Bodies Revealed - my take

It's hard for me to say whether the exhibit was worth the price of admission, because Mom bought our tickets. I suppose I'd have to ask her. If you have the chance to see the exhibition, and you are at all interested in it, you should go.

There's been a ton of controversy swirling around this thing, probably since they announced it would be here at Union Station. Stories in the Star, letters in the Star, pieces on local TV, some extolling the virtues, most decrying the horror of it all. I was really on the fence about the whole thing.

I remember back in 2005 when I attended the ASNE Journalism Advisers Institute at Berkeley, there was a woman in our class who went to an exhibit that must have been similar to this one. At the time, I thought - What a wacko. Who wants to see plasticized human bodies? The mental picture I had was completely different from what I've now been exposed to. Back then, I was picturing bodies that still looked like humans, like people. To me, that wasn't it at all.

It's much more clinical, like you're looking at models used in anatomy classes. And it was fascinating. I feel like I have a much greater appreciation for my body and all that it entails. I spent a lot of time looking at the knees near the beginning of the display. I wanted to see how that joint that I pound so much actually looks on the inside. The tendons and muscle displays were quite interesting. I think I just always pictured the inside of my body as a solid mass of goo, not really thinking about all of the systems in there.

Now I know that the spinal column almost looks like fiber optic cable running down our backs. And, that some of our organs really look like meat that you might see on someone's table. (Still not sure how I feel about that one.) We really are animals, just like the cows we eat. The brains looked a lot like what you're used to seeing on TV.

As I stood peering at a smoker's lung, I watched out of the corner of my eye as an elderly man looked over the same lung. He had that yellowish-green-white mustache you see on male smokers. Next to the lung, there was a clear bin, into which the exhibitors asked smokers to toss their packs of cigarettes, in hopes of convincing them to quit once and for all. I listened as the man's adult son asked him time and again to throw his smokes in that bin. This went on for about three or four minutes. It was quite uncomfortable.

They walked away from the display, and the older man never did throw his pack away. He really did look like he was looking to see what his own lung may look like while he was standing there.

Overall, I'd say the most startling things in the exhibit would have been the contrast between healthy tissue and cancerous or diseased tissue. That stuff does a lot of horrible things to our bodies.

The controversy surrounding "Bodies Revealed" sure didn't hurt attendance figures. It was packed when we showed up and packed when we left - lots of families with kids on spring break, I'm sure, but also many adults and single people as well. It wasn't just the school vacation crowd.

All in all, it took us just over an hour to see the entire exhibit.