everything is connected.

[keryx]

Have y'all been to the Smithsonian's Native American museum?

You should, really. You could even just eat there. But what would be cooler is if you actually went through some portion of the strangely disjointed but interconnected design of the exhibit/collection/whatever. It's based on concepts. It's a physically manifested series of concepts! It doesn't seem to aim for a narrative of any sort, and yet things tie together.

And all the ideas of the universe presented therein tie together, too. Strong argument for some sort of Jung/Joseph Campbell/whoever idea of collective truth at whatever level of consciousness.

Although, really, all of my weekend of vacation (a whole week ago) was all about the interconnectedness of things. And plantains. And ceviche. Which just makes me feel alright with the whole world thing (both the interconnection and the plantains; ceviche, when bad, can be really really bad).

Other things that are good: Amy Ray's newer solo venture, "Prom", Everything Bad is Good for You (a book about how pop culture doesn't suck, duh) and Art and Fear (a book about art and the fear that keeps people from making it).

Comments

[attrice.livejournal.com]

I was hoping Amy Ray's solo album was good. It's always a 50/50 thing where she's concerned. And I saw the guy who wrote Everything Bad.... on the daily show. I wanna read it, but I have to be careful cause I think part of the reason I'm interested is that it would give me some arguments to defend my complete immersion in things like video games and cable television. "See he says 8 hours of xbox every saturday makes me smarterer! how dare you try to take my smart box away!"

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Well, 8 hours of Xbox probably isn't any worse for your smarterness than 8 hours of reading that dude's book... television and games AREN'T bad for you, even if you are completely immersed. Unless, you know, you want to experience the rest of the world. ;P

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I wasn't crazy about the "concept" organization, actually. It seemed almost intended to blur the different nations and timeperiods together into one big blurry "Indian" thing. The displays of functionally related objects without any identifiers (other than on the little interactive screens that were always being used by small children, when I was there) frustrated me.

I LOVE the building, though. The cafe too, actually.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Really? I got totally the opposite thing from the conceptness - it made the individual tribes more distinct and less part of some faked-up "Indian story".

The chunk about Europe settling and stuff did annoy me a little - it was visually impressive, but ended up telling this vague story about how Europe in general shat on Indians in general.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I didn't go through all the sections of the museum, but when I was there, they had these big glass cases full of, like, footwear or whatever, and you couldn't look at a specific moccasin or mukluk and find out what area or nation or time period it was from, you had to find it on the little display monitor. So it was like "look! footwear!" Pretty, but not informative. I think it would still have been pretty if there had been the normal museumy tags telling you the origin of each item.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

You need to go through the "universe" section - that was the best organized and prettiest. I don't recall this footwear display, but my parents were rushing by the time we got half through, I probably missed it.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

It was actually a while ago, so maybe things are better arranged now. The stuff I'm complaining about could have been museum-opening glitchiness.