does anyone else react with abject terror to stuffed animals in nature museums?

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ever since i was a child i have been terrified of stuffed animals in nature exhibits like virtually nothing else. my reaction is so strong as to manifest itself physically. once i found myself at the threshold of the first exhibit of the national museum of natural history in washington and could not take a step. more typically i will nervously walk past the stuffed animals, taking only brief sideways glances, whereupon i will usually feel like vomiting and/or crying.

at the field museum in chicago they have elaborate tableaux in which various dead animals are scattered around an outdoors scene. downstairs they have "underwater" scenes where walrii (walruses?) compete for space with sperm whales and sundry extinct giant fish. these tableaux are unnaturally crowded--like nature on steroids. perhaps that lends them much of their nightmare effect.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 05:44 (twenty years ago)

damien hirst once placed a tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde and titled the work "the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living" which perhaps gets right to the point.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 05:47 (twenty years ago)

these tableaux are unnaturally crowded

that and there's only ever one of any kind of animal. now that's depressing.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 September 2004 05:48 (twenty years ago)

Have you guys ever seen a Rat King?

― rainy (rainy), Monday, 6 September 2004 05:48 (twenty years ago)

there is a word i'm looking for, it has to do with perversion of natural categories, mortification, man into beasts, etc. what is it? it's on the tip of my tongue. think david cronenberg.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 05:55 (twenty years ago)

it's a fairly recent (last 30 years?) academic neologism i think... probably won't be in the dictionary.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 05:56 (twenty years ago)

Is it in Kristeva?

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:05 (twenty years ago)

perversion of natural categories

Sounds like a honey of a word. Can't wait for the answer.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:08 (twenty years ago)

maybe bestialization?

no, i don't think that's it.

i've never read kristeva.

(btw tokyo rosemary said i made fun of her major. what was her major?)

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:14 (twenty years ago)

But Amateurist, those animals are Muerte O'Dead! You can run right up to them and yell 'grrrrrr! roar!' or press the nose and go 'beep!' and THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO TO YOU except STARE with dull, cold, lifeless glass eyes.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:15 (twenty years ago)

(btw tokyo rosemary said i made fun of her major. what was her major?)

I dunno, I was trying to find out myself, but she never responded.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:17 (twenty years ago)

the only word that's coming up is transmorgrification.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:18 (twenty years ago)

They can still hurt you if you lick them! Most of them are preserved with large amounts of arsenic among other things.

― rainy (rainy), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:19 (twenty years ago)

ewww imagine licking a mangy old stuffed animal in some musty natural history museum

― gem (trisk), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:28 (twenty years ago)

the only word that's coming up is transmorgrification.

-- Eric H. (ephende...) (webmail), September 6th, 2004 2:18 AM. (Eric H.) (later) (link)

no, the word evokes horrible things. transmorgrification just evokes "calvin and hobbes."

suzy: i think perhaps these stuffed animals represented mortality to me at an age when i had yet to really assimilate the concept; and thus when i confront them i get the same sock-to-the-gut feeling as when i ponder the infinite a few beats too long.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:34 (twenty years ago)

...because that's what I was planning to do, I was off to lick taxidermy like a motherfucker until Rainy mentioned the arsenic there.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:48 (twenty years ago)

I have a similar wide-eyed gut-socker with the memory - and the slight almondflower smell - of being told to count backwards from 100 while a rubber anaesthetist's mask descended to put me under for surgery for cancer. It's essentially one of my first memories. I didn't get to 97.

I am not scared of dead, immobile things unless those things are somehow stinky and crawling with parasites.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 6 September 2004 06:55 (twenty years ago)

...

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 17:36 (twenty years ago)

My major was Art History, but I have an MA in CULTURAL STUDIES OH NO!!!

