The Age of Aquariums

I was staring at a spider crab the other day at the Long Beach aquarium when I swear to you it stared back.

You can tell when another living creature is looking specifically at you regardless of its level of intelligence. There is a contact made, a snap of awareness that flashes in its eyes if only for a microsecond.

Actors sometimes have that look when self-absorption momentarily fades and they become aware there is someone else in the world with them.

The crab shifted its body in my direction and observed me through eyes no larger than flyspecks, a wondering expression on its ugly little face.

It seemed to be saying, “Why, you damned fool, would you drive more than 75 miles, pay big money and wait in line for an hour to stand staring at something you would normally eat?”

Good question, Crab. I wondered that myself as I was being jostled about by huge crowds in Southern California’s newest tourist attraction.

According to its press kit, the Aquarium of the Pacific is “one of the most creative and comprehensive marine-themed exhibitions ever conceived,” but the majesty of all that somehow escaped me.

I just saw 10,000 fish and 10,000 humans staring at each other and wondering, in both cases, if we didn’t have something better to do. I guess not.

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This is, you see, the Age of Aquariums. Last year, 35 million people visited fish zoos across the country, an increase of 23 million from 1996. The upward trend began with a new Baltimore aquarium, followed by one in Monterey and then, this June, the place in Long Beach.

I have been to aquariums from Crescent City to New York. I have heard more seals bark and mating whales moan than anyone else on this planet. I have watched dolphins leap and fish swim until I thought I would go mad.

More than once I have prayed into the boredom that a great white shark would suddenly appear, gorge itself on bat rays and moon jellies until they were gone and then break through into the crowds to eat the tourists.

It isn’t necessarily that I don’t like aquariums, it’s just that I’ve seen so many of them and they are all so much the same. Take away the architecture and the gift shop and what you’ve got is an octopus hiding behind a rock and a school of something silver swimming by.

I saw the same moray eel in Monterey that I saw in La Jolla and the same cucumber fish in San Francisco that I saw on Coney Island. How many times can you look at a cucumber without eventually losing interest?

The biggest event in their lives is eating. When it is feeding time in the tank, the fish go bonkers with anticipation, and outside the tank the crowds go bonkers with anticipation.

One must conclude at such moments that people from landlocked places like Nebraska have never actually seen fish eat before and wonder exactly how it is they do it. Do their bellies open to suck in the plankton like some sort of organic vacuum or what? Tell us, Daddy, do.

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The Long Beach aquarium cost $117 million to build. Its intent is not so much to entertain or teach as it is to earn. With the Spruce Goose having flown the coop, there is only the tired old Queen Mary and maybe that Russian sub to lure out-of-towners to a city that has seen better days.

If dangling garibaldis and groupers on the horizon are going to create jobs and a livelier economy for a town reduced to celebrating the opening of Burger Kings, then I have no quarrel with a new tourist attraction.

I can also understand the necessity for children to visit an aquarium at least once in their lives and be able to poke at some of the slimy things that inhabit shallow waters. Children love touching slime, and the aquarium presents a rare opportunity for them to do so.

About 20 million tourists visit the Los Angeles area every summer, each of whom spends an average of $39.50 a day, a little more if they’re from, say, Boca Raton, Fla., less if they’re from Pocatello, Idaho, where a bad potato year can play hell with the old travel budget.

I encourage them to come to Southern California, to soak up the ambience, to play at the beach, to eat at the restaurants, to pay the exorbitant prices and, yes, to visit the Long Beach aquarium.

Me? I’ve done my duty and am content to watch the fish in my own small tank who pause occasionally to stare and wonder why I work so hard writing about our fascination with each other. Who knows? Ask the spider crab.

Al Martinez’s column appears Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached online at [email protected]