By Jonann Brady
As Orselli absently turned a hand-cranked drill in the workshop of the Long Island Children's Museum, he mused, You think, where can I get Asian longhorn beetles?
From his bottomless magic hat, Orselli pulls out prop after prop a drill here, a beetle there that as a whole make up the spectacle that is the LICM.
It's like a circus. OK, a circus is organized....There's so much stuff that's invisible to the visitor. There is a structure both intellectually and organizationally, he said.
As the director of exhibits, Orselli is the ringmaster of this circus, doing everything from finding the Asian longhorn beetle to conceptualizing how it can be incorporated into an exhibit.
The 40-year-old Baldwinite has spent half his life working in museums in one capacity or another, and the 12 exhibits that make up the LICM are, thus far, the centerpiece of his career. The LICM, located at Mitchel Field and open since Feb. 27, attracted 4,000 visitors its first weekend and expects to attract 250,000 visitors a year. On recent afternoon, Orselli parted the curtain and guided a behind-the-scenes tour of this hands-on, learning playground for kids of all ages.
Get on the bus
Orselli entered the Tot Spot exhibit through a bus turnstile. Like the Merry Pranksters, the traveling band of 1960s renegades, you're either on the bus, or you're off the bus at the LICM.
It's a transition, walking over a threshold, said Orselli, whose eyes tend to roll back and flutter when he gets worked up about the nitty-gritty of the exhibits, which is often.
Tot Spot is a kid's transportation fantasy world, where they can flash the lights, toot the horns, sit in the driver's seat. A full-size motocycle sits in one corner, a fisherman's lighthouse in the center. On one side of the room is a Long Island Rail Road car, complete with authentic seats, controls and conductor's jacket.
With three kids of his own, ages 2, 4 and 6, Orselli knows a little something about what kids like. He watched a young boy rev the motorcycle. You get to drive here and do all the things you get told as a kid not to do, said Orselli. Kids make up their own stories. They don't need a script.
To create exhibits with such attention to detail took dozens of people and several years of planning.
Not one to skimp on metaphors, Orselli likened putting together the LICM's exhibits to ordering Chinese food a little of this, a little of that.
Orselli's job was to whittle all the competing ideas down into themes, and then work with artists and designers to turn ideas into practical, safe and educational play spaces.
When asked if there were creative differences, Orselli gave a high-pitched, are-you-kidding laugh.
When there's passion for something, there are strong feelings, he said. We could discuss ideas for 10 years, but we've got to build it. But it's always a work in progress.
Like Philippe Petite the highwire daredevil who walked between the World Trade Towers in 1974, Orselli said his job is to make it look easy.
Asking the right questions
Meticulous thought and care went into the all the exhibits, but particularly Changes and Challenges, which shows how people with disabilities deal with the challenges they face everyday.
The exhibit is set up like a home, and kids can wander from room to room. Entering the house, kids see a Braille New York Times in a mailbox. If they press the doorbell, lights blink in the hallway. Inside, there is a bed, a stove, a sink and art on the wall all the things kids are familiar with, but with some subtle differences. A girl lay on a bed and giggled as it vibrated.
Orselli explained that incorporating the vibrating bed and the other tools in the house was simply a matter of asking the right questions. The question in this case was, how do deaf people wake up in the morning if they can't hear an alarm clock? After consulting with disabled activists, Orselli learned about the vibrating bed.
The idea, he said, is not only to get kids to learn about people with disabilities but to get them to make a leap and ask the off-the-beaten-path question.
The real secret
Scaling the ramp of the Climber exhibit, a labyrinthian art maze enclosed in wire mesh that allows kids a top-down view of the rest of the museum, Orselli noted that the Climber, like all the exhibits, combines both art and science. First comes the hypotheses or idea, the process of creation, and the trial-and-error period when actual kids judge its coolness.
You have to have a little masochistic streak to do this kind of work, said Orselli with a laugh. You're always picking at the edge of things that aren't finished.
As Orselli guided his guests through Bricks and Sticks, It's Alive, the Communication exhibit and the Music rooms, he gave away a few secrets how the phones are all connected and functional, how a rubber band was the inspiration for the Mac-tar, and how to make beautiful music on the Wrench-a-phone or Kerplunk machine.
A ringmaster, an inventor, a tightrope walker, the world's biggest kid. Paul Orselli may be a little bit of each, but as the man behind the curtain, he gave out his last and most important secret: Don't try to do it all in just one trip.
Nothing makes me sadder than watching an adult tugging on a kids' shoulder and saying
