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We're actually here to see an exhibit about death called, "Natural Causes." (Thomas' pick, but clearly selected with my interests in mind.) Seen here is a lovely dress made with arsenic-based pigment.
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...revealed to be rife with deadly uranium when you press the interactive lighting button. (Not pictured: the adjacent display of radioactive Fiestaware that makes an annoying geiger counter noise when you press its button.)
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He doesn't think it's funny at all when I use a mechanical pencil to pretend I'm shooting up.
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Disturbingly, the rattlesnake at a museum that lulled you into thinking every animal behind glass is taxidermied... is alive.
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And now the butterfly center, the upper deck of which is possibly more humid than Houston itself.
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There were way better photographs of insects inside the museum (an entire exhibit of magnified bugs!) but we weren't allowed to photograph those photographs for some reason.
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It really is a high volume of butterflies. So much so that they have mirrors on the way out so you can make sure fugitive butterflies aren't stowing away in your clothes and hair and such.
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So here's what the Starn twins are up to these days: a two-story bamboo installation that you can walk on (though only after you sign a waiver).
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People in heels or flip flops were forced to don loaner bamboo-appropriate footwear, but my slightly-heeled oxfords made it past the shoe police.
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While waiting in line, I made a lot of jokes about how I hoped someone explained to the Starns that people in Texas weigh more than they do out east. And the installation does indeed incorporate some pretty thick pieces of bamboo.
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This is part of a project called "Big Bambu" (there should be an accent on that "u" but I don't know how to use a keyboard.)
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At first, I argued that it should have been called Bamboo You, to invoke the latter Rolling Stones record Tattoo You.
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But then I decided it was an homage to another past-prime MTV-era album: Hall and Oates' Big Bam Boom. Please don't try to convince me otherwise.