I paid a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium last Satyrday, for
the first time in several years.
The first thing I noticed was the crowds. The Aquarium has
always been a popular attraction. But this time, I felt like
I was back in an air****t in the heady days right after President
Reagan fired all those striking air traffic controllers. It was
incredible. The noise was relentless, its level almost painful.
And seemingly everybody was using or posing for a camera or a
camcorder, either blocking everyone else'e view of a tank or
standing in the middle of a walkway to photograph or videotape
someone else, obliviously obstructing foot traffic. I used to
associate this behavior with Japanese tourists, but it seems to
be universal now.
The second thing I noticed was the sheer number of small children.
I'd say fully half of the people there were under three feet tall.
The crush of the crowds wasn't helped by all the goddam strollers.
I tend to tune strollers out visually since they just aren't part
of my life, but there were so many of the things in one place that
this was impossible. I hadn't really noticed how big and bulky
strollers have become. Today's make the plush, overbuilt Apricas
favored by the original yuppies back in the '80s look downright
minimalist by comparison.
There was even one place I saw that was designated "Stroller
Parking"; there were 20-25 of the things sitting there, rolled
together off to one side of the walkway and parked herringbone
fa****on (appropriate, eh?), so that parents could take their
babes in arms.
And the third thing was that the Aquarium has been dumbed down
to kid level. When it opened and for years thereafter, part of
its attraction was the intelligence with which its exhibits were
displayed and presented, not to mention the overall aesthetic
dignity of the place. Designed to resemble a cannery, it was
spare and restrained, almost stark. Now everything is kid- and
baby-centric.
Every few yards there's yet another carnival-like wooden facade
painted in garish colors to attract the kiddies, or a hollowed-
out place where knee-high personnel can toddle in and see a tank
from the inside. If the signs adjacent to the tanks and exhibits
were dumbed down any further, they'd be written in babytalk.
I think it's great to make a place like that more accessible to
kids, but must their needs set the tone for the entire place?
If the Aquarium became any more kid-friendly, it'd be a goddam
aquatic petting zoo. A major part of it already is.
Lastly, the place has become annoyingly PC. I remember first
notiingc this when I watched a video loop depicting a uniformed
Aquarium employee (actually an actor, I suspect) giving a
"welcome" message to passersby. He was of Japanese ancestry.
The next time I passed by, there was another actor on the screen
-- this one Hispanic.
It was tempting to stand there for a bit and watch the video
loop cycle through, just to see how much "diversity" there was
on it. There was probably a cripple in there at some point.
Maybe a blind lesbian Eskimo in a wheelchair would eventually
have made an appearance.
And the environmentalist admonishment and guilt-tripping is
relentless. Seemingly every exhibit has a sign next to it
dwelling on the horrors of this or that man-made (excuse me,
"human-caused") form of pollution. And it's *your fault!*
Oh, and get this: there's a sign in the snack bar saying that
lids and straws for fountain drinks are "unavailable for envir-
onmental reasons." Give me a ****ing break. Man is the dominant
species on this planet, last I heard. That means our needs should
come first.
Geoff
--
"The time has come for someone to put his foot
down...and that foot is me." -- Dean Wormer
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