Ceci n'est pas un blog

The apartment hunt continues. Today, I went to visit an apartment in Grønland on the corner of Sverdrups and Kirkegård (Sverdrup was the captain of the famed arctic exploration ship the Fram and Kierkegaard was the father of modern existentialism, so connections to things we're interested in).

I'd planned to spend a bit of time in the flea market but it was off today on account of rain, so I got to the apartment quite early and thought I'd walk around the neighborhood and see whether it seemed safe and what the shops and people are like. The apartment is at the northern edge of the most densely immigrant populated part of town. Middle Eastern, South Asian, African.

There's quite a lot of graffiti but a coworker who's lived in the area for many years says it's quite safe and she really likes living there. So perhaps the tagging isn't the sign of potential violence it is in the States, I need to look a bit further into this. What I didn't expect was to wander unexpectedly into the grounds of the Natural History and Botanical museums.

It's gorgeous, with rolling manicured lawns and stately buildings reminiscent of Ivy League colleges.

Well I couldn't very well miss seeing the allegedly controversial show on homosexuality in animals. It was a smaller exhibit than I'd expected, just one large room divided into smaller sections that flowed from one station to the next. There were no video installations, no voice overs, just taxidermied animals and banners with photos. Next to each was a short statement about the observed behavior and how prevalent it is in the species. These were also supplemented with examples of how the scholarship has changed in this area. My favorite example was a scientist who documented any contact between male and female giraffes including simply sniffing the other's backside as sexual in nature but documented full anal intercourse among males as ritualized combat "sparring".

As I believe I mentioned in an earlier comment, the show was overtly political and included the following statement: "We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear -- homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom; it is not against nature." This was also underlined by a wall of primates photos and a statement about the specific homosexual behavior among primates. Scattered at different heights among the pictures were several mirrors.

There wasn't much sign of controversy when I went. It was busy but not crowded and several families were there and the kids were mostly interested in touching the taxidermied animals both in this area and upstairs where they had polar bear and ox brought back from the Arctic on the Fram expedition. The images and animal poses weren't gratuitously graphic but didn't shy from their subject matter. While I was there a curator, I presume, was talking to a journalist in English about some of the specifics.

Overall it seemed well thought out and a bit like it was expecting controversery so had prepared for any challenge. I do wish there had been more video footage, the glass eyed animals and handfull of photos weren't as evocative as the brief text accompanying them, for example, flamingo same-sex couples being donated an egg to hatch and raise as their own.

As for the apartment, well, we'll have to see whether our first choice comes through and whether this one accepts dogs.