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 6 September 2004 20:40 (twenty years ago)

my remarks about cultural studies (those i can find via the search function) were more ambivalent/skeptical than hostile.... anyway i don't think you should take my reservations personally.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 21:16 (twenty years ago)

my ambivalence/skepticism is expressed in my posts here: P&J stats

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 21:26 (twenty years ago)

i still don't know what word i was thinking of.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 21:31 (twenty years ago)

i wish i had been an art history major.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 21:35 (twenty years ago)

At first I was going to laugh at ol' Amatur!!st for bein' such a girlyman, until I remembered.....I know EXACTLY what he's talking about. There's a great room in the Museum of Natural History here in NYC that STILL makes me squirm. I'm talking about the Great Hall of Oceans (or whatever its called) wherein the giant sperm whale hangs from the ceiling. The whale isn't really the thing that bothers me, though, it's the tableaux of the Giant Squid battling a whale that ...TO THIS DAY (after going to the museum for literally decades) gives me the fear.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 6 September 2004 21:36 (twenty years ago)

the mock-ups of extinct animals, especially giant insects and giant fish and flying reptiles, upset me as well, possibly because they upset the orderly vision of nature we tend to hold within ourselves. for the same reason i find imagery which blurs the categories of vegetable and animal (i.e. a man with califlower for ears, or worse) quite disturbing as well.

i'm very squeamish.

the whale vs. squid thing you refer to is really unnerving.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 21:42 (twenty years ago)

The fact there are squid THAT BIG out there, in the deep ocean, RIGHT NOW is somethin wot gives me the fear. They are massively huge and there's all these other weirdy things in the deep that look like aliens... uurgh.

I mean I'd love to live in the ocean but not way down there.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 6 September 2004 22:17 (twenty years ago)

The life size giant squid in the Natural History Museum here in London used put the shits up me so badly when I was little. It's just such a terrifying beast.

― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 6 September 2004 22:30 (twenty years ago)

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/rousseau/rousseau.eclaireur-tigre.jpg.

― youn, Monday, 6 September 2004 22:32 (twenty years ago)

http://www.allplush.com/storefront/StuffedAnimals/images/03089.jpg http://www.allplush.com/storefront/StuffedAnimals/images/20032.jpg http://www.allplush.com/storefront/StuffedAnimals/images/508900.jpg http://www.allplush.com/storefront/StuffedAnimals/images/03214.jpg http://www.allplush.com/storefront/StuffedAnimals/images/18047.jpg http://www.krittersinthemailbox.com/animals/birds/owls/mm46520t.jpg http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/gifts/friends/bird/snowy_owl_126.jpg http://www.ngp1.com/Florida/EDISON/images/museum%20-%20stuffed%20owl.jpg http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38520000/jpg/_38520167_owl2-300.jpg http://www.dealersdirect.com/Dealer/Keller/Photosantique/woodsy.jpg http://www.dishesdecorandmore.com/catalog/images/detail/EAN057052.jpg http://www.dishesdecorandmore.com/catalog/images/detail/EAN072109.jpg http://www.dishesdecorandmore.com/catalog/images/subcategories/045608Thumb.jpg ihttp://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/graphics/greathornface.jpg http://www.decoyswildlife.com/wildlife/Owl.jpg http://www-wisconsin.cern.ch/~armstrong/owl.jpeg http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/img_png/OwlAlpha-0.25.png ihttp://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/graphics/greathornface.jpg http://www.decoyswildlife.com/wildlife/Owl.jpg http://www-wisconsin.cern.ch/~armstrong/owl.jpeg http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/img_png/OwlAlpha-0.25.png ihttp://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/graphics/greathornface.jpg http://www.decoyswildlife.com/wildlife/Owl.jpg http://www-wisconsin.cern.ch/~armstrong/owl.jpeg http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/img_png/OwlAlpha-0.25.png ihttp://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/graphics/greathornface.jpg http://www.decoyswildlife.com/wildlife/Owl.jpg http://www-wisconsin.cern.ch/~armstrong/owl.jpeg http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/img_png/OwlAlpha-0.25.png ihttp://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/graphics/greathornface.jpg http://www.decoyswildlife.com/wildlife/Owl.jpg http://www-wisconsin.cern.ch/~armstrong/owl.jpeg http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/img_png/OwlAlpha-0.25.png ihttp://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/graphics/greathornface.jpg http://www.decoyswildlife.com/wildlife/Owl.jpg http://www-wisconsin.cern.ch/~armstrong/owl.jpeg http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/img_png/OwlAlpha-0.25.png

― MATH BLASTER MYSTERY! (ex machina), Monday, 6 September 2004 22:39 (twenty years ago)

http://rochester.thefacebook.com/pics/n3700328_6279.jpg

― MATH BLASTER MYSTERY! (ex machina), Monday, 6 September 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago)

i'm sorry. this thread just made me think of that painting.

