A ha ha ha... It official - I need a white lab coat at this rate. Dad took me, Bennett, Danielle, and Connor to the Capital City today, and goodness, if they have a lot of museums! I loved it, jotted down more notes that Chicago and Museum of Sciences combined, and had a blast!!!
My first stop was the Newseum. No, I did not spell that wrong; it is the museum of the press and popular media. Pretty clever play on words, huh? I thought so. Anyhow, they had an exhibit on the workings of the press in gaining the FBI its reputation and the top 10 cases of the past century. So... frickin... interesting... in a scary sorta way. (Some of the artifacts were a partically-melted credit card found in the Twin Towers, a uniform of the Ku Klux Klan, a machine gun that had belonged to Patty Hearst, kidnap-victim-gone-murderer, and a pic of the burned/probably dead body of a child pulled from a building in Waco, Texas in the search of the "Sinful Christ") But the main characters of my novel are a reporter and an FBI agent. I could not have done better in my research!
The timeline of the press included an article from the Chicago Tribune in a 1964 edition. Perfect. This gives me the most accurate account of the laylout I need to follow or allude to when mentioning the character's work.
I was lucky, too, as there was a meeting for the National Youth Journalism Conference, and I met with two girls - one from Oklahoma, the other, Tennasee - by chance who happened to be interested in novel writing as well as journalists-to-be. Anyhow, they gave me a website for a writing competition in November, some tips for a realistic reporter character, the do's and don'ts of journalism and writing, what the world was like in the 1960's and one had taken a forensics course, so she could answer some of my questions concerning gel electrophorisis, fingerprinting, luminol, and suchlike. I'm down to fingerprinting in my novel, however - the other two had yet to be invented. Dang. They were interested to find I was from NZ, thought my mix of accents was "cute", said that essay writing comes with practise, and that they used to both suck but had to get good because of the journalism classes, and wished me good luck with my future novels! Yay. I am happy.
Not necessary to my story, but scary, there was a section of the Berlin Wall, all cracked and broken and covered in graffitti. I dunno what it was, but there was something about it that just gave me the creeps. All that that wall would have stood sentry to.... It's not a plesant thought. I just snapped a few pics from the level above, and skittered away to find some newpaper something.
There was a spy museum as well, so that gave me notes for the one scene where our brilliant FBI agent and her sidekick are undercover and when they must interrogate two suspects. It also gave me a lovely pair of handcuff earrings... and a seriously paranoid attitude. After all, "the greatest spies are the ones that are never known."
AND the FBI Headquarters are really in Washington DC, not Chicago, so we got to walk around the building, and take pics and notes. It just gives me that much more realism when I defy the laws of physics and move the whole 7-story building to Chicago.... ;o)
The aeronautics and space museum was interesting, if not necessary. ;o) We got to go on the "Cosmic Coaster" 2D Motion Master, which I remembered from last time we went, and loved. Most of it was rather... so-so for me, who is rather intimidated by planes and similar large, mechanical objects, but I enjoyed myself enough. There was a model Wright Flyer, a Messershmit ME 262, a Boeing Something-or-other hanging from the roof, a model of the Space shuttle and International Space Station, and much more. I loved going when I was younger, and captured most of that enthusiasm for today. I don't much like planes or war, as Kristen will sullenly tell you, but space interests me, so that was fun. There was one haunting cartoon that proved my point about the horrors of war, actually. It portrayed an elongated, evil-looking skeleton with the wings of an early fighter plane, soaring above a serene countryside. The caption was "Many believed the Grim Reaper would rule the skies."
Okay, I can see all you folks giving up on my normality in dismay by this point, so I will log off, and let you completely forget every informative fact I have written on this post.
Thanks, folks. Too kind.
Cheers,
Rach
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