We decided that despite the heat we would hit the strip. Since we have been to Las Vegas several times we had to determine how we wanted to revisit. We parked at the MGM and walked to several of the nearby casinos. Nearby is a stretch because the casinos are so huge that nearby is a relative term. The interior of the MGM had been completely redesigned. The first time we were there you walked into the casino through the mouth of a lion. They changed the entrance because of an Asian belief about walking into a lions mouth bringing bad luck. So they moved the lion to the side of the entrance. Now a lion (a much smaller lion) sits in the foyer. Not sure if they upgraded the rooms but we had stayed in a players suite which was spectacular. (We paid regular room rates – got upgraded because of a computer glitch). One good thing came fro Y2K.
We had heard about the Lion Habitant at the MGM so went there first. It was quite good but difficult to get pictures because of all the people.
After finishing our Lion Habitant tour we headed to the Luxor. We had planned on purchasing tickets to the Chriss Angel “Believe: Magic show but had read soooooo many bad reviews on Yelp that we decided to skip it. Nothing worse then spending over three hundred dollars for a lousy show. There were over 400 hundred posts and basically the show was revamped and was downgraded. No one was happy with the show even die-hard Chriss Angel fans. Too bad, because Ron’s sister had seen it a year ago and said it was great.
The Luxor was completely different then when we had stayed there. I guess they had to change the attractions to appeal to the younger generation not all that interested in Egyptian history.
Instead they had a Titanic Exhibit and the Bodies exhibit. We had seen at least two other Titanic exhibits so skipped that one and headed to the Bodies exhibit. We both were completely impressed and at times repulsed at what we saw. OMG, what a way to look into the human body. Somewhat scary to think you were looking at real people.
Just a few of the exhibits. Couldn’t take picture so copied off the web.
Interesting article from the Seattle Times. This is only one of four pages.
Education or freak show? 'Bodies ... The Exhibition' cashes in on our own curiosity
By WINDA BENEDETTI, P-I REPORTER
Standing before a phalanx of reporters and photographers, he is more naked than most of us will ever be.
Not only is he positioned beneath a pool of light without cover of clothing, he is missing his skin and hair -- a man stripped to nothing but muscle and bone and sinew, a man whose stomach, liver and intestines perch like books on a shelf for all to see.
Nobody knows exactly who he is -- the man whose corpse stands among 20 other unidentified corpses soon to go on display in Seattle as part of a controversial exhibit of cadavers called "Bodies ... The Exhibition." What is known is that he was from China, and when he died his body went unclaimed -- unclaimed, that is, until the dissectors at a Chinese university took him into their care and the show's promoters took him on the road.
These mystery men and women -- most of them relieved of their skin, some of them sliced into halves and thirds, all of them with their insides showing for the outside world to see -- join the more than 250 human organs and partial-body specimens that make up "Bodies ... The Exhibition," a show that was unveiled for the media earlier this week and opens to the public Saturday.
"Bodies" is just one of several traveling cadaver exhibits that have in recent years pulled in many millions of visitors. And, depending on whom you ask, it's either a precious educational opportunity not to be missed or nothing more than a modern-day freak show.
"The bottom line of our exhibition is education," said Dr. Roy Glover, chief medical director for the exhibit, which is presented by Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions and hosted locally by the Seattle Theatre Group at 800 Pike, a new exhibition space across the street from the Washington State Convention Center.
Glover, a former professor of anatomy at the University of Michigan, said "Bodies" is designed "to introduce people to themselves."
"We want people to see the complexities of their bodies," he said. "We feel that people really need to see in order to understand."
The exhibition allows visitors to walk among corpses preserved through a process (referred to as plastination) that fills their tissue spaces with a liquid silicone rubber. The bodies are then dissected and posed in a manner best suited to displaying the intricate workings of the skeletal, muscular, reproductive and other systems.
Various body parts help illustrate for the public the ravages of disease and poor lifestyle choices -- the blackened lungs of a smoker placed near the pale lungs of a non-smoker, a healthy liver next to a liver sick with cirrhosis.
"Our bodies are our most important possession," said Glover, adding that, unfortunately, people tend to take better care of their cars.
But critics say this show and others like it don't so much educate as they do desecrate the human body for profit.
"Premier is a for-profit company. What they're trying to do is make money for a corporation," said Philip Lipson, a Seattle resident who Tuesday stood outside the soon-to-be-opened exhibit distributing protest fliers.
Meanwhile, members of human-rights watchdog groups and some members of Seattle's Chinese community have expressed concern that, not only do the bodies come from a country with a long history of human-rights abuses, but the people whose bodies were used did not give permission for their bodies to be put on display.
"I'm troubled by the fact the bodies are from China," said Ron Chew, executive director of the Wing Luke Asian Museum. "There are a lot of issues there."
"From a cultural perspective, especially since a number of the cadavers are from China, it feels like a gross violation," said Bettie Luke, who works with various Seattle Chinese American groups. "The willful use of putting a body on indefinite display like that condemns the soul to wander the netherworld with no chance to rest."
