Been There.

(click to enlarge)

While loading up a borrowed truck to haul away yet more unwanted stuff this weekend, I kept getting hit by the all-too-distinct scent of barbeque. Now that it's above thirty degrees out, people are burning off last year's grease form their grills and getting down to, well, grilling. As a vegetarian, one would think that I would be put off by such a smell.

Nope.

Just as I'm a former smoker who still has cravings several times a day, I remember all to well the allure of meat. Most of all, I miss pork and prosciutto. The flavor of steak, not even a little. But man, the aroma of a grilling steak is almost too much too bear. Instant salivation. That smell is second only to the bouquet of KFC. Even when I was still eating meat, there was no way in hell I'd eat at a KFC. I had too many bad experiences with just feeling ashen and gross afterwards. But the smell of that place is practically irresistible. It's just spices, flour, and grease I'm smelling…but what a heavenly perfume it is.

Gilding the Lily.

I rented The Exorcist the other night. I had only seen the movie on network TV, and it was of course edited to the point of…disappointing. I had never seen it in its entirety until I moved out on my own, and some channel was running it at midnight on Halloween. I had the bright idea of watching it with headphones on. I slept like a baby after that, of course. When it was over and I turned the lights on so nothing could suddenly possess me, I wondered what the unedited version was like. Mostly I was just interested in watching it without commercial interruptions. Well, that was about 15 years ago, so I figured it was time to finally rent it.

Even edited and with commercials, it was a scary movie. I had built it up in my mind over the years and was pretty sure that the unedited version was going to freak me out for a good couple days. I needn’t have worried. It came out in 1973, and there was some special edition version that I rented with the hopes of maybe getting to see some behind-the-scenes stuff. What I didn’t realize was that this special edition had been, well, queered up.

Now stay with me here as I veer off course a bit. I saw Star Wars in the theater when it first came out. Even though I was six, I could see that the special effects were done by animation and puppetry. That was okay for me then, and it’s okay for me now. A couple years ago I saw the (once again) “special edition” version, and I was appalled. George Lucas thought he could improve it with gratuitious CGI throughout the movie that just flat-out didn’t belong. As a matter of fact, it became so distracting, I just shut it off. What was wrong with the original version? What was it lacking that it required even more stuff thrown in? The answer? Nothing. I’m not a superfan of Star Wars and all its prequels and sequels. I don’t go to the extent of lamenting the fact that caliber of Greedo’s gun wasn’t consistent with what criminals of the era would really use (isn’t it obvious?). Nope, I enjoyed the movie for what it was: a fun action flick with fight sequences. But as a casual observer, I noticed the egregious CGI additions and balked. I can only imagine what the purists thought. I have visions of slackened jaws, fumbled Magic cards and near-asphyxiation from aspirated Coke and Doritos.

Back to The Exorcist. Because it’s a special edition, naturally someone thought they too could improve it with CGI. It had been Lucas’d, therefore it had been ruined. One of the more ridiculous additions was a devil face that was suddenly flashed on the screen, a little more than subliminally. The beauty of the movie is that other than the obvious elements meant to startle the viewer, there was still a lot left to the imagination; whether in the form of absolute silence for dramatic effect, eerie lighting, or backwards voices. Now, everybody knows that it’s just human voice lowered in pitch and played backwards. It’s still creepy as all get-out, though. But giving the devil an actual face, as LF pointed out, totally cheapened the movie. It’s like JAWS; one of the best things about the movie is you don’t even see the shark until a third of the way into it. But, such is The Society of Too Much Too Soon.

Hey...do you smell brimstone?

I found this on the train this morning. When all else fails, use propaganda. It's Reefer Madness for heathens. Click to enlarge.

Magnum Doofus

Kinda dating myself here, but…

Honeycomb’s big
Yeah yeah yeah!
It’s not small
No no no!
Honeycomb’s got
A big big bite!
Big big taste
In a big big bite!

I was six when that jingle came to be. It was obviously a good ad campaign because I remember it, um, some decades later. The thing is, though, I never really thought Honeycomb cereal was that big, even between my wee six-year-old sausage fingers. In the commercial, a kid puts a ruler up to a piece of the cereal, and at best is the cereal was ¾”. However, via thinly-veiled optical illusion, they made it look like it was 2” wide because they held it over the second inch of the ruler.

Believe me, I’d much rather be solving the world’s problems or cranking out a bestseller instead of obsessing about this kind of crap. Que sera sera.