― youn, Monday, 6 September 2004 22:43 (twenty years ago)

I have that little owl toy, the Steiff one.

― Elisabeth (Elisabeth), Monday, 6 September 2004 22:46 (twenty years ago)

There's some freaky looping stuff going on with those owls up there. I thought for a second I was going to spend the rest of my days scrolling down an infinite page of owls. Staring at me. Plotting. Inscrutable.

Scariest thread ever.

― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 6 September 2004 22:51 (twenty years ago)

I went to the Museum of Natural History (I think that was the name) at Harvard a couple of years ago - I was terribly creeped out by the taxi'd animals. I felt very bad for them, even though I realized that they'd be long dead now even if they HADN'T been killed & preserved.

The smell in places like that is indescribable.

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 03:56 (twenty years ago)

I took Casuistry to a museum full of stuffed animals here. He has photos. It was a fun day.

― Huck, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 03:58 (twenty years ago)

how do you guys feel about adorable fake stuffed animals? i had a monkey puppet named allen

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 04:23 (twenty years ago)

Captain Beefheart has something to say on the matter - it made me cry:

THE BEEP SEAL
The beep seal
I saw once as a child
So lifelike it almost made me cry
It stared with its eye glass
and one glue bubble
Caught on its whiskers
Its mouth was closed
So as not to insult the observer
Its canine teeth were red plastic
N' its molars were stained green by straw
Excluding it from the carnivorous and
Putting it in the vegetarian bracket
All of this I viewed from the mistake in
The side of the jaw
By pressing my cheek up close
To the glass on the other side
Of the red felt roped off area
This side of the jaw was obviously not intended
For public observation
Or was the ripped stitch flipper
That was carelessly tucked under in a futile
Attempt to hide the careless workmanship
Which only added to the agony I felt
For the display that lived once again
Hurriedly put together....
There was a small crack in the glass that
Emitted the odor of string footballs
And formaldehyde
And saltwater
The mites balanced on the tiny feather collars
The red tinfoil hummingbird bones
Siper neglected but one flower on the bush
This odor faded quickly with a feeling of torn
Muscle n' a burning in my armpit as I was yanked
By a hard hand and told tears streaming down my face
magnifying my tiny shoes into shiny leather monsters
That I was only to view
Life on the other side of the red felt
Roped off
Designated area

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:18 (twenty years ago)

Jon Williams, you really are a nasty, pathetic little fuck, you know that?

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:44 (twenty years ago)

Walter Potter's tableaux of stuffed beasties are pretty weird.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:49 (twenty years ago)

I think those owl toys are cute, so yes, slocki, I like adorable fake stuffed animals.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:14 (twenty years ago)

The Walter Potter tableaus are odd beyond words, I think because somehow putting taxidermied animals in clothes and scenes makes them not quite dead, not in the right place. I remember reading an article about them in I believe the Guardian last year, and conveniently forgetting them until now. It's strange that someone would pay thousands of pounds for them, and yet not strange at all.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 13:22 (twenty years ago)

I found the Field Museum kind of creepy, but mostly boring. I understand a fear of the stuffed animals, but I am more frightened by living animals. Who knows what they are thinking of?

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 15:04 (twenty years ago)

http://www.acaseofcuriosities.com/assets/potter/kitten_wed_det_new.jpg

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 15:10 (twenty years ago)

Arggghh! They look like they're preparing to march on our cities.

― Wooden (Wooden), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 15:12 (twenty years ago)

Huck does not lie:

http://www.theminorthirds.com/pix-sask-wolves.jpg

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 15:14 (twenty years ago)

I don't feel disturbed by them. Sometimes they look very stupid. Depends a lot on the skill of the taxidermist.

