I was excited that the space at the corner of East 4th and Euclid was going to be renovated and rented. I heard that restaurants of a couple various types and names were moving in to compliment the restaurants in the area. The space had been vacant since well before we had moved to live downtown. We passed on moving into the building next door because that space was vacant.
Finally, on one day in March or April, while walking the dogs, I saw a sign on the space: Coming Soon. BODIES – The Exhibition. Celebrate the Wonder of the Human Form.
That’s cool, I thought. I recalled the school trips to the Cleveland Museum of Health to learn about the magical mysteries of the human body, where I encountered Juno, the Transparent Talking Woman, who explained all there was to know about her body parts, which lighted up when she spoke about them.
I was looking forward to checking out BODIES – The Exhibition, getting dinner at Lola or Zocalo Mexican Grill or Greenhouse Tavern or one of the other restaurants on East 4th, maybe a light lunch beforehand. It seemed like a place that would take more than once to wander through, just like the Health Museum. I was excited about it, looking forward to see BODIES – The Exhibition.
It didn’t work out. I discovered something after BODIES – The Exhibition opened its doors. I didn’t actually look in the doors, but discovered it, I suppose, by chance because I said something to my daughter-in-law about riding our motor scooters there, catching some lunch, taking in the exhibition, and getting dinner. She thought that was an awesome idea and said something, it almost got by me, about how cool these real bodies were when she saw the exhibition in Pittsburgh. Real bodies? Is that what she said? Real bodies?
“Yes. Really cool! Let me know what you think!” That’s what she said.
Real bodies. That would be real dead bodies. With the skin stripped off. Some were split in two. Or whatever. People from Africa or China or wherever they were from, dead people, preserved by some secret process. And it costs money to see the real dead bodies with the skin stripped off.
It would be just my luck that on the day I went there, if I happened to be in the mood to see real dead bodies entirely de-gloved posed like a golfer, which I cannot imagine, that I would say, “Gunga galunga, gunga, gunga galunga,” and these real dead bodies, preserved with a secret process, would re-animate.
So, I haven’t gone to see the exhibition. I don’t discourage tourists, like Joakim Noah, who stop me and ask about what to do from going to see the real dead bodies. I don’t tell them that there are real bodies; I just tell them, "Oh, yeah, it’s pretty cool."
But I’m not going.
Posted by Bill at September 7, 2010 05:37 PM