A bounty of bodies
Take a stroll through "Bodies ... The Exhibition" and the first thing you notice is the lighting. Respectful. Low key. Warm bulbs pour flattering illumination on the displayed items. It's as if they were fine paintings, delicate sculptures or perhaps ancient artifacts dug from the sands of a far-off land.
Instead, lifeless bodies and body parts fill the exhibit's nine rooms, each room focused on a different system of the human anatomy.
In the nervous-system room, a skinned cadaver -- a patchwork of reds and pinks and beiges -- strikes a pose reminiscent of Rodin's famous sculpture, "The Thinker." The top of his skull is removed to reveal the brain as he contemplates another brain on the table before him.
In the circulatory room, a body is reduced to its blood vessels, a vast network of crimson tubes and filaments, mind boggling in its labyrinthine intricacy. In the digestive room, the corpse of an overweight woman -- sliced vertically into three pieces -- offers a window into how and where fat is stored.
Throughout these rooms, glass cases glitter like jewels, plasticized body parts enclosed like presents within. Inside one, a head split into halves shows the parotid gland, the pharynx, the muscles of mastication. In another case, the healthy breasts of a woman sit beside a breast crippled by cancer. The entire digestive tract -- pale tubes from mouth to anus -- snakes down a wall.
Placards and wall paintings offer explanations about what's on display and how these parts work within the larger whole.
"Every specimen in our exhibition is used to tell a story about human anatomy," said Tom Zaller, vice president of exhibitions for Premier.
In the muscular-system room, for example, a body posed as if running seems to leave severed muscles fluttering into the wind. This display is meant to offer viewers a look at the four muscle layers and how they attach to the bone.
In the fetal-development room -- a room that visitors are encouraged to avoid if they so choose -- placards explain each of the birth defects afflicting three of the fetuses displayed behind glass. Spina bifida. Anencephaly. Visceral hernia. (A sign also explains that the deceased -- ranging from 18 days to 24 weeks -- all died from complications during pregnancy, not from abortions.)
"I feel that people are undereducated when it comes to knowledge about their bodies," Glover said. It is with the enthusiasm of a true believer that he talks about the educational virtues of the "Bodies" exhibit and even encourages parents to take their children to the show, though only after first discussing it with them and preparing them for what they might see.
"This exhibit will empower people to understand their bodies better and hopefully to live healthier lives."
Cadaver cash-out
"I think people have a great desire to experience death and see death. And partly it's because death is veiled to us in many ways," said Michael Sappol, author of "A Traffic of Dead Bodies" and a historian at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Md. "Of course, you want to experience death, but you don't want to die."
In cities such as New York, Miami and Las Vegas, "Bodies ... The Exhibition" has drawn more than 2 million visitors since it started making the rounds in 2004. But this show is only one of many such traveling cadaver shows that have risen to popularity in recent years.
Back in the late 1970s, a German anatomist named Gunther von Hagens pioneered the technique of plastination to preserve bodies in a dry, odorless state that allows them to look remarkably lifelike -- for dead people.
In 1996, he opened his first exhibit featuring myriad whole-body dissected and flayed cadavers. He called it "Body Worlds" and, over the years, various incarnations of his exhibit have opened in London, Tokyo and Los Angeles, among others. Two weeks ago, one opened in Vancouver, B.C.
Von Hagens' Web site claims that more than 20 million people have visited his various shows. And with numbers like that, it's no wonder so many imitators have jumped on the bandwagon.
There has been a "Mysteries of the Human Body" show and "Body Exploration." "The Amazing Human Body" is making its way around Australia. Last year, an exhibit called "The Universe Within" -- visiting San Francisco at the time -- came under fire after some of the plastinated bodies began leaking fluid.
Premier Exhibitions, previously known for its Titanic exhibits, got in on the cadaver action in 2004, first with a show called "Bodies Revealed" and now with "Bodies ... The Exhibition." It has become von Hagens' chief competitor.
"This is a successful formula and I'd say it's successful because people want to have some experience with death," Sappol said. "It's transgressive but safe."
Zaller said Premier's goal is for each show to generate at least $2 million in profits for the company. He said that, during its stay in Tampa, Fla., "Bodies" was extended twice, drew 623,000 visitors, and became the most successful show in the history of the Museum of Science and Industry, where it was housed.
Seattle organizers are hoping to see similar successes here.
"This is a pretty big project for the Seattle Theatre Group," said Josh LaBelle, executive director of the not-for-profit performing arts organization that operates the Paramount and Moore theaters downtown. He said the group has long been interested in the intersection of the arts and sciences and believes "Bodies" explores that crossroads in an "important and relevant" way.
He said he hopes to see a half-million visitors to 800 Pike.
Corpse controversy
"It's all about education? No. It's not all about that," said Dr. Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan. "It's about the money. This is an extraordinarily successful entertainment show."
