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The Australian museum had some original Blaschkas, which I first became familiar while visiting the natural history museum at Harvard. According to the display:

“The Blaschkas were known for their exquisite models of sea creature made in the 1870’s and 1880’s. The models were widely used in museums as it was almost impossible to preserve soft-bodied creatures. They are of limited educational value today – many are anatomically incorrect or cannot be identified – but their worth resides in the provenance and artistry. Our collection is one of the few neither lost nor damaged over the years.”

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Over 80% of New Zealand has been terraformed for sheep. The country’s health is still measured by the sheep-to-human ratio. At one time it was almost 40 to 1. Today it is 5 to 1, mostly due to increases in the human population, genetically-modified monster sheep, and Lord of the Rings Film Locations.

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Te Papa Museum in Wellington had this amazing display that contained all the base species considered native to NZ. . . sort of a New Zealand starter kit.

With the exception of bats, there are no mammals in the display. So in this primordial version of Aotearoa (some imaginary pristine NATURE that only exists in a Kiwi’s brain), mammals don’t exist. Hence any critter that stowed away and slipped onto the island (with the exception of cattle, sheep, and a few tolerable pets, of course), are considered invasive. Stouts, ferrets, possums, rats, bunnies, etc. are public enemy number one. They must be eradicated.

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monkey trying to decide when it’s safe to cross the street. . . . how about now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now? Now?

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the Balinese love their fake animals. . . statues pop up everywhere and some of them are pretty funny. The tradition comes from a mix of Hindu and old-school animism. Yep, these folks literally worship nature. Maybe I should convert?

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I had never been to a Rainforest Cafe, but while walking through the Arizona Mills mall, I realized that the restaurant filled an entire bingo card of topics for my website. Fake nature, wildvertising, greenwashing, crapitalism, vaguely apocalyptic. . . all in the same place? Wuh? So my wife and I braved the lush plastic jungle and now I’m convinced. . . Rainforest Cafe is a portal to hell.

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Rainforest Cafe is kid friendly, sort of? They have talking trees. Glitchy animatronics. Cartoon predators. And orange fake footprints that tell you where to go. And what happens if you stray off the footprints? You end up at a dark and creepy bar, sitting on stools with sheered-off animal-legs, beneath a giant magic mushroom. So there’s that.