Assignment 7

1) What did Orlean achieve to provide the history and progress of taxidermy?
     The topic of Orlean's article was about taxidermy; I thought to myself who cares about this exotic topic.  I didn’t have much attention about this topic, until Orlean gave a time frame of when and what was happening with this exotic topic, “In the late nineteen-sixties, a sort of transformation began: the business started to seem cleaner and less creepy” (Orlean 2).  By providing history background about taxidermy, it came to me that this topic is not exotic, because it’s something like art and people did go to school for this, “Taxidermy schools opened; previously, any aspiring taxidermist could only hope to learn the trade by apprenticing or by taking one of a few correspondence course available” (2). Since Orlean included certain year of what happened to taxidermy, “In 1974, a trade magazine called Taxidermy Review began sponsoring national competitions” (2) I feel she is knowledgeable of the topic. She collected her own resource and put it in her article to show the reader when taxidermy national competition began. As a reader, providing facts about a topic that I have never heard before made me looked up the topic taxidermy. This could have been a way to connect with her audience, to make us do more after reading this topic, research more about it.
     Later in Orlean’s article, she provided the progress of taxidermy as of the time when she wrote this article. “Taxidermy is now estimated to be five-hundred-and-seventy-million-dollar annual business, made up of small operations around the country who mount animals for museums, for decorators, and mostly for the thirteen million or so Americans…”(Orlean 3). When she stated a high amount of money made for a taxidermy job, it was unbelievable at first, but when I searched up the annual business income; it came out to be high numbers. Orlean achieved an informative connection with me about taxidermy through these two choices. She provided me the history background and progress of taxidermy where I trusted her to a certain point because it makes me uncertain about the information and question myself; did a taxidermist tell her this? Did she actually found a website or book about taxidermy? Overall these two choices connected together by informing me about when this exotic topic became well-known and the growth of it.

2) Why did Orlean use different dialogues throughout her article, was it to express or entertain her article OR was it simply to make the readers feel something?
     In Orlean’s article she used different dialogues, but for what that was my question. When I read the article the second time, I was getting the idea that she inserted dialogues to share the moments of how taxidermists feel about taxidermy, “I like doing recreations of these endangered animals and extinct animals, since that’s the only way anyone’s going to have one” (Orlean 4). I chose this quote because it gave me the impression that sometimes without these artists, I probably will never see a polar bear for example. Taxidermists do have their own creative way to make something that people would wonder about, "...You aren't likely to get hold of a panda that has met a natural end, so everyone was dying to know how he had done it," (4). This statement connected with me because I was wondering about the same thing as well, and so Orlean included that artist's answer, "The panda was actually pretty easy, I just too two black bears and bleached one of them--I think I used Clairol Basic. Then I sewed the two skins together into a panda pattern" (4). It was nice to know how these artists came up with their own ideas to make a mount so life looking. Taxidermists also had there own way to help one another, "Three thousand visits to Taxidermy.net every day, where taxidermists can trade information and goods with as little self-consciousness as you would find on a knitting Web site: 
"I am in need of several pair of frozen goat feet!"
"Hi! I have up to 300 sets of goat feet and up to 1000 set of sheep feet per month. Drop me an email at frozencritters.com...or give me a call and we can discuss your needs" (3). Orlean provided this example of conversations to show me a way that they ask for help from others, and how one would reply to offer. This made me feel that taxidermists do want their own art work to be the best recreation of their animal, and they do take it seriously.