Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Institution | Smithsonian.com

A Memorial Day Memory: Love From the Pacific Theater

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:22:00 GMT

While stationed in the Pacific Theater in the 1940s, Jack Fogarty wrote letters to his best friend’s wife in Queens, NY, and illustrated the envelopes. All photos courtesy of the National Postal Museum Jack Fogarty and John MacDonald served with the Army’s 98th Evacuation Hospital in World War II’s Pacific Theater from 1944 to 1945, where they spent “many an hour sitting around in a jungle clearing,” according to Fogarty, who is now 92 and living in Teaneck, New Jersey. The two soldiers developed a tight friendship as they worked and relaxed together. Fogarty became close friends, too, with John’s wife, Mary MacDonald, who remained home in Queens,

Hirshhorn Board Divided on Future of the Bubble Project; Director Resigns

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:56:29 GMT

Image via Diller Scofidio + Renfro In 2009, the Hirshhorn Museum announced plans for a dramatic, glowing balloon that would emerge out of the center of the circular building when inflated seasonally. The “Bubble,” as it came to be called, was conceived by the Hirshhorn’s director, Richard Koshalek, as an architecturally ambitious addition to the museum that would serve as a space for meetings, lectures and temporary think tanks about the arts and culture. But recently, cost projections for the Bubble, officially known as the Seasonal Inflatable Structure, had been reported to be unsustainable. The fate of the project lay in the balance today as the museum’s boa

How Harlem Put Itself Back on the Map

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:42:46 GMT

Despite a recent slump from the economic crisis, Harlem brownstones prices are on the rise again. Photo by Ilan Costica, courtesy of Wikimedia Just a block from Harlem’s great thoroughfare, 125th Street, is a brownstone listed for a cool $2.3 million, courtesy of the Corcoran Group Real Estate. Advertising its proximity to the subway and trendy restaurants like Red Rooster, the listing provides a snapshot of the dramatic changes underway in the Manhattan neighborhood. Projects like the expansion of the Harlem Hospital Center and the plans for Columbia University and rezoning efforts have brought a wave of development interest to Harlem, which suffered along with the rest of New Y

Say Hello to Bozie, the National Zoo’s New Elephant

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:38:38 GMT

Bozie the Asian elephant arrived at the National Zoo today on-loan from Baton Rogue. Photo by Pamela Baker-Masson. All photos courtesy of the National Zoo Welcome to DC, Bozie! The 37-year-old Asian elephant, whose transfer from Baton Rouge Zoo was announced earlier this month, arrived safe and sound at the National Zoo today after traveling in a truck for more than 1,100 miles. Baton Rouge decided to loan Bozie to another institution recently after her elephant friend, Judy, died of chronic gastrointestinal irritation from arthritis medication in March. Bozie had lived at the Baton Rouge Zoo since 1998, but had to go because female elephants need companionship to stay happy and heal

Sixty Years Ago, Edmund Hillary Reached the Top of the World. Hear Him Describe It

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:06:00 GMT

In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers reach the peak of Mount Everest. Listen to Hillary recount the journey in “Interview with Sir Edmund Hillary: Mountain Climbing,” a 1974 interview produced by Smithsonian Folkway Recordings. All photos courtesy of Flickr user agirregabiria Sixty years ago, on May 29, 1953, mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay set foot atop Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. They were the first ever to reach its 29,029-foot peak, and met instant fame upon their return: today their ascent is considered a great achievement of the 20th century. In 1974, Hillary, a New Zealander, detailed the perilou

Spotlight

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

What's new at the Smithsonian in June

The History of Going Commando and More Questions from Our Readers

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Does music really influence people’s moods? Nick Saunders Greensboro, North Carolina Yes—but the same sounds can provoke very different responses. Among the Suyá/Kisedje Indians in Mato Grosso, Brazil, singing leads the performers to experience euphoria. Some of the women listening, however, will cry as they remember dead loved ones who enjoyed singing those songs. Which sounds stimulate which moods is probably related to memory and shared cultural values. Anthony Seeger Director Emeritus, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Were there efforts to reunite Virginia and West Virginia after the Civil War? Mark Grupe San Francisco, California Yes. In October 1861, thirty-nine

Unpack a Meal of Astronaut Space Food

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Surely I’m not the only one whose primary memory of childhood trips to Washington, D.C. focuses less on my exposure to the splendid pageant of democracy, or soaking in the accumulated treasure of America’s cultural history but, rather, on a 3- by 3-inch foil-wrapped block of something called astronaut ice cream. This was before freeze-dried ice cream had become standard museum gift-shop fare—obviously way before the advent of www.astronauticecreamshop.com. The highlight of a weekend in the nation’s capital was unwrapping that weirdly light packet, revealing the tricolored brick within. It had the consistency of Styrofoam and left a strange, slick film on the back o

How Astronaut Sally Ride Opened Science’s Doors to Women

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:53:53 GMT

The National Air and Space Museum honored the late pioneer astronaut Sally Ride recently with a panel discussion entitled “Sally Ride: How Her Historic Space Mission Opened Doors for Women in Science.” Ride, who became the first American woman in space aboard Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, was an outspoken advocate for women scientists and improved science education. Her highly decorated career included two trips and more than 343 hours in space, work at NASA’s headquarters, positions on the committees that investigated the Columbia and Challenger disasters and a professorship at the University of California, San Diego. In 2001, she founded Sally Ride Scie

How to Cook Meals for the 2,000 Animals at the National Zoo

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Why not just feed zoo animals whatever they eat in the wild? Michael Maslanka, who oversees the feeding of the 2,000 animals at the National Zoo, representing 400 species, gets that question a lot. He often replies: “A fig is not a fig.” How so? The figs sloth bears consume in the wild are highly fibrous and low in sugar, quite different from the figs cultivated for humans. A keeper’s job is to match underlying nutritional elements, not botanical species, he explains, so a sweet potato might be a decent wild-fig substitute. A 41-year-old with degrees in wildlife science and nutritional physiology, Maslanka makes such calls species by species even as he deals with daily

The Design Future of New York as Seen by Urbanist Michael Sorkin

Mon, 20 May 2013 06:59:13 GMT

Detail from the cover of All Over the Map: Writings on Buildings and Cities, 2011. Published by Verso. Copyright Michael Sorkin Studio. Only Michael Sorkin, urban theorist and architect, could write an entire book about his 20-minute walk to work and turn it into an engaging meditation on city life and citizenship. Principal of Michael Sorkin Studio in New York as well as a professor at City College, Sorkin’s unique examination of what makes cities work has earned him the Cooper-Hewitt’s 2013 “Design Mind” Award. Sorkin says he’s honored to have won and has big plans for the celebratory lunch in October. “I have so much to discuss with the president

Ali, Marilyn, Jackie and Mr. TIME: The cover artist who helped define a magazine

Fri, 17 May 2013 03:45:37 GMT

“If TIME had a beguiling woman that was going to make the cover, it often went to Boris Chaliapan,” says curator Jim Barber. Marilyn Monroe by Boris Chaliapan. 1956. Courtesy of the Estate of Marilyn Monroe, National Portrait Gallery Fifty years ago on May 17, 1963, TIME magazine put James Baldwin on the cover with the story “Birmingham and Beyond: The Negro’s Push for Equality.” And to create his portrait, the weekly called on artist Boris Chaliapan. Baldwin’s intense eyes and pensive expression stared out from newsstands across the country. “Chaliapan,” explains National Portrait Gallery curator Jim Barber, “tried to capture the

Landscape Designer Margie Ruddick Brings a New Meaning to Green Design

Fri, 17 May 2013 02:38:24 GMT

Landscape designer Margie Ruddick’s “Urban Green Room,” the first permanent living indoor installation, helped her win a National Design Award last week. Photo by Sam Oberlander “Nature” is probably the last word that comes to mind when most people think about urban design. That’s not the case for landscape designer Margie Ruddick, though. For the past 25 years, she has created parks, gardens and waterfronts that blend ecology with city planning. In New York City, home to many of her works, Ruddick has transformed Queens Plaza by merging plants, water, wind and sun with the city’s infrastructure, and designed a 2.5-acre park along the Hudson R

Sheila E. On Her Glamorous Life, Upcoming Album and Future Collaborations

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:37:23 GMT

Sheila E. jokes that she slowed down for a few hours before stopping by the African Art Museum en route to a show Thursday evening at the Howard Theater. Photograph by Jessica Suworoff, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution In high heels and flawless fashions, Sheila E. has been rocking the drums since she was a teenager growing up in Oakland, California. At 55, she’s still not slowing down. She’s collaborated with artists like Michael Jackson and Prince, toured the country and is currently working on a new album and autobiography, From Pain to Purpose, due out next year. In town for a show at the Howard Theater Thursday, May 16, she stopped by the African

Air and Space Curator Margaret Weitekamp Explains Why ‘Star Trek’ Matters

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:59:33 GMT

Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine in the 2013 ‘Star Trek Into Darkness.’ On the eve of the release of the latest feature-film from the “Star Trek” mega-brand, scholar and curator Margaret Weitekamp argues that the fictional series of space exploration helped define and inspire real world parallels. From advancing diversity in NASA to anticipating new technologies, “Star Trek” left its mark on American culture. Weitekamp, the Air and Space Museum’s curator of space science fiction materials, including a 11-foot model of the Enterprise, says, it will continue to do so. Since the original series aired in the 1960s, “Star Trek” has grown t

Amazing Sea Butterflies Are the Ocean’s Canary in the Coal Mine

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:27:00 GMT

The shelled sea butterfly Hyalocylis striata can be found in the warm surface waters of the ocean around the world. Photo: © Karen Osborn The chemistry of the ocean is changing. Most climate change discussion focuses on the warmth of the air, but around one-quarter of the carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere dissolves into the ocean. Dissolved carbon dioxide makes seawater more acidic—a process called ocean acidification—and its effects have already been observed: the shells of sea butterflies, also known as pteropods, have begun dissolving in the Antarctic. Tiny sea butterflies are related to snails, but use their muscular foot to swim in the water instead

What Genomic Research Can Tell Us About the Earth's Biodiversity

Thu, 16 May 2013 02:35:27 GMT

Inside two gleaming white rooms at a vast complex in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. are 20 round five-foot-tall steel tanks whose contents are cooled by liquid nitrogen to temperatures as low as minus 310 degrees Fahrenheit. Lift the lid of one of the tanks and look through the wispy nitrogen vapor that wafts upward, and you’ll see rack upon rack of two-inch-tall plastic vials, tens of thousands of them, each containing a bit of tissue extracted from a living thing somewhere in the world—North American birds, Gabonese monkeys, venomous brown recluse spiders, Burmese rainforest plants, South Pacific corals. There are now some 200,000 samples in the Natural History Museu

Slave Cabin Set to Become Centerpiece of New Smithsonian Museum

Mon, 13 May 2013 01:40:10 GMT

This weatherboard-clad slave cabin, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is currently being moved to the Smithsonian Institution from its original location on Edisto Island, South Carolina. Photo courtesy of The National Museum of African American History and Culture UPDATE: Curator interview reveals more historical information about the cabin. Point of Pines Plantation on Edisto Island, South Carolina, had more than 170 slaves before the Civil War working in the fields to pick Sea Island cotton. Not much evidence of the slaves’ daily toil exists now, though, except for a couple one-story, dilapidated cabins–the last physical reminders of the brutal and degr

The Great(est) Gatsby Playlist

Fri, 10 May 2013 01:50:59 GMT

Carey Mulligan as Daisy. Photo by Courtesy of Warner Bros. Picture – © 2013 Bazmark Film III Pty Limited The drinks were freer, the music brassier and the times, well, Gatsby-er. At least, that’s the picture F. Scott Fitzgerald creates with his tales of high society run wild in his 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. Now set for yet another screen adaptation, this time thanks to the energetic hands of Baz Luhrmann, the novel continues to resonate today. Its appeal is a dark but undeniable one, enough to let you weep alongside Daisy as she marvels inside Gatsby’s closet at his exquisite shirts. The clothes, the alcohol, the music–we get it, it’s a heady and seductive mix. S

Alex Trebek On Why ‘Jeopardy’ Represents the American Dream

Thu, 09 May 2013 07:49:43 GMT

Alex Trebek says, in many ways, his show represents ordinary people fulfilling the American dream—wit and skill bring success. All photos by Leah Binkovitz Longtime host of “Jeopardy!” Alex Trebek, has often called game shows, “the best kind of reality television” for the way they encapsulate the American dream. On his show, he says, anyone can earn success with enough wit and skill. Now a donation from Trebek to the National Museum of American History of several items from his popular game show cements that idea in popular culture. In a new partnership with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the museum accepted a cache of items, representing

The Best of Design, Cooper-Hewitt Announces 2013 Award Winners

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:43:57 GMT

Part of the portfolio for this year’s Lifetime Achievement award winner: Ross’s Landing Park and Plaza entrance bridge, Chattanooga, TN, 1992. Architecture: SITE (James Wines, Alison Sky, Michelle Stone, Joshua Weinstein). Engineers: Hensley-Schmidt. Construction: Soloff Construction Company. Photo: SITE Recognizing everything from landscape architecture to fashion, the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt Design Awards recognize the best in design. Some names, like this year’s winner for Corporate and Institutional Achievement, TED, are familiar, while others may be new to most. Within academic circles, for example, Michael Sorkin is a well-known architecture and planning critic and

Events May 24-26: Jeff Koons, Hawaiian Staycation and Navy Jazz

Thu, 23 May 2013 01:58:32 GMT

Who is this guy exactly? Find out at Friday’s gallery talk at the Hirshhorn. Photo by Wikimedia user AgnosticPreachersKid Friday, May 24: Gallery Talk on Jeff Koons’ Kiepenkerl What is about pop artist Jeff Koons that draws equal parts scorn and admiration? The art world, argues a recent article in New York Magazine, remains skeptical even despite his commercial success. “Koons is,” writes Carl Swanson, “by the measure of sales of new work, which is the money-mad art world’s only objective measure, the most successful living American artist, but he has never before had a museum retrospective in New York, his home base for 36 years.” His reputation,

Baby Weddell Seals Have the Most Adult-Like Brains in the Animal Kingdom

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:00:10 GMT

Helpless babe or capable professional navigator? Photo by Samuel Blanc With their big, glossy black eyes and downy fluff, baby Weddell seal pups are some of the most adorable newborns in the animal kingdom. But these cute infants are far from helpless bundles of joy. New research published in the journal Marine Mammal Science reveals that Weddell seal pups likely possess the most adult-like brain of any mammal at birth. The seal pups’ brains, compared to adult seals’ brain proportions, are the largest known for any mammal to date. The researchers write that this is “remarkable” considering that the pups are quite small at birth compared to many other newborn ma

How Does Science Help Pandas Make More Panda Babies?

Wed, 08 May 2013 03:11:27 GMT

The National Zoo’s two giant pandas don’t know how to mate with each other. But thanks to artificial insemination Mei Xiang (L) and Tian Tian (R) have produced two cubs, and a third may be on the way. Photo courtesy of the National Zoo The National Zoo’s two giant pandas have little interest in each other 11 months of the year. Mei Xiang, 15, and Tian Tian, 16, are solitary creatures, happy to spend most of their days chowing down and napping. But March was mating season. For 30 to 45 days, pandas undergo behavioral and physical changes that prepare them for an annual 24- to 72-hour window in which females ovulate, the only time they can conceive. Just because they a

PHOTOS Baby’s First Romp: Andean Cubs Play in the Rain

Tue, 07 May 2013 05:43:20 GMT

One cub surveys the course ahead. All photos by Leah Binkovitz Andean bear cubs, Curt and Nicole, played in the rain for the first time in their new outdoor home. Before making their public debut Saturday May 11, the cubs got to know their space on a rainy Tuesday morning. Under the watchful eye of mother Billie Jean, the two cubs, born last December, took to the rocky walls and steep climbs. Staffer Craig Saffoe says this species has a particular fancy for heights and a flair for daring acrobatics that can sometimes leave visitors breathless. “But I’ve never seen them fall,” says Saffoe. Curt and Nicole both took a few small tumbles as they tried out their mountaine

A Hindenburg Passenger Ticket, Possibly the Only One to Still Exist, Goes On View

Mon, 06 May 2013 03:49:39 GMT

The Hindenburg disaster was captured on camera and in eye-witness accounts. Courtesy of the US Navy “None of us know the Lord’s will,” Burtis J. “Bert” Dolan wrote to his wife about his journey on the new airship, the Hindenburg. He had purchased his ticket for the trip on May 1, 1937, two days before setting off from Frankfurt, Germany. It cost him 1,000 RM, equivalent to about $450 during the Great Depression, according to the National Postal Museum. His ticket survived the disaster on May 6, 1937. He did not. He died, along with 35 others. The exhibit, “Fire and Ice,” which opened in spring 2012 for the 75th anniversary, included never-before-seen disc

Breaking News: Bozie the Elephant to Join National Zoo

Fri, 03 May 2013 04:22:54 GMT

Bozie will go into quarantine for a minimum of 30 days upon her arrival at the National Zoo, per standard procedure. An expert team of elephant keepers, nutritionists and veterinarians will care for her. Following quarantine, Zoo staff will begin the process of introducing her to females Ambika and Shanthi and male Kandula. Photo courtesy of the National Zoo The National Zoo’s three Asian elephants are about to get a new friend. Today, the Zoo announced the pending arrival of Bozie, a 37-year-old female Asian Elephant who will be on-loan from the Baton Rouge Zoo. Baton Rogue recently decided to find a new home for Bozie after her last elephant companion, Judy, died of chronic ga

From the Civil War to Civil Rights: The Many Ways Asian Americans Have Shaped the Country

Fri, 03 May 2013 01:25:16 GMT

When Chinese American Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two autoworkers in 1982 during a time of growing resentment toward Japan’s auto industry, the incident became a rallying point for Asian Pacific American communities. Photograph by Corky Lee When Christopher Columbus set off across the Atlantic in search of a Western route to Asia, the continent became a footnote in the discovery of America. But before the country was even founded, Asians and Asian Americans have played integral roles in the American story. Some chapters of that history are well known: the impact of Chinese railroad workers or the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. But countless others have be

