This Cinco de Mayo forget about body shots. How about bog people?
For those not all that crazy about tequila, on May 5th, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will be presenting an odd mixture of a bog people exhibit, a nightclub scene with djs spinning and a museum collection viewing with an awesome mixtape rather than audio tour for its First Fridays series. I’d go just for the surrealness of it all!
The Mysterious Bog People (they’re so mysterious!) exhibit recently opened up and will run through September. Basically the stars of the show are the six corpses of ancient Europeans whose bodies were preserved by the unique properties of the bogs they were thrown in. Here you’ll meet the Yde Girl, a 16-year-old who died 2,000 years ago; the Weerdinge couple from the late Iron Age/Roman Era (700 BC-500 AD); and Red Franz, a horseman from 1,500 years ago.
For fans of shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, you’ll get a kick out of the interactive Bog Science Investigation laboratory where you get to examine simulated bones, etc. and figure out how these people died.
Afterwards, you can join DJ Kutmah in the grand foyer for some post-bog people dancing.
Sonic Scenery, which has now been extended through August, allows you to browse the museum’s collection not with the usual audio tour but rather the musical stylings of Ozomatli, Autolux and The Sun Ra Arkestra among others.
Like you would for any museum, rent an audio player for $3 and infrared signals automatically trigger each song when you enter a gallery. Or you have the option of purchasing the download for Sonic Scenery from iTunes ($9.99) and listening to it on your iPod. That’s something I’ve always wanted to try out when going to any museum.
At 10pm, DJ Swamp (no relation to the Bog People) will be performing his aural fireworks. Apparently he puts on quite a show, at one time ending a set with Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” and then smashing his records.
Unfortunately the only thing missing from this party is the bar, but if you cut out a bit early you can always catch the tail end of Cinco at La Barca up the street on Vermont which closes at 11.
EVENT: Friday, May 5 at 8pm
Tickets: $9, museum members are free (Parking $6)
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
900 Exposition Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90007
(213) 763-DINO