There was a time when I was a genius. I could learn anything perfectly. My memory was impeccable. I learned things so well that the body of random knowledge I obtained before puberty is still in my most accessible frontal lobe area. Apparently, before all of the hormones and the stinking, there was a time when I could learn huge lists of minutia. That is why school blew its proverbial load in third grade. By third grade I knew all the dinosaurs most books listed. Everything since then has been like a drunk guy trying to get off for a second time, trying to get back to where he just was, but unable to. The world just keeps grinding away.
Don't get me wrong-I enjoy reading French philosophers. That sort of learning is the only kind I can do these days. It basically consists of relating different ways of thinking to your life. Nowadays I learn by associating things with myself or a certain moment or import. Egotism aside, I think most people of college age learn like that because they are trying to make their lives into an organic whole. People are always looking for something that will fit into their story.
The story wasn't always about the teller, though. The story used to be about dinosaurs. Dinosaurs got you completely out of your own space and time. Seventy-five million years in the past might as well be another dimension. There is so much about dinosaurs that can blow properly attuned minds.
Every cool boy wanted to be a paleontologist at some point, especially if he grew up in the '80s. It was a heady time for dinosaurs because they were just beginning to be re-envisioned as warmblooded killers. Robert T. Baker and a couple of other paleontologists challenged the old plodding ideal and suggested a livelier crew of beasts. The illustrations, obviously the most important part of the books, began to change. Dinosaurs began to be thought of as regular animals with regular needs instead of terror lizards.
Much like the field, I began by learning and classifying all of the dinosaurs. That didn't give me a good enough picture to make up the past in my mind, though. There were so many factors. The maddening question of whether they were warmblooded, coldblooded, some mixture or both was close to the center of my existence for a time.
Eventually \The Land Before Time"" came out in theaters and I got all of the hand puppets from Pizza Hut. Eventually dinosaurs moved from being terrifying beings from before time to animals as easily smashed into the necessary roles as any Vin Diesel. From beasts of terror to story mechanisms and Denver the Last Dinosaur, the skating SoCal cartoon dino, dinosaurs really lost it a little in the '80s. The story of dinosaurs really started to become about the teller.
That is what ""Jurassic Park"" was really about. Childlike wonder was set in opposition to terrifying, intestine-eating reality. And that's just Jeff Goldblum. The dinosaurs even ate port-a-Johns. Everyone took ""Jurassic Park"" as a cautionary tale about playing God, when it could also be interpreted as a cautionary tale against anthropomorphizing or teddy-bearing. Dinosaurs don't ride skateboards. They chase Laura Dern. Occasionally, they take me on a mystical journey to see the palm forests of what is now Montana. And they rule.
