Gopnikian Grandeur

An Adam Gopnik-penned story about the new dinosaur exhibit at the Museum of Natural History uses the impressions of two anonymous children as the filter through which the reader experiences it. Or is it actually a thinly veiled story about his two children, set against the backdrop of a new dinosaur exhibit? Or is it really just an excuse to show how his ten-year-old son is so smartly (and improbably!) clued into the cult of Steve Martin. I vote number three:

Mark Norell is the all-knowing curator of the extremely cool, truly awesome, and very soon to open “Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries” show at the American Museum of Natural History. “He looks just like Steve Martin,” a ten-year-old whispered politely to a companion one afternoon last week, after taking in Norell’s expressive eyebrows and oversized jaw and handsome, slightly supercilious smile.