Tonight is the monthly Shag Frenzy. It supposedly starts around 9, but it’s closer to 10. I don’t get this late late night stuff at all, but I’ll deal with it for a cool, free dance party.
I will be checking out the Bodies Revealed exhibit today, even though the bodies may have been obtained in controversial ways. I’ve heard rumors about how the people shown in the exhibit might have been executed political prisoners, the mentally ill, or homeless people whose wishes for burial/cremation were not respected.
I don’t do well with death, which is why I’m forcing myself to go and see this. Ethics of this aside, I have an easier time justifying the use of humans in this way than animals. In high school, I had a biology lab teacher who threatened to flunk me because I informed her I would be in the library all week when the class was dissecting fetal pigs. Since I was not (definitely, definitely not) going into the medical field, I felt like the practice was a morbid and self-indulgent one. What do 15-year-old kids really need to know about a fetal pig’s organs for anyway? It might be close to the human body, but it was not the human body.
There was a special on CPTV recently about mummies. In the 19th century, the bored and wealthy would sometimes purchase mummies from Egypt and have “unwrapping parties.” I guess that this is not much different. We’re probably being equally disrespectful of these (former) people’s last wishes by supporting this exhibit.
So, I’m hoping to purge myself of guilt by maybe going to the Shag Frenzy later, where the only damage done is to willing participants and Sweet Jane‘s disgusting carpet.