UPDATE: Sloth Bear Cub Has a New Name

Wed, 01 May 2013 07:25:37 GMT

This little guy needs a name. Can you help? Photo by Mindy Babitz UPDATE: The results are in. The Zoo’s new adorable sloth bear is now officially named Hank, a combination of his parents’ names—Hana and Francois. Voted most favorite on the Zoo’s Facebook page, winning 830 votes, the name Hank beat out the other two options Ravi (615 votes) and Bandar (219). Born on December 19, 2012 and busy bonding with his mom ever since, the Zoo’s sloth bear cub is need of a name. The Zoo opened up its Facebook poll to fans May 1 to allow everyone to weigh in before noon on May 3. So, does the little cutie look like a Ravi, a Bandar or a Hank? You decide. Because the cub wa

Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Cannibalism

Wed, 01 May 2013 02:40:24 GMT

The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl. “The chops to the forehead are very tentative, very incomplete,” says Douglas Owsley, the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist who analyzed the bones after they were found by archaeologists from Preservation Virginia. “Then, the body was turned ove

How Do You Build a 12-Ton Sculpture Installation? Very Slowly

Wed, 01 May 2013 03:45:11 GMT

View of Xu Bing’s Phoneix models in transit. Photo by John Tsantes When you go to the museum for a show, what you see is the final product: a painting, a photograph, an installation. But now at the Sackler, you can see the process behind the product in the new exhibit “Nine Deaths, Two Births: Xu Bing’s Phoenix Project.” The exhibit explores the two-year effort to complete Chinese contemporary artist Xu Bing’s “Phoenix Project” and offers a look into the ways both creation and destruction can be part of the artistic process. Now on view at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the final product, two giant phoenix sculptures, were originally

Events May 21-23: A WWII Fighter Pilot’s Tale, Asian Pacific American Culture and the Mississippi River

Mon, 20 May 2013 02:58:29 GMT

Learn the history of the Mississippi River and our influence on it in the documentary Troubled Waters: Mississippi River Story, on view at the Anacostia Community Museum this Thursday. Photo courtesy of Flickr user bluepoint951. Tuesday, May 21: Charles A. Lindbergh Memorial Lecture: Bud Anderson Aircraft enthusiasts, WWII buffs and anyone who has ever dreamed of flight, unite! WWII fighter pilot Bud Anderson is in the house this evening to talk about his experience in 116 combat missions, and what he has learned from logging more than 7,500 flying hours in more than 130 types of aircraft. If you want a preview of what’s in store, check out his memoir, To Fly and Flight. Free. 8

The Real Deal With the Hirshhorn Bubble

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:00:00 GMT

UPDATE, May 23, 2013: The Hirshhorn board of trustees was unable to reach a decisive vote on the fate of the museum's bubble project. As a result, director Richard Koshalek resigned from his position, effective later this calendar year. For more details, read our post on Around the Mall. The Smithsonian Institution will make a final decision on the project in June. A little over three years ago, what looked like a droll New Yorker cartoon landed in the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. An architect’s rendering depicted a glowing, baby-blue balloon bulging up through the doughnut hole of the Hirshhorn Museum, with another smaller balloon squished out to the side,

At the Smithsonian Craftshow: Textile Topographies

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:24:35 GMT

Leah Evans titled this work “Soil Survey.” All images courtesy of the artist Though she doesn’t consciously start with a place in mind, Leah Evans says her textile wall hangings often end up becoming their own kind of geography. Taking the aesthetic of soil surveys, agricultural plots and maritime maps, Evans creates colorful abstractions of familiar forms, some of which are up for sale at the annual Smithsonian Craft Show through April 28. These zoomed out views offer serene meditations. Evans also takes the close-view in her work, echoing microscopic imaging. The two perspectives, from landscapes to cells, share a certain symmetry. At its core, our world is built up

24 Craft Creations That’ll Inspire You To Think Outside the Box

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 02:26:53 GMT

When you go to an exhibition, do you ever wish you could take some of the art home with you? Well, once a year, you can with the Smithsonian’s Craft Show organized by the Women’s Committee. The juried show is part exhibit, part sale, with proceeds benefiting the Institution. The show runs April 25 to 28 at the National Building Museum and includes a presentation by Martha Stewart on Thursday at 11 a.m. Of the 121 artists in the show, 46 are first-timers. In case you can’t make it to see the glass, ceramic and fiber creations, we present some of the standouts for your viewing pleasure. Basketry Debora Muhl designs her works in the process of making them. Using sweet g

Gil Goldstein and Bobby McFerrin’s New Project at the Kennedy Center

Mon, 13 May 2013 07:27:39 GMT

Gil Goldstein and Bobby McFerrin. Joann Stevens, of the American History Museum, is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM). She last wrote about Hawaiian cowboys. In a career spanning nearly four decades, jazz artist Gil Goldstein’s talents have earned him kudos as educator, performer, composer, producer, arranger and film scorer. But perhaps his most notable role is as collaborator and mentor. Drawing on a formula of humility, curiosity and seemingly boundless creative energy, Goldstein’s collaborations have earned him worldwide recognition and the respect of A-list musicians exploring uncharted musical territory. He has arranged for artists as diverse as

The Story of Elizabeth Keckley, Former-Slave-Turned-Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:49:52 GMT

Mary T. & Lizzy K. runs through May 5, 2013, at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Illustration by Jody Hewgill. Elizabeth Keckley was born into slavery in 1818 in Virginia. Although she encountered one hardship after another, with sheer determination, a network of supporters and valuable dressmaking skills, she eventually bought her freedom from her St. Louis owners for $1,200. She made her way to Washington, D.C. in 1860 to establish her own dressmaking business and met first lady Mary Todd Lincoln. Just after Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, in 1861, the FLOTUS hired Keckley (also spelled Keckly) as her personal modiste. Keckley took on the role of dressmaker,

Microbe Hunters

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 03:20:44 GMT

Though modern medicine benefits people far and wide, pockets of the world remain untouched by it. In these isolated areas, people don’t know about amoxicillin, and they don’t live with air filters, daily showers or the power of Purell. Diets there favor starch and fiber, with very few preservatives. María Gloria Domínguez-Bello, a microbiologist at the University of Puerto Rico, thinks that the mix of microbes living within and on people in these places—their microbiome—may be close to that of more ancient humans. If so, studying the populations could tell scientists whether today’s war on bacteria has eliminated some helping hands, organisms that once protected us all

Spotlight

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:14:38 GMT

The latest Smithsonian exhibitions showcase Civil War photography, Buddhist figures and Time magazine cover portraits

What the Great Gatsby Got Right about the Jazz Age

Fri, 10 May 2013 03:04:29 GMT

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and F. Scott Fitzgerald by Harrison Fisher, 1927; Conté crayon on paperboard; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Fitzgerald’s daughter, Mrs. Scottie Smith Amy Henderson, curator at the National Portrait Gallery, writes about all things pop culture. Her last post was on technological revolutions. As someone who adores sequins and feathers, I am buzzing with anticipation over what the New York Times has dubbed “an eminently enjoyable movie,” Baz Lurhmann’s new film version of The Great Gatsby. Will I like Leo DiCaprio as Gatsby? Will Jay-Z’s music convey the fancy-free spirit of High Flapperdom? F. Scott Fitzgerald

Events May 14-16: New Research, Old Films and Live Jazz

Mon, 13 May 2013 02:20:31 GMT

Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii. 1995. Nam June Paik. Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist. Tuesday, May 14: Grand Challenges Share Fair Even Smithsonian magazine can have a hard time keeping up with all the great research that Smithsonian scholars are doing around the world. From the stars to the seas, experts are hard at working fulfilling the institutional mission to increase and diffuse knowledge. To complete the second part, the Grand Challenges Share Fair offers everyone the chance to hear about some of the cutting edge research via a live webcast. Catch Kristofer Helgen of the Natural History Museum for his talk, “T

A Night at the Museum with the Smithsonian’s Laser Cowboys

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:21:35 GMT

Last Monday, April 15, the National Museum of Natural History actually did come to life after hours. Not with mummies or miniature armies, of course, but with a small group of volunteers, a bunch of fancy-looking equipment and two guys at the forefront of museum digitization. Adam Metallo and Vince Rossi, of the 3D Lab in the Smithsonian’s Digitization Program Office, work with laser scanners to create high resolution, three-dimensional digital models of objects and places around the Smithsonian Institution. Last week, they teamed up with curators at the Natural History Museum for the second of two nights of scanning the Dinosaur Hall, the museum’s iconic galleries that house preh

Inhaling the Blues: How Southern Black Musicians Transformed the Harmonica

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:13:41 GMT

“Classic Harmonica Blues,” out on May 21, features 20 tracks by the blues’ greatest harmonica players. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings In the early 20th-century, southern black musicians found the devil in the harmonica. The cheap and portable instrument was made by Germans for use in traditional European waltzes and marches, but when it made its way to America’s Southern neighborhoods, black musicians began to develop a totally new way of playing, which bent the harmonica’s sound (quite literally) to fit the style of the country’s increasingly popular “devil’s music,” or rather, the blues. In Classic Harmonica B

What Happened to the Wizard of Oz Costumes and More Great Questions From our Readers

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:00:00 GMT

What happened to the costumes for the main characters in the Wizard of Oz? Could they all be gathered for an exhibit? Amy Wooden Silver Spring, Maryland It’s highly unlikely. The Tin Man and Wicked Witch costumes may be lost to history (except for the witch’s hat), and the others were dispersed when MGM auctioned them off in 1970. The Cowardly Lion head is at the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, and generous donors gave our museum the Scarecrow costume and Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers. Dwight Blocker Bowers Curator of entertainment history, National Museum of American History Did the 1969 Apollo 11 mission leave a “greeting card” on the moon? And di

How Do You Make a Painting Out of Sounds?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Entering Jennie C. Jones’ studio in Brooklyn, a visitor is drawn to a series of artworks on a whitewashed wall. At first, they look like simple abstract canvases with warm tones of gray and black subdivided by precisely painted yellow lines and rectangles. But there’s more to them than that. For one thing, they’re made from acoustic panels. “Come closer,” Jones said. “Listen to them.” She passed her ear across two panels, pausing between them. “If you listen closely, you’ll hear what I mean.” It was true. The ambient noise in the studio, mostly muffled traffic rumblings from the nearby Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, resonated gentl

We Had No Idea What Alexander Graham Bell Sounded Like. Until Now

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Smithsonian researchers used optical technology to play back the unplayable records

VIDEO: Earth Art on the Mall

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:04:13 GMT

As part of the African Art Museum’s new exhibition opening on Earth Day, “Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa,” the museum invited for the first time ever four artists to take over the Enid A. Haupt Garden. We talked with curator Karen Milbourne about the results, as well as the art on view indoors at the museum. Discussions of land art usually begins with the renowned American artist Robert Smithson of the 1960s and then skip across the pond to his European counterparts. Milbourne points out that “Africa is remarkably absent from the telling of these histories.” It is a mistake that stands corrected in the new exhibition wi

How the Smithsonian is Coming to You

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Not long ago, I was browsing through the letters of Jackson Pollock in the collection of our Archives of American Art, and I stumbled across one to his brothers Charles and Frank, written when Jackson was 15. It begins with pleasantries before taking a startling turn: “The head of the Physical Ed. Dept. and I came to blows the other day.” Pollock pleaded his case to the principal, but “he was too thick to see my side” and Pollock wound up “ousted from school.” I wasn’t learning about this formative incident in the life of the master Abstract Impressionist while sitting in the physical Archives, but as I paged through the letters at home on my iPad

How Can We Teach the World Empathy? Bill Drayton Says He Knows How

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:13:00 GMT

Bill Drayton is this year’s recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Creativity Laureate Award. Courtesy of Ashoka In the spirit of Mark Twain who famously said he never let his schooling interfere with his education, Bill Drayton grew up enthusiastic at school, but not so much about school. He enjoyed a few subjects, but he admits, his energies were in things like, starting a series of newspapers or being an active member of the NAACP. Now, Drayton, who is credited with having coined the phrase “social entrepreneur,” hopes to create a network of global changemakers (empowered with skills embracing empathy, teamwork, leadership and problem-solving) with his organization As

Collage Turns 100 and Continues to Inspire

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:28:21 GMT

Nick Cave’s exuberant sculpture, “Soundsuit,” from 2009 marks a recent application of assemblage. From the Hirshhorn’s collection. How is a sculpture of neon-colored Easter baskets similar to a Picasso collage? That question is at the heart of the Hirshhorn’s new exhibit, “Over, Under, Next: Experiments in Mixed Media, 1913-Present,” which brings together roughly 100 works of mixed media from the 20th century. Starting with the early experiments of George Braques in 1913, the exhibit shows the wide range of applications, from playful to nostalgic, political to personal. Drawing on mass-produced media and objects allows artists to comment on common c

Q+A: What Is the Future of GPS? Are We Too Dependent?

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 05:01:14 GMT

Is it possible we’re too reliant on this? Images courtesy of the Air and Space Museum In recent years, we’ve gone from relying on bulky external GPS receivers to having digital maps of the world accessible at our fingertips. But what can we expect in the next few decades from the technology. Andrew Johnston, one of four curators for the new Air and Space Museum exhibit, “Time and Navigation,” says much of the change will likely come from the commercial and social media side of it. Meaning, soon your phone may be getting even smarter. He says, “All that will be invisible for most people. It’s become this sort of hidden utility that everybody uses but

Sequestration to Cause Closures, Secretary Clough Testifies

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:24:18 GMT

Secretary G. Wayne Clough testified before Congress today about the effects of sequestration on the institution. Photo by Ken Rahalm, courtesy of the Smithsonian On April 16, Smithsonian Institution Secretary G. Wayne Clough testified before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the impending effects of sequestration. Though the Obama administration had sought a $59 million budget increase for the Institution in fiscal 2014, this year Clough has to contend with a $41 million budget reduction due to sequestration. Gallery closings, fewer exhibitions, reduced educational offerings, loss of funding for research and cuts to the planning process of the under-construction Na

Q+A with Chadwick Boseman, Star of New Jackie Robinson Biopic, ’42′

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:53:30 GMT

Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment In 1947, when Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke major league baseball’s color barrier, the world was still 16 years away from the March on Washington and the Civil Rights Movement as just getting organized. The Montgomery bus boycott was eight years away and housing discrimination based on race would remain legal until 1968. In his first season with the MLB, Robinson would win the league’s Rookie of the Year award. He was a perpetual All-Star. And in 1955, he helped his team secure the championship. Robinson’s success was, by no means, inevitable and in fact he earned

How Museums Are Fostering the Workforce of the Future

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

More than 20 years ago, researchers began the 13-year-long process of working with hundreds of sequencing machines to map the entire human genome. Today, the same amount of data can be produced in a matter of a few days to a few weeks, and at a fraction of the cost. “Smart people like you guys will work on it,” says Maggie Halloran, a sequencing technician, standing before a group of wide-eyed high school freshmen at the National Museum of Natural History’s brand-new Laboratories of Analytical Biology (LAB), a molecular biotechnology hub. The students are 15 of the 100 that attend a selective science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) magnet program at Sout

The Incredible True Story of Master Craftsman, Freedman Thomas Day

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:50:38 GMT

A later piece shows Thomas Day’s uniquely “Exuberant Style” in full bloom. Whatnot, 1853-1860. Collection of Margaret Walker Brunson Hill, courtesy of the Renwick Gallery North Carolina’s most in-demand, pre-Civil War, master cabinetmaker Thomas Day had everything it took to be Southern royalty–land, money, education. Yet, Day was a black man. Born in a community of free African-Americans in southern Virginia, Day was able to achieve such fame that his customers created a double meaning for the term “daybed,” a convenient play on his name. His story is as striking as his unique creations, marked by his very own “Exuberant Style,” of which

Lost in Space and Other Tales of Exploration and Navigation

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:24:55 GMT

With each new frontier of exploration and travel came new challenges. All images courtesy of the Air and Space Museum The first several Soviet and American spacecrafts sent to the moon missed it completely, crashed on the moon or were lost in space, according to a new exhibition at the Air and Space Museum. Navigation is a tricky business and has long been so, even before we ever set our sights on the moon. But the steady march of technological advances and a spirit of exploration have helped guide us into new realms. And today, any one with GPS can be a navigator. From the sea and sky to outer space and back, the history of how we get where we’re going is on view at the Nationa

Hawaiian Musician Dennis Kamakahi Donates His Guitar

Tue, 07 May 2013 02:57:17 GMT

Rev. Dennis Kamakahi performs at the 2012 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Joann Stevens, of the American History Museum, is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM). She last wrote about Darius Brubeck. With his quiet dignity and self-assurance, leadership becomes Slack Key guitarist Reverend Dennis Kamakahi. Whether leading a cultural renaissance in his home state or a day of recognition at the Smithsonian, the Grammy-award winning composer, recording artist and Episcopalian minister exudes a presence as solid and beautiful as the music he composes and performs. Kamakahi was a member of the folk music group “The Sons of Hawaii” from 1974

Remembering the Last Great Worldwide Sailing Expedition

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

At 3 p.m., August 18, 1838, six ships got under way on the ebb tide and made for the Cape Henry Lighthouse in Norfolk, Virginia. The vessels were packed with books, the latest scientific and navigational equipment, and a crew of 346 men—including a linguist, a mineralogist, two botanists and two artists. Behind them lay the young, ambitious United States. Ahead lay four arduous years at sea and almost 87,000 miles of ocean. Thus was the launch of the great United States South Seas Exploring Expedition, 175 years ago this summer, and it was as bold a venture as a mission to Mars would be today. The commander was a brilliant but stern 40-year-old Navy lieutenant named Charles Wilkes,

Robot Cars and R2D2s: Snapshots from Behind-the-Scenes of new “Time and Navigation” exhibit

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 03:19:35 GMT

The sextant, invented in the 18th century by British mathematical instrument makers, became the most essential instrument for celestial navigation. Jesse Ramsden, who made this sextant, also devised a machine to divide the scale on the sextant very precisely. Courtesy of the Air and Space Museum In honor of its exhibit opening April 12, the Air and Space museum hosted journalists and social media friends for a behind-the-scenes tour of the exhibit. From early navigation at sea and skies and to outer-space and back again, the exhibit spans hundreds of years of technological change. View the story “Robot Cars and R2D2s: Snapshots from Behind-the-Scenes of “Time and Navigatio

Old Ebbets Field Opens One Hundred Years Ago Today

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:22:36 GMT

Ebbetts Field opened April 9, 1913. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum You may think we’re sick of baseball here at Smithsonian Mag, seeing as we’ve already written about its sheet music and poetry just 10 days into its season, but no way! We can’t stop digging up cool artifacts relating to America’s favorite past time. Today is the 100-year anniversary of the opening of Ebbets Field, Brooklyn’s now-demolished major league baseball park, and in celebration we’ve compiled a few images of items related to the park that are currently in Smithsonian’s collections. Above is a pair of seats from the park’s stands, which were torn do

The Eyes Have It

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 02:33:54 GMT

Surveillance is a way of life. Photo by Quevaal, courtesy of Wikimedia Amy Henderson, curator at the National Portrait Gallery, writes about all things pop culture. Her last post was on makeup’s greasy past. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone on January 7, 2007, he said, “Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that…changes everything….Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” The iPhone has proved even more revolutionary than Jobs understood, as its role in the remarkable capture of the Boston Marathon bombers illustrated. In the wake of the bombing, the FBI asked for crowdsourcing assistance to identify suspects. The digital sites Reddit and 4chan we

Two Musicians Make Historic Donations to Kick Off Jazz Appreciation Month

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 06:14:26 GMT

A crowd gathered for the donation ceremony and performance to kick off this year’s Jazz Appreciation Month. All photos by Leah Binkovitz From the Latin rhythms of jazz drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez to the uniquely African-infused sounds of jazz composer and pianist Randy Weston, jazz is having a global moment. To kick off this year’s Jazz Appreciation Month, the American History Museum began with a festive donation ceremony as the two living legends offered pieces from their illustrious careers, including a purple drumset and a black tunic and cap from a special international appearance. Weston had in fact been to the museum 15 years earlier when he came

The Story Behind Smithsonian Castle’s Red Sandstone

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:00:25 GMT

The Smithsonian Castle was built in the 1850s, using the red sandstone from the Seneca quarry. Author Garrett Peck tells the quarry’s story in his new book, The Smithsonian Castle and the Seneca Quarry. Photo courtesy of Garrett Peck The red sandstone façade of the Smithsonian Castle makes it one of the most striking buildings in Washington, DC. The stone for the building was cut less than 30 miles away at the Seneca Quarry along the Potomac River in Maryland and shipped to the city in the 1850s when the building was first under construction. But the quarry’s story is a complicated one, involving death, floods, bankruptcy and presidential embarrassment. DC author and histor

Would You Like to Browse an Edo-Period Japanese Bookstore?

