Left: "Skeletons of Dinosaurs Being Displayed at the American Museum of Natural History" by Hansel Mieth
Right: "Dream in the Ruins of Pompeii, 1966" by Paul Alfred De Curzon
So, Tom and I were in NYC for hijinks back in 1976 or thereabouts.... I'm quite bad with years/better with general context. I know it was when I was at first university.
We had gone to the vicinity to see the Hayden Planetarium's star-filled trip through time, but it was closed for repairs. That'll show us - good to do research BEFORE GOING TO THE CITY.
At least in our disappointment we were assuaged by the nice day it turned into, sunning ourselves on the steps of the American Museum of Natural History - main building next door to the planets.
We were just sitting there, askew, trying to make stone stairs into a cushy recliner and endlessly debating our possible infinity of next step choices, when this Well-Dressed Man in a suit came running down to us from the top stair.
"Have any time to take in a show; it's not for a while yet?"
"Er... huh?"
"Well, you see, I have these members-only tickets for the Pompeii Exhibit tonight after they 'close' the regular museum, but something's come up and I need to leave. It'd be a shame to waste 'em as it's been sold out for some time."
"Yeah.... sure. We'll take them," I said... thinking at least then we had the choice if we were still in town at that hour - to go or give them to someone else.
I think my favorite parts of the exhibit were the overall feeling of being in a bustling town from long time gone.... that - and the feeling of an everyday quality that showed up in things like the graffiti, the shop signage that incorporated the gods of Roman mythology in a rather human way.
Mercury's fish mart is a bit odd, though, as a) he was not associated with water, but air... and b) all these years later there's an abundance of mercury in our (fattier, especially) fish.
It was extremely moving to see a whole town/city transported with such care for details - excavated from volcanic earth, but especially the last exhibit - the contorted shapes of three people and a dog... hoping, trying with all their might to flee the molten river quickly approaching.
I do not want to do these once real forms housing real spirits any disservice by talking about their experience in those last minutes of those lives. They could be back right now, reading this blog for all I know about the ticking of this or any other universe.
All I will say is that my heart ached for three days thinking about that dog. Maybe that was all I could handle or relate to at the time, try as I always do to put myself in another's situation. We're not talking success rate here, just intention.
So, anyway, it turned out to be a lively, educational exhibit, ending on a bit of a sad note, because after all facts are facts. Things arise from and go back to ground. To seed for another season, perhaps.
However, the most dramatic part of the whole thing was my trip to the ladies'. The museum was closed so that only ticketed members and employees would be in the museum for the exhibit.... which took the entire first floor, if I remember correctly.
So, I asked one of our friendly red-uniformed attendants where might the ladies' room be located?
"Oh, that would be on floor 3, Miss. You can use stairs or elevator right over there."
As I started climbing up, I immediately noticed it darkening as I left the luminescence of the well-lit first floor. By the time I got to full floor two, it was dark except for some emergency lighting rationed about the stair opening.
As I started to advance on the 3rd floor, my head passed floor level and I was in for quite a shock. To the right, just inside a VERY high-ceilinged arc was the barest hint of the immense skeletal jaw of a Tyrannasourus Rex - and it wasn't a T.R., Jr. either.
I stepped back one or two stairs.
Yeah, I knew they weren't alive... and had been all dead much much MUCH longer than any people depicted on those tiled mosaics lining the walls of the richer folks of Pompeii. For heaven's sake, they were bones... and yet something reptilian or early mammalian in my brain reacted with great fear.
Great, one of those helpful vestigial minders of our past that isn't often useful any longer. Not useful now.
Finally, I climbed to the full landing of the 3rd floor - having long forgotten about the loo... and stared to the right: at the vast hall of gigantically terrifying and truly fascinating creatures left behind in time.
I made up my mind, right there in the dark, that I would walk the long length of the room, slowly, and back up the other side of the middle display 'counter,' if you could call it that.
I dared myself. I absolutely had to in order to do this thing I wanted to experience alone. I started walking... and the fear began in my lower rib cage, communicating all the while with my feet (via brain matter), which were moving very slowly. I stared up in awe at these creatures to whom I would've been an ant, or at least a mouse, and trembled a bit. I looked at each one, wishing I had enough light to read the signs, but THEM themselves: their bones glowed eerily white and were most easy to see clearly.
And that's it. With a backward glance over my shoulder, I got into the elevator, and waited until the restaurant for the loo.