#1 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/11/2006 Tracey, DD and I had a good time at the Field Museum yesterday. (Yes, we did encounter a few screaming brats.) I am always impressed with the museum and I mean the building itself as much as the contents. We just don’t build them like that anymore. It is huge and impressive from the stairs outside to the vaulted ceilings inside. Another thing I always notice when I enter the museum is the smell. It has that old, musty smell of things that have languished long in cases and on shelves. That museum smell —— somehow dark, musty and with just a hint of mildew. You eventually become accustomed to it, but that first few seconds just hint of the neat old things you are going to get to see.
The #Tutankhamun exhibit was impressive and I couldn’t help but imagine the people who made, touched and used the items on display. It is so amazing that this stuff has been around for over 3,000 years. It is also amazing to think people actually lived with so much wealth in such a primitive environment. I was especially impressed with the ornate objects fashioned and carved so meticulously. Some of the richest items must have taken weeks or months to fashion and they were ordinary things like hairbrushes or perfume bottles. I guess that just highlights the obvious —— these were not ordinary people. They were the royalty of the world in their time and there was nothing ordinary about even the slightest of their possessions.
We also wandered through the Mendel exhibit and looked at the almost primitive instruments used to discover the beginnings of our genetic science. I also learned a lot about Mendel I was not aware of —— such as his interest in astronomy and weather. As an ordained priest he evidently had the time and resource to spend many hours studying. I was most impressed with the reams of journals and written records he compiled about everything from his genetic experiments to weather observations. People had such beautiful penmanship back then!
I was a bit disappointed in the latest exhibit called “Evolving Planet”. The information was so ‘dumbed down’ as to be almost useless. A sign of our times I guess —— the assumption that people are too stupid to understand the concepts of evolution. Or perhaps an attempt to be politically correct and not get into the details of evolution too boldly. Anyway it took some of the fun out of the wonder of evolution reduced to ridiculous cartoon shows. And last, but never least, the dinosaurs! They always thrill me. I try to imagine what it would have been like to have one of those monsters giving you the evil eye (like the one I shush kids with only worse!) just before he pounces at you.
It was raining and cold when we left. The traffic was murder getting out of the city at rush hour and it seemed to take forever. We left the museum at almost 5 p.m. and it was nearly 10 p.m. before we got home. Nearly two hours just getting out of the Chicago traffic. I can say now that it was worth it, but when I stumbled into the house last night I was wondering if I would ever do it again.
Pictures of Field Museum |
MjL |
From the article ——