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 02:23:24 GMT

Performers, seen from behind, delight an audience in Katsushika Hokusai’s “Tōto shokei ichiran,” 1800. All images from the Gerhard Pulverer Collection, courtesy of the Sackler Gallery. Celebrities, the hottest tech-gadgets and a dance craze that swept the globe: these were the top Google searches of 2012. According to Google Zeitgeist, we couldn’t get enough of Kate Middleton, the iPad3 or Gangnam Style. So are we just incredibly shallow or what? The internet gets blamed for a lot these days, a perceived lack of sophistication included. Serious-minded articles query whether the internet is even responsible for making us “dumb.” But a survey of more

Photos: Scenes From Life Under the Sea

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:31:31 GMT

Playful but poignant, this photo of a tiny yellow goby living inside an abandoned soda can taken in Suruga Bay, Japan reveals the arresting quality of Brian Skerry’s work. All photos courtesy of Brian Skerry. Brian Skerry may have just about the best office in the world. It’s beautiful, quiet and big, like 70 percent of the Earth big. That’s because Skerry is a photojournalist who spends most of his time exploring the oceans. “To some, my work might seem like one long, endless vacation,” writes Skerry on his blog, “traveling to exotic locales and living romantic adventures.” But he says, “The reality is far less romantic of course.”

Earthworms: A Nightmare for America’s Orchids?

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:53:00 GMT

Worms are great for your garden, but a recent study shows that non-native species may be wreaking havoc on orchids in forests along the east coast. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Think twice before you order earthworms to improve the soil of your garden. A group of scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences recently published a study that shows the damage non-native earthworms, who creep their way into forests thanks to human activities like fishing and gardening, may cause to one of the world’s favorite flowers, the orchid. Goodyera pubes

Play Ball (and Tunes): Sheet Music from the Game’s Early Days

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:50:45 GMT

Not that they’re bragging or anything, but the cover of the Red Stockings’ 1869 team song did say “To the Ladies of Cincinnati.” All images courtesy of the Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music, 1790-1980s, Archives Center, National Museum of American History If you thought that today’s professional baseball league began in New York, you wouldn’t be alone, but you’d be wrong. The first fully professional team, the Red Stockings, actually hailed from Cincinnati, Ohio. Though the game had been played around the country for years, the Cincinnati team was the first to put all its players under contract in 1869. Under the lead

How IMAX Pulled Spaceflight Down to Earth

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 05:24:17 GMT

Astronauts float in zero gravity outside the Challenger space shuttle in 1984. © 1985 Smithsonian Institution and Lockheed Martin Corporation 1985 Nearly 30 years ago, moviegoers got an unprecedented look into the lives of the space shuttle astronauts orbiting 280 miles above the Earth. And they witnessed it in extraordinary dimensions—on a five story-tall screen in booming surround sound. The Dream Is Alive pulled back the curtain on NASA’s Space Shuttle program, giving the public an intimate glimpse into the previously unfamiliar lives of its members. Directed by IMAX co-inventor Graeme Ferguson and narrated by Walter Cronkite, the IMAX classic showed astronauts in full garb, pract

How Crisco Went From Cryst to Disco

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:17:33 GMT

The less-than-annual April Fool’s Day conference at the American History Museum takes on all things grease this year. In case you missed the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association‘s national conference this past weekend in Washington, D.C., the American History Museum is offering another chance to have some academic fun, including a repeat performance from Jim Deutsch, curator at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage on the wonders of Crisco. “Laughing out Lard: The Folklore of Crisco,” explores the early days of the shortening’s marketing up through its current slang connotations, most of which Deutsch says can’t be printed

VIDEO: “MLK: The Assassination Tapes” now a Peabody Award Winner

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 04:05:43 GMT

Smithsonian Channel is about to get some new hardware to add to its fast-growing awards collection. On Wednesday, March 27, the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication announced this year’s George Foster Peabody Award recipients, and the six-year-old Channel got the call. The Peabody Award is the oldest and among the most prestigious annual awards in electronic media, started in 1941 to recognize exceptional work made for radio, the web and television. Smithsonian Channel won a documentary award for MLK: The Assassination Tapes, its 2012 film by producer Tom Jennings that tells the story of Martin Luther King, Jr.’

PHOTOS: Rarely Seen Central American Ceramics Dating from 1,000 Years Ago

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 02:29:14 GMT

Both male and female figures were portrayed with body art and tattoos, but females were typically shown with the decoration covering their shoulders and chest. In addition, her seated posture indicates she is of an elevated social status. Greater Nicoya female figure on a feline-effigy bench, AD 800–1200 Linea Vieja area, Costa Rica Pottery. All photos by Ernest Amoroso, courtesy of the American Indian Museum Thousands of years old, the ceramics of Central America tell us a great deal about the societies who made them. Religious beliefs, gender dynamics, societal hierarchies–all of this lies encoded in the sculptural and pictorial choices of the people who made the more than 160 object

Sounds of 1950s New York City and More from Folkways Magazine

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 03:30:18 GMT

A cover for a 1956 album of recordings by Tony Schwartz. Photo by Mal Wittman, courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Ever wondered what New York City sounded like in the 1950s–from the point of view of a dog? So did Tony Schwartz, a sound recordist living in the city who sought to capture all the many sonic fragments that made up his every day experience. His piece, centered on his own dog, Tina, aired as part of a CBS radio workshop and eventually found its way to the Smithsonian Folkways label. Now Meredith Holmgren, who recently became editor of Smithsonian Folkways Magazine, has highlighted the charming bit of audio in her first issue, “Sounds and Soundscapes.” “We ha

Butterflies, Baseball and Blossoms: Tours for Your Spring Vacation

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 03:30:36 GMT

These flowers are always in bloom at the American Art Museum. Courtesy of the museum Though you might not know it judging from the forecast most places, spring has indeed arrived. And despite the unpredictable D.C. weather, the snow, sleet, cold rain and wind hasn’t kept the tourists away. Crowds are gathering in the nation’s capital for the first glimpses of the cherry blossoms. For those of you interested in making the most of your visit, the editors over here have released two new spring-themed tours to help showcase the seasonal delights both inside and outside along the Mall. The Gardens tour will take you to our many well-maintained plots around the Mall to see more

Can’t Afford a Trip to Hawaii? Here’s Some Aloha Right Here in D.C.

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:30:31 GMT

The Aloha Boys bring island sound to the East Coast. Joann Stevens of the American History Museum. She is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) and last wrote about the Gees Bend Symphony. A warm thought for a cold Spring Day. Aloha reigns in Washington, DC! For decades thousands of Hawaiian transplants and local natives of the islands’ ancestry have transplanted their cultural roots into the city’s hard clay soil. The result has been a flowering of ethnic education, dance schools and music, cultural exhibitions and slack key guitar concerts that have now created the area’s first Slack Key Guitar Festival at the Birchmere, and the rise of troubadors

Beyond Chinua Achebe: Five Great African Authors You Should Read Right Now

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 06:04:45 GMT

Chinua Achebe died on Thursday, March 21. He is widely regarded as the father of modern African literature. Photo by Prachatai, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons. In a 1994 interview with the Paris Review, Chinua Achebe, the world’s most widely-read modern African author, said that recording a people’s history is not a one-man job. The Nigerian-born writer explained he wanted to paint a more accurate picture of African culture than the one portrayed by the white authors he read as a boy, growing up: I was introduced to the danger of not having your own stories. There is that great proverb—that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will alway

PHOTOS: Portrait Gallery Announces Winners of its Outwin Boochever Competition

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:00:46 GMT

Jill Wissmiller’s 2011 video portrait, “The Gilding of Lily,” is one of 48 works selected for 2013′s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. All images courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery Every three years, a set of fresh faces enters the halls of the National Portrait Gallery. This year, 48 faces made it. One was covered in glitter, another composed of rice, but all offered a “fresh and provocative way of looking and thinking about portraiture,” according to the museum’s interim director Wendy Wick Reaves. The national Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition brought more than 3,000 submissions, of which Reaves and a panel of six other juror

Miss Piggy, My Feather Boa and A Moment to Consider Makeup’s Greasy Past

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 03:51:20 GMT

Cosmetics have a long history. Courtesy of Wikimedia user KaurJmeb The boa-adorned Amy Henderson is a cultural historian at the National Portrait Gallery How better to celebrate April Fool’s Day among scholars than to parse, deconstruct, reconsider and otherwise dismantle a subject rarely considered. This year Smithsonian curators, historians and researchers assembled at the National Museum of American History to take part in the annual (well, sometimes) “Conference on Stuff.” In the past, we’ve considered the marshmallow, Jell-O, corn, crackers, peanut butter and pie. This year, our subject was grease. I was drawn instantly by the spirit of “dedicated hilarity” and volu

Apollo Rocket Engines Pulled From Sea — But Where Will They Land?

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:22:32 GMT

A team of scientists has recovered pieces of a rocket engine that launched Apollo astronauts to outer space. Photo by NASA, courtesy of Flickr Parts of the F-1 rocket engines that may have launched the first space mission to put a man on the moon were recovered from the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday. Organized by billionaire Jeff Bezos, a team of scientists has spent the past three weeks off the coast of Florida retrieving components of submerged engines from NASA’s Apollo space launches. The pieces have lost the serial numbers that identify the specific spacecraft to which they belonged. The team had plenty of underwater pieces to choose from; 13 F-1-powered Apollo rocket ships

A Refreshing Take on Fashion Television: A Q&A with L.A. Frock Stars’ Star Doris Raymond

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 04:38:28 GMT

The Way We Wore team, from left, Jascmeen Bush, Shelly Lyn, owner Doris Raymond, Sarah Bergman, Kyle Blackmon (c) NHNZ If your wardrobe is seriously lacking the next time you have a red carpet event on the horizon, consider taking a trip to The Way We Wore. The vintage boutique, its proprietor Doris Raymond, and her upbeat staff are the subjects of a new series called “L.A. Frock Stars,” which premiered last week on the Smithsonian Channel. Over the course of six episodes, the docu-reality show follows Doris and members of her charismatic team as they travel from California to Texas to New York on the hunt for rare fashions to stock in her Los Angeles shop. We’re not tal

Poetry Matters: In Baseball, No Poet Has Yet to Do the Game Justice

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:37:29 GMT

Poet Marianne Moore, 81, threw out the first pitch at the opening of the 1968 baseball season at Yankee Stadium on April 10th, against the Los Angeles Angels. © Bettmann/CORBIS Historian David Ward from the National Portrait Gallery last wrote about poetry for Women’s History Month Baseball is a game of unpredictable actions occurring within strictly defined guidelines—innings, strikes and outs. It should be perfect for poetry. But there has yet to be a truly great poem about baseball. The desire to be serious is what kills most baseball poems—they’re all metaphor and have none of the spontaneous joy that went into, say, John Fogarty’s pop song “Center Field.” Put me i

Give the World a Cup of Joe and Teach It Harmony

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 03:37:46 GMT

Delicious Peace, out April 9, features 16 tracks that cover a range of Uganda’s musical styles. The songs all have the same message, though: spread peace. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways On September 11, 2001, Ugandan coffee farmer J.J. Keki was visiting Manhattan on a lecture tour to talk about the Abayudaya, his Jewish community in Uganda. After the terrorist attacks that day, he returned home and organized Jewish, Christian and Muslim neighbors into a fair-trade coffee cooperative, Mirembe Kawomera (“Delicious Peace”), with the belief that in a time of war and violence, people must do everything they can to spread messages of peace. Music is an essential par

What Is It Really Like to Work at the NCIS?

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:16:48 GMT

Like the fictional agents on the CBS show, NCIS officials travel the world solving crimes. Courtesy of CBS Though the long-running CBS television show, “NCIS,” is based on the real-life activities of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Lou Eliopulos, NCIS division chief of forensic sciences, would rather compare his work to another show: “Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.” “If you ever watch, Ramsay in the kitchen where he comes in and analyzes a restaurant, we’ll do the same thing,” he says of the organization’s case work. The job is a bit more complicated than inattentive wait staff and messy prep stations. A team o

How Did A Group of Plumbers’ Wives Change American History?

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 03:58:01 GMT

A scrapbook documenting the history of the Auxiliary includes several pages of past Auxiliary presidents. All images courtesy of the Women’s Auxiliary, National Association of Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors (collection 1304). All photographs courtesy of the Archives Center, American History Museum When the ladies auxiliary committee for the National Association of Master Plumbers first formed, it was composed entirely of men. The men were tasked with finding diverting excursions for their wives while the master plumbers association held its annual convention. In June, 1910, for example, the women enjoyed an auto ride, some shopping and a luncheon at the convention held in C

Spotlight

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

New Looks Ends February 23, 2014 To encourage innovation in portraiture, the National Portrait Gallery launched the Outwin Boochever Competition in 2006. One of the 48 honorees this year is Louie Palu, a Washington, D.C.-based photojournalist who submitted a 2010 image of a wounded Afghan soldier. Taken after a nighttime raid in the blue light of a U.S. medevac helicopter, Palu sees it as “two parallel portraits,” one of an individual and another of war. Doll Faces April 20, 2013- January 5, 2014 Rhonda Holy Bear grew up so poor her dolls were a hammer and a clothespin; today her handmade dolls embody the heritage of her Lakota ancestors and other Plains Indi

Events April 23-25: Cyrus Cylinder, Collage Art and a Craft Show

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:25:57 GMT

The Cyrus Cylinder is sometimes called the oldest declaration of human rights. See it on display and hear its story on Tuesday at the Sackler Gallery. Photo courtesy of the Sackler Gallery Tuesday, April 23: From Babylon to Persepolis: Cyrus the Great and the Legacy of Ancient Iran The Cyrus Cylinder is one of the most significant archaeological artifacts in history. Inscribed with cuneiform, one of the earliest known scripts, the football-shaped cylinder of baked clay describes Cyrus the Great’s conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C., and describes how the king freed his newly conquered people from religious persecution by restoring their temples and sending prisoners home to worship

How Much Water Is in a Cloud and More Questions From Our Readers

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

How much water is in a cloud? What would be left if you squeezed the water out of it? Jerry Jones Eugene, Oregon It depends on the cloud. A giant thunderhead may contain more than two billion pounds of water, but even a modest-sized cloud may contain water equivalent to the mass of a 747 jet. If you could squeeze the water out, the cloud would disappear. But you can’t. Some desert peoples use cloth “cloud catchers” to gather condensation and fill local water tanks for drinking and irrigation. Doug Herman Geographer, National Museum of the American Indian What is the practical use of the imaginary number √–-1? Kenneth A. Harris Hugo, Minnesota The number

America’s Got a Case of Souvenir Mania

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

For days on end William Bird locked himself in a brightly lit storage room with hair clippings, a wood chip and two 80-year-old pieces of cake. There was also a punch bowl and the cuff of a woman’s blouse stained with Abraham Lincoln’s blood. Bird, known to friends as Larry (no Celtics jersey, but almost as tall), was digging through the American History Museum’s political history collection for overlooked gems to put in his new book, Souvenir Nation, out this month from Princeton Architectural Press, and the subject of an exhibit by the same title opening August 9 at the Smithsonian Castle. The things he exhumed didn’t usually look like treasure at all: b

How the DC-3 Revolutionized Air Travel

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

On an early evening in late 1938, a gleaming American Airlines DC-3 departed Newark Airport, bound for Glendale, California. The takeoff, wrote a Fortune magazine reporter aboard to record the still-novel experience of cross-country air travel, was effortless. “Halfway along the runway,” he recounted, “she left the ground so smoothly that none of the first fliers in the cabin realized what had happened until they saw the whole field rushing away behind them and the factory lights winking through the Jersey murk ahead.” By the time the flight crossed over Virginia, passengers had already polished off a dinner of soup, lamb chops, vegetables, salad, ice cream and cof

