The exibit Bodies opens in Seattle tomorrow. It’s here for 3 months. Hubby and I are going to go next week.
How cool! Too bad it’s not coming to Chicago. (I wonder why that is?)
They’re doing the same thing, but called Body World, at the Museum of Science in St. Paul. Haven’t been yet, but I do plan to go. It looks really interesting if just slightly creepy.
Kal - it (or something exacty like it) was here. About a year ago, I believe.
Upon preview, it’s the same one taxi78cab mentioned. The Tribune had a bunch of articles on it last year - some folks were freaking out about the whole thing.
Why were they freaking? (Can’t believe I freaking missed it!) Were they offended by the slicey goodness? The polymer gloss?
Gunther von Hagens(creator of Body Worlds) was the guy who invented the preservation process of plastination. I think it was mentioned in Mary Roach’s Stiff. I don’t think the exhibiton, or anything similar, has ever been around to NZ. People do seem to think it’s unethical, or just plain gross, but if it ever came here I’d go!
I went to it when it was in Cleveland. I’ll be interested to hear what you think, picunurse. I won’t prejudice you by telling you what I thought.
One thing I will say is that I saw enough plastinated penises to last me a lifetime! 
It’s a cool exhibition. A group of friends and I went there when we visited Atlanta (we had the morning/afternoon off one day)…
We are all vet students, so we spent the time doing some comparative anatomy… and of course, seeing if we could remember the names of the body parts!!
We’ve been to BodyWorlds I and BodyWorlds II. Some wonderful plastinated stuff. My three year old loved them.
The only part that freaked me out a bit was one body’s date of death was listed as 2006. For some reason, the idea that they were alive less than a year ago really struck me.
A very similar exhibit was here (in Norfolk, actually) this summer. My daughter really wanted to go, but it was a really busy time for me – it was the week she graduated from high school, we had a lot of family visiting from out of town, and I was planning a large party for her graduation. So I couldn’t take her.
My sister and her husband (who is a middle school science teacher) were among our guests and, knowing that Doe was really interested, they gave her tickets for the last day of the exhibit as a grad present. And they drove her to Norfolk for lunch, and to the museum afterwards for the exhibit. They all loved it. Even my sister, who hadn’t really wanted to go at all.
They had such a great time I was sorry I didn’t get to go with them.
I haven’t seen either show, but I was passing by the Bodies exhibit at South Street Seaport and was delighted to note that, right across the street, was The Body Shop.
Is this the same as the one that’s in Vegas?
I thought the reason people believed it to be unethical is that some of the bodies were found to have gun shot wounds to the head. And this was after the people who run the exhibit said all bodies died from natural causes. It’s also said that the bodies are of Chinese prisoners, right?
I really want to go to one of those, but they haven’t been around to Montreal that I know of. One of them stopped in Toronto but I wasn’t able to get there.
Waaaaa?
The only bitchin’ I heard about it around here was because of the fetal exhibit (which aren’t plastinated, but floating in fluid) and the very pregnant mother and fetus which are plastinated. Apparently, looking at 50 year old miscarried fetuses makes one want to run out and have an abortion. Or something.
So I had this nightmare about seven weeks ago:
I, and some other people created a horror movie. (FTR, in real life creating a non-derivative work of horror is one of my deep longings). We decided that the perfect test audience would be to show it at a local church. :eek: After a brief glance of the audience, which included my current crush being there and anti-social, the dream moved onto what the movie goers were seeing. Which was several headless, skinless bodies propped up at a camp table, dripping a bit of blood onto the table. And there were flies.
When I woke up I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why I’d dreamed of something so gory… the last semi-gory horror movie I’d seen had been Silent Hill in April, and this was early August.
And then I remembered.
Two days before the dream, WMUR had had a segment about this exhibit. Given it caused that sort of dream after a four minute news spot, I don’t think I’m going to ever visit the exibit in person!
I think it is. It’s at the Tropicana until tomorrow.
In the interview, last night on the news, the curator they were interviewing, addressed those issues. She said all of the bodies were donated. Some are from China, but she insisted all were donated by the previous occupant, and all had died of natural causes.
She said that the reports of signs of injury came from unknown sources and could be considered urban legends.
You know, I’m sure it’s cool, but for some weird reason I’ve had no desire to go…
The phrase “busman’s holiday” comes to mind.
<snickering>
We oughta get a sign from one of those stores for our place.
Umm.
You and I will never see mind to mind.
Try “still warm”.