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 15:18 (twenty years ago)

somehow "domesticated" taxidermed (sp??) animals are less frightening than just sort of quizzical, like the badger mounted in uncle bill's rec room or whatever. often they are in a state of disrepair with sort of defangs them (sometimes literally). however the animals in the nature museums are usually in lifelike, even threatening poses and are made to look in the prime of life, which is quite disturbing as they are in fact dead and filled with synthetic material.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 18:57 (twenty years ago)

there is a word i'm looking for, it has to do with perversion of natural categories, mortification, man into beasts, etc. what is it? it's on the tip of my tongue. think david cronenberg.

I still don't know what this word is, but I'm reading a book called The Philosophy of Horror, and it says this: "In her classic study Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas correlates reactions of impurity with the transgression or violation of schemes of cultural categorization. In her interpretation of the abominations of Leviticus, for example, she hypothesizes that the reason crawling things from the sea, like lobsters, are regarded as impure is that crawling was a defining feature of earthbound creatures, not of creatures of the sea. A lobster, in other words, is a kind of category mistake and, hence, impure."

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 September 2004 05:29 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

At first I was going to laugh at ol' Amatur!!st for bein' such a girlyman, until I remembered.....I know EXACTLY what he's talking about. There's a great room in the Museum of Natural History here in NYC that STILL makes me squirm. I'm talking about the Great Hall of Oceans (or whatever its called) wherein the giant sperm whale hangs from the ceiling. The whale isn't really the thing that bothers me, though, it's the tableaux of the Giant Squid battling a whale that ...TO THIS DAY (after going to the museum for literally decades) gives me the fear.

-- Alex in NYC (vassife...), September 6th, 2004 3:36 PM. (vassifer)

alex in nyc is the kid in the movie!

― Sym Sym (sym), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 07:42 (nineteen years ago)

I can't work out the word Am is looking for even though I'm pretty sure I've heard it :(

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 12:21 (nineteen years ago)

The water buffalo in the Field Museum are adorable.

I saw a bunch of little white-speckled fawn(s?), all innocent and cute .. and STUFFED. (turns out they had been run over by a tractor.)

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 13:06 (nineteen years ago)

i love these in restaurants, especially steak houses. makes you feel like a mighty hunter surrounded by his past kills

― latebloomer: band to the planet mars (latebloomer), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

off topic: I was in a restaurant last week that was supposed to be a lodge in the old West - complete with Remington repro's, animal hides on the walls etc.. and a leatherbound copy* of Romeo and Juliet on the mantle. If there was anything the old cowboys liked, it was a love story written by a poncy Englishman.

(*A huge one too - looked like it was about 2000 pages.)

― Dave AKA Dave (dave225.3), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 13:20 (nineteen years ago)

i dont react with any sort of terror at all to these sort of things.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

maybe the word i was looking for is something like "abjection"?

i like jaymc's noel carroll quote...

― amateurist0, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

they shut the walter potter museum of curiosities -- everything wz auctionied off :(

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

http://static.flickr.com/29/60108301_426cc379a8.jpg

― melton mowbray's APOCALYPTO! (adr), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 20:45 (nineteen years ago)

This is why we need a national dental care plan, stat.

― Abbott (Abbott), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 21:26 (nineteen years ago)

THEY STUFFED SHANE MACGOWEN

― Dan (OH NOES) Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 29 March 2006 21:27 (nineteen years ago)

lead singers with claws s&d

― amateurist0, Wednesday, 29 March 2006 23:39 (nineteen years ago)

I'm totally into taxidermy.

― She's been known to sleep on piles of dry leaves... (papa november), Thursday, 30 March 2006 03:39 (nineteen years ago)

i wish rainy would come back and tell us about Rat Kings. but if she does she'd better have a good excuse for being so vague and enigmatic about them. maybe they have a threatening streak, that would be a good excuse. especially if she is one of their subjects.

― estela (estela), Thursday, 30 March 2006 04:04 (nineteen years ago)

if it was nude spock being recalled to a thread he would be here by now.

― estela (estela), Thursday, 30 March 2006 04:07 (nineteen years ago)

oh what have i done?

― estela (estela), Thursday, 30 March 2006 04:08 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.memorygongs.com/posking2.jpg

OK its a possum king but you get the idea. Yay Roman Dirge.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 30 March 2006 04:55 (nineteen years ago)

rat kings? read one halo jones.

or wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king

― koogs (koogs), Thursday, 30 March 2006 07:19 (nineteen years ago)

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