Surprisingly decent retail anatomy

I popped into my local Michaels arts-n-crafts store today to see what Halloween goodies they had.

One trend I can definitely get behind is the rise of anatomical oddities and cabinets of curiosities as Halloween decor. A lot of what gets marketed in this space is not my thing, like decorative skulls with snakes or butterflies or whatever.

I don’t hate these; these days I have a hard time getting agitated about anything that brings someone else joy, as long as it’s not hurting anyone. And if you’re looking to decorate for Halloween, you could do a lot worse — these are at least recognizable human skulls, unlike the distorted frowny skulls that are supposed to look sinister but come off as clownish. But I’m after possibly-useful anatomical specimens, so I prefer skulls that are both realistic and unadorned.

Fortunately, there’s a rising-tide-floats-all-boats thing going on, and along with the more ornate varieties there are skulls done up as teaching aids, like these small ones that have the bones labeled.

Here’s a close-up. If I had my druthers, I’d prefer “maxilla” and “mandible” instead of “upper jaw bone” and “lower jaw bone”, especially alongside the old-timey term “malar”, which has been almost completely replaced by “zygomatic” in modern anatomical nomenclature.

Nevertheless, I liked these so much that I bought one and put it on a little stand in the living room.

Lurking on a bottom shelf I found even more realistic skulls — life-size, unlabeled, and I’m pretty sure nth-generation casts of a real male human skull.

As decor, these are a little less friendly and a little more sinister than the labeled teaching skulls. As things you could use to actually learn anatomy — not bad! I’m sure the basicranium is a mess where it’s glued to the wooden stand, but you could still use this thing to learn the bones, sutures, features, craniometric landmarks, and neurovascular foramina over most of the skull.

Over on the ‘Human anatomy study materials‘ sidebar page, you’ll find a bunch of “color your own skull” images, which I extracted from the 1917 public-domain Gray’s Anatomy and posted for students so they can draw on top of them. The drawings are useful but a real(ish) 3D skull is even better, especially if you can get one cheaply enough that you wouldn’t mind writing or drawing right on it. Or if you’re an artist who doesn’t care much if the carotid canals are visible, but just wants an acceptable skull for reference.

I’m sure you’ve experienced the holiday decor acceleration phenomenon, in which Christmas stuff starts showing up in certain retail hellholes right about now, when we’re technically still in summer. That’s gross, but it does have the benefit that as of this writing, still almost two months from Halloween, most of the Halloween stuff at my local Michaels is already on 40% discount, getting sold off cheap to make room for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The realistic skulls-on-stands originally sold for $25, at which price I might balk, but for $15 they seem like a steal. The little labeled teaching skulls are down to $12.

These x-ray candles are pretty cool, too.

Other than the skulls, I’m most excited about the glass domes. Those can be a pain to find, and expensive, but these are serviceable and inexpensive and right down the street from me.

I really wanted to love this little wooden cabinet of curiosities, but (1) the bat “skull” with bony ears gives me hives, (2) the rest of the stuff looks fine from about 10 feet away but doesn’t bear close inspection, and (3) everything is tacked down with immense, visible globs of glue. Still, if it’s your thing, go nuts. What I’d like Michaels to sell alongside this is an empty version, just the distressed wood display case without all the fake oddities, so I could fill it up myself (I have stuff). If anyone from Michaels is reading this, please pass that request on to management.

I can’t believe I’m posting about Halloween stuff at the end of the first week of September, but this stuff is on sale now and it seems to be going quickly — the glass dome selection is down to about a tenth of what it was last month. So if you have the opportunity and inclination, don’t tarry.