Dave Brubeck’s Son, Darius, Reflects on His Father’s Legacy

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 02:33:48 GMT

Father and son: Darius and Dave Brubeck in Wilton, Connecticut, September 2011. Image courtesy of Darius Brubeck Joann Stevens of the American History Museum. She is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) and last wrote about the Aloha Boys. Dave Brubeck. The legendary jazz pianist, composer, and cultural diplomat’s name inspires awe and reverence. Call him the “quintessential American.” Reared in the West, born into a tight knit, musical family, by age 14 he was a cowboy working a 45,000 acre cattle ranch at the foothills of the Sierras with his father and brothers. A musical innovator, Brubeck captivated the world over six decades with his love fo

Skateboard Culture and Other Seriously Amazing Smithsonian Exhibits Coming to a Museum Near You

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

When “Ramp It Up: Skateboard Culture in Native America” opened at the National Museum of the American Indian in 2009, it explored the cultural cross-pollination between Native American teenagers and the “outsider” sport they’d adopted. The exhibition didn’t simply skid to a halt when it closed on the National Mall, though: It rolled across the country, a journey that included a 19-week stay at the Museum of Man in San Diego in 2012. From there “Ramp It Up” moved to the Sicangu Heritage Center, in Mission, South Dakota, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, and last month it opened at the Littleton Museum, in Littleton, Colorado. By the time the

Warmer Temperatures Speed Tropical Plant Growth

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 06:36:40 GMT

Trees in the rainforest experience elevated nighttime temperatures and new research shows that may mean increased growth as well. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute As the world warms, certain parts warm faster than others and it’s there that researchers are finding climate change clues that may alter our understanding of plant growth in general. While average global temperatures have been rising at roughly 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade since 1975, the tropics have been warming slightly faster, at a rate of 0.26 degrees per decade. And in tropical Panama at night, things are getting even hotter. Researchers Alexander Cheesman and Klaus Winter found an

VIDEO: Herons Crash the Zoo

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 02:37:19 GMT

Last week, National Zoo officials spotted several black-crowned night herons roaming the property. Within two weeks, they expect to see hundreds more because the birds are the one species that come and go as they please at the Zoo. The black and white birds have been nesting there since 1889, before the Zoo was founded, and every year around mid-March, they fly in and visit until around mid-September. Though the population is doing fine worldwide, in the mid-Atlantic region the status of the birds is threatened due to habitat loss. According to biologist Sara Hallager, the big draw that keeps the birds coming back to the Zoo year after year might be the plentiful free food and lush gr

Look Out! Look Out! Elephants Get New Digs

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:48:41 GMT

Shanti the elephant has been having the time of her life. In 2010, the National Zoo opened the first phase of Elephant Trails, a major renovation of its elephant habitat, and zookeepers allowed her to be the first to play in her home’s expanded yards. She was ecstatic. Now, the Zoo is set to open a new Elephant Community Center on Saturday, March 23, and Shanti again got a sneak preview. “Shanti just loved every single moment of it,” says elephant manager Marie Galloway. “She came in and she explored every single nook and cranny.” Shanti takes a drink! The Elephant Community Center has a wading pool with a shower that the elephants can activate. The Elephant C

Beyond Riverdance: Enjoy Classic Celtic Music for St. Patrick’s Day

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:22:11 GMT

A new release shows not only the riches of Moses Asch’s Celtic music recordings but some of the classics from the genre. Courtesy of Smithsonian Folkways Beyond “Danny Boy” Celtic music, says Richard Carlin, a record producer who has long specialized in the genre, “runs far, far deeper than something like Riverdance.” For the just-released Classic Celtic Music, he combed the Smithsonian Folkways vaults for 23 choice tracks, recorded between 1945 and 1986, that would brighten anybody’s St. Patrick’s Day: a jig by fiddler Michael Gorman and banjoist Margaret Barry, an air with Billy Pigg on Northumbrian smallpipes, a song by the Irish vocalist Sorcha Ní Ghuairim in the lilting, hau

Surfer Kelly Slater Searches for the Perfect Wave in New 3-D Film

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 04:59:02 GMT

The perfect wave. Even the most water-phobic know this is what motivates a surfer. But many may not know, there is a calculable science behind the phrase. Experienced surfers know that the art of the sport has a lot to do with the science of the ocean. Eleven-time world champion Kelly Slater, for example, told the New York Times he checks no fewer than five different sites for reports on wind, swell and weather before he heads out. He knows that his home state of Florida has a shallow and long continental shelf, helping create small, slow waves that are perfect for beginners. He says that, “millions of years ago, lava poured out and just happened to form a perfect-shaped bottom

Why We Should All Celebrate Save a Spider Day

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 03:25:00 GMT

Fear-inducing or awe-inspiring? For more stunning shots of spiders, check out our Save a Spider Day slideshow. Photo by Thomas Vignaud If you’re afraid of spiders, you’re in good company–at least according to the Wikipedia page on arachnophobia, which lists Justin Timberlake, Kim Kardashian and Jessica Simpson as sharing the affliction. As star-studded as the fear may be, however, it’s not particularly well-founded. For example, one of the most infamous spiders, the brown recluse, has earned a terrible and outsized reputation for its supposedly deadly bite. Doctors often blame the species for spider bites, even in states where the brown recluse isn’t pre

How Do Astronauts Go to the Bathroom in Space?

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 06:23:26 GMT

To boldly go where only a few men (and women) have gone before: “Moving Beyond Earth,” a permanent exhibit at the Air and Space Museum, has a replica of the waste collection system used aboard NASA’s space shuttles. This may be the fanciest toilet you will ever see. All photos courtesy of the Air and Space Museum. The National Air and Space Museum has a $50,000 toilet. It’s functional, and it answers one of the greatest engineering puzzles of the 20th century: How do you pee in space? The “space toilet” is a replica of the waste collection systems used aboard NASA’s five space shuttles—Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery and Endeavor—whi

A Batarang, A Golden Ticket and a Green Gremlin: Treasures from Warner Bros.

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 04:48:55 GMT

A golden ticket from the 2005 film, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” is part of the donation of 30 objects from Warner Bros. All images courtesy of the American History Museum What do Batman’s batarang, Charlie’s golden ticket and a gremlin have in common? They’re all from famous Warner Bros. films and they’re all part of the American History Museum’s entertainment collection, as of March 8 when the studio’s chairman, Barry Meyer signed over the deed for 30 items from 13 different films. Highlights from the donation, which represents films spanning 63 years, include: stop-action puppets from Tim Burton’s 2005 film, The Corpse Br

The Cyrus Cylinder Goes on View at the Sackler Gallery

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:28:06 GMT

When Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., he encountered the same problem many political leaders face today: How do rulers keep the peace? Cyrus, the King of Persia, was in the midst of building the largest empire that the world had ever seen. By his death in 530 B.C., his reign would extend from present-day Turkey to India. For Cyrus, establishing control over vast miles of land with peoples of different cultures, languages and faiths created numerous obstacles in unifying his kingdom. The king sought order, not more war. “It is the first time anyone has had to address that challenge,” says Neil MacGregor, director of London’s British Museum. “As well as a transport system,

What Happened the Last Time the Climate Changed

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 02:14:39 GMT

Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin, where scientists search for fossils to better understand ancient climate change. Image via Dave Bezaire and Susi Havens-Bezaire In a relatively short time, global emissions of carbon dioxide increased massively. Through the greenhouse effect, they raised temperatures around the planet by an average of 7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit; they also changed the chemistry of the oceans, triggering a surge in acidity that may have led to mass extinctions among marine life. Overall, during this era of rapid change, global sea levels may have risen by as much as 65 feet. Reading this, you could be forgiven if you assume we’re talking about a scenario related to t

Two-Time Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas Talks Big Dreams, Big Wins and Having Fun

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:51:59 GMT

Gabrielle Douglas made history at the London Olympics and now that history is a part of the Smithsonian. Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Douglas When Gabrielle Douglas isn’t flying between the uneven bars (earning the nickname “flying squirrel”) or flipping her way down a balance beam, she’s gracing the cover of Corn Flakes boxes, making cameos at the MTV Video Music Awards and sitting down with Oprah Winfrey. At age 16, Douglas won two golds at last year’s London Olympics, winning both the individual and team all-around competitions. With her double gold she became both the first African American gymnast to win the individual all around and the first American

Events April 2-4: Native Sousa Music, Free Art Lessons and Gerhard Richter

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 02:33:36 GMT

Gerhard Richter (above) is one of the world’s most accomplished living painters. Watch a documentary about him and his creative process at the Hirshhorn Museum this Thursday. Photo c.1970 by Lothar Wolleh, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Tuesday, April 2: Sousa on the Rez John Philip Sousa was a late Romantic era American composer famous for his military and patriotic waltzes—not necessarily the type of music you would expect to hear on a Native American reservation. It turns out, however, that his tuba- and trumpet-heavy marches have been part of many Native American cultures for more than 100 years. “Sousa on the Rez” (2012) is a 30-minute documentary directed by Ca

Winged Migration: The 77-Carat Butterfly Brooch That “Glows” in the Dark

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:04:00 GMT

Under the black light, the Butterfly Brooch shows off a whole separate array of fluorescent colors. Photo by Donald Hurlbert, Smithsonian Cindy Chao knew, with more than 2,300 gems of diamonds, rubies and tsavorite garnets, her butterfly brooch was masterpiece of craftsmanship. Made in 2009, the brooch found its way to the cover of Women’s Wear Daily–the first piece of jewelry ever to do so in 150 years. Known for her wearable works of art, Chao had made a name for herself as the first Taiwanese jeweler included at a Christie’s auction in 2007, and her work even debuted on the Hollywood red carpet. Now her butterfly brooch comes to the Natural History Museum’s

Women’s History Month at the Smithsonian

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:30:08 GMT

These two ladies are on their way to the Smithsonian to celebrate woman’s history month. Photo by Percival Bryan, courtesy of the Anacostia Community Museum Women in jazz, women in science, women in the arts, women were everywhere. Even in the days when women were supposed to just be in the kitchen, they were busy making history. And this month at the Smithsonian, a month-long celebration of those women kicks off with the American History’s exhibit on the 100th anniversary of the Woman Suffrage Parade. Get the full schedule of films, lectures and events here, but check out these highlights: LECTURE The Scientist is In Museum specialist at the National Oceanic Atmospheric

The Greatest R&B Singer Who Never Existed

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 02:02:00 GMT

From 1968 to 1977, Mingering Mike and his crew made more than 80 records and performed in sold-out venues around the world. Not bad for a made-up superstar. All photos courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collections: the tape recorded songs and a curious cache of hand-made imitation record albums of a make-believe R&B artist, known as Mingering Mike. The collection was discovered nine years ago when Dori Hadar, a record digger who owned more than 10,000 records at the time, found a stack of the faux albums early one morning in a Washington, DC flea market. Hadar is a criminal investigator for a Maryland law firm, and he som

E.T. Phone Home: New Research Could Detect Signs of Life in this Decade

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 03:25:03 GMT

A habitable planet orbits a white dwarf. Here the ghostly blue ring is a planetary nebula—hydrogen gas the star ejected as it evolved from a red giant to a white dwarf. Illustration by David A. Aguilar (CfA) According to a new proposal from astronomers and professors Avi Loeb and Dan Maoz, signs of life may be awaiting detection in the shadows of death. Looking to the abundance of dying stars known as white dwarfs, Loeb and Maoz devised a simple way to search for oxygen in the atmosphere of exoplanets which orbit around white dwarfs much the way Earth orbits the sun. Loeb says the theory could yield results within the decade with the launch of NASA’s James Webb Telescope in 2018.

Where Does the Tooth Fairy Put All Those Teeth?

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:27:00 GMT

About the tooth fairy’s exploits, curator Katherine Ott says of her mystery game, “As far as I know, no one really knows what happens to the teeth, so it was ripe for solving.” Photos by Leah Binkovitz As a curator of medicine at the American History Museum, Katherine Ott is used to seeing some odd things. But when she started spotting collections of teeth tucked around the museum, she got suspicious. With the help of other curators and even the director, Ott put together a video documenting her hunt for answers. Turns out, lots of odd things had been happening across the collections and all signs pointed to one culprit: the tooth fairy! Spoiler alert, the documen

Suffragette City: That March that Made and Changed History in D.C. Turns 100

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 03:31:34 GMT

The official program for the 1913 procession. Courtesy of National Woman’s Party Collection, Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, Washington, D.C. On August 1, 1920, the New York Tribune published a letter to the editor titled “The Case Against Suffrage.” It was from the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and claimed that support for the suffragist movement was significantly overestimated. Unfortunately for the association, just two months earlier, the Senate had approved the 19th amendment, forbidding states to restrict voting rights based on an individual’s sex, and several states were well on their way to ratifying it. By August 18, 1920, Tennessee ha

Take 5! Where Old Jazz Heads Meet Jazz Novices Over Sweet Notes

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 02:02:00 GMT

Performers entertain at one of the regular ArtJamz events in the Kogod Courtyard. Photos by Anchyi Wei Every third Thursday of the month, the free concert series, Take 5! transforms the Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian American Art Museum into an American town hall, making it a center of social, artistic and cultural egalitarianism where all are welcome and few remain strangers. Like New York City’s legendary Town Hall, there are no bad seats in the Kogod Couryard. The atrium features soaring heights and live trees. Lights like floating stars are embedded in a glass ceiling. Banquettes and tables and chairs are sprinkled around the courtyard, offering a warm and calming ambian

VIDEO: The Show, Lincoln’s Washington at War, Depicts the Transformation of Washington

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 01:30:08 GMT

A scene from the Smithsonian Channel’s new documentary, Lincoln’s Washington at War. Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel In 1861, with the Civil War at Washington’s doorstep, President Lincoln was haunted by an terrifying dream foretelling his own assassination. Years later, on their last day together in 1865, Lincoln and his wife shared their dreams for the future over a carriage ride. She wished to see the European capitals and he hoped to take in California’s gold mines. Later that night, as the assassin’s bullet cut short the president’s life, Lincoln’s premonition from four years earlier came true. That poignant piece of history is just part

PHOTOS: Andean Cubs Get a Clean Bill of Health (Caution: Cuteness)

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 03:24:18 GMT

With their numbers in the wild endangered and dwindling, two healthy Andean bear cubs are a welcome addition to the species. Photo by Beth Branneu, courtesy of the National Zoo The National Zoo‘s pair of eight-week-old Andean bear cubs received a clean bill of health yesterday, February 20, after a thorough physical exam. The cubs had already marked a significant milestone for the species when they made it to seven days–something only one other captive litter in the country had achieved since 2005 and that was the National Zoo’s own 2010 litter, Chaska and Bernardo. Weighing in at 10.1 and 9.2 pounds, the two cubs will stay with their mother Billie Jean until their public

Can Animals Decipher Colors and More Questions From Our Readers

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 GMT

How do we know whether nonhuman animals—mammals, birds, fish—can distinguish colors? Rob Loughridge Honolulu, Hawaii Scientists understand color vision in nonhuman animals by studying the properties of cone cells, which distinguish colors in animal eyes, and by conducting behavioral experiments. Both vertebrates and invertebrates (especially insects) can see colors, but their abilities to do so vary widely. Color vision is usually best in animals that live on land and are active during the day, such as birds and butterflies. Kristofer Helgen Zoologist, Museum of Natural History Why do clouds turn orangish when they pass in front of the full moon? Ariana Rosario Melbourne, F

Brian Skerry Has the World’s Best Job: Ocean Photographer

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 GMT

You could forgive Brian Skerry if he let a hint of despair seep into his voice. He did, after all, achieve his lifelong dream of becoming an underwater wildlife photographer just in time to see the coral reefs, fish and other creatures he loves start disappearing from the world’s oceans. “Everywhere I go, I notice the wildlife just isn’t what it used to be,” he tells me over the phone from his home in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. “There are places where I’ve spent weeks and not seen a single shark, and I know if I’d been there ten years earlier, I would have seen dozens.” But Skerry is also an optimist who hopes—believes—that his sta

How Two Women Ended the Deadly Feather Trade

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 GMT

John James Audubon, the pre-eminent 19th-century painter of birds, considered the snowy egret to be one of America’s surpassingly beautiful species. The egret, he noted, was also abundant. “I have visited some of their breeding grounds,” Audubon wrote, “where several hundred pairs were to be seen, and several nests were placed on the branches of the same bush, so low at times that I could easily see into them.” Audubon insisted that birds were so plentiful in North America that no depredation—whether hunting, the encroachment of cities and farmlands, or any other act of man—could extinguish a species. Yet little more than half a century after Audu

Introducing the Dom Pedro Aquamarine

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 GMT

You start with the stone, aquamarine, a word that means “seawater,” but not the deep-ocean blue that is the sea’s homage to the sky, nor the gray-green swells crashing on a shore, but the soft blue-green of a lagoon on a clear tropical morning. Chemically, it is almost identical to an emerald. What makes a stone one or the other is a handful of atoms scattered among the crystalline ranks: chromium for emerald, iron for aquamarine. Then you must have light. Aquamarine comes to life under the blues and cyans of daylight, as a ruby does near firelight. Next, consider the object itself, an obelisk of a little more than 10,000 carats, shot through with radiant starbursts of as

The Renwick, the Grand Dame of Washington, Is Slated for Rehab

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 07:49:00 GMT

The Renwick was first designed in 1859 as one of the first buildings in America created specifically to house art. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian The American Art Museum’s craft and decorative arts building, the Renwick Gallery of Art, is in for a little craft and decorative rehabbing of its own. The historic building, located at the corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, will be closed for two years starting in early 2014 while a Cleveland-based team gives its infrastructure and historical details an upgrade. Once called the “American Louvre,” the building was first designed in 1859 by architect James Renwick Jr. (who also designed the Smithsonian’

Birds and Bards: Beautiful Japanese Images from the Edo Period

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 03:48:35 GMT

Birds were a popular part of Japanese art during the Edo period. Eagle hanging scroll by Kishi Ganku, ca. 1802. Courtesy of the Freer Gallery Two new exhibits at the Freer Gallery explore the riches of the Japanese art collections and reveal how pieces of everyday life make appearances in works of art. Together, “Arts of Japan: Edo Aviary and Poetic License: Making Old Worlds New” show how artists of the Edo period (1603 to 1868) were influenced by a growing field of natural history, as well as evolving literary traditions and practices. Selections from the exhibits, depicting some of these elegant representations of birds and bards, are featured here. Poetic License The

There’s More to Celtic Music Than “Danny Boy”

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Beyond “Danny Boy” Celtic music, says Richard Carlin, a record producer who has long specialized in the genre, “runs far, far deeper than something like Riverdance.” For the just-released Classic Celtic Music, he combed the Smithsonian Folkways vaults for 23 choice tracks, recorded between 1945 and 1986, that would brighten anybody’s St. Patrick’s Day: a jig by fiddler Michael Gorman and banjoist Margaret Barry, an air with Billy Pigg on Northumbrian smallpipes, a song by the Irish vocalist Sorcha Ní Ghuairim in the lilting, haunting style known as sean-nós. Dancing encouraged but not required.

