Bodies: The Exhibit, or "Love your Guts"

A couple of years ago, I remember hearing a story about a controversial museum exhibit that shows in detail the intricacies of the human body. These specimens had been preserved using a unique process that basically swaps a body's soon-to-decompose cells with a polymer. The body becomes plasticized, organ by organ.

The exhibit in the early venues was very controversial... graphic representations of the human body, displaying "corpses"... even their genitalia... you get the idea. I'm not sure it's nearly as controversial now because it's no longer novel.

Well, I thought it was cool then, and think it's cool now. It's coming to the Museum of Idaho, debuting in a few days. I can't wait to go, and probably more than once.

Often I muse, "I wonder what my guts look like..." Don't we all wonder what our guts look like? Or is it just me...

Beyond the gut-reaction (sorry, couldn't resist) of simply wanting to know the condition of my innards, I am a person who is poignantly amazed at the structure and function of the human body. So many essays and works of prose have been written on the topic, discussing all that goes in to us being able to walk on two legs, or smell a spaghetti dinner, or dribble a basketball, that I won't try to compete with them... but if you stop and think about it for even a moment or two, it's truly incomprehensible all that we can do with, for, and to our bodies. We are a complex orchestra of organs and processes, most of which will never be explained or fully understood.

So I recommend you get past the "gross", and take in the wonder this exhibit will provide. I think it just may change your perspective about life.

And you'll at least get an idea of what your guts look like.