They ease us into it with the skeletons. Real human skeletons, commonplace in most high schools, are a somewhat familiar site. The skeleton is a cut and dry image with its slender white bones, cavernous skull and spindly jointed appendages. The creators of the exhibition are counting on this familiarity, because the skeletons are preparation for something that far fewer have seen.

When we round the first corner, the skeletons give way to a room containing various glass display cases, and three preserved, upright human bodies without any skin. Even the postcard advertising the event -- outfitted with a color photograph of one of the specimens -- isn't adequate preparation for the bodies standing in front of me. One of the first things that I notice is that the bodies are not encased in anything, allowing visitors to get as close as they can stomach as long as they don't make contact. The surprisingly strong currents created by the hall's air circulation cause small nerves and tendons to flap awkwardly in the breeze. Given that the specimens are exposed to the air, I also am surprised by the lack of any odor whatsoever. This preservation is accomplished by what is only referred to in the exhibit as "a revolutionary new technique."

We are standing at the start of Bodies...The Exhibition a touring show currently on display in New York City. The exhibit is not in the city's Natural History Museum, or in any museum for that matter; it lives in a hall near the South Street Seaport outdoor mall, conveniently located across the cobblestone street from The Body Shop. It's possible that the people behind the show chose this space to maximize profits -- at $25 a head they should accomplish that -- but its also plausible that the bodies were denied a coveted New York museum slot due to the level of controversy that surrounds them.

As I stand staring at my first body, a pair of what I assume are either doctors or medical students discuss some of the features to the particular individual, gesturing and pointing inches away from the liver. Their voices are hushed and I can't fully make out their diagnosis. The overall tone of the exhibits is clearly a scientific one. The curators may not know who these people were, or if they wanted others looking at their livers, but at least they respect the individuals displayed by highlighting the wonders of the human organism rather than transforming the event into a freak show. Along with the 22 full body specimens presented throughout the exhibit, there are many organs and other dissections displayed with placards providing descriptions of the contents within, or the disease affecting the tissue.

Perhaps the most striking of all these dissections is the brain slice of a stroke victim. The slice contains a giant hole, with blackened and atrophied brain tissue surrounding it, as if a thimble sized grenade had exploded within the person's cranium. At points though, it feels like the scientific underpinning of the show is executed with half-assed effort. The descriptions throughout the exhibit are often vague, and the propensity of the curators to athletically position the bodies and place objects in their hands (basketballs, footballs, conductor's batons) is sometimes a bit awkward. Even the body maneuvered into the famous pose of "the thinker" comes off as a bit contrived.

But the positioning is not all bad; one specimen presents what is perhaps the most memorable and poetic image the exhibit has to offer. A skeleton stands, leaning back on his heels with palms outstretched in front of him. Holding onto the bony hands, creating a mirror image of sorts are the muscles from the same individual; the framework and machinery, created from identical DNA balancing each other in a dance of the dead.

The exhibit is loosely organized into divisions highlighting different aspects of the body including muscles, nerves, organs, and the circulatory system. The displays in this last genre take the cake as the most beautiful and least stomach churning of the show. In fact, the circulatory displays contain very little human tissue at all, but casts of tissues created using a special polymer. This polymer begins as a liquid and is injected into the circulatory system, traveling through arteries, veins, and reaching the smallest of capillary vessels. After the polymer hardens, the other tissue is dissolved away leaving a cast of the body's blood network.

This exhibit room is darker than the rest, with lighting emanating from the base of the cases housing the casts, making them glow a bright red and blue. The most amazing of these casts is a complete circulatory system, floating upright in a case full of liquid. The intricacy and size of the system is breathtaking; from the massive pump of the heart, through the tree-like branching of vessels down to capillaries thinner than hairs. The kidney appears like a tight knotted red ball, showing how many tiny vessels circulate this blood filtration organ.

There is only one adult body in the entire show that is still covered in skin, and this specimen happens also to be one of the few females. I can see immediately why the vast majority of the bodies are presented without skin; there is something a little too real, too human about the skin. This individual is sectioned into four vertical slices which reveal that there is far more than just skin missing from the other bodies. The preparers also removed all of the fat, connective tissue, and fascia that lies between the skin and the muscles. Looking at this specimen it is clear that the real human insides are not a clean arrangement of touching organs but a series of individually wrapped and compartmentalized units.

Leaving aside the wonder inherent in the scientific oeuvre which is the human body, at some point every visitor will realize that the bodies within the exhibit were in fact living, breathing, thinking, loving, and shitting human beings. For my companion, this realization hit home somewhere around the dead fetus room, which was maybe just a little too real. A special sign warns visitors about this particular display, but unfortunately there seemed to be no way to bypass the room, which was also lit more poorly than the others, dramatizing further the already grim contents. For me, the realization has been slower to set in. Somehow, I only see muscles and kidneys and bones and can't yet grasp the souls that once were attached to those components. Maybe I'm trying to provoke some kind of catharsis by even writing this in the first place.

The other day, however, I got to thinking about the part of the exhibit where I held a human brain. It was about two and half pounds, slightly less that the liver which I picked up right beforehand. This brain was gray, which was nothing new, but this brain had also once been swimming in an sac of fluid inside someone's head. It had controlled the functioning of the entire person's body, and had thoughts and somehow stored billions of memories. Were the memories still contained within the code-like organization of the neurons within, even though they were no longer firing? Were they still firing? I mean, they have those light bulbs that turn on when you plug them into a potato and stuff, right? I held a brain that had once had thoughts. Damn.

Finally, we must return to the controversy around the bodies in the first place. The bodies were all obtained from the Dalian Medical School in China, an institution known to accept unclaimed or otherwise unidentified cadavers. Because most, if not all the bodies are unidentified, there is no regard for whether or not the individuals would want their insides turned out for all the world to see. This contrasts with the ethics of Body Worlds, the originator of the full body exhibition, which clearly state its procedures in only using the bodies of individuals who consent to have themselves displayed. It seems that displaying preserved human bodies is overall a worthwhile endevour. Confronting a dissected human being caused a simultaneous demystification of the inner workings of the body while somehow giving me far more reverence for how this whole thing operates in unison to create a functioning organism. Still, its seems that extreme care is vital to such exhibits, especially surrounding the will of the deceased, the presentation of the specimens, and a total commitment to teaching. Visiting The Bodies was an amazing experience, but the Magnolia cupcake I ate later that day still couldn't quite overpower the peculiar taste left in my mouth.