A Visit to the Natonal Zoo’s “Ark of Life”

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 GMT

A 90-minute drive from the National Mall and the bustle of the capital, on 3,250 verdant, rolling acres next door to Shenandoah National Park, sits a hidden gem in our network of museums and centers: the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, in Front Royal, Virginia, a unit of the National Zoo. This is the sort of behind-the-scenes operation that all zoos wish they could have, an ark of life. Away from the demands of public exhibitions, our scientists study red pandas, clouded leopards, maned wolves, red-crowned cranes and other threatened animals—25 species and some 275 animals in all. Many of the animals roam (or sprint!) across the hillsides, in ample enclosures of several

Sneak Peek: Medical Marvels and Historical Oddities from the Collections

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:16:16 GMT

These vanity eyeballs, donated by a Marine who lost his eye serving overseas, are just some of the treasures kept at the American History Museum. For this year’s Tweetup, curators from the American History Museum showed off the best of their wares from old-fashioned glass contact lenses to trinkets once sold to raise funds for the Statue of Liberty’s base. We gathered some of the highlights here: View the story “Medical Marvels and Historical Oddities from the Smithsonian Collections” on Storify

Know Your Presidents? Stabbings, Pet Raccoons, Cat Fights and Other Presidential Lore

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 01:00:05 GMT

What really happens at the White House? Lots and lots of trivia! Photo by Pete Souza, 2011. Just in time for President’s Day, Smithsonian Books present “The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia,” so you can brush up on your White House lore and impress all your friends with your knowledge of White House pets, notable firsts and life before the presidency. We excerpted a few of our favorite facts from the book: 1. Which president once served as a public executioner? A: Grover Cleveland. as sheriff of Erie County, New York from 1871 to 1873, Cleveland personally oversaw the public executions of two men, one convicted of stabbing his mother to death and the other gu

A Smithsonian Expert Breaks Down the Science of Meteors

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:49:57 GMT

Today, at around 9:20 a.m. local time in Chelyabinsk, Russia, a massive 11-ton meteor burned up in the sky, triggering a sonic boom that damaged buildings and shattered windows in six cities and reportedly injured hundreds. Eyewitnesses say the meteor’s shockingly bright flash as it burned up (10 seconds into the Russia Today video above) was briefly brighter than the morning sun. That this event happened today—the same day a 147-foot wide asteroid will whiz extremely close to the Earth at 2:26 p.m. EST—seems to be a coincidence of astronomical proportions, as experts say the two events are entirely unrelated. But unlike the asteroid, which will cause no physical damage, t

From Virginia to Missouri to the Smithsonian: Jefferson’s Tombstone Has a Long Story

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:30:17 GMT

The granite obelisk meant to mark Thomas Jefferson’s grave in Virginia actually calls the University of Missouri campus home. After being sealed with a temporary consolidant, packed and moved with an art shipper, Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone arrived at the Smithsonian Institution for badly needed repairs on Wednesday, February 6. But it didn’t arrive from Jefferson’s famed Monticello estate in Virginia where the third president is buried. Instead, it found its way to the expert hands of senior objects conservator Carol Grissom by way of the University of Missouri’s campus. The story of how the tombstone got from Virginia to Missouri is a murky one. Jeff

“Freakish Absurdities:” A Century Ago, An Art Show Shocked the Country

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 01:30:49 GMT

Few interior views of the revolutionary 1913 Armory Show remain, but the Archives of American Art holds one of the most comprehensive collections of related documents, from organizers’ letters to critical response. Courtesy of Wikimedia Posters advertised a heady guest list for the 1913 Armory Show held in New York City, including, Matisse, Brancusi, van Gogh and Cézanne. It would have been a once-in-a-lifetime gathering had it been true and not just a little bit of ornery fun on the part of organizers (unfortunately, van Gogh died in 1890 and Cézanne in 1906). Even without them, the show, which celebrates its 100th anniversary February 17th through March 15th, managed to make h

Critter Cupids: Animals in Love

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 01:36:34 GMT

Valentine’s Day–it’s not just for humans. Courtesy of the National Zoo This Valentine’s Day, take a cue from our furry friends and bond with the best of them. The National Zoo is spreading the love this year with their very own “Critter Cupids,” custom cards whose proceeds go to the wonderful animals that inspired them. We got the inside scoop from caretakers and Zoo officials about all the many ways animals say, Happy Valentine’s Day. Animal puns are the most romantic gift you can give, according to nine out of ten Zoo creatures. Courtesy of the National Zoo Sea lions, Rebecca Miller: “Our sea lions often greet each other by touching nose

Air and Space Curator: The Wright Brothers Were Most Definitely the First in Flight

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 08:33:41 GMT

Orville Wright (above) and his brother Wilbur are credited with having conducted the first sustained, controlled, heavier-than-air flight. Photo courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum Tom Crouch is senior curator of aeronautics at the Air and Space Museum. Last week, the British aviation publication Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft declared that the Wright brother’s historic 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk was not the first to achieve sustained, heavier-than-air, controlled flight, but gave the title instead to aviator Gustave Whitehead of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who purportedly flew his craft two years early. The journal’s editor cites the website of an Aus

PHOTOS: A Piece of History, Celebrating Mardi Gras in D.C.

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 04:05:48 GMT

At the Omega Mardi Gras party in Washington D.C., 1930. Scurlock Studio, courtesy of the American History Museum The photos of revelers celebrating Mardi Gras in the 1930s and 40s in Washington, D.C. seem familiar—a little fancier maybe, but the costumes and merriment are transcendent. These particular photos, documenting Howard University’s Omega Psi Phi fraternity’s festivities, tell a story as much about Mardi Gras as they do about D.C.’s prosperous African American middle class. At the time, the district’s black population represented a little less than a third of the total population, but it was steadily growing; and by 1960, a full half of the city’

At Age 204, Charles Darwin Gets Animated

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 01:36:18 GMT

Eugene Byrne and Simon Gurr wanted to celebrate Darwin’s lifelong spirit of curiosity and bring the message to kids with their new graphic novel. For this year’s celebration of Charles Darwin’s birthday, check him out in a new graphic novel that’s as smart and entertaining as he was. Journalist Eugene Byrne and illustrator Simon Gurr teamed up on their third historical graphic novel to tell the naturalist’s tale of discovery and personal evolution (get it?). Beginning with the days when young Darwin was a curious boy whose failure to succeed in the medical field irked his father, the novel shows that it was the naturalist’s curiosity and persistence

Sneak Peek of “Seizing Justice: The Greensboro 4″

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:40:35 GMT

Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960. (Courtesy of Greensboro News and Record) In 1960, Joseph McNeil looked at the world of Jim Crow segregation around him and asked, ”My God, when is it going to stop? Who’s going to stand up and say no?” As one of the four college freshmen who led the now famous sit-in that began February 1 at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, McNeil decided he would be the one to say no. His story, along with the stories of Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, and David Richm

Grammy Gold: Folkways Takes Home Two Awards

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 03:31:29 GMT

Woody Guthrie, shown here in the 1940s. (Bettmann / Corbis; Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives And Collections, SI / Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc.) Album art from Quetzal’s album, Imaginaries. Smithsonian Folkways Congratulations to Smithsonian Folkways for its five nominations, and now two awards from the 55th Grammys. The birthday tribute to folk icon Woody Guthrie, “Woody At 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection” won in the category Best Boxed or Limited Edition Package. And for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album, Quetzal’s “Imaginaries” won. From Abigail Tucker’s piece on Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday:

Why the Department Store Brought Freedom for the Turn of the Century Woman

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 03:48:22 GMT

The new series “Mr. Selfridge” begins airing March 31 on PBS. Historian Amy Henderson of the National Portrait Gallery covers the best of pop culture and recently wrote about the film Cabaret. For Downton Abbey fans wondering how to spend their time until season four begins next year, PBS is offering a little something to dull the pain. Starting March 31st, we’ll be able to indulge our frothy fantasies with “Mr. Selfridge,” a new series replete with Edwardian finery, intricate plots and engaging actors. Inspired by Lindy Woodhead’s 2007 biography, Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge, about department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge, the new Masterpie

Poetry Matters: Women’s Work: Toward a New Poetic Language

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 02:22:38 GMT

Portrait of Marianne Moore by George Platt Lynes from the exhibit, “Poetic Likeness: Modern American Poets” at the National Portrait Gallery, courtesy of the museum Historian and poet David Ward contributes monthly musings on his favorite medium. He recently wrote about Phillis Wheatley. In 1855, Nathaniel Hawthorne complained to his publisher: “America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash.” Hawthorne’s contempt seethes with the sneering and patronizing discrimination of his era; and demonstrates the double bind of a lot of discriminatory attit

Q+A: The Youngest of the Little Rock Nine Talks About Her First Day of School

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 03:36:00 GMT

One of the nine students who desegregated Little Rock, Carlotta Walls LaNier (top row, third from right) recently donated her dress (left) from what would have been her first day of school. The group is pictured in 1957 with civil rights activist Daisy Bates, who helped lead the effort to integrate Little Rock. Photo by Cecil Layne, courtesy of the Library of Congress Carlotta Walls set out for her first day of 10th grade in a new dress. The year was 1957, and the school was Little Rock Central High. Walls and eight other African-American students were stopped by a white mob opposed to desegregation, and the ensuing confrontation between Arkansas and federal authorities took 20 days a

Discussion at the American Indian Museum: Time to Put Racist Mascots to Bed

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 09:50:56 GMT

Illustration by Aaron Sechrist There was a lot of Twitter activity today covering the American Indian Museum‘s panel on the controversial use of Indian imagery and names in sports leagues, from football’s D.C. Redskins to baseball’s Cleveland Indians. Museum director Kevin Gover says the practice dates back decades but that it’s time to put an end to it. With some notable successes already achieved, the call to remove and replace the offensive names and mascots seems to be picking up speed and Gover predicts the mascots will be put to bed within the next couple of decades. The panel broke into three sections: mascot origin myths, case studies from around the coun

PHOTOS: Wynton Marsalis, Honoring Duke Ellington

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 06:46:51 GMT

Duke Ellington had international appeal. Here he performs in West Germany. All photos courtesy of the Duke Ellington Collection, Archives Center at the American History Museum Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the spiritual architect and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, celebrates jazz legacy in a big way. In celebration of the organization’s 25th anniversary, Marsalis has made the legendary composer Duke Ellington a major focus of the orchestra’s nation-wide anniversary tour, with the band performing familiar and lesser known compositions of the man, who as pianist, band leader and musical impresario is often acknowledged as ”beyond category.” Call i

From Pyenson Lab: When Is a Museum Specimen the Real Deal?

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:33:15 GMT

Is that real? It’s one of the most frequent questions I hear when I guide visitors through our museum, and admittedly, I stumble. Yes, sometimes it is the real thing, in rock, bone, fur or flesh. But often what you see on display is a replica of an actual specimen, or an amalgam of real bits along with creative layers of plaster and paint—embellishments from a less discerning era in museum curation. Even today, we unfortunately don’t identify these distinctions clearly to visitors, in favor of “making it look good.” So, what’s the difference between a replica and the real thing? The answer seems pretty straightforward if you deal wit

Making Progress: Future Home of the African American History Museum

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:22:56 GMT

“This day has been a long time coming,” Barack Obama said last February at the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The museum, first proposed by black Civil War veterans, was finally approved a decade ago, and construction is now underway. Today, the museum’s future site is an enormous fenced hole in the ground at the corner of 15th Street and Constitution Avenue on the National Mall’s northwest corner. But visitors are already stopping by the new welcome center that opened in an on-site trailer over the holidays in December. “The Welcome Center ties in with Lonnie Bunch’s vision that the museum is open before w

The Director of the Indian Museum Says It’s Time to Retire the Indian Motif in Sports

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 04:10:17 GMT

The Washington football team is a notable example of groups that still use Indian names or imagery for mascots. Photo by Ryan R. Reed When Kevin Gover was a kid growing up in Norman, Oklahoma, college students at the nearby University of Oklahoma had begun protesting the school’s mascot. Known as “Little Red,” the mascot was a student costumed in a war bonnet and breech cloth who would dance to rally crowds. Gover, who today is the director of the American Indian Museum, says he remembers thinking, “I couldn’t quite understand why an Indian would get up and dance when the Sooners scored a touchdown.” Of Pawnee heritage, Gover says he understands now tha

The Two-Bedroom Apartment in Jersey That Had Its Own Chinese Art Collection

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 07:10:28 GMT

Paul Singer’s apartment in Summit, New Jersey, 1997. Photo by John Tsantes Meticulously arranged by material and date, thousands of pieces of Chinese art filled every nook and cranny of Paul Singer’s two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey, a home that he kept until his death in 1997. A psychiatrist by profession, Singer earned the nickname “Mr. Miniature” for his dedication to collecting material culture big and small, from swords to ancient hairpieces. Once Singer met Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, his passion found a home and a sponsor. Sackler, who is one of the founders of the Smithsonian’s vast Asian art collection and who is the namesake for one of its museums

Welcome to Blackdom: The Ghost Town That Was New Mexico’s First Black Settlement

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:05:04 GMT

A Sunday school class at Blackdom Baptist Church, circa 1925. Courtesy of the Museum of New Mexico In the early 1900s, a small utopian settlement of African American families took shape in the New Mexico plains about 20 miles south of Roswell. Founded by homesteader Francis Marion Boyer, who was fleeing threats from the Ku Klux Klan, the town of Blackdom, New Mexico, became the state’s first community of African Americans. By 1908, the town had reached its zenith with a thriving population of 300, supporting local businesses, a newspaper and a church. However, after crop failures and other calamities, the town by the late 1920s had rapidly depopulated. Today little remains of the

The Uncertain Promise of Freedom’s Light: Black Soldiers in The Civil War

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:17:08 GMT

Martin Robinson Delany worked to recruit soldiers for black Union regiments and met with Lincoln to allow these units to be led by black officers. He approved the plan and Delany became the first black major to receive a field command. Hand-colored lithograph, 1865. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery Black soldiers could not officially join the Union army until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. But, on the ground, they had been fighting and dying from the beginning. When three escaped slaves arrived at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, in May, 1861, Union General Benjamin Butler had to make a choice. Under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, he was compelled

Trash and the Future of Traveling Museum Exhibits

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:14:46 GMT

An octopus design on a mosaic at Planetario Alfa museum in Mexico. The mural, made out of 60,000 bottle caps, is part of “Green Revolution,” a traveling exhibit that teaches creative ways to reduce waste and conserve energy. Photo courtesy of SITES. “Green Revolution” is a traveling exhibit that practices what it preaches. Since April 2011, it has made its way around America educating visitors about eco-friendly ways of living, and it has done so without gas-guzzling trucks or plastic-filled crates. Normally, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), the organization that designs and distributes the Institution’s on-the-go exhibits, ships full

PHOTOS: A Tale of Two (Super Bowl) Cities

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 03:37:56 GMT

Ray Strong’s 1930s painting captures San Francisco as seen from Russian Hill. A 1970s photograph by Joan Clark Netherwood looks over East Baltimore toward downtown. Courtesy of the American Art Museum This Sunday, two port cities face each other in one of the most watched television events in the country, the Super Bowl. On opposite coasts, the two towns can seem worlds apart: Baltimore remains in the top 25 busiest North American port cities, while San Francisco has turned to technology to drive its economy. The west coast’s Dungeness crab season got underway not long after blue crab season closed. Comparisons of their corresponding fictionalized television series (̶

Spotlight

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Going Upscale Ends September 8 The American-born painter James McNeill Whistler moved to London’s Chelsea section in 1863—just as the formerly squalid riverside precinct was beginning to gentrify, thanks to better flood and sewage control provided by the massive public-works project known as the Thames Embankment. On his daily rounds over the next 40 years, Whistler routinely made etchings and paintings (above: oil on wood, 1880s), incidentally recording a society in flux. See 17 of his works from this period in “Whistler’s Neighborhood: Impressions of a Changing London,” at the Freer Gallery. Up to the Minute March 29-Permanent Sea captains once used chron

Time Capsule: A Peek Back to the Day When Elvis Made It Big

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 07:26:50 GMT

Elvis Presley appeared on The Stage Show six times in early 1956, driving his popularity even higher. Shown here on March 17, 1956. The headline couldn’t have been more dismissive. “Fantastic Hillbilly Groaner is Making a Quick Fortune as Newest and Zaniest Hero of Rock ‘n’ Roll Set.” That was how the Chicago Daily Tribune would characterize Elvis Presley’s performances despite his skyrocketing popularity in the summer of 1956. Even as Elvis-mania was sweeping the country, the critics still weren’t sure what to say about this “hillbilly groaner,” who some labeled as “nothing more than a burlesque dancer.” Still, after a

Museums Delay Opening Due to Weather

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 02:04:01 GMT

Let your horse sleep in today. Smithsonian museums don’t open until noon due to weather. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian museums in the Washington, D.C. area as well as the National Zoo will open at noon Monday, due to inclement weather. An early morning round of freezing rain left roads slick with ice as federal workers and schools around the area got off to a slow start. Canada would like to remind us, via Huffington Post, that cold weather has some perks too, eh? Like making it more difficult for some viruses and bacteria to live. Plus you can effectively “wash” your bed linens by hanging them out in the cold. We’d recommend waiting for the r

Seven Must-See Art-Meets-Science Exhibitions in 2013

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 05:05:14 GMT

Courtesy of the Water Tank Project. This New Year’s Eve, in addition to the typical resolutions to exercise more or spend more time with family, consider resolving to take better advantage of the cultural offerings of America’s cities and towns. Whether you seek to attend concerts, listen to lectures by authors and visiting scholars or become regulars at area museums, a few exhibitions slated for 2013 on the intersection of art and science will be must-sees in the New Year. The Water Tank Project Courtesy of the Water Tank Project. The skyline of New York City will be transformed next summer when 300 water tanks in the five boroughs become public works of art, calling at