Ill-Placed Remembrance

I don’t consider myself hypersensitive, but check out this email I got from the Toyota dealer where I bought my Scion xB (click to enlarge):

What in the living hell does a special on an oil change have to do with a day celebrating a man’s legacy? What’s next, the Holocaust Remembrance Day Hamster and Chinchilla Sale at PETCO? I'm sure that's how Dr. King would like to be remembered--a champion of civil rights and discount oil changes.

Reeeal classy, guys. Christ.

Commerce

I’m selling some of my bass stuff, but this isn’t a gear post. This is about idiocy; the kind of idiocy I run into every time I try to sell something.

There is a multitude of ways to sell something, whether it’s eBay, Craigslist, the Want Advertiser, local papers, etc. Tightwad that I am, I usually opt for Craigslist because a) it’s free, and b) if I sold on eBay, I’d have to pay their rapacious fees and also deal with shipping.

My ads are very forthcoming and often flirt with grandiloquent. The reason for this is because I see so many ads that are written by complete meatheads (I touched on this many posts ago, but from a buyer’s perspective), and sometimes even if the price is good, I won’t even bother reading the rest of the ad. If they don’t have at least a decent grasp of grammar, I just don’t trust anything else they have to say about what they’re selling. When I post an ad, I don’t go to extremes, such as discussing the merits of the cabinet’s Baltic birch density or the argentiferous sheen of the Tolex. More often than not, a seller will resort to some canard about how “this is one of the good ones…made before the company was bought by so-and-so…” I just state the facts:

1. Condition
2. Specifications
3. History
4. Price

I will also include pictures. In this day and age, there is NO reason for not including pictures. Everyone either owns or knows someone who owns a digital camera or cell phone with a camera. What I’m seeing more and more is rather than put forth a little effort, people are downloading a stock photo from the internet, either from the manufacturer’s website, or a picture of someone else’s stuff (usually from eBay). It may be a picture of something, but it falsely represents what you’re selling, genius.

Right now I’m selling a bass amplifier head for $225, and that’s a great price because although it’s got some years on it, it’s in like-new condition. I typically check around to see what the used prices are for my particular piece of gear, like a comp house when evaluating real estate worth. I then come up with a price that’s maybe a couple bucks less than the average. In my ad, I state in capital letters that the price is FIRM. I won’t negotiate on something that I say is firm, period.

Without fail, every time I place an ad, within minutes I get one of these hare-brained scam emails:


“Hello,
I am a musician and interested in the musical instrument you are selling. Can you please tell me if it is still available and the price and conditions? And my client confirm there is no problem about the price, my client do pays with a {USA} cashier check, he has agreed to mail out as bank cashiers check of $3500. to you on my behalf to cover the shippment fees.About the shippment,
that we be taken care by my me & my personal assistant,my personal assistant will be using his shipper to do the quick processing of the shipping of…”

And once again, the needle on the Bullshit Meter gets buried in the red.

But that’s just the scammers. There are also those who don’t read, can’t read, or just don’t believe what they read. More on that in a second.

I welcome inquiries of any depth when I have an interested buyer. If I think that what I have wouldn’t be right for them, I’ll tell them outright. For example, a woman contacted me, asking if this amp would be good for her son who is just starting out on bass. She plainly admitted that she knows absolutely nothing about the world of musical instruments. I told her no, it wouldn’t be practical for him, and I then went into great detail about what she should buy for him, and it would even cost less than what I was selling. It cost me a sale, but too many times I’ve bought the wrong thing because of my ignorance or blind faith in what the seller is telling me, so I sympathize with these people. Plus, taking advantage of people just so you can make a couple bucks is just a fiendish thing to do.

I got an email from a guy yesterday, and all he wrote was “pls cal me 781-xxx-xxxx”. I was torn between calling and not calling, because although I do want to sell this thing, I ordinarily don’t respond to cryptic foolishness like that. It’s entirely possible that I place too much emphasis on communication skills, but I can usually tell a lot about a person by their email. Against my better judgment, I called Captain Cryptic.

This conversation was doomed from the start because I was in a stairwell, on a cell phone, and he had a very strong Australian accent and was also on a cell phone. He first asked if the price was negotiable, and I said no. He then told me that he needed something to power a subwoofer for his karaoke setup, and did I think this would do the job. I told him no, that this is an amp for bass guitar and he needs an actual power amplifier. So, we said our goodbyes, and that was that.

I got an email from him this morning. All it read was “150”.

