Gays on Display?

Jackie and I decided to get our culture-on last Sunday and visited the Museum of Natural History. It's no MOMA, but it worked in a rainy day pinch and, besides, it's right by the gym. I haven't been back to the AMNH in about 20 years and was horrified to discover that they have decided to carpet the place with children. The expressions "kids under foot" took on new meaning as we tried to navigate our way around baby strollers, toddlers having tantrums, and parents who believe that children are really little adults with the right to lay down on the floor in public with their skirts over their heads creating angels on the floor out of Goldfish cracker dust. In some cultures, this is considered a rite of passage, so it's only fitting really that this kind of artistic expression should be allowed in a Museum, especially one on the Upper West Side.

Buying tickets is a new adventure now that the AMNH has installed airport style kiosks. Why stand in line when we can use one of the handy kiosks? we thought as we ran through the familiar motions of "checking in." Here's the catch: use the kiosk and your "suggested donation" is no longer suggested. We were going to have to pay full price for the privilege of catching a million random childhood diseases as we strolled through this monolith. "All I wanted was to see the whale" I whispered.

My father used to call the AMNH the "dusty diorama" and I used to revile him for his ignorance. Who wouldn't want to spend hours gazing at little windowed compartments featuring the best that taxidermy has to offer? 25 years later I can now safely say: me. At the exorbitant price of about a dollar a minute, Jackie and I did our best to find one square inch of the Museum that wasn't overrun by children and their free and easy parents. We arrived in the Room of Mankind or The Human Room, something like this. I was too lightheaded from the smell of diapers and mildew to read the sign. And there we noticed a corner devoid of small fingers and sizable boogers. That's when we saw this little placard: The Many Faces of Homo (above). Tittering to ourselves, Jackie and I suddenly channeled the kids around us and made "face of homo" jokes for the rest of the afternoon along the lines of "Does this color compliment my homo face?" and "I'm a sad homo, you can see it in my face." Even the kid with her skirt above her head rolling in the cracker dust was more politically correct. Sweet.

this pretty much sums up democracy

Yes, that really is Abraham Lincoln tossed out like so much trash in the broiling Brooklyn sun. After recovering from the heart attack I had when I thought that some lanky gentleman in a tuxedo had gone and chosen my walking route to unfurl his mortal coil, I snapped this pic while pretending to be a CSI getting crime scene photos. The ultimate in nerdcore.