Topiary Dinosaurs & The Museum of Jurassic Technology

Santa Monica Topiary Dinosaurs, proudly guarding the Promenade.

Yes, even Los Angeles has dinosaurs. Of course, they are made out of shrubs and shoot water from their mouths while people casually eat frozen yogurt and shop at an outdoor mall. This is one of the many highlights of last weekend’s trip.

Another highlight of the trip was visiting the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I’m sure many of you have heard of it by now. It’s a museum that is really more of a conceptual art project. While it projects the trappings of an “official” museum, you never quite know whether the things on display are real or not. You also never really know why they are on display, as much of what’s in the museum looks either obscure, insignificant or both. Long story short, I can’t describe it well enough to do it justice. If you are passing through Culver City, give yourself at least an hour and a half to see the displays and more than that if you want to read everything (actually you would need a whole day for that).

One of the displays featured this glass case with a dog’s head inside. Through a series of prisms, the image of a man fidgeting in a chair and barking is projected into space so that when you look into the case, he appears to be in the dog’s head. Then he starts barking. It’s priceless, and this one exhibit is worth the price of admission alone.