So, not only did this mental giant ignore the fact that I don’t have what he needs, he makes an insultingly lowball offer on something that I have no less than twice said was priced FIRM. No matter what I sell, some variation of this scenario unfolds. For every ad I place, I am guaranteed at least two emails that make me ask, “are you *@^@%$# kidding me?”

Insert Title Here

Yes, I realize I haven't posted anything in a long time. It's because I'm avoiding the usual uninspiring topics of yet another in a long list of new bands, impulse buys, motorcycle/automotive/psyche repair, end of summer, blah blah blah. I was holding out so I could post something a little chewier, and, well, you can see the result.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

Chinese Factory Worker Can't Believe The Shit He Makes For Americans

FENGHUA, CHINA-Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the "sheer amount of shit Americans will buy."

I saw the above on the Onion some time ago, and thought it a rather opportune time to reference it.

Want to curb your spending right quick? Try only buying things that aren't made in China. As an experiment, I went out at lunch in search of a pair of sunglasses and shoes. I came back empty-handed. I even looked at expensive stuff like Giorgio Brutini, and whaddya know: fatto in Cina.

Christmas Tree Shop, Target, Wal-Mart, etc., would not be the huge successes they are without China. Yard sales probably wouldn't exist, either. The reality is, if I want to buy something random like a pair of sunglasses or just a decent pair of shoes, 99% of the time it was made in China. One has to actually go out of their way to find something that wasn't, and good luck trying to find something that was actually made in the U.S.

Believe me, I'm just like anyone else in that I don't like overpaying for anything.

Some years ago, there was an ad campaign for Made In U.S.A., and I immediately dismissed it as "sure, if I were confident the quality was there, maybe I'd buy more stuff made in the U.S. But if it's going to be more expensive than, say, a Japanese version of the same thing, why bother?"

Well, that was a myopic and stupid reaction. At that point, I had no idea what was really lying underneath--the fate of the American worker. I've learned a lot the past couple years, and if faced with a choice between a $5 item or $1 Chinese knockoff, I'll spring for the extra $4, thanks. For every new product you see on the market, I guarantee you that within a year that market will be flooded with Chinese knockoffs at a fraction of the price, but it's a rose by another name. Remember the Razor scooters? Remember the safety hazards and recalls that followed because of the knockoffs? Well, I don't blame the Chinese, whom I suspect see little to none of the of that precious Bottom Line.

They didn't just decide to become a major player in the manufacturing game overnight. There must be a market for this crap, otherwise it wouldn't exist. The market is driven by American greed disguised as frugality, with a blind eye turned toward tomorrow. We're a nation of consumption junkies, plain and simple.

Do I own things that were made in China? Sure I do. I recognize that I am perilously close to hypocrisy here. But I was oblivious to the long-term effects, and it honestly never occurred to me to check for country of origin. My bicycles, for example, were made in China. But it's not as if I can return them, and if it were possible to that based on principle, I would. This isn't some weird liberal crusade I'm on. I'm just genuinely concerned for the future of American labor, and due to China's recent increase in its devouring of natural resources at an alarming rate and its effect on the environment, it freaks me out more than a little. Their closest rival in resource consumption is the U.S., and that is not a good sign.

Got Class?

I cut this ad out of a newspaper today. I've mentioned this "bank" before in a previous post, explaining how crass the ad campaign is. Well, this one's no better. How psyched a child must be to learn that their conception was the result of a rip-off of a "got milk" ad campaign. Probably no more psyched than the National Milk Processor Board is that these guys adopted it.

What’s interesting is the laundry list of qualifications the, um, applicant must fulfill: you need to be either attending college, or you must be a firefighter, EMT, or policeman. Granted, they are all noble pursuits, but somehow I don’t understand the necessity of linking potential creation of life with puerile marketing.

Not to mention, when you see the ad, what do you think of a glass containing? Bingo. Surely a business of this type could try at least a little more concinnity in its attempts.

Dig it.

This new sticker can be found on my bass. I'm not usually one for stickers, especially bumper stickers, but I'm just not clever enough to come up with something like this:

©1999 Ripple Junction

Robostop

I won’t get too deep into this subject, but this strip amused me because for the past couple years I’ve been questioning how much better we are as a civilization due to industrialization. How many human-operated jobs have been replaced by machinery, and at what cost?

An immediately obvious example that we see every day is the automobile. It seems that ever since the advent of robotic painters, the paint jobs on new cars are complete crap. I’m not just talking about entry-level Korean offerings, either. I see cars from Kia all the way up to Ferrari that have completely unforgivable orange peel in their paint jobs. Kia, okay, it’s an economy car. But Ferrari? I spied a black Ferrari 599 in a parking lot not too long ago, and I was flabbergasted by its sub-par paint.

