Body Worlds 3 at OMSI (plus Newport dining)
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The past couple of weeks have been filled with regional tennis tournaments and traveling. What’s been great is that the weather in the Willamette Valley this summer (so far) has been very cool and mild. It’s been much more pleasant than last summer (and apparently most of the rest of the country).
I had family visiting this past week, so I took some time off work and traveled around with them. We visited the coast a few times and spent some time in Newport. I highly recommend eating at Quimby’s in Newport for lunch, but not necessarily for dinner. Their lunch menu is far superior to their dinner menu (and about half the price). Plus, according to my family of chowder connoisseurs, the clam chowder is the best ever.
And of course we had to pick up a pound or two of saltwater taffy at Aunt Belinda’s Candies on the historic bayfront. Of all the dozens of flavors, I think watermelon might be my favorite. Marionberry is really good too.
(By the way, my family’s flights to and from Oregon stopped in Minneapolis, but they said they weren’t able to see the collapsed interstate bridge in the Mississippi River from the air.)
On Friday I took my family through Silver Falls State Park for a bit of hiking on our way up to OMSI in Portland, where I finally visited the Body Worlds 3 exhibit after thinking about going for the past few weeks.
At OMSI, I was really impressed by the posed displays of “real human bodies,” though about halfway through the exhibit my mom started feeling a bit sickened by the mortality of it all . . . the dehydrated polymer-filled corpses. She was thinking about whom these individuals were that donated their bodies and how/why they might have died. There is a distinct creepiness to the whole thing, perhaps especially in the graphic display of all the skinless sexual organs, knowing that these were/are real people. But it’s definitely a med student’s dream come true, with all of the plastinated muscle and bone structures exposed. I’m glad I experienced it.
I also should mention that part of the Body Worlds exhibition was a big anti-smoking push . . . you know, the lung displays went something like: “This is a normal plastinated lung. This is a blackened plastinated lung with cancerous tumors. Any questions?”
(If you remember the original “This is your brain on drugs” public service announcements, you should check out the Robot Chicken parody at YouTube.)
I think the Body Worlds 3 show is in its final weeks, for those in the Portland area who haven’t seen it yet. You really ought to.
“I see dead people.”