An Idle Day in Idol Idylls.

Halfway through exams as of Tuesday, I spent a day off in the domains of some of my favorite icons - Darwin, Huxley, and Shakespeare.  Since I'd turned in an architecture paper about the Natural History Museum the previous day, I figured I should probably go see the place.  In case anyone wants a bit of history:
In the 18th century, Sir Hans Sloane amassed an impressive Wunderkammer.  Accretion of objects over his lifetime culminated in approximately 80,000 items at the time of his death.  Unlike most collectors who kept the cabinet of curiosities in the family, however, Sloane devised a proposition for King George II in which he would give his collection to the people in return for the sum of £20,000 to each of his daughters.  Initially rejected, Sloane’s proposal was finally accepted in the British Museum Act in June 1753.  Without a budget that allowed courting the idea of a purpose-built repository, Parliament had to decide between purchasing Montagu House or Buckingham House (later Buckingham Palace, interestingly enough).  They settled on the cheaper Montagu House, and the British Museum in Bloomsbury finally opened in January 1759.  This was the very first state-funded natural history museum open to the public.  
As we now know, however, the Natural History Museum is not part of the British Museum anymore (see previous post). Continuing to accrue natural history collections, especially those from the expedition of the HMS Endeavor, Richard Owen, then-director of the collections at the British Museum, persuaded the government to fund the first purpose-built natural history museum, moving the collections from the British Museum to its current location in South Kensington.  I won't go into why this is important, but there were enough reasons for me to write ten pages about it, so go with it.
The building at South Kensington, in the German Romanesque style, is gorgeous:

Darwin  (that white statue) is smack in the center of it all.

Idol #1, Darwin, who required...

...Idol #2, TH Huxley, to act as PR and fight for his ideas.  Love this guy, but...

...not such a fan of Owen.  Ironically, the director of the Natural History Museum who worked so hard to arrange specimens taxonomically didn't support On the Origin of Species. What a slap in the face when they put Darwin's statue in, eh? 

Of the million cool things we saw there, I'd say this was most impressive:

The smudge of white powder in the bottom of the tube is made up of microscopic diamonds formed from the dust around dying stars billions of years ago, before our solar system even existed.  This is literally the oldest thing you will ever see!

In the evening, Paola took us out to dinner and then to see As You Like It at the Globe!  Most of the neuro Sagehens were there:

Gabe claims he was smiling.  I claim otherwise.

Being at the Globe was amazing, finally getting to experience what it was like to see Shakespeare's plays during his time, down to the groundlings and an audience that could hiss and cheer when it liked.  It was a really different theater experience, but lots of fun! 

The show was hilarious, and definitely one of the best Shakespeare productions I've ever seen.  Being a touring company, the players tripled up on parts, and sometimes the audience would cheer simply for an impressively rapid costume change.  All in all, an excellent day which I might venture to say ended As I Liked It (ouch... Dad, that pun was for you).