Cherry Ghost - Los Angeles Natural History Museum?

Written By: Cherry Ghost

I know, I know. I’m supposed to write concert reviews. And this was SUPPOSED to be a concert to review. But the concert was the least exciting part of the evening.

6/6/08 The Mountain Goats @ The Natural History Museum w/ Annuals

I had never made it out to a First Friday event at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. I always had excuses… mainly that it always seemed SO early. But last week (luckily, as it was the final one of the year) I made it out!

I decided that I wanted to get the full First Friday experience, so I got there as early as I possibly could. Which was around 5:45pm. This had an unintended bonus of free street parking. (By the way: I love free parking. It always makes me happier to be where I am.)



While we missed the tour (which was ok, as I like self-guided-going-where-I-want-when-I-want-learning-about-what-I-want-to-learn-about tours better anyway) we did sit in on the lecture by Dr. Craig Stanford.



It was about the similarities between apes and dolphins – more specifically “Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Evolution of Apes and Dolphins, and What it Means for Human Origins”. The lecture (when it finally started after all the introductions and self-promotions) was only about a half hour long. THE PERFECT length for an educational lecture! If it goes much longer, I get bored and stop learning all the important things there are to learn. After that we continued on our self guided tour around the museum.

This is the best way to see a museum: Drinks! Dim lights! Lots of young 20 somethings! Food! Dinosaur Costumes! Music! DJs! Bands! Friends! No need to talk in Hushed Museum Voices!

We waited in a line that went around several corners to get into the Mammal Hall in order to watch the bands play. By the way, what a great venue to have a show! They were set up right in front of the Bison exhibit. I liked what Annuals had going on, but I really couldn’t hear very well. And I was constantly distracted by the baby boar in the exhibit next to me.

*Why haven’t we found a way to keep animals as cute little babies FOREVER? Huh, Science? Why?*

A great local with terrible acoustics. Too bad. And when the Mountain Goats started, it was even harder for me to focus on the music. Sooooooo… we left Mammal Hall and raced around the museum at a furious pace looking for some lost friends. We found them. Deep in the Marine Life hall, were we had a wine induced conversation about sand crabs and The Running of the Grunions – happening now, at a beach near you.

*While trying to remember the word “Grunion”, I came across this little tid-bit: “It is legal to catch grunions while they are on the beach, but only with bare hands. The preferred method of grunion catching is at night with a flashlight and a gunny sack.” A gunny sack? Who knew!*

This was a perfect Friday evening. I will seek out and discover more events like this. I will. And I’m going to. And then I will consider telling you about them. Sure beats going to a bar. In fact, I wish someone would open a bar exactly like the Natural History Museum. Someone? Anyone? I also wish I was wildly rich or fantastically famous so that I could throw a costume party/scavenger hunt/hide & seek party there. Maybe they will read this and let me, as a nice little present for saying nice things about them.

Next time: Gems & Minerals, Dinosaurs and the Bug display – couldn’t bring my drink in. Didn’t want to set my drink down. Didn’t want to down my drink… Didn’t see these exhibits.

Cherry Ghost.