Or, man reaffirms the stupidity of the general public!
I was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science last night with my hubby for a members night of fine dining (well, actually, pasta and salad buffet but it was quite tasty) and after hours exhibit exploration.
While perusing the seals, sea lions, elephant seals, etc wildlife areas, I happened to overhear a pair that was quickly strolling past each display. She commented something along the lines of how the seals looked funny and out of proportion (I had only caught the tail end of what she had said as they approached). The ever-so-charming gentleman accompanying her blurts out with this little gem.
“Maybe they just stuffed them wrong or something.”
:eek:
That is an exact quote. I think my jaw not only hit the floor, but possibly bounced a couple times with the momentum it gained while falling. I looked over at them, they were a normal enough looking pair, in their late teens or very early twenties if I had to guess, possibly siblings, dressed rather conservatively. Old enough to have been able to see a seal previously though, either on tv, in an ad or at school. Something!
This was right after a father was observed dragging his questioning child away from the elephant seals saying, “Yeah, honey, that’s a walrus!” :smack:
Hubby found me muttering to myself and was equally gobsmacked when I relayed my story.
Reminds me of a visit to the zoo years ago. At the giraffe compound, one woman remarked to another “They’d make great basketball players!” Um, no, they don’t have hands… :rolleyes:
Yeah, I know, she wasn’t being literal. But it still irritated me for some reason. Maybe I was PMS-ing…
I don’t get it either. I’m trying to decipher your post and assuming that either the seals were not actually stuffed but made of wax or some other material, or they weren’t seals at all. Either way it doesn’t seem like an egregious mistake.
I win. While at the grocery store yesterday, a little hellion of a child was screaming his way through the aisles, banging on stuff, and his older siblings and classy lady of a mom were laughing at his antics. I’d say he was about 7, 8, or 9.
Anyway, mom says to calm down and he turns and screams, “Shut up, you FUCKING JEW!”
Older siblings giggle. Mom laughs. Mom then sees the look on my face and pretends to gently correct him, “Oh, where do you learn stuff like that. . .” while giggling. Kid whirls around and says, “Uh, you and Bob say it at home all the time when you’re talking about fucking Jews!” Mom laughed, as did the siblings.
Mom mumbled something about being so embarrassed while I just sort of stared at them.
I had the same reaction. Not sure why it’s such a big mistake. I’ve been to the Natural History Museum in NYC and often had the reaction that some look a bit off. Though when you’re looking at taxidermied stuff in general you get into that uncanny valley realm…especially stuff that’s this old.
The seals were formerly live specimens, that had been stuffed and put on display in alcoves that contain features of their natural environment, so that you can see the true size/color/shapes of the animals and plant life.
I was confused to how they could think someone incorrectly stuffed the animals and was wondering if they had never actually seen a picture of a seal before going to the museum. Anyone who knows what a seal looks like could not have made a statement about whether or not they were accurately displayed. Sometimes they’re not in the best of shape (bones visible in their flippers), but they’re not misrepresentations of the animals. I’ve seen seals in real life, they look just like the ones in the museum. Well, except for that whole being dead thing.
The Vatican Museum in the area where they have the Egyptian antiquities. A woman is video taping and giving commentary with her husband along side.
Woman: You can tell how rich the Church is because they were able to afford to buy all of this stuff.
Husband: Oh, Honey. they didn’t buy it. It was donated.
Amsterdam. In line to see the Anne Frank house.
Young woman: I don’t get it. Why were they hiding?
More in theme with what your OP is about- when I went to the much over hyped King Tut exhibit in LA, I heard some amazing gems. The best was probably the woman looking at what was a small (like, 2 ft high) version of the famous sarcophagus. I think it was just a display, but it was a while ago now. Point is, the thing was like, 2 feet high.
Kid asks mom about it and mom says, “Yup, that’s the real one. Why is it so small? People were shorter back then, sweetie.”:smack:
Poseur dude with dreadlocks on our snorkeling boat in Maui, talking like he’s been a Haole his whole life. Me quietly listening to this guy try to impress two young ladies on our trip:
Guy: “Yah, bra - dis is dakine spot right here, da bugga!”
Girl: “Oh, are you from Hawaii?”
Guy: “Nah, bra - but I’m from the Channel Islands originally.”
Girls: “Oh, cool!”
Me: “So…you’re from LA? I’m from Ouemessourita, but now I live amongst the Ohlone on Yerba Buena.”
(I didn’t actually say that, but I did start laughing like Colonel Landa when he hears that story about Mountain climbing)
Erm, it’s the other way around. A person can’t make a comment about whether a seal was accurately displayed unless they have seen one before. If they’d never seen one, how would they know that it looked a bit “off”?
There could have been many reasons she said that - maybe the lighting of the exhibit or the angle she viewed it at skewed her perception of it, or it’s been a while since she saw a picture of one and is misremembering how it looked, or as needscoffee suggests, she had it confused with a similar animal such as a sea lion.
But there’s really nothing weird or shocking about the comment at all. I find your reaction to it much more curious than the comment itself.
Are you sure he was saying that they were misrepresentations? You yourself said that you only caught the tail end of the conversation. Maybe the woman meant they looked odd because it was a weird stuffing job and the man was commenting on that.
I’ve heard dumber statements in scheduled talks. I was at this event when I was just eighteen and a newcomer to the chess club. We were somewhat excited to see Susan Polgar, who is a big deal. We knew that she was going to talk mostly about things we weren’t all that interested in (like the way chess can encourage people and strengthen them and strengthen communities, etc), but we didn’t mind.
She came with her husband, Paul Truong. Paul, bless his soul, came across as a dense windbag. At the very least he went on and on for too long. As the session went along, however, his statements about chess became more and more obscure. Evidently, it wasn’t enough to exaggerate the benefits of playing chess in the conventional ways (increased intelligence, determination, etc - all probably untrue or minor in significance). I can’t remember all of the things he said, but I do recall him saying two things that were just, like, wow:
First, he said that kids who don’t know how to read a map can learn about the coordinate systems used in maps through algebraic chess notation.
Second, he suggested that chess can be conceptually tied to core parts of school curricula. For example, he said, students could learn about French history through the French Defense. I am not making this up.
