As my wimsey takes me
Today was eventful.
Mom and I left the house at about ten this morning in order to go to the museum of science and industry. There is an exhibit there which mom had been wanting to see for a while and which I had also expressed some interest in, today happened to be one of the last free days for some months so we went. This exhibit is called Body Works and I had miXed feelings to begin with.
The exhibit consists of displays of human skeletons, muscular structure and anatomy as well as stained slices of tissue. This is pretty straightforward except that it isn't just the occasional bone and then models, but actual human bodies, people. This in and of itself is acceptable, the bodies were all donated and I don't mind such things for the sake of knowledge or medicine. The exhibit and the way it was presented was...hard for me.
From the beginning I had problems with that fact that the museum called them specimens, a silly thing and I could understand how it might make it seem more medical but it just felt wrong to me and that's something that stuck with me as I went through the show...I will not call it a scientific exhibit. These were people, children, even a pregnant women. They were stripped down to the muscles, to the skelton, half and half, some still even with their skin on, these were people and I wanted to know their names,how they were in life . The lack of this is something I disliked but even so it wasn't a big deal, knowing the name of the utterly naked man propped up before us in a semblance of life is a little more intimate then many would care to become.
I forwarn you that although I will not swear, the next paragraph or so is going to be a rant, I may seem childish or like I'm just freaking out but I honestly found some of the way things were presented to be disgusting, please forgive any apparent lack of "medical openess" on my part. The beginning of the show was alright, offputting but acceptable, the information was bland and sparse at best but the bodies were displayed openly and in a seeming respectful manner. After that things changed. The information shown on structure and musculature was (despite the definition of information) uninformative, for this opinion I rely on my mom as she knows more about the medical field then me and towards the end I rushed through it. I find myself thinking of ancient egypt and the respect afforded to the dead. No offerings of gold here but instead the 'specimens' were stretched and twisted into things reminiscent of a pathetic carnival. They were molded into poses like wax sculptures and given names, such as the Archer and Chessplayer with (as far as I know) no regard for the former person's actual preference during life. Two bodies rode a stripped horse, one man standing held a pile of human skins in his hand, posed as if about to whirl them about him like a cape. An unnamed child appropriated of everythign but his dyed system of veins. Muscles were severed from bone, pulled back and molded into parodies of wings and torn clothing, the first such was explained off as a way to show how easily muscles could become severed from the bone yet this motif was repeated many times with no explaination as to why. There was a curtained off area with fetuses of every month and a reclining pregnant woman, her uterus cut open to display the unborn child. Oddly enough the only skin left to her was a small circle around each of her nipples. My mom asked the guard and aparently this area was curtained off and to the side because people get freaked out about abortion and fetuses and sex,not to mention the extremely sexist and sexual pose of the "reclining" pregnant woman.
I was not happy and I know it was childish but I wanted to cry halfway through the exhibit, these were people, they deserved some sort of respect, not to be posed with a silly grin and a white hat with idiotic signs saying: The Winged Man, wearing a white hat to further shorten to boundary between life and death. I made myself go through it all and say something for each of them, think something. I am not a terribly religious person but death deserves respect, all death deserves respect, us, animals we eat, plants we use and eat. This is not something that I can put a name to but I feel it deeply.
In any case as soon as I was done I went to sit and wait for mom by the baby chick hatchery, there were children there and life and I needed that. It's silly, and hard for me to know how much of it might just be subliminal fear of death but it disturbed me. I don't generaly consider myself fearful of dying but it's hard to not be afraid when you're walking through there, looking at muscle upon muscle, feeling that same muscle flow and move within yourself. It's hard to keep from thinking of it all as just so much meat, that we're all just meat and what does it matter that people are walking about giggling over this man's half dissected penis or how that pile of bones and meat must have gotten a really bad case of sunburn. I don't know, I thought that it was just me freaking out over fear or religion or ignorance until I talked with mom about it later and she said that she didn't like the way it was displayed either.
ok, I'm finished with that. Afterwards I read some Peter Wimsey ( I've just finished Gaudy Night and am starting Busman's honeymoon) Ironic considering Wimsey is a murder detective but Dorothy Sayers always cheers me up. Mom and I also went to see today's last showing of Howl's moving castle. I don't know how to feel about that because I did dearly like the movie but it's very different from the book and in some ways it really didn't do the book justice. I like them both (book and movie) though they're very different but I'm reserving judgement until I can see the movie in Japanese instead of dubbed. I'm a little sad that it didn't seem to hold up to the book so well since that book is one of my favorites of the author's works. It's still a good movie though...I mean, come now...Miyazaki.
Aside from all that, I've been playing KOTOR, not too far into it yet but I like it even if being on the light side takes up hella time. I find that I like the jedi code, silly maybe because it's something from a movie/game but it makes me calm.
There is no emotion;there is peace There is no ignorance;there is knowledge There is no passion;there is serenity
There is no chaos;there is harmony There is no death;there is the force
Done for the night, oyasumi nasai.
