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Aug. 4th, 2012 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cblj_backupI took a friend and her family to the Museum of Science and Industry today, or rather they took me; we had two young kids with us, which was fun, because while the MSI is great for any age it's better when you have kids as an excuse to stop and try all the experiments. And they were entranced by the chick hatchery, which admittedly is the first thing I think anyone going to the MSI should see. BABY CHICKS.
It did occur to me, however, that the museum could be more accurately named The Museum Of Stuff I Found. There are science exhibits, like the baby chicks and the wave machine, but the stuff that's especially worth seeing is this bizarre collection of things that they seem to have just haphazardly acquired. Giant dollhouse fairy castle built by a silent film star? Yes, we'll have that. Railroad worker spent twenty years hand-carving and animating circus dioramas, including a freak show and a zoo? Sounds like Industry to me! Hey, those random dioramas filled with visual puzzles for no apparent reason can go next to the circus exhibit -- yes, even the creepy one with the penguins in costume. We'll put the model train table with the scale reproductions of Chicago and Seattle next to the baby chicks!
And who wouldn't say yes to permanently housing a captured Nazi U-boat in a sub-basement? A bargain at twice the price.
Most museums in Chicago -- most museums at all -- get their start as a random collection of stuff some rich person or organisation had and didn't know what to do with, so they built a museum to put it in. I get that's how it works, and certainly whoever brokered the U-Boat deal should get a medal of some kind since it's been here for fifty-five years and is still a major draw.
We also went to the Mythbusters road show, which is a neat mixture of show props and "LET'S DO SCIENCE" like the rain machine and the paintball-dodging exhibition. The kids went through the rain machine I think about six times.
In all, a grand day out, even if my feet are about to fall off. :D
It did occur to me, however, that the museum could be more accurately named The Museum Of Stuff I Found. There are science exhibits, like the baby chicks and the wave machine, but the stuff that's especially worth seeing is this bizarre collection of things that they seem to have just haphazardly acquired. Giant dollhouse fairy castle built by a silent film star? Yes, we'll have that. Railroad worker spent twenty years hand-carving and animating circus dioramas, including a freak show and a zoo? Sounds like Industry to me! Hey, those random dioramas filled with visual puzzles for no apparent reason can go next to the circus exhibit -- yes, even the creepy one with the penguins in costume. We'll put the model train table with the scale reproductions of Chicago and Seattle next to the baby chicks!
And who wouldn't say yes to permanently housing a captured Nazi U-boat in a sub-basement? A bargain at twice the price.
Most museums in Chicago -- most museums at all -- get their start as a random collection of stuff some rich person or organisation had and didn't know what to do with, so they built a museum to put it in. I get that's how it works, and certainly whoever brokered the U-Boat deal should get a medal of some kind since it's been here for fifty-five years and is still a major draw.
We also went to the Mythbusters road show, which is a neat mixture of show props and "LET'S DO SCIENCE" like the rain machine and the paintball-dodging exhibition. The kids went through the rain machine I think about six times.
In all, a grand day out, even if my feet are about to fall off. :D
