It’s 6 in the morning and I have a bloody nose, so what better time to write about going to the Science Museum of Minnesota last weekend. My main motivation for finally making it down to the relocated and redecorated science museum was the screening of the OMNI movie Shakleton’s Arctic Adventure. Having read both Endurance and Shakleton’s Forgotten Men. I was giddy to see the 8mm footage that was taken of the Endurance locked in Ice Pack and Frank Hurley’s Epic photos of her bow being snapped like matchsticks.

The movie was excellent. A great combination of Hurley’s still photography, old film footage, historical re-enactments, a dramatic narration by Kevin Spacey, and the obligatory (but oh so anticipated) helicopter OMNI shots — a roller coaster over the arctic ice caps. The film goes out of its way to show the toil and trauma that Shakleton and his men went through just to survive (having their original mission of being the first to cross the Antarctic continent go horribly wrong). One of my favorite moments was when the experienced modern day mountaineers equipped with thousands of dollars of sweet gear from REI, Patagonia and North Face retrace Shakleton’s route over the South St. George Island and with camera crew along show what Shakleton and his men must have faced with their flimsy British government issue wool sweaters and screws in their soles for traction shoes.

My one criticism of the movie is that it makes no mention of the other party that busted its ass to lay the depots that Shakleton would never use (hence the name probably for “Shakleton’s Forgotten Men”). For me that’s the part of the entire expedition story that leaves me scratching my melon and asking, why? What compels us to boldly go where no man has gone before? Obviously, there’s a very good reason that nobody has gone there before. It’s cold – you get scurvy – you die. Humans were not meant for that climate. Regardless though, I thought Shackleton a bad-ass and a hero.

However the next night I watched the French Documentary of the New York City Firehouse that got down to business on 9-11. The juxtaposition of that film to the Shakleton adventure, made Saturday’s Shackleton hero worship seem very small. Shakleton gets points for being crazy enough to boldly go where no man has gone before, simply for showing us the possible – the triumph of the individual – man against nature. But the guy’s of the NY Firehouse, who put aside their own concerns to help the citizens lost in chaos, get my vote today. The scene where the fire chief throws his body on top of the French film maker when the second tower came down is about as close to a pure altruistic event as one could ever imagine.

Anyhoo. Obligatory comments on the new (for me) Science Museum. It’s very nice but way to Childcentric to warrant repeat visits from the jaded late twenties demo. The sound sculpture is a must see (hear) however. It’s a huge installation hanging from the ceiling like a double helix meets the corkscrew roller coaster at Vallyfair, where each helix is a metal tube set to a certain musical pitch. Each bar is set with an electronic sensor that I thought was triggered by the folks walking around the museum (which I tried unsuccessfully to control by breaking into tiny dance routines) but which I later learned, after reading the explanatory text (oh yeah), that the bars are triggered by the earths seismic activity around the world. Jesus…dullsville. Oh well, I’ll have to go rock out at the Science Museum the next time San Francisco has another 7.3.

“Dude, Eddie Van Halen could never play a Richter Scale”.