To: Stacy J. Willis
From: Scott Dickensheets
You've seen Bodies: The Exhibition
(http://www.tropicanalv.com/ent_bodies.asp) haven't you? I finally went the other day; took the fam. I'd resisted going for months, on the reasonable grounds that I hate parking at the Trop (http://www.moiblog.com/wp-content/imagenes/traffic_jam_1.jpg). Also, and I didn't bother voicing this one, I figured I'd see something there that’d force me to reconsider my sense of self, the very nature of humanity, and, man, I'm busy enough already. My sense of self is under assault every day—each bill that comes in the mail threatens to revise my opinion of my humanity. Plus, the exhibit seemed purely informational, not artistic—this is what the heart looks like; and look, lungs!—and these days I'm rarely in the mood to be educated at. But the kids are always up for seeing peeled, disassembled human remains, so we went.
I was right, too, about being forced to confront my own sorry biology, right there in the room devoted to the nervous system. Were you struck by how small the human brain is? I was. I've always thought of my brain as a large, heavy object, substantial, like a big-block American motor, giving off a loud rumble and capable of zero-to-60 in five seconds. But the brain on display? I've had scoops of ice cream bigger than that. Color me chagrined. On the other hand, I thought, "Well, that explains Jim Gibbons."
(http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/commentary/2007/apr/08/566618826.html)
From: Stacy J. Willis
To: Scott Dickensheets
No I wasn’t surprised by the size of splayed human brains. I was surprised by the taste of them, however—I expected something a little sweeter, a little spicier, something like a Dona Maria chicken tamale, (http://www.donamariatamales.com/menu.asp?item=dinner). Imagine my disappointment. I suppose it’s possible that brains are an acquired taste. Or perhaps they’re not meant to be eaten straight from the display case. So said the museum attendant, and Trop security personnel, and the Metro officer, and the prosecutor—-but which of them really qualifies as a foodie? I should check with Caesars’ Chef Extraordinaire Guy Savoy, (http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/2007/01/04/aane.html), whose cute little French accent has been waking me up each morning in pre-recorded pleas for contributions to KNPR (http://www.knpr.org/). I'm already a member. I have a sweatshirt to prove it.
Under that sweatshirt, were I ever to wear it, would be the wonders of the thoracic cavity. I disagree about the Bodies exhibit not being artistic--I took notes while I was there, and although I've lost those, I specifically recall jotting down something about its artistic nature. How could you not see inspired art in a two-mile stretch of intestines pinned to the wall? I became a renewed fan of the artist formerly known as the maker of humans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God) / (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Species).
Somewhere on the evolutionary trail, though, R-J columnist Vin Suprynowicz wandered off the map. (What a segue! Skillful use of the language!) In all of this talk of sliced brains and the very nature of humanity and public radio, one doesn't want to lose sight of prevailing local political rhetoric/diatribe/chickenfeed. I've been unable to erase his April 1 column (http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Apr-01-Sun-2007/opinion/13301312.html) from my tiny brain, try as I might to believe it was an April Fool's joke. Suprynowicz is basically arguing that it's too complicated to get a gun these days, and that, oddly, people don't take well to a show of arms in crowded areas. "Try to walk through the crowds of tourists along the Strip with a gun exposed in a hip holster, these days," he writes, lamenting.
This comes full circle, stay with me. Whether it's a part of the Frey/Glass school of writing or that other, less popular genre of journalism, I'll wrap it up:
So I'm walking through the Bodies exhibit, popping brain kernels into my mouth like Xanax, admiring the art of the colon (have you heard the argument that 90 percent of the body's seratonin is produced in the colon wall? ((http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/gastro.html)). (There's a head-up-one's-ass joke here somewhere. Well, they're all over this blog). So I'm walking through the exhibit when ...
From: Scott Dickensheets
To: Stacy J. Willis
… when you strolled into the fetus display, still looking for snacks? Up until I found the fetal development room, the biggest (non-brain-weight) mystery of Bodies, and bodies, had to do with logistics: Where does someone like, say, you, who has the thorax of a Chinese gymnast, put a stretch of intestine the length of a fire hose? Hollow leg, as my mom used to suggest when I ate too much? Also, I was spooked by the size of kidney stones, which, thanks to my fire-hose intake of Diet Coke, I’ll probably be dealing with soon. (http://www.computerarts.co.uk/data/assets/image/339977/varieties/7.jpg)
But then I entered the fetal room (after checking it for gun-toting, small-brained anti-abortion extremists). Now, as you know, I’m not one who finds divinity except in the most obvious places (http://www.usmenuguide.com/burgerbarmenu.htm). But it’s hard not to experience some sense of larger awe at the parade of tiny figures marching week by week toward full personhood. This exhibit is cannily placed near the end, so that you’ve already absorbed a huge load of amazing facts—60,000 miles of blood vessels!—and then you come to these, the smallest units of that unimaginable complexity that’s still clearly human. It didn’t make me believe in God, but it did force me to consider the long odds of all this complicated biology coming together by accident. What if evolution had only given us 30,000 miles of blood vessels, two feet of intestines and even smaller brains? Would we still be remotely human or a gimpy species of Suprynowicz?
Weirdest sight: a full-length cross-sectioned slice of a late-term fetus, mounted on the wall. You had to wonder about the technician who provided that. What did you do at work today, daddy? Well, there was this fetus... And a saw…
From: Stacy J. Willis
To: Scott Dickensheets
… and voilá, I made informative art, provided for the education of some, the inspiration of others, countless on-the-way-home debates about abortion and the merits of Diet Coke.
So here we’ve touched on the following topics: God, dining, gun control, abortion, sawing human parts, children. Keeping it light as usual. Always welcome at a dinner party. So, do you believe in God? Support the right to choose? Think everyone should be armed? And, then, the self-reflexive twitch here at the end, the self-conscious summary. A shotgun approach. Today the blog should end on my favorite screen image of the last two decades, from Fargo, the socked, human heel being shoved into the woodchipper. Watch it here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qWFhDvURLg). That’s what we’re doing here. Blogging.
Stacy J. Willis is the executive editor of Las Vegas Weekly. Scott Dickensheets is the editor-in-chief of Las Vegas Weekly. They work in close quarters. They mull the issues. There was no way they were getting out of doing this blog. Email them at [email protected] and [email protected].