PHOTOS: Orchids of Latin America

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:30:44 GMT

Paphiopedilium appletonianum. Guillaume Paumier via Wikimedia Commons From decorative arts to religious stories to regional recipes, orchids figure prominently in the cultures of Latin America. The Aztecs were said to value vanilla–made from the seed pods of a vining orchid–so highly that it was used to pay taxes. Early instruments were held together by glue made from the flowers. And some tortilla recipes called for Stanhopea blooms. Representing their origins in Latin America, hundreds of orchids will be on display as part of the Natural History Museum’s “Orchids of Latin America” exhibit, opening January 26. Complete with a Mexican plaza and a winding path throug

Very Seinfeld: A Museum Exhibit about Visiting Museum Exhibits

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:52:27 GMT

Artist Dorr Bothwell’s sketch of visitors at the San Francisco Art Museum in 1942 during World War II. Imagine walking in the footsteps of an artist visiting an art gallery. Are you feeling inspiration or intimidation? And what would you think if you happened upon an unguarded guard bored and asleep at his post? The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, which collects the sketchbooks, letters, financial records and other ephemera documenting the lives of American artists, answers some of these questions in its new show, “A Day at the Museum,” which opened recently at the Lawrence A Fleischman Gallery. Curator Mary Savig says that the multifaceted exhibit she

Q+A: How To Save the Arts in Times of War

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 04:28:56 GMT

Sites like Iran’s Persepolis are on world heritage lists, but that won’t spare them from harm during armed conflict. Organizations like the Committee of the Blue Shield help protect such sites. Photo by Elnaz Sarbar, courtesy of Wikimedia After serving in the Army Reserve for 21 years, and working at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts as a curator, Corine Wegener now travels the country training soldiers in cultural heritage preservation. As the founder of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, Wegener covers everything from material science to museum organization to international law and often calls on Smithsonian curators and collections to help impress upon the soldie

How Long Can Turtles Stay Underwater and Other Questions From Our Readers

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:00:00 GMT

How long can a turtle stay underwater before it needs to surface to breathe? John Crowther Tampa, Florida It depends on the species, locality and temperature. Painted and other turtles living in temperate zones hibernate all winter without breathing at the surface. (The familiar box turtle also hibernates, but on land.) An Australian species, the Fitzroy River turtle, hardly ever surfaces, but obtains oxygen from water pumped through its cloaca, or posterior opening. This is probably an adaptation to limit the turtle’s exposure to crocodiles. See Donald Jackson’s wonderful book Life in a Shell for more details. Jim Murphy Curator of Herpetology, National Zoo How can thun

Lost and Found Again: Photos of African-Americans on the Plains

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Douglas Keister has spent the past four decades traveling the country to photograph subjects as varied as architecture, folk art and cemeteries. Over the years, as he moved from his hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, to several different cities in California, he carted around a heavy box of 280 antique glass-plate negatives that he’d bought when he was 17 from a friend who’d found them at a garage sale. “I thought, ‘Why the heck am I keeping these things?’” he says. Then, in 1999, Keister’s mother sent him an article she’d seen in the Lincoln Journal Star saying historians in Lincoln had unearthed a few dozen glass negatives that featured portra

A River Bend Community Set To Music: Gees Bend Jazz Symphony

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:08:28 GMT

Jason Moran, Alicia Hall Moran, The Bandwagon and Bill Frisell in the KC Jazz Club October 26, 2012. Photo by Scott SuchmanSome stories and museum collections can’t be presented with words alone. For them you need music. Maybe even art. Or photography. During Black History Month 2013, the history of the community of Gees Bend, Alabama, and the spirit of the women of the Gees Bend Quilts, is being brought to the nation by jazz pianist Jason Moran, using music to help animate history and interpret museum collections. A museum exhibition can showcase a collection. But music gives it soul, emotionally connecting the public to the spirit and rhythms of people and unknown stories beh

Oscar Redux: Life is a Cabaret; An Old Friend is Back

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 03:30:05 GMT

Liza Minnelli took home Best Actress for her role as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Image courtesy of Fanpop Sometimes, the road to the Red Carpet is as fascinating as the journey to Oz—and with a more glittering prize behind the curtain. That’s certainly true of the 1972 film Cabaret, which won a colossal eight Oscars, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey). The only big award it missed was Best Picture, which went to The Godfather. Cabaret began its life as a Broadway show produced and directed by Hal Prince in 1966, but that stage musical was itself based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 novel, Goodbye to Berlin; a 1951 p

How Climate Change Affects the Smithsonian

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 04:01:18 GMT

Watching Hurricane Sandy destroy parts of New York City and New Jersey last fall, I was transported back to those painful days spent witnessing Katrina pound the Gulf Coast in 2005. After Katrina killed more than 1,800 people in New Orleans and left the Ninth Ward submerged, I served on the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council’s Committee on New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects. That gave me a firsthand view of the storm’s cost, both literal and psychological. Still, because of New Orleans’ uniqueness, lying under sea level, many Americans were able to distance themselves from the tragedy. With Sandy, no such distancing was possible

Spotlight

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:00:00 GMT

Primal Screens Ends August 11 Nam June Paik turned video into an art form and extolled the potential of what he called the “electronic superhighway.” In “Nam June Paik: Global Visionary,” the American Art Museum presents more than 60 of his works (Magnet TV, 1965), plus more than 140 items from the Nam June Paik estate archive, which the museum acquired after his death in 2006. Animal Attraction Permanent Now you can ride an ostrich at the National Zoo. To adorn its new carousel, the Zoo went old school, commissioning 56 wooden figures, ranging from a hummingbird to a cheetah to a naked mole rat to an ostrich, from the carving artists at the Carousel Works

A Nike Shoe, Now a Part of the Smithsonian

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:00:00 GMT

When the Nike shoe company asked runners what they wanted from a shoe, the athletes “would describe all the characteristics a sock would offer,” says Nike designer Ben Shaffer. So last year the company knit them a shoe, the Flyknit Racer, which is now in the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City. Cooper-Hewitt textiles curator Matilda McQuaid calls it an “innovative use of knitting”: The company had to develop a polyester yarn of varying elasticity, thickness and strength, plus machines to weave it into a virtually seamless mesh upper that expands and contracts with the wearer’s foot. The manufacturing process minimizes waste, and the resu

Poetry Matters: Phillis Wheatley, The Slave Girl Who Became a Literary Sensation

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:30:31 GMT

Having found herself as a poet, Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) discovered that she and her voice became appropriated by a white elite that quickly tired of her novelty. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Galley The great writer Ralph Ellison, in his 1952 novel Invisible Man, gave a literary grandeur to what was a commonplace theme in American society and race relations: African Americans were invisible to white America and eventually, tortured by this predicament, would begin to doubt even their own existence. If blacks were not “seen,” neither were they heard. It took a long time, and the heroic efforts of people like Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and countless others, for b

Listen to Doc Watson Picking Away at his Banjo

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:00:00 GMT

In 1960, the producer Ralph Rinzler paired the forgotten banjo legend Clarence Ashley with an obscure young guitarist named Arthel Watson. The recordings they made (Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley: The Original Folkways Recordings, 1960-1962) introduced “Doc” Watson’s bluegrass flatpicking to a national audience. That’s just one reason Rinzler, who died in 1994 at age 59, was recently inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. He was also a mandolin and banjo player of note, a tireless folklorist and a promoter, co-founding the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and helping the Smithsonian Institution acquire Folkways Records. What do you think the

Two New Prehistoric Bloodsucking Species Found in Montana

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:00:12 GMT

Culiseta kishenehn: one of two new species described from shale fossils found in Montana. Two new species identified recently from 46 million-year-old fossils in northwestern Montana confirm that in all their years of existence, mosquitoes have changed very little. Turns out, they’ve been sucking blood even earlier, in fact 90 million years ago, with some fossils indicating a species that had mouth parts strong enough that the tiny insects could even feed on dinosaurs. “They have been very successful at this little niche they have where they feed on animals,” says volunteer researcher Dale Greenwalt from the Natural History Museum. “In fact, there are species o

What Happens When You Give an Orangutan an iPad?

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:05:10 GMT

The Apps for Apes program introduces a new kind of Sistine Chapel moment, as orangutans reach to play with iPads. Photo by Elliott Fabrizio, National Zoo A new program at the National Zoo that got its start at several other zoos introduces great apes to the many wonders of digital play on Apple iPads. The program began last year after one team member’s family donated an iPad and has since grown to include ten different apps that allow the six orangutans to play music, draw and practice cognitive games, according to the Zoo. The apps are purely for the animals’ enjoyment, says the great ape keeper Becky Malinsky. “It’s just another form of enrichment for them.&#

Inauguration Day 2013

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 01:00:35 GMT

Today, President Barack Obama will take the oath of office for his second term. Courtesy of the White House, 2009 Inauguration day, it’s finally here, along with millions of visitors looking to take in some uniquely D.C.-culture. While our special presidents tour from our visitors guide app will keep you exploring in your spare-time, this post is all about the when, where and how of January 21. Plus, a few select events happening around the Smithsonian, you know, in between the whole inauguration thing. Hours On Inauguration Day, January 21, Smithsonian museums on the National Mall are open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. A few museums will open early—the Castle opens at 7:30 a.m., Sackle

How to Win Inauguration Weekend: There’s an App for That

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:33:13 GMT

Be in the know with our free visitors app, specially made for the inauguration. The votes have been cast and counted, the campaign offices have been packed up. But things are just getting started in D.C. as the city prepares for a rush of excitement for Barack Obama’s second inauguration, January 21. More than a million people sought a spot near the Capitol to witness his first inauguration in 2009. For his second, Obama is sure to bring out the crowds again and all of D.C. is gearing up for inauguration day, from hotels to restaurants, including Ben’s Chili, which expects to serve 1,000 gallons of its famous chili the week of Obama’s swearing in, according to NBC. Y

That Time a Chicken Crashed Nixon’s Inaugural Ball and Other Crazy Inaugural Tales

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:35:00 GMT

Not officially on the guest list for Richard Nixon’s 1973 inaugural ball, this chicken decided to check out the scene anyway. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives With Richard Nixon’s first inauguration, the president threw a party not to be beat. “Nixon girls” from the campaign served as hostesses for six inaugural balls. One ball at the Smithsonian was so popular, the cloakrooms were overrun, according to the Boston Globe, forcing guests to carry their minks and umbrellas with them during the celebrations. But the party animals had competition from real animals for the spotlight. Remembering Nixon’s first inauguration, Bob Schieffer of CBS

VIDEO: Making Mount Rushmore

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 05:55:00 GMT

Photo by Ed Menard Ranger, Courtesy of the National Park Service If you’re lucky this Monday, January 21, you’ll be able to spot the president of the United States as he is sworn into office once more. But venture to South Dakota, and you can see four presidents at once. Not bad. Mount Rushmore’s larger-than-life reliefs of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln receive more than two million visitors each year. But they weren’t even supposed to be the attraction when the project was first imagined in the 1920s by state historian Doane Robinson. Red Cloud, Lewis and Clark and Buffalo Bill Cody–these were the figures Robinson

Poetry Matters: Lessons From America’s First Inaugural Poet

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 04:53:00 GMT

In this week of the Presidential Inauguration, it must be said that poetry serves another function when deployed in public: it is classy, it adds tone and the aura of high-minded literary prestige. This is where poetry gets into trouble: when it gets stuffy, pompous, and stiff. Robert Frost was the first poet included in an inauguration when he spoke at John F. Kennedy’s ceremony. Photo by Walter Albertin, 1961. Courtesy of the Library of Congress All of these characteristics, the Inauguration has in spades. Inaugurations have gradually gotten bigger and more complicated over time. Certainly, we are far from the day when Jefferson walked over to the Capital from his boarding

PHOTOS: Who Were the Six Indian Chiefs in Teddy Roosevelt’s Inaugural Parade?

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 06:57:00 GMT

Marching in the parade. Courtesy of the National Museum of American Indian/LOC Among the 35,000 people who participated in Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade on March 4, 1905, were six men on horseback wearing elaborate headdresses. Each was an Indian chief and each had at one time or another been at odds with the American government. They were Quanah Parker of the Comanche, Buckskin Charlie from the Ute, Hollow Horn Bear and American Horse of the Sioux, Little Plume from the Blackfeet and the Apache warrior Geronimo. As they rode through the streets of Washington on horseback, despite criticism, Roosevelt applauded and waved his hat in appreciation. They are the subject of t

Party Like It’s 1881: President Garfield’s Inaugural Ball

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:28:54 GMT

Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries building decorated for James Garfield’s inaugural ball, complete with string light garlands and patriotic buntings. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives. Nothing says, “Welcome, Mr. President,” like 3,000 gas lights and a big hulking statue. At least, that is what America decided in 1881, the year James Garfield was sworn into office. On a snowy March 4, the Smithsonian’s spanking new Arts and Industries Building hosted an inaugural ball for the country’s 20th president after he won the seat by a slim margin over Democratic candidate Winfield Scott Hancock. Though the weather kept many people from witnessi

Bangs, Bobs and Bouffants: The Roots of the First Lady’s Tresses

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 04:18:16 GMT

Barack and Michelle Obama walk down Pennsylvania Avenue together on Inauguration day, 2013. Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House When Michelle Obama debuted her new hairstyle for the inauguration, her “bangs” stole the show. Even seasoned broadcasters spent a surprising amount of time chattering about the First Lady’s new look. In all fairness, there was also much speculation about the president’s graying hair—but that was chalked up to the rigors of office rather than a deliberate decision about style. “Bangs” first made headlines nearly a century ago when the wildly popular ballroom dancer Irene Castle bobbed her hair. Castle and her husband Vernon were the Fred-and-Ging

If Only Hollywood Would Show Us Lincoln’s Second Inaugural

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 03:50:00 GMT

Scene from the 2012 film Anna Karenina. Inaugural fever is sweeping Washington, D.C. The “Official Inauguration Store” is now open down the block from the National Portrait Gallery, parade viewing stands have been constructed along Pennsylvania Avenue, and street vendors are hawking T-shirts and buttons that bark out the coming spectacle. The Inauguration Committee expects 40,000 people at the two official inaugural balls that will be held in city’s cavernous Convention Center. At the Portrait Gallery, I decided to soak up some of this festive spirit by imagining the inaugural ball held for Abraham Lincoln on the building’s top floor in 1865. The museum was o

Document Deep Dive: The Menu From President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 03:17:32 GMT

What delicacies and confectionaries were found on the 250-foot-long buffet table?

What Django Unchained Got Wrong: A Review From National Museum of African American History and Culture Director Lonnie Bunch

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 08:53:00 GMT

Jamie Foxx as Django. Courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Digital Inc. For more than two centuries slavery dominated American life, the shadow of slavery shaped everything from politics to the economy, from Westward expansion to foreign policy, from culture to commerce and from religion to America’s sense of self. And yet, contemporary America has little understanding or tolerance for discussions about the enslavement of millions. In many ways, slavery is the last great unmentionable in American public discourse. So I was hopeful and interested when I learned that Quentin Tarantino was to tackle the subject of slavery in his movie Django Unchained. At nearly three hours

VIDEO: The Story Behind the Emancipation Proclamation

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 03:21:35 GMT

Abraham Lincoln has proved potent blockbuster material. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln led the pack with a total of 12 Oscars nominations, including for Best Picture, and got the presidential treatment when Bill Clinton introduced it at the Golden Globes awards ceremony Sunday. Though it certainly has its fans, the film, which focuses on the passage of the 13th amendment, has inspired a great deal of analysis and some criticism. Quoted in the Los Angeles Review of Books as part of a scholarly breakdown of the film, Brooklyn College Professor Cory Robin writes that abolition was a “process by which slavery collapsed under the pressure of federal arms and the slaves’ determination

The Making of a Millennial Jazz Musician: Elijah Jamal Balbed

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 05:21:22 GMT

Elijah Jamal Balbed performing. Photo by Jesse Allen When I met Elijah Jamal Balbed, he was 19, wailed like an old bebopper, and had already been named “Best New Jazz Musician of 2010″ by Washington City Paper. He’d been recruited for a Jazz Appreciation Month performance at Meridian International to honor the Cold War jazz diplomacy of jazz masters like Dizzy Gillespie and Dave Brubeck. Along with jazz kids, ages 9 to 20, Balbed comprised an impromptu quintet that quickly owned the bandstand, following a performance by star bassist Esperanza Spalding. As the kids rocked, bureaucrats clapped on beat, hooted with glee, and murmured about jazz kids in the hip hop gene

17 Billion Earth-Size Planets! An Astronomer Reflects on the Possibility of Alien Life

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 03:13:56 GMT

An illustration of the variety of planets in our galaxy being detected by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. Research on their frequency suggests one in six stars in the Milky Way is orbited by an Earth-size planet, which means there would be at least 17 billion planets on which life might exist. Photo by C. Pulliam & D. Aguilar, courtesy of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Though we may not find life on Mars, a new study shows that we still have at least 17 billion other chances. Astrophysicist Francois Fressin recently led a team of researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in analyzing three years of data from Kepler, a space observatory launche

Are You Ready for Shirley MacLaine’s Entrance on Downton Abbey?