Markel and others are concerned that shows like this do not use bodies from consenting donors and do not make public the paper trail showing exactly where the cadavers came from.
"I'm all in favor of people looking at and understanding the human body," he said, but added that he thinks there are other ways, besides public spectacle, to educate people about their inner workings. "Frankly, I don't want to be somebody's Saturday entertainment."
Oddly enough, the most vocal critics of the Seattle show so far are Philip Lipson and his partner Charlette LeFevre, operators of the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries, a Capitol Hill museum that features exhibits on Bigfoot and UFOs and also hosts ghost tours.
"We feel that this group is not honoring the dead," Lipson said. "It's not treating them with dignity and is just making a peep show out of dead bodies."
Based on a complaint from LeFevre that raised the specter of the San Francisco corpse leakage, the city/county Public Health Department will be reviewing the exhibit today to make sure it complies with all regulations.
"We don't have any reason to believe there's a public health threat," said James Apa, spokesman for the department.
That has not silenced Lipson who says he's concerned about where the bodies came from. In that, he is not alone.
Premier Exhibitions has been up front that it uses bodies -- legally obtained -- that come from China. Partnered with the Dalian Medical University and the plastination lab operated there by Dr. Sui Hongjin (a former partner of von Hagens'), the company does not own the bodies used in the show, but instead has them on loan from the school. (Zaller said Premier has paid more than $25 million to lease the bodies for multiple exhibitions over a five-year period.)
"This Seattle exhibit is deeply flawed," Aaron Ginsburg, a pharmacist from Massachusetts, wrote in an e-mail to the P-I. "The bodies were not donated, and may well have belonged to political prisoners. China is not a nation of laws, and any assurances that the bodies were legally obtained is meaningless."
Ginsburg has started a nationwide Web site protesting the various body exhibits with a portion of the site dedicated to the Seattle show: http://dignityinboston.googlepages.com/seattle.
Tan Truong, a Seattle practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China, also is worried about the origin of the cadavers.
Though Truong admits there's no proof the bodies are those of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners or other enemies of the Communist government, he said, "You just don't know what kind of bodies you're getting from China because there's not a lot of regulation. There's a lot of organ harvesting."
But Glover insisted, "We are not using the bodies of executed prisoners. We are not using the bodies of anyone that belongs to (the Falun Gong). We are very sympathetic to the cause of the Chinese people that are undergoing the violations of their rights. But because we have a partner in China does not mean we are part of the problem."
Dalian Medical University receives the bodies from the government, Glover said. That's because when a person dies in China and there's no one to claim the remains, the government allows the body to be used for medical study.
Glover insists that all the people died from natural causes (including disease). He also said Premier has spent "considerable time" investigating the university. And Zaller said Premier has contracts with the university certifying that the bodies are not those of former prisoners or people from mental institutions. (Premier does not, however, show its contracts to the media.)
Glover points out that the Chinese government's gifting of unclaimed bodies to universities for study and education is not dissimilar to practices in much of the United States. Unclaimed bodies here often are used for medical study and education, though that does not appear to include use in any of these traveling shows.
So why China?
"They have the most excellent dissectors in the world," Glover said, praising Hongjin's work and explaining that preparing a single body can take between 3,000 and 5,000 hours.
One thing is certain: The controversy has not hurt ticket sales.
"There will always be an ethical question about what we're doing and I think it's a healthy question because it's good public dialogue," said Zaller. "These are human beings and the question is: Is it OK that you learn from these human beings?"
Although very controversial both Ronnie and I found it to be incredibly educational. Everyone else in the exhibit hall seemed to be extremely interested in what they were seeing and amazed at how intricate the human body really is. A miracle of miracles.
After finishing the exhibit we had a quick lunch and checked out a couple more casinos. After spending some time at New York New York we headed over to the Excalibur to pick up tickets to the Australian Bee Gees Tribute Show. Ronnie wanted to ride the roller coaster but the little chicken (me) couldn’t do it despite my claims four years ago that I was OVER being afraid of roller coasters.
r0n Note: (Little Chicken?) no big girl pants here.
While waiting for the show we stopped in a lounge had a drink (Yep- we had a drink) and listened to the dueling piano/singers. Great entertainment.
The tribute was phenomenal and the singers looked and sounded like the original Bee Gees. It brought back fond memories of the disco 70’s when we went out dancing every Saturday night. Oh, to be young again.
After the show we walked back to the car over the bridge to the MGM Parking Garage.
It was still blistering hot and when we arrived at the car the temp. gauge read 103 in the shade at 9 at night.
Who would want to live in the desert. Lots of people I guess?????
We stopped at the MH to take Jewel for a walk. She was very happy to see us but we weren’t staying. We went to the Cannery Casino next door to the RV park to listen to another great singing group. We even had a second drink. A record for us – two drinks in one year!!!!! Vegas is bringing out the crazy in us. Oh, I guess we’re already crazy – LOL.
We hoped for cooler weather on Friday. Oh Yeah, we’re in the desert so probably not much hope for that.
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