We're talking about those long-necked, long tailed sauropods that give new meaning to the idea of large. The American Museum of Natural History has an engaging exhibit set up about how they might have lived, beginning during the Triassic period. They survived that extinction through the Jurassic, and into the Cretaceous period, which ended with a huge extinction.
If you haven't been to this Museum for a long time, you might be surprised by the changes in the visitor-exhibit dynamic. When I recall my earliest visits there, I'm thinking of dimly lit glass cases that kept everyone at a respectful distance while sending back your awed reflection to your ever-widening eyes. Now, thanks to the short-attention span that rules everything, exhibits are made to be run through, and there's a lot of touching going on. The latter is a good thing, so please don't misunderstand. However...
It's the sidebar-style chunking of information in disconnected ways that worries me. While the designers do a lovely presentation of sizes of various creatures, the context for each succeeding example shifts so rapidly (for me, anyway), that it's difficult to adjust your train of thought as the frame of reference for scale keeps shifting. This same behavior is noted in contemporary textbooks where narrative has all but disappeared. This Museum used to be a very grown-up place to go, The animated features in the Dinosaur exhibit, such as the cartoon of the sauropod's likely digestive system, below--Gingko leaves and all--
Did they me help me to learn as much as I wanted to learn? There's also a large glass bin of foliage, including the fan-shaped leaves to help reinforce the point. Museums have a difficult line to manage in all of this--people seem to be big on paying attention at the beginning, and wanting big things at that point, and their interest picks up again at the end. This one has a dig simulation, and some people stop to try it. There's a lot of amazing material in the exhibit and, of course, elsewhere in the museum, so you will be thrilled if you want to spend more time.
In the aftermath, I'm feeling nostalgic for the older parts of the museum. There's a beautiful tribute to Teddy Roosevelt, to whom we owe our natural park system, and the elegantly informative, purposefully quiet, Audubon Gallery. But the old Hayden Planetarium, now new--where Tom Hanks' narrative has succeeded to Whoopi Goldberg's amid the loud soundtrack of the universe evolvin-- that is where I feel most bereft. My favorite part of those long-ago visits was the live show by the planetarium operator. He was strict with us. No talking. The reward was losing yourself in the dark only to find yourself floating in the Milky Way. It was Paradise, slow-moving, and enchanting. If you download the Museum's video The Known Universe, but mute the sound, you might recall some of that feeling. So this next moment of quiet is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Fred C. Hess, planetarium lecturer extraordinaire, and Helmut K. Wimmer, astronomical art wizard. These are the people who helped us believe we could reach the moon one day. Tonight, I'm wishing for a dark sky so we can hush and find ourselves again in the stars.
If you haven't been to this Museum for a long time, you might be surprised by the changes in the visitor-exhibit dynamic. When I recall my earliest visits there, I'm thinking of dimly lit glass cases that kept everyone at a respectful distance while sending back your awed reflection to your ever-widening eyes. Now, thanks to the short-attention span that rules everything, exhibits are made to be run through, and there's a lot of touching going on. The latter is a good thing, so please don't misunderstand. However...
It's the sidebar-style chunking of information in disconnected ways that worries me. While the designers do a lovely presentation of sizes of various creatures, the context for each succeeding example shifts so rapidly (for me, anyway), that it's difficult to adjust your train of thought as the frame of reference for scale keeps shifting. This same behavior is noted in contemporary textbooks where narrative has all but disappeared. This Museum used to be a very grown-up place to go, The animated features in the Dinosaur exhibit, such as the cartoon of the sauropod's likely digestive system, below--Gingko leaves and all--
In the aftermath, I'm feeling nostalgic for the older parts of the museum. There's a beautiful tribute to Teddy Roosevelt, to whom we owe our natural park system, and the elegantly informative, purposefully quiet, Audubon Gallery. But the old Hayden Planetarium, now new--where Tom Hanks' narrative has succeeded to Whoopi Goldberg's amid the loud soundtrack of the universe evolvin-- that is where I feel most bereft. My favorite part of those long-ago visits was the live show by the planetarium operator. He was strict with us. No talking. The reward was losing yourself in the dark only to find yourself floating in the Milky Way. It was Paradise, slow-moving, and enchanting. If you download the Museum's video The Known Universe, but mute the sound, you might recall some of that feeling. So this next moment of quiet is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Fred C. Hess, planetarium lecturer extraordinaire, and Helmut K. Wimmer, astronomical art wizard. These are the people who helped us believe we could reach the moon one day. Tonight, I'm wishing for a dark sky so we can hush and find ourselves again in the stars.
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