"The Body"

Yesterday I went to the Montreal Science Center to see the "Bodyworlds 2" exhibit. It's one that shows a number of real human bodies (dead, of course!) that have had their skin removed so you can see all the stuff you usually only see in a biology course or if you watch "Operation" (if that's even on anymore). The bodies have been "plastinated," a patented process by which the body is actually turned into a plastic-like substance, looking sort of like those models of the body from that biology course. It was amazingly impressive. There must have been a dozen or more whole bodies and then a whole lot of body parts on display. AMAZING. My Best of Show piece was the circulation system in the hand and arm. That's all. No skin, nerves, bones, muscles. Just the whole venous/arterial system from just below the elbow to the fingertips, suspended in a clear liquid and lit from below (or above?). Beautiful, simply or rather, complexly (if there is such a word) stunning. If it hasn't already passed through your nearest metropolis and it comes there, GO TO IT. I was so glad I had. Here's the link to the Science Center's info on it: http://www.centredessciencesdemontreal.com/BW2/en/index.html. (It looks like I can't put a live link here, probably because of copyright and patent limitations.)

I don't think I could say the word amazing too often to describe it. As for the controversy that the exhibit apparently engendered in some of the cities it visited, with conservatives arguing that it disrespected the body, I can say with absolute certainty that I came out if the exhibit with more respect than ever for the beauty and complexity of the human. Period.

Wow.

Mid-August and not much happenin'

It's pretty quiet around here these days. I don't have too many projects on any burners so I'm doing little stuff, deciding what my cold-weather projects will be. The first one is to catalog Stan's fishing books. And then to maybe begin on his fiction, but I'd love to weed that collection! He thinks weeding is a sin. We shall see.

I am working on making a pillow out of my very first piece of needlepoint. It's a monarch butterfly that has hung on a wall for 30 years or more. I needed the wall space and decided to make it into the pillow it was intended to be. I've had to do several partial steps twice so I'm taking my time. I'll post a picture here when I've finished--it should be pretty and it'll go very well in my living room.

Wow. I have NPR's All Things Considered on right now and it just reported that Antioch College in Ohio is closing, terminating all faculty & staff by fall 2008. The best man at my first wedding is a grad of Antioch. It's hard to picture a whole college just going away. I remember when a late college--just buildings and grounds by that time--was sold in Iowa. I think it had been Parson's College and I know for sure it became Maharishi International University, home of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. I can't remember if I was still in Iowa or had just moved to NY when it built its levitation dome. Far out, right?

I'm trying to gear myself up to start writing ... anything. I can't have writer's block because I'm not yet a writer, but I'm a little fearful of not liking what I'll do. So I'm using my usual and highly developed avoidance behavior technique. If I write here I don't have to try fiction. Hmmmmm. Maybe I should try fiction here and it won't be so scary. I'll now have to take a little time to think about that!

The Outfit with Kyrin in It

Just to complete the picture of the outfit in the last post, here's Kyrin IN it: