Sunday, March 08, 2009
The Natural
I went to the Field Museum of Natural History today. Since it's monsoon season here in Chicago, it seemed like a good day to spend the whole day inside, and I had been wanting to see the Aztecs exhibit for a while. Of course, a good 2/3 of Chicago apparently had the same idea, so we spent the first half hour or so in line waiting for a surly, half-literate woman with the most elaborate fingernails I had ever seen to "help us" with our ticket purchase. And can I mention the fact that approximately half of the people in attendance today appeared to be newborns? Because of course infants are really wild about dioramas of Native Americans. It seems like I'm learning something I didn't know about parenting every day in this city.
The Aztecs themselves were somewhat disappointing. How they managed to take a people that believed in human sacrifice and make them kind of boring I'm not exactly sure. I think it had something to do with their insistence that ancient farming implements are interesting. I swear to God I'm not a moron, but I can only look at so many carved pieces of obsidian before I kind of want a juice break. They did have some really interesting pieces from ongoing excavations in Mexico City, though. If only the remains of an Aztec temple were buried beneath my condo!
We also had to make stop-ins at the dinosaurs and the Egyptian pyramid, of course. I've seen them many times, but as the aspects of natural history that get featured in major motion pictures, they remain worthy of our respect and attention. I just hope I don't get cursed for violating anyone's sacred burial rites. That just gets really old, honestly.
I went to the Field Museum of Natural History today. Since it's monsoon season here in Chicago, it seemed like a good day to spend the whole day inside, and I had been wanting to see the Aztecs exhibit for a while. Of course, a good 2/3 of Chicago apparently had the same idea, so we spent the first half hour or so in line waiting for a surly, half-literate woman with the most elaborate fingernails I had ever seen to "help us" with our ticket purchase. And can I mention the fact that approximately half of the people in attendance today appeared to be newborns? Because of course infants are really wild about dioramas of Native Americans. It seems like I'm learning something I didn't know about parenting every day in this city.
The Aztecs themselves were somewhat disappointing. How they managed to take a people that believed in human sacrifice and make them kind of boring I'm not exactly sure. I think it had something to do with their insistence that ancient farming implements are interesting. I swear to God I'm not a moron, but I can only look at so many carved pieces of obsidian before I kind of want a juice break. They did have some really interesting pieces from ongoing excavations in Mexico City, though. If only the remains of an Aztec temple were buried beneath my condo!
We also had to make stop-ins at the dinosaurs and the Egyptian pyramid, of course. I've seen them many times, but as the aspects of natural history that get featured in major motion pictures, they remain worthy of our respect and attention. I just hope I don't get cursed for violating anyone's sacred burial rites. That just gets really old, honestly.