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 07:04:00 GMT

Shirley MacLaine makes her debut as Martha Levinson this Sunday in “Downton Abbey.” Photo courtesy of NBCUniversal/Carnival Films Curator Amy Henderson of the National Portrait Gallery is a regular contributor to Around the Mall Silver polished? Feathers fluffed? Good—then like me, you are properly primed to receive the opening salvos of “Downton Abbey“’s third season, which begins airing on PBS this Sunday, January 6. The hugely popular soap opera froths over this year when Shirley MacLaine arrives with the subtlety of a blunderbuss. MacLaine portrays Martha Levinson, the social climbing New York mother of Lady Cora who, as one of the American

LISTEN: Grammy-Nominated Folkways Artist Elizabeth Mitchell Discusses Parenthood and Being in a Band with Your Kid

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:00:49 GMT

Elizabeth Mitchell‘s ode to Woody Guthrie, Little Seed, received a Grammy nomination for Best Children’s Album. Covering some of her favorite Guthrie classics, Mitchell released her album in June 2012 and quickly followed up with another, Blue Clouds. Playing with her husband Daniel Littleton and 11-year-old daughter Storey, Mitchell returned to her roots as co-founder of, along with her husband, the indie-rock band Ida by covering songs by greats like David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and Van Morrison. We talked with Mitchell back in August about how her band is evolving and why she likes making music all ages can appreciate. Listen to tracks from Blue Clouds here. What music do y

Smithsonian’s Very Own Maestro David Baker is All That’s Jazz

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 02:05:03 GMT

David Baker, front row with glasses, with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. Guest blogger, Joann Stevens is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum. Courtesy of the author At age 80, David Baker has slowed his pace but still has the jazz lean and look of musicians from an earlier era. Proving that old beboppers don’t grow stale, they just change rhythm and keep swinging, the elegantly dressed, Baker recently braced himself with a loose, bemused expression on his face, as if enjoying a private joke, while fans, friends, and musicians buzzed excitedly around him, taking photos, offering platitudes and congratulating him for his two

Andean Cubs Mark Milestone at National Zoo

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 04:37:41 GMT

Here’s what we have to look forward to: two more adorable Andean cubs bounding about with Chaska and Bernardo, born in 2010. Photo by Mehgan Murphy, courtesy of the National Zoo As remarkable as all births at the National Zoo are, Craig Saffoe says the birth of two Andean bear cubs early Thursday morning, December 13, was even more special than usual. “In various zoos around North America,” says Saffoe, curator for the great cats and bears, “the problem has been since 2005, only two litters have survived so far.” Both of those litters belong to the National Zoo’s bear, Billie Jean. All the others have died after day seven, according to Saffoe, which

What Will You Be Watching for on Watch Night?

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:47:56 GMT

“Waiting for the Hour” by William Tolman Carlton. Courtesy of the White House Historical Association Guest blogger, Joann Stevens is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum. Courtesy of the author Watch Night Service 2012 might make history as well as commemorate it. Guess we’ll have to watch and see. The roots of Watch Night Service celebrated in many African American communities nationwide are founded in American slave and liberation history. Lore has it that on midnight, December 31, 1862, the New Year was ushered in by slaves watching and praying for news that President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had

Is White Christmas the Best Popular Song Ever Written?

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:00:00 GMT

Actor Bing Crosby, Actresses Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen, and Actor Danny Kaye, during the 1954 Paramount production of “White Christmas.” Underwood & Underwood/Corbis Curator Amy Henderson of the National Portrait Gallery is a regular contributor to Around the Mall I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know. Where the treetops glisten and children listen To hear sleigh bells in the snow “White Christmas” launched a revolution. Before this Irving Berlin song topped the charts in October 1942, the airwaves between Halloween and December 25 did not blare relentlessly with Christmas carols. Thanksgiving served as a qu

Will We Be Able to Prevent an Asteroid Strike and More Questions From Our Readers

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:00:00 GMT

Will we ever really be able to deflect a comet or asteroid that has targeted us for extinction? Bruce McPhee West Yarmouth, Massachusetts We can deflect such objects big enough to cause regional damage; the key element is how long a warning we have. Even with only a decade or so, we might deflect an asteroid of perhaps 100 meters in diameter, using spacecraft or nuclear weapons. With sufficient warning—say 50 years—we could deflect an object several hundred meters in diameter. Extinction-scale threats have been ruled out for the next few hundred years, so you can relax. Tim Spahr Director, Minor Planet Center, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Why are penguins not

How Change Happens: The 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1963 March on Washington

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 04:36:00 GMT

The March on Washington was organized in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation to call on the country to fulfill its promise. Photo by Warren K. Leffler, August 1963, courtesy the Library of Congress In the midst of the Civil War, between writing the first and final drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln stated, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it.” On January 1, 1863, the final version was issued as an order to the armed forces. One hundred years later on a hot summer day, hundreds of thousands of individuals marched on Washin

Handmade Christmas Cards Sent By Famous Artists to Their Friends

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 06:27:02 GMT

Arturo Rodríguez used a postcard from the Louvre to create this Van Gogh-inspired holiday card to Helen L. Kohen, ca. 1980-1999 The head of Hallmark, Donald Hall, is worth an estimated $1 billion, according to Forbes. Founded in 1910, the company has grown into the biggest greetings card manufacturer in the United States and by now, its brand is commonplace during the holiday season. But Mary Savig and the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art are here to remind you that not all cards come from a store. In her new book, Handmade Holiday Cards from 20th-Century Artists, Savig includes 190 illustrations of the original holiday cards held in the Archives. Some famous names pop up,

Double the Fun: Andean Bear Gives Birth to Twins

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 04:56:03 GMT

The first Andean bear cub was born at 12:01 am, the second at 2:02 am, on December 13 to proud mother Billie Jean. The cubs will stay nestled away with their mom for the first week, according to the Zoo. So for now, we bring you a snapshot of the happy family from the Zoo’s bear cam, where you can catch a glimpse of them if you’re lucky. Some Zoo fans even watched the birth happen live via the cam, but most just left their love Thursday on Facebook.

PHOTOS: The Wit and Genius of the Father of Video Art Nam June Paik

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:30:00 GMT

Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii (detail), 1995 He built robots, pioneered the field of video art and coined the term “electronic superhighway” in 1974 to predict our age of communications technology. When he died at the age of 73 in 2006, Korean American artist Nam June Paik was described by the New York Times as ”a shy yet fearless man who combined manic productivity and incessant tinkering with Zen-like equanimity.” “A lifelong Buddhist,” the obituary went on, “Mr. Paik never smoked or drank and also never drove a car. He always seemed amused by himself and his surroundings, which could be overwhelmi

Smithsonian Curators Offer Up a Holiday Gift Guide for History Lovers

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:11:19 GMT

Last week’s holiday gift guide had a little something for everyone: science lover, wordsmiths, artsy types and history buffs. But this week, we’re bringing you the unabridged list of history picks, each of which were recommended by researchers, curators and staff at the Institution so they’ve got the smarty stamp of approval. So stop sneezing over perfume samples and sorting through silk ties, this list of more than 30 titles, from hip-hop history for newcomers to the Civil War canon, is all you’ll need this holiday season. Biography Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer delivers a dramatic account of one of the most famed but

Taking the Bite Out of DC’s Partisan Dialog: A New Installation Seeks Common Ground

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 04:37:09 GMT

In Washington, D.C., it’s not uncommon for last names to be followed by a D, R or even an I, depending on party affiliation. In a town governed by blues and reds, that divisions run deep is often a predetermined conclusion. But Chicago-based artist Lincoln Schatz wanted to challenge that fiercely partisan dialog, asking the movers and shakers of the political scene to speak about their common and shared experiences from childhood dreams to where they were on 9/11. The result, The Network, is a video portrait of 89 different individuals, opening at the National Portrait Gallery Tuesday, December 11. Before Schatz pioneered what he calls his “generative video” portrait

Hawai`i’s Troubadour of Aloha

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 06:10:58 GMT

Guest blogger, Joann Stevens is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum. Courtesy of the author Six years ago, Jake Shimabukuro and his music were largely unknown on the American mainland. He was popular in his native Hawai`i and in Japan where he’d spent a decade touring and convincing music industry leaders there to accept a solo performing, ukulele player. His life is secret no more. Today Shimabukuro’s solo concerts fill symphony halls. Fans range from cutting edge hipsters to high-brow arts patrons. An impromptu solo performance on YouTube of the musician playing a Beatles song sitting atop a rock in New York’s Central Pa

PHOTOS: The Zoo’s New Carousel is One Wild Ride

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 01:30:29 GMT

A menagerie of animals awaits. Photo by Devin Murphy, courtesy of National Zoo People travel thousands of miles just to get an up close look at cheetahs and lions, but now you can just wrangle yourself a ride on the backs of your favorite animals aboard the National Zoo’s new solar-powered carousel. The old-world oompa-pah-pah carnival ride will never be the same again. With its 56 hand-carved figures and two hand-carved, stationary chariots, this merry-go-round includes everything from a praying mantis to a cuttlefish. Designed and created by Ohio-based Carousel Works, each figure is actually modeled from real-life animals living at the Zoo. Art Ritchie, Carousel Works co-foun

Smithsonian Secretary Clough Connects the Dots on Climate Change

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:17:08 GMT

The impacts of Hurricane Sandy, among other events, convinced Clough that the Smithsonian needs to pair its cutting-edge research with more effective communication of climate science to the public. Image via NASA “What we have here is a failure to communicate,” said G. Wayne Clough, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, reflecting on the Institution’s role in educating the public about climate change. “We are the world’s largest museum and research center. . .but if you wanted to find out something about climate change and went to the Smithsonian website, you’d get there and have trouble finding out about it.” In “Climate Change:

Remembering Dave Brubeck, Goodwill Ambassador

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 08:18:31 GMT

This 2010 poster was created by LeRoy Neiman as a tribute to Dave Brubeck, a 2009 Kennedy Center Honoree. Courtesy of the American History Museum Guest blogger, Joann Stevens is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum. Courtesy of the author Dave Brubeck, who died Wednesday at age 91, was a quintessential jazz artist of the 20th and 21st centuries. He didn’t just perform music, he embodied it, taking us to outer stratospheres with compositions like Take Five included in “Time Out,” the first jazz album to sell a million copies. Tributes are sure to highlight Brubeck’s tours, music milestones, awards, complex rhythms and ho

World’s Largest Cut Aquamarine Gives the Hope Diamond a Run for its Money

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 03:28:30 GMT

Move over Hope Diamond! The Dom Pedro obelisk, a Beryl variety aquamarine, is in the house. Photo by Donald E. Hurlbert, courtesy of the Natural History Museum Vinophiles like to repeat the fanciful Galileo line that wine is sunlight, held together by water. Well, at 14 inches tall, the aquamarine obelisk known as the Dom Pedro is pure light. Like a cool oasis on the horizon, the cut gem stands as a pale blue beacon. It is the largest cut piece of aquamarine in the world and, after journeying from miners in Brazil to dealers in Germany and collectors in the States, the Dom Pedro, named for Brazil’s first two emperors, is now the newest addition to the Natural History Museum̵

Holiday Gift Guide: Must-Reads from the Smithsonian’s Curators

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 06:11:14 GMT

Our curators and researchers recommend a little something for everyone. The curators and researchers spend a lot of time reading, everything from classic novels to the latest exhibition catalog. We asked some of them to lend us their reading lists to see which titles rose to the top and why. For the Art Connoisseurs: Leslie Umberger, from the American Art Museum, recommends: “James Castle: Show and Store, an exhibition catalogue produced by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sophia in 2011 brilliantly navigates the complex depths of Idaho artist James Castle (1899-1977). Fresh, insightful, and deeply moving, the images and essays explore a truly, astonishing, poetic and

Playlist: Eight Tracks to Get Your Holiday Music Groove On

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:36:33 GMT

What would the holidays be without Eartha Kitt, seen here performing in the Broadway show Timbuktu. Photo by C.M. Nell, Courtesy Smithsonian Archives Guest blogger, Joann Stevens is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum. Courtesy of the author It’s that time of year again when the airwaves jingle with a potpourri of holiday music, performances and mashups, featuring songs and artists with jazz, pop culture, film, classical and sacred music roots. Some of the chestnut classics are playing 24/7 on radio stations (for those of you who still listen to radio) across the land. Speaking of chestnut classics, during his 29-year career, jazz voca

Events January 22-24: Persian Tile Lessons, Arts & Craft Beer and MLK Book Signing

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 05:02:14 GMT

Tile art in Iran. Learn how to make ornate designs like this — from carving to installation — in Tuesday night lessons at the Ripley Center. Photo by Amy Stempel, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons. Tuesday, January 22: Persian Tile Art Lessons Looking for something creative to do after work? Smithsonian Associates launches the Tuesday edition of its 8-week night art lesson series this evening, and you can still reserve a spot in “Handmade Tiles in the Traditional Persian Style.” Ceramic tile art adorns public spaces, palaces and places of worship in Iran, and its styles are incorporated into many contemporary Western designs. The class offers a unique glimpse

Celebrate the Inauguration at the Smithsonian

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:59:02 GMT

Your guide to events for the 2013 Presidential Inauguration.

Favorites From the Cooper-Hewitt’s New Online Collection

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 03:25:00 GMT

Matchbook in the shape of a folded men’s shirt, with incised checkerboard-patterned weave, cuffs and bib, smiling child’s head peering out from opening at collar. Reverse inscribed “New York Clothing House, 102 & 104 Baltimore St., Baltimore.” Upper curved section swings open to reveal match compartment, c. mid-19th century. Image: Cooper-Hewitt The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution, has recently digitized 60 percent of its collection and made it available to the public. If my math is correct, that means that 123,802 objects spanning 24 centuries can now be viewed online. Prints, drawings, graphic design, decorative

Joann Stevens

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:18:38 GMT

Joann Stevens

Amy Henderson

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:18:29 GMT

Amy Henderson

Smithsonian Ocean's Portal

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:18:19 GMT

Smithsonian Ocean's Portal

Spotlight

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:00:00 GMT

Water Wise Ends September 15 The Anacostia River, which flows 8.5 miles from Bladensburg, Maryland, through some of the poorest wards of Washington, D.C., was so abused and neglected for so long it was called the “Forgotten River.” But now it’s undergoing a multiyear, multibillion-dollar restoration. To show how riverfront development has influenced urban life, for good and ill, the Anacostia Community Museum has organized “Reclaiming the Edge: Urban Waterways and Civic Engagement,” an exhibition of artwork and research highlighting watershed moments in other cities from London to Louisville. Fresh Faces Ends October 27 Together for the first time: Amerig

The General is in the House; Colin Powell’s Portrait Goes on View

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 03:22:35 GMT

Gen. Colin Powell discusses his life and career at the unveiling of his portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. Paul Morigi /AP Images for National Portrait Gallery Colin Powell could be remembered for a number of things. He served under four different presidents and rose to the level of Secretary of State (2001-2005)—the first African American to do so. And still stands as the only African American to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-1993). He will certainly be remembered for his role in the second Gulf War and his calls for international cooperation, rather than unilateral action. But in the halls of the National Portrait Gallery, he will be remembered as a Gener

UPDATE: Spidernaut Dies at Natural History Museum

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:27:07 GMT

The jumping spider had seemed to adjust to life on Earth when it debuted Thursday, but has since passed. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution The brave, space-faring spider that debuted at the Natural History Museum on Thursday after its 100-day stint at the International Space Station died yesterday. The museum announced the sad news Monday on its Facebook page, telling fans, “The loss of this special animal that inspired so many imaginations will be felt throughout the museum community.” The spider, a red-backed jumping spider who went to space as part of a science experiment to test the animal’s ability to adapt its hunting techniques to a microgravity environm

Video: Take a Virtual 3D Journey to Visit China’s Caves of the Thousand Buddhas

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:09:42 GMT

This week, if you take a stroll through the Haupt Garden, past the Sackler Gallery and into the Moongate Garden, you’ll come upon something you likely won’t see everyday: a 1500-year old intricately painted Buddhist cave from northwest China. Okay, but not really. In a remarkable marriage of the ancient and the high tech, the Sackler welcomes an innovative and precise 3D digital representation of one of the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, also known as the Mogao Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is one of the finest examples of Buddhist art in existence. “There are over 600 caves in this escarpment, and they were painted over a period of about 1,000 years,

Q+A: Saudi Arabia’s Sultan bin Salman on “Roads of Arabia”

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 05:00:09 GMT

The Prince Sultan speaks at the opening of the “Roads of Arabia” exhibition. Image courtesy of the Sackler Gallery Sultan bin Salman, the son of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, serves as the Secretary-General of the country’s Supreme Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. A former fighter pilot, he became the first-ever Arab in space while serving on the fifth flight of NASA’s Discovery program as a payload specialist in 1985. He recently traveled to Washington, D.C. for the North American premiere of the “Roads of Arabia” exhibition, now on view at the Sackler Gallery—a groundbreaking collection of newly discovered artifacts from the Arabian Peninsula—and sat down with Aroun

VIDEO: What a Blast! Artist Cai Guo-Qiang Sets Off Explosions on the Mall

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 01:05:03 GMT

Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang has been working with gunpowder and other pyrotechnics since his 1990 “Projects for Extraterrestrials.” An adaptive medium, his explosion events, have been read as a revolt against an oppressive artistic culture in China to a meditation on the powers of creative destruction. But on Friday, all anyone witnessing his explosive lighting ceremony of a live pine tree outside the Sackler Gallery had on their minds was fun. For the Sackler’s 25th anniversary celebration, the artist, who recently served as the Director of Visual and Special Effects for both the opening and closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics, rigged a 40-foot tree with 2,000

If You Can Make It Here: The Rise of New York City

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:41:22 GMT

A view of 1930s New York. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Saul Lilienstein was just your average kid growing up in the Bronx. He rode the train to the dazzling Times Square and music classes in Manhattan and watched Joe DiMaggio from his rooftop overlooking Yankee Stadium. If this sounds like the same sort of nostalgic yarn Woody Allen spins in Annie Hall when his character Alvy tells the audience that he grew up underneath the rollercoaster at Coney Island, Lilienstein is here to tell you it’s all true. “He might have been born in Brooklyn but you’d be surprised how close the character was of kids from either Brooklyn or the Bronx and their utter attachment both

Drawing on the Edge: Six Contemporary Portraitists Challenge Convention

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 02:25:38 GMT

Mary Borgman’s portrait of Merwin (Merf) Shaw includes the smudges and marks left by the artist. Charcoal on Mylar, 2009. Courtesy of Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, Illinois Drawing has long been prized for its immediacy, from those revealing offhand doodles made by celebrities to the first drafts of masterpieces. But the craft was seen as an intermediate step, without the finished quality of other media. National Portrait Gallery curator Wendy Wick Reaves says that’s changing: “Throughout the 20th century, there’s been a steady rise in the importance and seriousness of drawing and contemporary artists are particularly ambitious and bold.” The new exhibit,

Spidernaut Returns Home From Space

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 06:56:18 GMT

The Natural History Museum’s new red-backed jumping spider made a 99-day mission in space, accompanied by a zebra spider. Image courtesy of NASA, BioServe After living on the International Space Station for 99 days, the only living “spidernaut” in the world has found a new home at the Natural History Museum. Museum director Kirk Johnson, associate director Jonathan Coddington and Insect Zoo acting manager Dan Babbitt welcomed the eight-legged space cadet Thursday with a crowd of curious children. The red-backed jumping spider, or Phidippus johnsoni, was part of an experiment designed by 18-year-old Amr Mohamed of Alexandria, Egypt. After winning a worldwide contest,