The argument has been made the orange peel is the result of more stringent EPA regulations clamping down on the types of paint that can be used, blah blah blah. It’s simple: if one buys a Ferrari, one should expect a flawless paint job. Period. FIX IT.

I saw the same shameful paint job on a Mercedes R-class. Is their affiliation with Chrysler blurring what’s good and bad? Ironically, the Chryslers seem to have a more even paint application.

Thanks to the Perry Bible Fellowship.

Taking Stock of BS

This morning I was lamenting the fact that I just can’t seem to find a good, reliable source for stock tips. I mean, who really knows? Who can you really trust?

Suddenly, sent by the Heavens of Financial Gain, my prayers were answered by a certain Mr. Phlebotomist G. Unruly. As soon as I saw the email's subject line “syphilis crumple”, I knew I’d found my permanent source for solid stock tips and prosperity. Ahhhh. Warm fuzzies.

I got to work right away, using these guidelines they provided (because this stock is guaranteed to skyrocket!):

"1GB of vibrant percussion instruments with multiple mic positions and varied, expressive articulations. This takes out the last remaining independent analyst that covered EDA as an industry. DJ Niki Belucci, right, is the latest topless DJ on the scene. Now, two minor complaints. After all, if it's not bribery, how do you explain a ruling so lopsidedly in favor of industry at the expense of consumers and to the detriment of innovation? Nebenbei versuche ich, mich der arabischen Medienwelt etwas zu naehern."

Wow. Now that’s good stuff. Market analysis is for suckers. Tahiti, here I come.

One would think that spammers, phishers, and hackers--who need to be dipped in lye and forced to sweat--would use, oh I don’t know, a more credible means of getting one’s attention. First of all, the “sender’s” name. Second, what’s with all the gibberish at the end of the emails? If someone somehow got through the First Stage of Reader Gullibility, the gibberish will be a deal breaker.

Ironically, I just got another one titled The Bull Report. A more apt name, I couldn’t give you.

Congratulations on Being Born

Presidents’ Day. I have to say that I’m curious how this came to be. I mean, I appreciated having the day off and everything, but what an incredibly random, bizarre excuse for a holiday. We’ve had what, forty-two presidents, not including that joker inhabiting the White House right now? How come none of the other forty rate high enough to get a holiday that celebrates their just being born? Taft seemed to enjoy things like birthday cake, maybe even too much. I’ll bet he would’ve appreciated a day like that. What about Kennedy? It’s a widely held belief that he was The Greatest Thing Since Napkins, and yet, he has no such holiday. I’m guessing the cutoff point for useless presidential holiday creation was sometime in 1864.

Would Washington and Lincoln have endorsed or even condoned this silliness? Perhaps if they were in the market for a new car or flooring, I can only presume.

Happy birthday, Geo. Sorry your special day got lumped in with Abe’s. It must be as anticlimactic as having a birthday the same week as Christmas.

My apologies for what might be my worst Photoshop offering to date.

DYSTOPIA - Population: bigger all the time

‘Twould seem that Canada is looking to make helmets mandatory when sledding. I’d expect this from the U.S., but Canada?

Discuss.

Oggi

When did it become standard practice for salespeople or waitstaff to end every sentence with “today?”

“Will that be paper or plastic today?”
“Would you like to start with an appetizer today?”
“Can I help you find anything today?”
“How are you doing today?”
“Would you like me to wrap that up for you today?”
“Can I interest you in some coffee or dessert today?”

"Did you find everything okay today?"
“Would you like to hear about our promotion today?”
“Have a good day today.”

One day my response to the first eight will be, “not today, but at 11:43 AM next Thursday, and not a minute sooner.”

Compunction Junction, What's Your Malfunction?

I’m ceaselessly amazed by people’s inability to read body language. For example, I get into work absurdly early and I’m immediately at my desk enjoying my manly bowl of oatmeal. It’s too hot to eat right away, so I’ll let it sit for a couple minutes. Inevitably, someone (usually of influence) will come up to me and just start yammering away about something, and all I can think about is tearing into that oatmeal. What should be a 45-second conversation turns into five minutes, and now the oatmeal’s cold. Sure, I could have started eating it mid-conversation, but I didn’t want to be rude.