Mom and I left the house at about ten this morning in order to go to the museum of science and industry. There is an exhibit there which mom had been wanting to see for a while and which I had also expressed some interest in, today happened to be one of the last free days for some months so we went. This exhibit is called Body Works and I had miXed feelings to begin with.
The exhibit consists of displays of human skeletons, muscular structure and anatomy as well as stained slices of tissue. This is pretty straightforward except that it isn't just the occasional bone and then models, but actual human bodies, people. This in and of itself is acceptable, the bodies were all donated and I don't mind such things for the sake of knowledge or medicine. The exhibit and the way it was presented was...hard for me.
From the beginning I had problems with that fact that the museum called them specimens, a silly thing and I could understand how it might make it seem more medical but it just felt wrong to me and that's something that stuck with me as I went through the show...I will not call it a scientific exhibit. These were people, children, even a pregnant women. They were stripped down to the muscles, to the skelton, half and half, some still even with their skin on, these were people and I wanted to know their names,how they were in life . The lack of this is something I disliked but even so it wasn't a big deal, knowing the name of the utterly naked man propped up before us in a semblance of life is a little more intimate then many would care to become.
I forwarn you that although I will not swear, the next paragraph or so is going to be a rant, I may seem childish or like I'm just freaking out but I honestly found some of the way things were presented to be disgusting, please forgive any apparent lack of "medical openess" on my part. The beginning of the show was alright, offputting but acceptable, the information was bland and sparse at best but the bodies were displayed openly and in a seeming respectful manner. After that things changed. The information shown on structure and musculature was (despite the definition of information) uninformative, for this opinion I rely on my mom as she knows more about the medical field then me and towards the end I rushed through it. I find myself thinking of ancient egypt and the respect afforded to the dead. No offerings of gold here but instead the 'specimens' were stretched and twisted into things reminiscent of a pathetic carnival. They were molded into poses like wax sculptures and given names, such as the Archer and Chessplayer with (as far as I know) no regard for the former person's actual preference during life. Two bodies rode a stripped horse, one man standing held a pile of human skins in his hand, posed as if about to whirl them about him like a cape. An unnamed child appropriated of everythign but his dyed system of veins. Muscles were severed from bone, pulled back and molded into parodies of wings and torn clothing, the first such was explained off as a way to show how easily muscles could become severed from the bone yet this motif was repeated many times with no explaination as to why. There was a curtained off area with fetuses of every month and a reclining pregnant woman, her uterus cut open to display the unborn child. Oddly enough the only skin left to her was a small circle around each of her nipples. My mom asked the guard and aparently this area was curtained off and to the side because people get freaked out about abortion and fetuses and sex,not to mention the extremely sexist and sexual pose of the "reclining" pregnant woman.
I was not happy and I know it was childish but I wanted to cry halfway through the exhibit, these were people, they deserved some sort of respect, not to be posed with a silly grin and a white hat with idiotic signs saying: The Winged Man, wearing a white hat to further shorten to boundary between life and death. I made myself go through it all and say something for each of them, think something. I am not a terribly religious person but death deserves respect, all death deserves respect, us, animals we eat, plants we use and eat. This is not something that I can put a name to but I feel it deeply.
In any case as soon as I was done I went to sit and wait for mom by the baby chick hatchery, there were children there and life and I needed that. It's silly, and hard for me to know how much of it might just be subliminal fear of death but it disturbed me. I don't generaly consider myself fearful of dying but it's hard to not be afraid when you're walking through there, looking at muscle upon muscle, feeling that same muscle flow and move within yourself. It's hard to keep from thinking of it all as just so much meat, that we're all just meat and what does it matter that people are walking about giggling over this man's half dissected penis or how that pile of bones and meat must have gotten a really bad case of sunburn. I don't know, I thought that it was just me freaking out over fear or religion or ignorance until I talked with mom about it later and she said that she didn't like the way it was displayed either.
ok, I'm finished with that. Afterwards I read some Peter Wimsey ( I've just finished Gaudy Night and am starting Busman's honeymoon) Ironic considering Wimsey is a murder detective but Dorothy Sayers always cheers me up. Mom and I also went to see today's last showing of Howl's moving castle. I don't know how to feel about that because I did dearly like the movie but it's very different from the book and in some ways it really didn't do the book justice. I like them both (book and movie) though they're very different but I'm reserving judgement until I can see the movie in Japanese instead of dubbed. I'm a little sad that it didn't seem to hold up to the book so well since that book is one of my favorites of the author's works. It's still a good movie though...I mean, come now...Miyazaki.
Aside from all that, I've been playing KOTOR, not too far into it yet but I like it even if being on the light side takes up hella time. I find that I like the jedi code, silly maybe because it's something from a movie/game but it makes me calm.
There is no emotion;there is peace There is no ignorance;there is knowledge There is no passion;there is serenity
There is no chaos;there is harmony There is no death;there is the force
Done for the night, oyasumi nasai.