When I was kid, nothing fascinated me more than the mock Eyptian tombs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, so I was easy to convince yesterday when Sheryl suggested we take Madeleine to see the Mummies: Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt exhibit at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. In all my years in Southern California, I had never been to the Bowers. Neither disappointed. The exhibition (on loan from the British Museum) was well displayed and I actually learned more about mummification than I ever did browsing around larger institutions. (I’m getting older-this may prove useful.) But no one was more interested than Madeleine. What is it about Isis and Osiris that so rivets our attention?
It’s a good museum, small and accessible, with top notch exhibits. They also have a Kids Museum down the street, which is also pretty cool.
Yep. The antiquity. The grotesquerie. The leathery skin stretched tight over bones. Oh, sorry, that’s shopping on Rodeo Drive.
Roger,
“I actually learned more about mummification than I ever did browsing around larger institutions.” But you’ve worked in Hollywood!
“I actually learned more about mummification than I ever did browsing around larger institutions.”
You never met Joan Rivers or ANY of the Gabors?
Roger, your last question is a great one…. What fascinates us about Isis and Osiris is the archetypal nature of the myth…. We are so longing for stories that link to the deepest aspects of ourselves, the human mystery… And this is one of those great stories… More on this anon. And on my blog.