The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

The spike in heroin use directly coincides with my arrival in Minneapolis from Lexington & One-Two-Five...coincidence???

I had no idea that Sal Mineo was spotted @ Barbette.

I'd take the Galactic Pizza super hero in the electric car a lot more seriously than a cop on a Segway.

And who knew Bloomington had such a top-notch bomb squad?

I thought Body Works was the highest ever attended History Center event?

So is Body Worlds.

I went to BodyWorlds on Sunday and it was *packed*

Make deceased people into toy sculptures.

Keep in mind that the deceased people offered their bodies for this purpose while still alive. At the exhibit, they have examples of the paperwork necessary to donate one's body.

I found the exhibit slightly disconcerting but one of the more educational experiences I've had in recent memory. And once I got used to it, I didn't really see any difference between donating one's body for this type of educational experience and donating one's body for scientific research or organ re-use.

I see it as a way to offer some kind of legacy or value beyond one's years on this planet. I'd certainly rather have my innards teach a child something about their own body than have them rot in a coffin or burn in a furnace.

(Not that I'm planning to donate myself to Body Worlds. I'm an organ donor and I'm sticking with that plan for now. But hey, I applaud the people who offered themselves up to provide this educational opportunity for me and thousands of others.)

What's the big deal? It's just meat.

Study is one thing but using CORSPES for entertainment is beyond the pale.

If I want to see that I will tune into Joan Rivers.

Defining Body Worlds as entertainment is defining it rather narrowly. It's not like it's a corpse puppet show. An overwhelming majority of the show is just organs on display, with placards explaining how they interact with other parts of the body. The sculptural elements of the show are designed to illustrate how the puzzle of the body fits together.

I actually thinkmost of the people who donate their bodies hope they'll end up as one of the scuptures, instead of as a mass of veins or a single lung. But, frankly, I found the veins and the lung as interesting as anything else.

And I have to disagree with you about Joan Rivers. She's just not entertaining.

Study is one thing but using CORSPES for entertainment is beyond the pale.

Believe me, I was anything but "entertained" by the exhibit, and I got the sense that my fellow museumgoers felt the same. It was really interesting to me to see the variety of people of all ages and classes filing quietly through, pausing to read the information, asking each other questions and commenting. You didn't see typical museum behavior of unsupervised kids running around shouting, people making stupid jokes and so on. It was all very solemn. Some people might have approached it with a sense of morbid curiosity, but I think most left with a sense of wonder and a newfound appreciation for the intricate machine that is the human body.

Oh, and I had the opportunity to see Charo a couple of months back. Talk about well-preserved...!

Also, Raindog, who are you to decide how we judge humanity?

Body worlds is an AMAZINGLY educational experience which gives everyone who views it a REAL opportunity to see what we actually are.

If anything, it ADDS to our humanity as we learn what we are and what makes us who we are. It shows us that our bodies are amazingly complex machines that we all take for granted. Beyond that, the bodies shown are from people who donated them to science...

Raindog, I percieve you as being rather ignorant, sorry.

The Associated Press is off and rolling (at 13 mph) on our Segway story. I have waited all my life to have my name attached to a Beaver Creek dateline.

Another first for ALAMN Bob: I did an interview yesterday with The Onion.

Yes, I know. We'll see what they do to my comments on smoking bans.

Just don't get him started on the Twins stadium. He's against that, too, because it helps Pohlad. Or Pawlenty. Or both. Or either. And it doesn't help poor people. And he doesn't like baseball. So it's wrong.

Who gives a shit about baseball? Fuck the fucking twins and thier retarded fans