(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

I set out this morning intending to go to the Shedd Aquarium, but the line was really long and I'd thought it was a free day when it wasn't. So I decided for half the cost of Aquarium admission and no wait I could get into the Field Museum half a block away.

Every time I go to the Field Museum, two things happen:

1. I am reminded why I don't go to the Field Museum more often, because it's this weird mixture of early-20th-century dioramas and BRIGHT! SHINY! SIMPLISTIC! exhibits for kids. Also, all the kids. I'm torn between worrying people will think I'm a perv for being a grownup alone at the Field and just really wanting to kick the nearest toddler.

2. I encounter at least one truly amazing thing that will be all I remember the next time I think to myself, "Why don't I go to the Field Museum more often?"

This time I also unexpectedly ended up in a parade, but that doesn't usually happen.

There's an exhibit going on right now through September called Traditions Retold: Mexican Nativity Scenes. It's tiny, just a single room, but it was better than the Horse and Design For Living exhibits combined (this wasn't hard, as The Horse was a hot mess and Design For Living was totally incoherent). Really interesting, beautiful display pieces and very educational.

Also there's a bug exhibit on, so there was a guy in the main hall with a HUGE display of preserved insects and spiders and a bunch of live ones too. Right as I stepped up to investigate a tarantula in a glass case he popped the top off it and announced "This is Hannah. Who wants to hold her?"

So I got to hold a tarantula, which was AWESOME. They're so soft! And much lighter than they look. I kind of want one now.

And I poked around in the Animals of Asia diorama room, and went upstairs to look at the gems and jade, and saw a few other things, and then decided it was time to go home.

Except that to get from the Museum Campus to the El, you have to walk through this LABYRINTH of footpaths in the campus park, made more complicated today by the fact that half the paths were blocked off because there was some kind of parade queueing up. I still have no idea what the point of the parade was, but my indomitably bad sense of direction led me straight up the one flight of stairs not blocked off by the police and into the heart of the parade.

If you've never had "GET OUT OF THE PARADE!" yelled at you while trying to cross the street, you haven't truly lived.

But aside from antagonising the cops and feeling as if I drastically overpaid for access to the Horse exhibit, it was a pretty good day.

Comments

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Googles....looks like the Puerto Rican People's Parade was today.....

If I ever get back to Chicago, I do want to see the Field Museum. Dinosaurs and gems!

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

It's Juneteenth.

My usual Saturday morning skate location was closed because of it. :(

You can expect a hilarious "Jill gets lost in East Austin" post later.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh Juneteenth! That explains it. I keep thinking it's tomorrow since the parades/events up in my area are tomorrow.

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Was the Horse exhibit the same one that was at the NY Museum of Natural History? If so, yeah, very disappointing - and I'm horse crazy. They didn't even have any good -abilia for sale, and I'm a really easy sell.

The Field was one of the seminal museums of my childhood, so I'll probably always love it. And my memories of it are somewhat more accurate than those of the Museum of Science and Industry. I distinctly remember going about a mile straight down to get to the coal mine, though when I went back as an adult they had made the mistake of changing that to about 25 feet or something equally silly.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It probably was, yeah, it's a traveling exhibit. It's small, and not very well laid out or thought out, and OH MY GOD ALL THE VIDEOS SOMEONE MAKE THEM STOP.

[athenejen]

I once got stuck halfway across Beijing and had to wait for the bike racing Olympic event to go past me before I was allowed to go back to the apartment I was staying at that summer, does that count? There were a lot of police functionaries yelling and herding, anyway.

I will always love the Field Museum if only for the gem collection. I was so in awe of that exhibit when I was a kid.

[athenejen]

(Also, I envy you the tarantula holding! I was always tempted to try to pick one up whenever we saw one in the desert during field geology.)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

That's my mum's favourite part too! She wasn't that impressed by the permanent collections until she found the gem room. I swear to god she took photos of every single case. :D

[samisaurus.livejournal.com]

One of my friends went to highschool in the suburbs of Chicago, and her Prom was at the Field Museum. Since my Prom was at a Mariot, I've always been insanely jealous.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, COOLEST PROM EVER.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

*boggles at the number of possible ways for Sam to injure himself by owning a pet tarantula*

Maybe start with something less fatally poisonous first?

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

I'm picturing all the ways having a tarantula and having a roomba could end in tragedy.

[venivincere]

My heavens. Today you were Ferris Bueller, weren't you? P.S. Thank you for posting the pic of Sue. I first heard about her in the NYT in 1997 and have always wanted to see her.

[happi-feet.livejournal.com]

We got to see her at the Anniston Natural History Museum in Anniston, AL - back in '07, I think. The boy has wanted to get to Chicago to see her again, ever since.

