeover so she could try to be an actress.
So yeah, the Field Museum is really fun. They have dinosaurs and mummies, too. And a whole bunch of boring minerals in glass cases, but I think they're sort of required to do that so they can keep their "street cred" with the science nerds. Trust me, it gets ugly when they're mad.
Checked out the Pompeii exhibit at the Field Museum this weekend. I was kind of surprised by how sad it made me; I mean, I certainly wasn't expecting dancing cartoon characters and cotton candy, but I guess I had mentally skipped over the whole "massive loss of human life" part straight to the awesome explosions and cool old buildings. I blame James Cameron. Ever since he turned the senseless freezing death of thousands into the Entertainment Spectacle of the Century, Featuring Leonardo DiCaprio's Dreamy, Dreamy Eyes, it's been kind of hard to keep perspective. Or that crappy Celine Dion song out of your head.
But anyway, the exhibit was really interesting. It turns out they had really cool jewelry back in Roman times, and much better frescoes than your average Wicker Park loft. And I don't care if they did plagiarize their gods straight from the Greeks, they're still way cooler than Jesus. When was the last time he took the form of a bull? They're like Transformers! Plus, I put in the extra $5 for the audio tour, so I got to hear people with undefinable accents discuss the finer points of Roman bathing. The upshot is that they did a lot of it, but still weren't all that clean. Kind of like back when Courtney Love got that makeover so she could try to be an actress.
So yeah, the Field Museum is really fun. They have dinosaurs and mummies, too. And a whole bunch of boring minerals in glass cases, but I think they're sort of required to do that so they can keep their "street cred" with the science nerds. Trust me, it gets ugly when they're mad.
