As host of the American Museum of Natural History’s gala on...

^{As host of the American Museum of Natural History’s gala on Thursday, Tina Fey opened with remarks that blossomed into a full-blown comedy routine. Talking up the science museum, she touched on New York City’s new mayor-elect, the English’s fear of whales, and grumpy bicyclists. Some highlights below, to tide you over until the Golden Globes.}

^{On the museum:}

^{I’m here tonight not just as a New Yorker and a West Sider who loves this institution, but also as a new trustee of the museum. I was very honored. Which means that I am allowed to go into any diorama that I want. Last night I slept between two Lenape warriors. This morning, I came over to the museum.}

^{One of my favorite parts of the museum is the room that you entered through tonight. I think it’s just so incredibly beautiful and amazing to look at the Spectrum of Life wall, and see the hundreds of different shapes and sizes and textures of all living things. It looks almost exactly like the changing room at Loehmann’s. That’s an Upper West Side joke. To East Siders, it’s terrifying. That’s where you think, Is that a woman’s foot, or a sea urchin?}

^{I do love coming to this event every November. It’s like Night at the Museum—well, actually, this event is sort of the opposite of Night at the Museum, because you all come here awake, and over the next two hours I will magically put you to sleep!}

^{On Christmas in New York:}

^{It’s my favorite time of the year in New York. It’s the magical time when all the smells freeze over. The tree is up in Rock Center, and—when it comes time to take it down—just like any New Yorker, they drag it to the building next door and pretend like they don’t know how it got there.}

^{On Bill de Blasio:}

^{Bill de Blasio will be our new mayor, which is great news because it means that the people in this room are finally free from random stop-and-frisks. That’s really good news for us. I guess I’m probably not talking to Jay [Pharoah.]}

^{New Yorkers really related to de Blasio’s family because his family seems as diverse and exciting as New York itself. He is the grandson of Italian immigrants; his wife is an African-American former lesbian; they have a super-intimidating teenage daughter; and their son is a Sweathog from Welcome Back, Kotter.}

^{On bikers:}

^{I hate those bike lanes. ’Cause I work in midtown, and not one day goes by that someone on a bike doesn’t curse at me. Hey, bike people, what are you so angry about? Nobody made you ride a bike! Also, where are you going in such a hurry, that you’re going there on a bike? If you’re an emergency heart surgeon going to an emergency on your bike, don’t curse at me. Just yell, like, ‘Heart surgeon!’ and I’ll move.}

^{Bike people are always so surprised and mad that you don’t hear them coming. They don’t understand that their bike is silent, and you can’t hear it over the noise of Times Square. ’Cause let me tell you something. If I’m crossing 50th and Broadway, this is what I’m watching out for, in this order: cars; killers; people in Elmo costumes who can’t see; those gangs of teenagers who are punching people in the back of the head; FreshDirect guys; rat babies; then bikes. Thenbikes.}

^{Bike people are so judge-y and angry. You’re not more green than me—I’m walking! If I walk, and I’m wearing 10-year-old sneakers, and I hold in my flatulence, I’m, like, off the grid! I’m like my own ecosystem.}

^{On science:}

^{I love science, by which, of course, I mean I love air-conditioning, and television, and unicorns.}

^{Did you know that scientists recently discovered a clam that had lived to be 507 years old? Cause of death: autoerotic asphyxiation. Science is amazing.}

^{As Florence + the Machine set up onstage:}

^{We’re very honored that Florence Welch and her coterie of musical geniuses are here to perform for us tonight, despite their mutual and debilitating fear of whales. It’s a little-known fact: all English people are terrified of whales. Because England is an island, and sometimes whales will just come up on the edges and snatch people. So this is very hard for them.}

^{But we’re glad that they’re here. They brought all their cables from Europe, and if anyone has those kinds of transformers that you need for hair dryers, we need, like, 20 of them.}

^{Finally, Tina being charming and self-deprecating:}

^{At this point in the evening, the makeup has worn off my chin zit. Forty-three years old and I have a chin zit on an important night. Some things never change.}