A Guide to Science: Bonin' Up

This lesson, we take a break from our ongoing quest to get to the bottom of what art is, because I visited the Galerie de paléontologie et d’anatomie comparée (Gallery of Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy). The Galerie is part of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (you can figure that out), which also features the heroically named Grand gallery of evolution (a Richard Dawkins wet dream). These two galleries are in separate buildings (with separate cover charges), so that will have to be the subject of a different lesson.

Now, I know I’ve got this reputation as a full-on art guy, too obsessed with the transient essence of “truth” to ever truly connect with science and its more literal truthiness. But if I may take off my artist pants for a moment and pull my scientist stocking over my head, just keep reading, ok?

The entrance to the Galerie houses one of the most bizarre sculptures I’ve ever seen:

In a stroke of pure genius, I made no note whatsoever of the name or sculptor of this thing, and the internet has failed me. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s guerrilla marketing for the number one film in the world right now.

More than likely, that sculpture serves as karmic balance for what lies through the main entrance...

Man versus nature, August 12 2009, trixOr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/trixer/3825831430/

...a real “EFF YOU” to any animals that think they are better than us. People say dolphins are smart, but I’d like to see a dolphin put some of these skeletons back together. I doubt a dolphin could even do a WASGIJ. And before any dolphins start Morse Coding a rebuttal, take that:

Upon seeing that massive whale, I immediately began singing (in my head, obviously) “I got me a car that’s as big as a whale” like that B-52s weirdo. This led to the following thoughts:

-       He really needs to specify which whale his car roughly equates to. Some of these whales are not any bigger than your average Fiat Panda;

-       If he means big like the really big whale, I don’t believe him. That whale is really big. Does he mean he bought a bus? Because he could have said that, and then it would be impressive without being vague;

-       I think we like that lyric because it is followed by “and it’s about to set sail.” But I’m not sure that a whale ‘sails’, so to speak. It probably ‘swims’, like a fish, although I’m aware that a whale is a mammal, not a fish, but not all mammals are whales, so that is largely irrelevant, and let’s just say it ‘glides’.

-       That last paragraph is unnecessary, because I’ve rewritten that lyric as follows:
“I’ve got me a car, it’s a Honda Accord

And I’m dri-ving it forward.”

This way, we know what size of car he bought, a probable price range (because who knows how much whales cost?!), and there’s half a pun there with forward/Ford.

That’s a southern right whale! [Don’t tell the Greens]. So maybe this is that science the Japanese are always claiming to be doing.

While researching for this essay (stealing photos from other places), I stumbled across this quote: “This right whale is possibly the most effective exhibit of baleen that I have ever seen.” (here’s the full blog). Of course, we all understand the constant struggle of trying to find the perfect baleen exhibit. So this whale face must be pretty impressive. It’s like that blood diamond in the movie Blood Diamond, which Leonardo Di Caprio identifies as being 100 carats just from hearing about it from a guy who is definitely not a jeweller. That’s how good this whale’s face is.

Speaking of the Southern Hemisphere, they had a skeleton of a kangaroo:

I looked everywhere for a kiwi, but couldn’t find one. I’m guessing that, during World War II, Prime Minister Fraser sent a crack team of experts to scour France and bring back any stolen New Zealand artifacts. Either that or, even then, nobody knew what the hell a kiwi was. [Everyone here thinks that we are really proud of the fruit].

Upstairs is where they keep the dinosaurs, so that’s where I went. Trouble is, I don’t really know dinosaur names in English, so I’m not really sure what I saw. I do believe they had a woolly mammoth:

Under the woolly mammoth, they had a real photo from the woolly mammoth days! It’s held up pretty well.

It actually claims to be an homage to a sculpture by an artist named Paul Richer (if you Google Richer, it’s the first image that comes up). I don’t know why they’ve made it look like an issue of Spawn, though.

The dinosaurs were really good. They had one that looked like a T-Rex (turned out to be an Allosaurus), a Triceratops, and one with a really long neck:

Fun fact about the long necked ones: They evolved this way over many millions of years, because their long necks enabled them to get the very last can of Wattie’s spaghetti and sausages from the top shelf.

Speaking of dinosaurs, were you aware that there’s a character in Jurassic Park called Robert Muldoon? It’s this guy:

Don’t worry, the raptors get him.

There’s not a lot else to write about the Galerie. They had a bunch of draws full of rocks and shells, and of course, I looked at them all in depth. As an expert on science, I am interested in such things. After that, I exited through the exit, because that’s how they do it in France.