The Importance of Natural History

Yesterday Jon and I went to the Natural History Museum. The building is gorgeous!

The exhibits we spent the most time with were dinosaurs, human biology, mammals, marine invertebrates, and volcanoes and earthquakes. I think the most important thing we learned is that you're never too old to be entertained by an animatronic T-Rex. Below are a few highlights:

"Giant ground sloths, like this one, survived until about 5,300 years ago. They lived in open, moist, cool, boggy conditions, where they grazed on plant material. Their hides were thicker than an elephant's and they hadno known natural enemies. Their extinction may have come about because of changes int he climate--or it may have been because of human interferences."

"This is the fossilized skeleton of a sea-dwelling reptile that lived  between about 161 and 157 million years ago, at the same time as the dinosaurs lived on land. The end of the backbone kinks where it bend downwards to provide support for the lower part of the animal's tail-fin. The ring of bones around the eyes may have helped the animal to focus in the murky ocean depths. It fed on shellfish called belemnites, extinct relatives of the modern squid. Parts of belemnites are sometimes found in the stomachs of these fossil reptiles. these reptiles were similar in shape to modern dolphins and probably had a similar lifestyle." Its weird fin bones creep me out.

Ready for this guy's name? Pink fairy armadillo!
"These are the smallest armadillos alive today. They feed mainly on ants but also eat worms and snails. If threatened, the fairy armadillo burrows quickly under the soil and its attacker is faced by the protective body plate on the armadillo's hind quarters."

Basket stars
"Basket stars are brittle stars with highly branched arms. They crawl out from hiding places at night and then open their arms to catch small animals drifting in the water."

Sea fan
"Some sea fans are fan-shaped with branches that fuse together to form a network. They grow with their flat surfaces facing the current, so that their tentacles can strain food out of the water."

This is what your brain would look like if you "unfolded" it. I found it quite unsettling.

This was included in an exhibit on perception. I enjoyed the depiction of "a foreigner."

Pele's hair
"This beautiful material is called Pele's hair, after the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes. The golden strands form when tiny pieces of magma are thrown in the air and spun by the wind into volcanic glass."

Other highlights include listening to a field trip of Italian school children exclaim over crabs and octopuses ("Ah, Dio mio!" "Ooh, Mr. Krabbs!") and riding this escalator through the center of the earth:

Picture from adventureswithandrea.com.

We spent the end of our visit walking through the wildlife garden.

Tiny little bird house on the water!

We found a bird friend cleaning himself outside of his house.

After the museum, Jon had this for dinner:

I, on the other hand, had a very sensible vanilla milkshake.

That night, we saw The Importance of Being Earnest. As we entered the theater, I realized that while I've read the play several times and seen two film adaptations, I don't think I'd ever actually seen the play performed before. We both loved it! The direction tried a bit too hard maybe; the text is so genius that I feel it does most of the work by itself, but there were so many instances of actors pulling faces and indulging in exaggerated gestures on top of it. Also, Lady Bracknell was played by a man--David Suchet--which is a convention that really bugs me. There are SO MANY great roles for men, and there are not so many great roles for women. Especially for older women--how many fantastic, iconic roles can you name for older women? And here we have Lady Bracknell, one of the best roles ever, I think, and rather than giving it to a deserving actress they just put a man in a dress. Granted, Suchet gave a great performance, but I have every confidence that they could have found an older woman who could have done just as good a job.

While the show was only two and half hours long, there were two intervals, mostly to allow for the large scene changes between acts, but I found that I enjoyed that pacing more than having only one break in the middle.

Another thing I love about theatre in this country is that you don't have to stand after Every. Single. Play. I believe that you should only give a standing ovation if a performance just about changes your life, but in America everyone stands after everything and then you also have to stand or else you can't see the curtain call and you look like a jerk. So far the only play that's received a standing ovation during our visit has been The Play That Goes Wrong; I think that was fair, given how much of a marathon that show is for each of the actors.

After The Importance of Being Earnest we went back to Barrafina because we felt like having a perfect meal again. It did not disappoint.

On Wednesday, we went to the movies and saw Love and Mercy. It was about Brian Wilson at two points in his life: the 1960s (where he's played by Paul Dano, who I happen to be madly in love with) when he was creating Pet Sounds and starting to deal with his declining mental health, and the 1980s (John Cusack) when he was over-medicated and under the care of money-grubbing, hyper-controlling psychologist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) and developing a relationship with Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks). Neither of us knew anything about Brian Wilson going into the movie. His life is a fascinating story, and the performances were excellent. Wilson had minimal creative influence on the film but decreed it "very factual." We both thought it was fantastic, and we spent the night after the movie scouring the internet for more information about Wilson and the Beach Boys. I highly recommend it, especially if you are or ever were a Beach Boys fan.

xo
Hannah