Well, most of the time I don’t want to be rude. Sometimes I abandon all politeness and just tear in because there are few things more disgusting than cold oatmeal, meanwhile hoping the chatterbox will get the message. If I were talking to someone and they started eating, I’d simply take the hint and come back later; sometimes it’s the only solitude one can get when sharing a small office nine hours a day. But for one reason or another, an unfortunate percentage of people just don’t get the hint, and they’re completely oblivious to body language. If a conversation drags on too long or has reached the point of completely irrelevant small talk, I get fidgety. I’m obviously trying to get back to what I was doing and the person talking at me is now just an unwelcome distraction; an oblivious one at that.

Behold the poster child for passive-aggression.

I guess I’ll just have to start eating egg salad sandwiches or something equally as unsightly and talk with my mouth full. I don’t think anyone could be blind to that. Although…

Step Right Up, Kid...

In a move that surprises even me, I’m going to watch the Super Bowl this year. I usually don't because these things just don't do for me what they do for most everyone else. However, it just so happens that LF and I are house-sitting a place that has a very large television, so I might as well make use of it while we’re there. My tiny interest in this event is because of one tiny thing:

A pencil.

Back in 1978, we lived in Bolingbrook Illinois. At my school, Wood View Elementary, there was a pencil machine mounted on the cafeteria wall. Drop a dime in the machine that resembled a straw dispenser, and out popped a pencil. Whatever vendor company installed this thing knew exactly what they were doing, for this machine doled out pencils emblazoned with football team names. Naturally, the only pencil that interested anyone was the one for the Chicago Bears. I knew absolutely nothing about sports, let alone what Illinois’ home team was, but once I learned it was the Chicago Bears, I just had to have one—as did everyone else. The pursuit was essentially the same as finding the Golden Ticket, and I can only imagine how much money I or other kids spent on that stupid machine. It was pretty much a slot machine for the young and soon-to-be penniless, for cryin’ out loud.

Not surprisingly, I had about a eight thousand pencils and maybe two of them were of the Chicago Bears. That’s a lot of misappropriated milk money.

**I had originally entitled this post "Duhhh Bearsss", but it occurs to me that the population of this country will most likely be saying or hearing it a trillion times a day until after the game. Far be it from me to add to the lunacy. Wink.

Keep It Real

I haven’t exactly been shy about my opinions regarding beauty. More accurately, I haven’t been shy about my opinion of what society dictates or perceives as beauty. It’s my belief that you never know how genuine one’s appearance is until you see them when they first roll out of bed in the morning.

In junior high through high school, it was bad enough being a male, just trying to get along with everyone while trying to establish (let alone maintain) their own identity. Other than athleticism and perhaps physique, there are few demands on us--hygiene is a given.

For a girl though, hoo boy.

My earlier post touched on it. Societal demands or standards start alarmingly early. From the moment a little girl’s gaze falls upon either a magazine or television ad, she is essentially told this is what beauty is. You needn’t have mastered the SATs to register that:

This is what beautiful is
+ You don’t look like this
________________________________
= You’re not beautiful

How do you explain something as abstract as beauty to someone whose peers are typically hell-bent on fitting a mold or just fitting in? That the beauty comes from self-respect and dignity and not a tube? How do you tell them that the beauty that they’re using as a benchmark is purely superficial? Well, I guess you just tell them and hope for the best. Society for some reason has a much more forceful hand.

A friend of mine sent me a link this morning that I found intriguing. Dove has approached the subject of beauty with what they refer to as “The Campaign For Real Beauty”. I will give them credit for trying, but most of the models they use for some of the ad campaign still fall within societal standards for body type and size; they’re not heroin chic bone racks, but calling them full-figured is a stretch. If these women are average, where are the women who have thin, stick-straight hair? Or are over 55? Or how about aquiline noses?

Regardless, they have a video that illustrates where the “beauty” comes from in fashion and ads. It’s a step in the right direction, at least. It certainly isn’t my intention to be a mouthpiece for a beauty aid company, but if it’ll make people lighten up on themselves and give the fashion and glamour industries the long-overdue Collective Middle Finger, then I’ll get behind it.

Strawberry Shortcake Tart Recipe

Oh, how I do love a poignant cartoon. Kids grow up too fast as it is, and tarting them up is just perverse. And before the snarky notion of “listen to the curmudgeon go on and on about tainted youth”, I’ve felt this way since I was a kid.

While walking through Borders the other day, I saw a book entitled “Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank: And Other Words of Delicate Southern Wisdom” on the discount rack. I didn’t get a chance to read it, but the title cracked me up but good.

