Learning helps us play!

Hurrah! Isn't nature brilliant? Aren't animals disgusting! Aren't children racist! ALL these exclamations and so much more were addressed in America's Natural History Museum, not only scientifically speaking the nicest smelling museum in the world, but the museum with the largest number of differently coloured walls. (Almost every fact you will hear in this post is made up. I am in a really weird mood, a mood where usually I would have a semi-clothed kitchen naked dance and perhaps sing a soothing verse of 'whole new pants' (the 'a whole new world' song, but almost every noun is replaced cleverly and, may I say, hilarously, with the world 'pants'. example- 'no one to tell us "pants!" or "where's your pants?" or saying we're only dreaming.")

I spent 4 hours (true) in this museum, and I think its safe to say that I now know almost everything there is to know about nature. And to be honest, it all boils down to one, simple fact: Fish are brilliant.

Seriously, I must have spent a LONG time looking at all the different mammals, looking at the subtle shading differences in the fur of weasels, examining the bones of dinosaurs past, imagining them doing dance offs with each other and thinking about how great it would be because all the slothes and monkeys and stuff could climb inside the exposed ribcage of the T-Rex and do partner work whilst the big guy did his Tyranno-solo, and therefore blow the crab breakdance unit quite literally out of the water. I was by no means having a bad time.

But. The second i walked into the section marked 'Fish and That', my whole perspective changed. Fish. Are. Mental. You know Coral Reefs? yeah? the most beautiful places on earth etc, the places that make David Attenborough himself violently wet himself everytime he sees a small postcard with a picture of one on? There are SERIOUS politics going on in there, politics that shits all over the magestiscity of the graceful stag or whatever. In a coral reef, there are levels of battle and truce waging all the time, the glamour hides the sordid and filthy interior. It was like being back at Warwick. But occasionally, the natural war just stops between shark and fish because the shark needs a good clean, and the fish needs some grub. So nature just sets up a cleaning shop of peace where the two get the job done. Insane and wonderful. BUT (i discovered by stepping slightly to the right of this exhibit) there has evolved a 'false cleanerfish' who LOOKS like a peace-mongering dirt muncher, but actually pretends to start washing, and then BITES a massive chunk out of the sharky shark, thus destroying the truce and creating fear, panic and mistrust amongst the fish community. Imagine if you went to went to a friendly shell garage, paid for a carwash and the uniform wearing attendant not only didn't pick up a hose, he broke your window, stole your ipod and punched you in the face for good measure.

Oh and this is just the surface. (well, perhaps a good few feet below the surface to be honest). Book your flight to New York, arrive, get a taxi to the museum of natural history, go straight to the fish exhibit and set up shop. You're done. Money well spent.

I wont go on and on with fish stories all night, because it may, possibly, get dull for those who aren't as (apparently) fish orientated as I am. But come on, I did my time with the rest of the animals. And they're boring. No, not boring, just, well, not fish. And as for humans, GOD we're dull. The human exhibition was essentially 4 rooms of scientists wringing their hands and saying 'look. we evolved ok. Just accept it. Please. Seriously, its true. Look. Look at all this stuff. It happened, Ok? Ok, we'll explain it one more time'
I understand this need for repitition of this fairly clear and valid information in a country whose majority still believe that the great Zoltar vomitted us all out of a giant watering can, but still. Doesn't make for great museum drama. You know what was the best mammal fact I found? hmmm? In like 2 hours of searchign? Wolves mate for life. That's it. That's all we've got.
You have to admit, that CANNOT compare with discovering a type of fish (bear with me- or should i say FISH with me) that smells out a female mate, BITES into her and holds on, over time gets FUSED to the body of the female, their cells collide to the point where the male becomes little more than a floating attached bag of sperm, which the female uses to fertilise her eggs when she chooses. She can have like 4 males living in her at once, just a part of her body. A fitting metaphor for the future of human reproduction? Only time will tell.

You know what else is great about museums? Parents trying to make their kids into something they're not quite ready to be yet. I heard a wonderful exchange between a father and a daughter, about a fairly massive (and to be honest, pretty damn scary), crab.
Father- 'honey? honey? do you see it? Hmmm? And what do you think it does with its babies honey?'
Honey- 'Daddy look! Daddy! look, look its a raccoon!'
Father- 'No honey, look, look at this sign. Can you see what it says? hmmm?
Honey- 'Daddy its ugly.'
Father- 'No but, yes, it it, but you see what happens when it has babies? it takes the babies, and it-
Honey- 'DADDY LOOK, Josh is wearing my hat! Daddy!'

And on it went. As well as the brilliance of watching children fail to learn anything, there was the brilliance of them being terrified by things like native Americans, Amazonians and all the ancient folk, and their parents trying very very hard to prevent them from saying very racist things.
small child 'daddy, whats wrong with his face?'
Panicked adult- 'what do you mean?'
small child- 'his face is all weird, its really smushed and weird'
Adult (looking around and smiling as if to say 'he said it, not me, and he's really cute so lets not arrest him') - 'Ahahaha. hahaha. no no come on now, time to go'.

Oh, there was one other thing that I loved beyond all reason, and it was purely because at the time I saw it I was thinking how many signs I'd seen, how long it must have taken to write all of these signs, and if i was the one writing all these bloody signs I would get seriously narked off after a while and not really put the proper effort in. And then I saw this definition-

'Birds:
Birds are feathered and winged dinosaurs whose closest living relatives are crocodiles.'

Wonderful.

So, i think i'll leave you for this evening with a small and extremely interesting quiz. Interesting if you love fish that is, and I think, by now, we certainly all do. Its always (and when I say always I obviously mean, since this afternoon,) intriuged me how fish are named by being described as other, exceedingly unfish like, animals. Its as if the fish namers are the laziest namers in the naming world. Perhaps they are. Another argument, for another blog. One of the fish below is not a real fish. Can you guess which one? JEEPERS the fun we have on this blog. I mean, I should start charging. Good luck!

The Powderblue Surgeon Fish
The Spotlight Parrot Fish
The Black Blotched Porcupine Fish
The Crown of Thorns Starfish
The Norwich Terrier spinning fish
The Crown Squirrel Fish
The Daisy Parrot Fish

oh and p.s.
There was a Charles Darwin quote on one of the walls, and at the bottom, the sign off read 'by Charles Darwin: Scientist.'
God Bless America.