But then, maybe once a week, usually on a Friday, that bastion of knowledge turns on some Pink Floyd and a laser machine, and the scientists and great thinkers that run the joint turn a blind eye to all the people ripped out of their fucking minds on drugs who come to watch. It's called a laser show, and planetariums must be aware that the typical Friday-night laser show audience is so high they think they're going on a personal journey through the cosmos in a funktastical wondership fueled by Led Zeppelin.
That's the silent agreement science museums have with their city. Seven days a week, you can go there and behave, be sober, and be a proper lover of science and the stars. Hell, bring your kids! And granny! That old bag'll love celestial bodies and exhibits on gravity and shit!
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See? Granny loves it!
But Friday night at 10, leave the kids at home and slingshot some Ambien into granny's head, because Radiohead has something to say to you, the only language they speak is lasers, and LSD is your translator. Show up with your brain looking like a black-light poster and feel like Star Wars is happening in your face! Stare at a wall with flashing lights until your peaceful, meditative high turns into a rollicking fucktastical hellscape of a bad high and you're huddled in a corner, crying louder than the little kids you've freaked out with your freak out.