Let it not be misconstrued; I think there is nothing on this planet more beautiful than the female form--nothing--but allowing one’s child to dress like an adult is just creepy. I’ll never understand it, just as I’ll never understand using the word “bitches” as a term of endearment.

We area a society hell-bent on achieving others’ respect, and this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. I’ll go out on a limb and say that women most likely have twice of the difficulty of men in obtaining that respect. Contrary to what my often barbed opinions on society would infer, I actually do subscribe to the “to each his or her own” philosophy. I’m not a parent, and I of course realize that unless I had kids of my own, I may not be entitled to express certain ideas without walking a mile in a parent’s shoes. However, I am referring to common (uncommon?) sense here. Once the precedent is set, it’s all over. Media and society will typically shoulder the blame when it comes to fashion choice, eating disorders, etc. I’ll use the tired cliché of beauty being in the eye of the beholder; in the case of adults, fashion is leaving less and less to the imagination. What some would consider trashy, others would consider sexy, just as what some would consider buttoned-down or conservative, others would consider sexy. In the case of children, I will grant you that the power of suggestion is essentially a tractor beam for a young and impressionable mind, but someone is buying these clothes for their kids. And they’re not doing them any favors.

Am I suggesting that all girls wear nothing but pantsuits or antebellum-style dresses until they’re eighteen? Of course not. I am suggesting that some better choices could be made than the current trend. My adolescence was not so long ago that I don’t remember it or the adage of “the more scantily clad, the better”. I was guilty of buying into it, certainly, but mostly because I was a hormone-enraged idiot. But I also remember subconsciously thinking less of the girls who also adhered to that philosophy.

Love Your Guts

My Lady Fair and I caught the Body Worlds 2 exhibit at the Museum of Science on Friday. The show had been running for quite a few months, so I took for granted the amount of time I had to attend it before it closed for good. Well, as is always the case, time just flew by and I realized that if I didn’t take a day off work and go, I’d miss it and regret it. So, we took our nieces with us (their mother was far too grossed out by the whole thing to take them) and set out for the museum.

I figured I had an edge because I bought tickets well in advance a couple days prior, but I was in no way prepared for what a mob scene the museum would be the day we went. I had forgotten to take into account that pretty much every student under the sun would have that week off, and it would seem that every single one of them was at the museum that day. We pressed on.

The exhibit ran in fifteen-minute intervals, and every single one of them was sold out. The place was just teeming with people. Now, I should note that ever since I lacerated my calf with a utility knife at work many years ago, I have been squeamish. Prior to that incident, I had no problem with blood, gore, humors, etc. Well, that’s no longer the case. Attending this exhibit was a major step for me; seeing the ads for it and taking comfort in the fact that there was no blood made the decision to go a lot easier.

First of all, the exhibit was much larger and a lot more detailed than I had anticipated. Secondly, I assumed that it would solely be plasticized bodies posed in various ways to illustrate how certain muscle groups worked, etc. Rather, there were a multitude of display cases containing various organs and bones, and of course there were the obligatory “this is a healthy heart and this is an arteriosclerosis-addled heart”-type displays, but it also got into the usual, less popular-to-display organs like the pancreas and gall bladder.

After plastination, some bodies were sliced to provide a cross-section. No more than maybe a couple millimeters thick, the slices resembled a slice of a geode more than an actual human body. But there they were, displayed like a mobile or stack of cards. Context played a tremendous role in this exhibit, and for the most part I did satisfactorily (read: didn’t feel the urge to vomit), but every now and then while locked in on a posed figure, I would get a sudden wave of “whoa, I’m actually staring at what was once a living being” and would have to move onto something else. The exhibit was just huge and took about an hour to take in completely.

I came away from it with some thoughts:

1. The display cases containing the diseased heart and lungs made me want to give up eating and start wearing a dust mask everywhere I go, as well as lament my many (past) years of smoking.

2. How a lump of gray matter dictates how we function at all, let alone for a lifetime, is absolutely amazing. Ditto the human heart.

3. Once stripped of its epidermis and fat, the human body is actually quite small.

4. Though each figure was freestanding and not encased, not a single person touched them--not even little kids.

5. All attendees seemed perfectly comfortable with the whole exhibit until they got to the cases containing preserved, stillborn babies. I think a certain amount of internal conflict welled up in a good number of people at that point.

6. Hot lights + the sight of preserved bodies = one challenging hour

7. I had hoped that attending this exhibit would finally get me over the squeamish bit; a long-desired desensitization. It didn't.

8. Bring snacks. Four salads at the museum cafeteria cost about as much as a small island.