microbie the exhibition
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Questions from ioplokon on Dreamwidth (who asks very good/hard questions!)
1. What is your favorite opera that you'll never get to see live?
I guess I have some years left, but I feel like I'll never see as much French opera as I'd like. Top of the list is Gounod's Faust. Also, Richard Strauss is my favorite opera composer, and I'm starting to believe that I'll never see anything but a recording of Der Rosenkavalier.
2. If you could curate (or sponsor) a museum exhibition, what would it be?
I'm gonna answer "curate" because that narrows things down a bit. I assume I'd have to stick to something I actually know about, which is basically two topics: aquatic microbial ecology and evolution and Tupperware. Oh, maybe a third, scholarly journal publication, but that would be the most boring museum exhibition ever and could be summed up thus:"The fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small." If I could ask for help I could do a decent exhibition on western swing.
Back to the aquatic microbiology exhibition. It would focus on how Earth's carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus cycles would not work without aquatic microbes. Phytoplankton (single-celled photosynthesizers) pumped oxygen into the atmosphere long before the first algae emerged. The first documented microbes ever viewed were found in Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's collected rainwater. I'd have reproductions of his drawings, Ernst Haeckel's illustrations of diatoms and other single-celled plankton, and beautiful microscopy images of the most charismatic (yes they exist!) aquatic microbes. And of course there'd be microscopes with samples to look at and Giant Microbes for sale in the gift shop.
3. What is your icon of? (I thought for the longest time it was naked Jesus getting his Rear Window on, haha)
It's Edward Hopper's painting Eleven A.M. but I like ioplokon's idea so much I might start using that. The person is Hopper's wife, Josephine, who didn't allow any other women to model for him.
4. What is your favorite winter activity?
I hate winter, so, sleeping. Or, if I have to choose an actual activity, going to a museum or other indoor show.
5. Who is the most reliable person you know?
Definitely Brent, which feels a bit like cheating. If I weren't married, this would be really hard. I guess I'd say Andrea, one of my longest-serving friends. She'd bail me out of jail, probably. She would definitely give me a long lecture, and I would definitely pay her back.