-Museum-


Ghada and I used our student identifications to gain access to the Art and Natural History Museum in town. We spent the next three hours dodging school groups, pushing diorama buttons, and affecting the proper art-appreciation rictus.

At one point, we tried to get ahead of these student groups to get to a screening of the Machu Picchu film. Unfortunately, the students and their grown handlers had the same idea, and the two of us were carried along the narrow hall like two sticks in a deluge of floodwaters.

As we were so moved, we noticed cases of stuffed birds lining the walls. After the film we devoted more attention to this collection, which included some favorites from childhood: ospreys, sandpipers, great-horned owls. Each new raptor could elicit instant admiration or disgust, based on some instinctual measure of attractiveness.

'I like what you've done with your feathers, Peregrine Falcon. Symetrical beak, good use of dark colors and aerodynamic shapes."

"Ugh. Vulture. Carrion-eater. Scaly-head."

Feels harsh enough when they're dead behind the glass. Imagine the thoughtless nastiness that goes into the instant trials people reserve for human birds of feather.