[calliope-jones.livejournal.com]

Sam, assume that most of the grownups probably want to boot a toddler too. especially if it is their own toddler. Captain Jack does not do well in public, and I'm always wondering just how many people we can piss off. It's a good thing he's cute. (I bet they say that about Harkness, too.)

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

LOL. I did see some parents who looked very much like they wished it was legal to use cattle prods on children.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Getting to the Museum campus from the CTA is an anthropological study in its own. I agree about the weirdness of the permanent collection, but they have AMAZING stuff, and their special exhibits are really excellent--well set-up, with lots of good explanations and experiences.

Do you ever go to the Chicago Historical Society museum in Lincoln Park?

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I've not yet been to the Historical Society Museum -- it opened the same week I moved here, I think -- but I'm planning to go this summer. It's not the most accessible museum in the world, CTA-wise.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Oh lord, if I blundered into a parade and got yelled at, I'd die. I feel for you. :(

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

It's not so bad, at least it wasn't moving. There was no audience yet!

[fullofowls.livejournal.com]

I once knew a tarantula named Samantha... they really are very soft and fuzzy, aren't they?

And I applaud your calmness in the face of such an embarrassing thing as walking into a parade!

[sadcypress.livejournal.com]

... Please tell me that the Design for Living exhibit was all about Noel Coward and the handiness of the menage a trois in complicated romantic relationships?

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

OH HOW I WISH.

I'm still not actually sure what the purpose of the exhibit is, but the concept behind it was to take ten famous designers and have them craft useful items like rugs and chairs out of natural resources -- either renewable resources or endangered resources possibly, it was hard to tell.

[doolabug.livejournal.com]

D00D, those early 20th-century dioramas! Neanderthals looked like this! Moose stand like this! Eskimos point at blubber like this! The Smithsonian is still full of them, too. They're like the archaeology of interpretation and are HIlarious.

[darkbunny.livejournal.com]

*looks at icon*

0.o

...Shippernipples!

[happi-feet.livejournal.com]

I once had a Brazilian Rosehair named Aurora (Rory, for short). She liked to sit in my elbow, but her hairs made me itch. They're not hardly poisonous at all, unlike, say, a birdeater. Just rub some lemon on the bite, in the rare event that it even occurs. Rory was incredibly even-tempered.

[spiderine.livejournal.com]

I got to hold a tarantula, which was AWESOME. They're so soft! And much lighter than they look. I kind of want one now.


squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

lol! You know, as soon as Sam mentioned the tarantula, I immediately thought of you. Kinda got this impression you're partial to the creepers. :D

SAM STARBUCK'S DAY OFF!!

[(Anonymous)]

You went to a museum...saw priceless works of art...ended up in a parade! If you ate pancreas and were mistaken for Abe Froman, The Sausage King of Chicago, it would have been complete. There's even a Cubs game today-how did you manage not to get caught in that as well?

Sam, you are always entertaining, but I'm none too sure about you getting a Dangerous Pet.

~mad en

Re: SAM STARBUCK'S DAY OFF!!

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I almost did -- I rode through Addison about half an hour before the game kicked off, I think :D The crowds were EPIC.

Would you credit it, I've never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

[imagines.livejournal.com]

So I got to hold a tarantula

WAAAAUUUUUUGHHHH WHYYYYYYY :( :( /eternal arachnophobe

...now if it was an offer to hold a snake—DEAL! I am down with snakes of any size so long as they don't want to kill me. (My record: a 10-foot 20-pound python that liked to be kissed. It was New Year's Eve around midnight. Hee.)

fiiiieeeeld museeeeeeum. Yeah. I like that museum. It was the coolest museum I had ever seen when I was a kid, and then ten years later I came back and it was STILL cool, so yeah. JEALOUS every time someone talks about it. XD

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

See, tarantulas are ok though, because they're not small enough to climb up my nose or in my ears, which are the only reasons I do not like small bugs.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Attacked by a parade.

Even Dr. Who doesn't get that weird and a trash can ate Mickey.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I'm sure at some point in his storied history the Doctor has been accosted by a parade. Technically that happened in The Daemons, I think.

[britini-chu.livejournal.com]

of all the Chicagoans in the whole of Chicago, I would expect that if YOU picked a free entry day, you would actually make sure it was really a free day.

Now I will make fun of you like I did all the other tourists today.

But seriously: if you're interested in coming to an Shedd aquarium jazz night, it would give me an amazing sort of meta-internet-real-life pleasure to set that up for you and R (or guest of your choice). They're every wednesday night this summer, 5-10pm.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I know, right? You'd think I'd double check! I think I missed the discount days just barely.

Thank you for the offer! I'm not much for evening stuff, but if I do end up desiring it, I'll hit you up :D

[firynze.livejournal.com]

TARANTULA! They fascinate me, although mostly only through glass.

Someday, I will get to the Field.