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| they say it with exactly the same feeling that they might say we need more benches. It's not something very deep in the way things ought to be. I don't think you get people to consider aesthetics at a late stage. I think it has to be a part of one's upbringing." | "One way is to try to make the exhibits so that they're not frustrating. So they feel nice. The kind of things that we put out there, some of them are there just because they feel nice. For instance, we have one exhibit that is simply a big ball bearing. Next to it is a sign that says 'Some machinery feels nice.' We try to enable people to do what they want to do or might think of doing with an exhibit. They are flexible enough ." | ||
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| Is it fair to ask whether for you, the decision to become a cattle rancher was an aesthetic solution to being blacklisted for 10 years? "Ha Ha. I think I did some things that were not so aesthetic. We had these big wonderful meadows that were all boggy and you could hardly hay them. So we decided that we had to put drain ditches in and that changed the look of it and the feel of it." "Yes, there was much that 'felt good' about it. Working with water and irrigating and getting water out of the rivers when they were wild in the spring, or later on in the year, when there was just a little trickle. Watching the water spread out all over the grass. And mowing. All of those things were quite wonderful. When I plowed I thought, 'God, this is going to be a great time to think about all kinds of things.' But I didn't. I just watched the furrowing and got intrigued with the process of the dirt turning up." You believe that you integrated the aesthetics of what you just described -- of what feels good to you -- into the Exploratorium. How? | |||
"One exhibit. The Prism Tree has these cords that you have to pull up so that you can look through a prism. If the cord is to short and can't reach to where I want them to, I get really mad. So at the Exploratorium, we try to make it so you don't get mad." "Of course there are some things that we haven't done well. It doesn't bother me, but some people don't like all the noise. For most | |||