What almost looked like a leftover from the Tim Burton Exhibit from the adjacent LACMA stood in the middle of lawn on the Saturday night, June 4th activities. A giant black and white present with models in fantastic hair-dos coming out of it was in the center of party-goers. The whole night was about overly complicated hair and the models on stage were showing off.
That's when Beau Campbell, a preparer who works five days out of the week looking through fossils pointed out that their hair had more to it. He started telling me a break down by hair type of what animals the ladies hair was meant to represent, "The white hair-do; the skull in front is actually a teratorn, which is an extinct bird found here at the tar pits. The one next to her on the right is actually a dire wolf skull that has adapted saber-tooth cat canines for it's killing bites." He chuckled for a minute an continued, " On the right of that one is also a teratorn, and right to her just has a hair-do[upon closer inspection she had cranes or some type of bird stencils], and the one on the right has Colombian mammoth tusks, but they're very pronounced and extenuated and curved, much more so then Colombian mammoths would have."
Hair was everywhere in fantastic forms, some representing sea life, some representing 1950's back-up singer for do-wop and others just looking like an art exhibit yet to be done by nearby LACMA. There were two contests for best hair, one from the audience and one from judges, the results below.
Nothing quite reminds you of walking through the circular hall of the Page museum with hair that looks like animals. Seeing bones from millions of years ago of extinct species alive again on somebodies noggin is a bit surreal. Thankfully, Jonathan Solomon, guest relations supervisor, was on the scene to ground people. Jonathan was reminding attendees they could sit for a spell watching a 3D film inside the museum.
He wasn't the only part of the crew at work as science booths were open all around, past a ice sculpture saber-tooth tiger that served shots from his mouth. You could eat up tasty desserts and specially made ice cream at the event whiling learning about how the museum finds micro fossils.
Or you could take a torchlight tour of the tar pits at night, learning about how it's the only open dig site in a major city in the world and see people actually working in it.
A bone was sticking out of the site shown to guests, almost like it was a cartoony ideal take on what a tar pit should look like. A guide shared a less-than fun feature about the time he got his hand stuck in the gooey mess and the three hour endurance he had to survive to get it out.
Why does a black goo create such a great party atmosphere, who knows, but it makes for a fun reason to party with wigs on.
Visit the
La Brea Tar Pits and Museum
5801 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
#IceAgeHairBall
