Museum of Natural History

[redbird]

cattitude and I just had a very pleasant time showing zorinth around the American Museum of Natural History.

He's in town with papersky, who is here for the Nebulas. We met them, and davidlevine, for a quick slice of pizza, then Papersky and David went back to the hotel, and Cattitude, Zorinth, and I took the train uptown.

We started on the fourth floor, because the original plan had been "take Zorinth to AMNH and show him the dinosaurs." The three of us had fun showing each other stuff--Cattitude and I know the museum, but Zorinth was pointing out details of the fossils to us as well as the other way around. At one point, Cattitude asked to borrow the small flashlight that I keep in my daypack, for a closer look at a fossil; it didn't make a huge difference. After two or three halls, Cattitude decided he wasn't entirely well, and headed home; Z and I kept looking at cool things, including the rest of the dinosaurs.

Having nothing specific in mind after dinosaurs, we went downstairs, which led to the Hall of African Mammals. I led him in there to show off the elephants from above, after which we went around the dioramas on the third floor, then those on the second floor (the level the elephants are actually on), with the fine old dioramas. A discussion while in there about whether giraffes were taller than blue whales had included me saying "We could go look," so we stopped in briefly to see the huge model hanging from the wall of the Hall of Fishes (though we skipped the rest of that hall).

We finished up with the Hall of Rocks and Minerals: Faberge miniatures, specimen gold (the fine leafing and branching some nuggets do), then along to the case of fluorescent minerals, which we watched through three cycles of turning the lights on (so we could see the usual look of them) and off (for the fluorescence). And then casually into the adjacent room, where Zorinth of course walked straight ahead and right up to the Star of India. We had fun looking at star sapphires; Zorinth said he especially liked the red one just below the Star of India. And on around the rest of that room, full of gemstones and a rebuilt gem pocket from a topaz mine. And out again, to look at huge pieces of amethyst and azurite, and a stalagmite, and lots of other things both attractive and educational.

It had been years since I actually went all the way around that hall, instead of just showing off the star sapphires to visitors and then stopping by my favorite huge hunk of amethyst. I should do so more often.

As a bonus, the path in and out of the Hall of Gems and Minerals is through the Hall of Human Origins, which has a model of Turkana Boy that I think is new, and a cast of a Homo floresiensis that I know I hadn't seen before.

That was about as much museum as I had in me, so I took Zorinth back downtown, then came home via the grocery store. (I needed vegetables to make fish stock, having bought fish "frames" (bones and some of the usually-less-desirable flesh) for the purpose at the Greenmarket this morning.)

Comments

I've only been to New York City once, alas

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I came there the summer I was 12 for a family wedding, and met my "twin cousin", who was about six weeks younger than I and looked like my identical twin at that age. We had such a great time at AMNH! I can still remember the delight and awe that filled me when I saw the Star of India. I took it rather personally when the gem was stolen just a few months later, and cheered when it was recovered. I didn't care about the Eagle Diamond or the DeLong Ruby. They didn't touch my soul as the Star of India had.

Wait a minute....

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I must have been 11, because that theft was in 1964. Hmmm... I could have sworn I was 12. Memory is such a strange thing.

Re: Wait a minute....

[redbird]

Have you read Samuel Delany's memoir The Motion of Light in Water? The introduction includes his recall of having written, for someone who was doing biographical stuff, "My father died in $year, when I was sixteen," and how surprised he was when they pointed out that he hadn't been that age at any point in the year in question.

I haven't read that one

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

But I have read a wonderful collection of stories by a former professor of mine, Wayne Fields, called The Past Leads A Life Of Its Own. I'll have to see if my library has the Delany book.

Re: I've only been to New York City once, alas

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I have a cousin who is six weeks younger than I am, but we've never looked alike. She was blonde, blue-eyed, and short (our grandmother called her a fairy); I was brown, brown, brown, and tall and thin (our grandmother called me a stick).

Freddy and I, who never met until that age

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

were both asthmatics (not so odd--the gene often travels along with red hair and fair skin), and loved archeology, dinosaurs, books, reading, and rocket ships. We were so alike that people on the subway wondered aloud which of our brown-haired, short, mothers had given birth to the tall, skinny red-haired twins who seemed so close.

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

I looooove me some Hall of Rocks and Minerals. Hippo too--he's always said that some day he wants to decorate his music studio like that, all dark fuzzy walls and geodes lit from below... :D