the house where i’m staying has a starfish in the bathroom, as a decorative object. it certainly works, since it’s on the end of the bathtub, so it fits right in as an aquatic-related item.
however, i was looking at it the other day and wondering, why is this cool, yet taxidermy is creepy?
they’re both dead bodies, right? it’d be really strange and wrong to have a stuffed dog in the bathroom, but why is a starfish all right? it’s not even stuffed, it’s just the dead exoskeleton! yet it doesn’t set off the creepymeter, not like something mounted on a plaque or posed in some faux-nature diorama.
perhaps it’s the fact that it’s not mammalian in nature, or that it doesn’t have two arms and two legs to identify with. it’s naturally strange enough in shape that its form registers as abstract, both in life as well in death. it’s a weird thing first, and a dead thing second.
meanwhile, they’re trying to plastinate giant squid:
Von Hagens invented plastination while at the University of Heidelberg in the 1970s. The process involves replacing water and fat in the corpse with a polymer, and it has allowed him to exhibit dissected human bodies in life-like poses. But a giant squid, with its lack of a rigid internal skeleton for support, and relatively poorly understood circulatory system, poses some novel challenges.
…
The plastination process could take up to a year, and the squid will need a rigid framework for support, but O’Shea is confident that von Hagens will be able to display the animals.
if you put a plastinated giant squid in the bathroom, can i come over to take a shower?
Posted by: xz at December 30, 2004 9:56 AMComments are now closed for this entry. Thank you for playing.