Untitled Document If there was ever a museum of museums, then the Museum of Jurassic Technology would most certainly be featured as an astounding specimen of an exhibit. Whenever one overhears visitors in a cultural institution proposing, "This one’s real. I think," you know this is no normal cultural institution. Even the Jurassic’s mission of being "dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and the public appreciation of the Lower Jurassic," is as darkly vague as the small museum itself – while the museum may define the Lower Jurassic as the Nile Delta, unless Tyrannosaurus figured out how to create X-ray bats, trailer parks ("Garden of Eden on Wheels") and cures for incontinence involving dead mice, then the name makes no sense.

While the museum doesn’t have changing exhibits, it constantly expands. Its newest addition is an entire second floor, which includes the Tula Tearoom offering light refreshments and the Borzoi Kabinet Theater, which screens the film at hourly intervals. The Tula Tearoom is a funeral parlor-esque area where one can pontificate on the ludicrous exhibits over cookies while a bubbling fountain offers eerie background noise – even more minatory given that we’re used to hearing the Killers in Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Levsha is equally unsettling – it’s a film about a Russian tsar’s mechanical dancing flea. Somehow, though, it all works as part of the gestalt of Los Angeles’ largest piece of art – a museum itself.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology is located at 9341 Venice Blvd., in Culver City. Museum hours: 2-8 p.m. Thu, noon-6 p.m. Fri, Sat and Sun. Price: (Suggested donations) adults $5, children 12-21 $3, students $3. For more information, call (310) 836-6131 or visit www.mjt.org.