To view such odd abstractions from below the sea in the brightest of modern aquariums is like being inside a lava lamp and feeling remote and connected at the same time. I put solitary wilderness on my list of natural highs, of course, but this crowded museum of captured wild things really does play with the mind.

Sue enjoyed the sea dragons best: thin, drifting fish with wriggling fins (I think) that branch up from their long bodies like oak leaves. I savored standing at the base of the floor-to-ceiling kelp forest, filled with life that thrives five miles from this desk; it is lit from above by the sun, and I've been up there looking down, but never down there looking up.

It's much cleaner in that titanic jar than any spot along the Southern California coast. They mention that in writing somewhere along the wall in the lobby, but unless it's moving, people don't look. The kids are so excited to see parachuting luminescent jellyfish and schools of silver-dagger herring chase around in circles as if competing in some ichthyological grand prix that they miss the obvious point--that this is the gallery of a vanishing ecosystem. Of course we adults already know all about this sadness. Sort of.