Danilo Pérez, Creator of Musical Guardians of Peace

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:05:57 GMT

Danilo Pérez performs at the Kennedy Center November 30. Photo by Raj Naik, courtesy of the artist Guest blogger, Joann Stevens is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month at the American History Museum. Courtesy of the author Grammy award-winning jazz pianist and composer Danilo Pérez is a global citizen of music, equally inspired by the rhythms of world cultures and ecologies as with the traditional and contemporary sounds of his native Panama. It’s all music to his ears, and Pérez, who is a 2009 recipient of the Smithsonian Latino Center’s Legacy Award, is legendary for creating artistic mashups that connect continents and cultures, as well as history. Mentored

Amy Henderson: A Portrait is a Story Unfolding

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 02:00:54 GMT

A portrait of Edwin Booth. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Charlotte Arnold, 1920 Curator Amy Henderson of the National Portrait Gallery is a regular contributor to Around the Mall Steven Spielberg’s extraordinary new film Lincoln is dominated by the penetrating performance of Daniel Day-Lewis. The facet of Lincoln’s character that shines across the screen again and again, and that Day-Lewis captures so remarkably well, is his ability to interject storytelling as a means of unifying his “team of rivals.” The film closes with Congress passing the 13th Amendment, the Civil War ending, and ultimately with the president’s death at the hand of John Wilkes Booth

An Explosive 25th Anniversary for the Sackler with Artist Cai Guo-Qiang

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:58:46 GMT

The Sackler Gallery celebrates 25 years with a full schedule of events, including an explosion event by artist Cai Guo-Qiang. Sparks will fly this Friday as the Sackler Gallery celebrates its 25th anniversary with an explosive performance by artist Cai Guo-Qiang. The Chinese artist, based in New York City, is known for his gunpowder pieces. His work has been featured at the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim and in 2008, he helped direct the opening and closing ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. From the artist’s 2003 Light Cycle: Explosion Project for Central Park, commissioned by Creative Time. Photo by Hiro Ihara, Courtesy Cai Studio More from his 2003 piece that helped mar

Reclaiming the Edge: Exhibit Compares Waterfront Development Around the World

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 01:51:28 GMT

From the exhibit “Reclaiming the Edge,” kids explore the Anacostia River in the heart of Washington, D.C. Photo by Keith Hyde, US Army Corps of Engineers, 2011 Wilderness Inquiry, Minneapolis, Minnesota Shanghai, London, Louisville, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh all have one thing in common: water. Specifically, the cities share the community-defining feature of an urban waterway. In the nation’s capital, the Anacostia River helped drive settlement in the region but after decades of degradation, it became known as the “Forgotten River.” Now the Anacostia Community Museum has taken on the ambitious task of organizing two years of comparativ

Photos: The National Hockey League Turns 95

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 05:20:36 GMT

A 1930 photograph depicts two players from Chicago’s NHL team. Courtesy of the Chicago History Museum The National Hockey League, founded on November 26, 1917, is just shy of 100 years old and will celebrate its 95th anniversary today. But for hockey fans, it’s a bit of a bitter sweet birthday. The league announced over the long holiday weekend that in addition to canceling the season’s scheduled games through December 14, it will also cancel the All-Star Weekend planned for January 26-27 in Columbus, Ohio. The news comes courtesy of a lockout, meaning further cancellations may be looming. Not the first labor dispute for the league, indeed the entire season was cance

Photos: ZooLights Return for the Holidays

Fri, 23 Nov 2012 01:00:32 GMT

Nothing says holiday fun like ZooLights. Photo by Jim Jenkins. Courtesy of the National Zoo The days may be getting shorter, and the nights longer, but thanks to the National Zoo, that’s a good thing! ZooLights, the seasonal favorite that lights up the Zoo with colorful lights displays, has returned. The season officially kicks off November 23, when the Zoo will once again be full of larger-than-life representations of some of your favorite animals. And this year, in addition to the models train and snowless sledding, the Zoo will also be unveiling its Conservation Carousel, an old-timey carousel crafted with care that features more of the Zoo’s animal icons. So bundle up

Mitsitam Chef Shares His Thanksgiving Table

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 05:00:11 GMT

Chef Richard Hetzler’s cookbook contains recipes for buffalo chili, wild rice salad and other regional specialties. Photo by Renée Comet. Courtesy of the American Indian Museum Executive Chef Richard Hetzler is used to planning ahead. His restaurant at the American Indian Museum has been attracting crowds since it opened in 2004. In June, Mitsitam Cafe won the prestigious Rammy award from the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington–the first museum to do so. Hetzler oversees a menu that changes four times a year, with each change requiring about a month and a half of preparations. Thanksgiving? Well, that’s just another day for Hetzler. In addition to serving up the

Next Stop on the Thanksgiving Tour: Julia Child’s Kitchen

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 02:35:06 GMT

A glimpse into the famous kitchen, where the solid maple counters were made two inches taller than was standard to accommodate the 6-foot-3 Julia Child. Courtesy of the American History Museum As part of the American History Museum’s new exhibit, “FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000,” Julia Child’s cherished kitchen has also received some curatorial love. What better time to pay tribute to one of the most famous TV chefs and cookbook authors than the holiday season? From her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, the kitchen was donated to the museum in 2001 and has continued to be one of its most popular attractions. In addition to serving as her personal

Discussion

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 07:00:00 GMT

From the editors We have a winner! Of the thousands who tried Ken Jennings’ Great American History Puzzle (October), the first to solve all 11 challenges was Jeff Davidson, a 23-year-old software engineer in Mountain View, California. You can play (for fun) at Smithsonian.com/puzzle. And here’s the solution to the first challenge, which was launched on page 39: Jefferson’s “greatest creation” was the Declaration of Independence. In the “Puzzle Code,” each number pair denotes a word, and a letter within that word, in the Declaration. The selected letters spell out: Famous last words will help you trace the hidden American icon on this magazine cove

FOOD: An Edible Exhibit Examines Our Many Culinary Cultures

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 04:55:48 GMT

An ambitious exhibit explores how our food production and consumption have changed in recent history. Courtesy of the American History Museum Like all good dinner tables, the wood table at the center of the American History Museum’s new exhibit, “FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000” sits right in the middle of a jumbled, sometimes contradictory dialogue. But rather than playing host to political debates or family dramas, this time the table is a catalyst for conversation about America’s recent food history. From drive-throughs to Tupperware, Good Food revolutions to grill culture, the exhibit brings together many of the corners of our metaphorical ki

Insider Visitor Tips for the Holiday Weekend

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:25:25 GMT

The Sant Ocean Hall at the Natural History Museum is just one of the many attractions to be enjoyed this holiday weekend. Photo by Chip Clark. Courtesy of the Smithsonian If you think your house is going to be packed for Thanksgiving, imagine the crowds at a Smithsonian museum. According to the Washington Post, the museums had 418, 000 visitors over the holiday weekend in 2010. Though that number dipped in 2011, the institution is still gearing up for a full house. To help visitors navigate their way through the 19 museums and National Zoo, Smithsonian will be fielding questions before and during the holiday on its Twitter page. Just follow @smithsonian and use the hashtag “#Tgi

Another Smash Hit on the Thanksgiving Tour: Rovaldi’s “Opening Day”

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:08:56 GMT

Antonio Rovaldi’s smash hit will please both arts- and sports-inclined gallery goers. “The Opening Day.” 2009. Courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum Take me out to the ball game, take me out to the museum? If your family is already counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, then you’ll want to head to the Hirshhorn for the video installation equivalent of a home run. The piece was so popular, the exhibit was extended through January 13. Italian video artist Antonio Rovaldi’s installation, “The Opening Day” joins baseball to high art. Projected on one side of a small, dark room, Italian-league pitcher Fabio Betto

Sad News: Soyono the Tiger Dies at the Zoo

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 04:35:18 GMT

The Sumatran tiger gave birth to three litters of cubs while at the National Zoo. Courtesy of the Zoo Born in Washington in 1993, Soyono the 19-year-old Sumatran tiger had to be euthanized today, after suffering from spondylosis. Described by the Zoo as a sort of “vertebral arthritis,” the disease produces a bony growth in the vertebrae, which pushes on the surrounding nerves as it grows. Her breeding partner, Rokan, was also euthanized two years ago after suffering from the same disease. Because of heavy deforestation, the Sumatran tiger is a critical endangered species, with just 700 individuals remaining in the entire world, with just 400 remaining in the wild in the an

At American Art: A New Look on How Artists Recorded the Civil War

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:58:30 GMT

Confederate soldiers stand defiant before a Union general, even after the war is over. Winslow Homer, Prisoners from the Front, 1866. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Frank B. Porter Its battles, its generals, its lasting political implications are all fairly familiar territory to most, but the Civil War’s art is another story altogether. In the midst of a sesquicentennial anniversary, the country turns again to that defining moment with exhibitions, books and movies, including the current blockbuster film Lincoln by director Steven Spielberg. But it took the dogged determination of curator Eleanor Jones Harvey to bring together a unique exhibit full of

Contributors

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:00:00 GMT

dream hampton The first female editor of the hip-hop magazine The Source, hampton, who spells her name with lowercase letters in a nod to poet bell hooks, has co-authored biographies with Jay-Z and Q-Tip. In profiling pioneering jazz phenom Esperanza Spalding (“Beyond Jazz”), she found an artist intent on taking her craft to the masses. “She occupies some very mainstream spaces, from the White House to the Grammys,” hampton says. “At the same time, she very much self-identifies as a jazz musician and wants to bring young people into jazz. It’s reaffirming.” Seth Mnookin Mnookin, the author of The Panic Virus, which chronicles Americans’

Staring at the Sun: It’s NOT a “Mass of Incandescent Gas”

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 02:52:03 GMT

Hi-C captured the most detailed images of the sun’s corona in July 2012. Courtesy of NASA When the band They Might Be Giants re-recorded the 1959 song “Why Does the Sun Shine?” for its 1993 EP, they played to a much-repeated piece of science fiction. The track, subtitled “The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas,” gets some basic sun science wrong. “A gas is a state of matter in which the material is not ionized, so all of the atoms still have all of their electrons and really the sun’s gas is in a state called plasma,” says Smithsonian astrophysicist Mark Weber. Though scientists had known this for quite some time, once it was pointed out

“Roads of Arabia” Presents Hundreds of Recent Finds That Recast the Region’s History

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 08:55:29 GMT

Representing part of a horse, this stone carving may prove that horses were actually first domesticated in the Arabian peninsula, not Central Asia. Circa 7000 B.C.E. Courtesy of the National Museum, Riyadh Art exhibits rarely come with their own diplomatic entourage, but the new groundbreaking show at the Sackler, “Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” does. The show’s 314 objects that traveled from the Saudi peninsula were joined by both Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, and the Commission’s vice president of antiquities and museums and the show’

Jason Moran: Making Jazz Personal

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 06:59:59 GMT

Courtesy of Flickr user Bruno Bollaert. Even if Mozart’s generation had worn porkpie hats instead of powdered wigs, pianist Jason Moran doubts he would have opted for a classical music career over jazz. Though he finds the European classical music that he has studied since age six artistically beautiful, it doesn’t move him emotionally the way jazz does, he says. Jazz, America’s classical music, has a sound he can relate to, a cultural history he can identify with, and role models, who have inspired him since he was a teen growing up in Houston. “For me Thelonious Monk became the mountain top,” he says. Now as Artistic Advisor of Jazz at the Kennedy C

Going West: The American History Museum’s Conestoga Wagon is a Must-See

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 11:56:09 GMT

Once the king of the road, the Conestoga Wagon could haul up to five tons of cargo. Courtesy the American History Museum If your plans for Thanksgiving next week include grumpy uncles and rowdy cousins, then the Smithsonian may just be the catch-all you need to keep everyone happy. We’ll be highlighting a few items worthy of your out-of-town crew over the next week to help you prepare for a flawless family visit. First up, the iconic symbol of the West: the Conestoga Wagon. Not simply a “covered” wagon, this is the vehicle borne out of the Pennsylvania Dutch’s craft tradition and specially designed for the first half of the cross-country journey over mountainou

Recent Acquisitions on Display at the National Portrait Gallery

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:49:47 GMT

A 2011 portrait of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. by artist Yuqi Wang represents one of the more contemporary faces from the new acquisitions. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery Part art museum, part national yearbook, the Portrait Gallery has a constantly expanding collection. From sculptures to prints, photographs to paintings, each year the museum seeks to add both luminaries and lesser-knowns to its galleries. With dozens of pieces acquired either through donations or bypurchase since 2011, the gallery presents a notable few at regular shows. This season’s installment of new faces features Amerigo Vespucci, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Ethel Waters to name a few. Opening today

Pilgrims on Parade at the American History Museum

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 05:48:00 GMT

Deputy Director of the Plantation, Richard Pickering poses as Mayflower pilgrim. Image courtesy of the NMAH. Richard Pickering and Kathleen Wall have been telling the same story for the past 25 years. Some might say, they are living in the past. But then again, as pilgrim interpreters from the Plimoth Plantation, playing the part of the original Mayflower settlers is their job. This Sunday, November 11, Pickering and Wall will tell the story once more at the National Museum of American History, wearing the buckles and ruffles and dispelling the Thanksgiving myths and traditions as though they were the real deal, the 17th-century pilgrims Richard and Elizabeth Warren. Warren was among

Underwater Light Show: The Wonders of Bioluminescence

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 05:16:14 GMT

Edith Widder was doing pretty well for herself. She had just completed her Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. With a postdoc position lined up in a lab in Madison, Wisconsin, things were on course. But then came an opportunity she couldn’t refuse: a deep-sea dive in a single-person submersible diving suit called a Wasp. After training in a tank with a group of scientists, she ventured out for the first time in the Santa Barbara Channel. “It was an evening dive,” Widder told an audience in 2010. “I went to a depth of 880 feet and turned out the lights.” Widder said she knew she would observe the underwater phenomenon of

Marian Anderson: Freedom Singer and Mentor To Generations

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 07:24:00 GMT

Marian Anderson’s historical 1939 Easter Sunday performance. Photo courtesy of Robert S. Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History Mining the past can yield unexpected treasure. For historian and author Ray Arsenault, whose book The Sound of Freedom delves into the back story of how the venue for a 30-minute concert became a much-treasured shrine of dignity and national unity, the gold dust is still there. The concert is the pivotal 1939 performance where the African American artist Marian Anderson sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and moved a nation. The lesson, Arsenault says, is how Anderson’s talent and grac

PHOTOS: The Great Pumpkin Has Risen

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 03:46:29 GMT

Spooky and historical, this Jack-o-Lantern was photographed by the J. Horace McFarland Company. Photoprint, 1906. Archives of American Gardens A pumpkin is nothing more than a squash, but somehow like Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin, it has risen in fame, far beyond that of its cucurbita cousins. Why has the pumpkin become a Halloween favorite? One can only guess that its smooth surface makes just the right medium for happy face carvings or ghastly ghoulish gashes. But how has the simple vegetable been collected here at the Smithsonian? A host of images, some paintings, some sculptures, some very early photographs–even a daugerrotype. Hail to the mighty pumpkin and Happy Halloween

Pandas and the Other Animals Chill-Axing at the Zoo. Museums and Zoo Open Tomorrow

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:04:08 GMT

Tian Tian chill-axing at the Zoo. Photo by Beth Py-Lieberman For everyone who hunkered down for Hurricane Sandy yesterday, it might be the animals at the Zoo who enjoyed it most. “For the most part all the animals were fine. It’s a cooler day and they like cooler days,” says animal keeper Juan Rodriguez. “Having a quiet day was good for them, they are so used to having noisy crowds around that they appreciated a day off.” As Washington, D.C. was shaking itself off this morning and getting a look around at the hurricane damage, animal keeper Juan Rodriguez, who incidentally didn’t get any chance to hunker down, was already at work. The Zoo weathered the s

Candy From Halloween’s Past

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:26:06 GMT

We love candy, to eat and to look at. Big Suckers, from the portfolio Seven Still Lifes and a Silver Landscape. Wayne Thiebaud, 1971. Courtesy of the American Art Museum. Here at the Smithsonian, we’ve got quite a sweet tooth. From Wayne Thiebaud’s fixation on all things sugar to astronaut candy, the collection is full of treats. So this Halloween, look back on the trick or treats that might have been and ahead to the sure-to-be glorious tradition of outer space candy collecting. NECCO Wafers, Hershey’s Kisses and Heath bars had been delighting mouths for years by the roaring twenties. But the decade proved to be a decadent one, with the introduction of the Milky Way

UPDATE: ALL Smithsonian Museums and the Zoo Remain Closed on Tuesday

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:16:13 GMT

Hurricane Sandy heads north. Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center UPDATE, Tuesday, October 30, 2012: Museums and the National Zoo remain closed, but Metro rail and bus service will open at 2 on a limited Sunday schedule. All museums and the National Zoo will open tomorrow on time on their regular schedules. UPDATE: The National Zoo has announced it will remain closed through Tuesday, October 30, due to conditions from hurricane Sandy. The Smithsonian museums also will remain closed in both Washington, D.C. and New York City. Metro rail has announced that all rail and bus service will be shut down also on Tuesday. UPDATE: The Smithsonian Institution has announced that all museums

PHOTOS: Baby Dama Gazelle Makes Her Debut

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 06:09:29 GMT

Two-weeks old and already strutting her stuff, the newest dama gazelle went on display for the first time Wednesday at the National Zoo. Born to mother Zafirah, the baby joins another youngin born September 4 to mother Fahima. The two were seen sprinting around the yard together in a playful frolic. In case you aren’t sure how adorable it is when baby gazelles run, we provided some priceless footage (above) of the older male baby bounding about in September. Looking good, baby dama. Photo by Gil Myers, courtesy of the National Zoo The new addition brings the herd to seven. Photo by Gil Myers, courtesy of the National Zoo She seems to be fitting in quite well. Photo by Gil M

To Grow an Orchid, It Takes a Village, . . . And Some Fungus

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:28:06 GMT

At the Smithsonian’s greenhouses, orchid expert Tom Mirenda tells tales about a few of the beauties growing there, including from left to right: Aliceara Pacific Nova—“A weird and twisted hybrid made from a combination of several orchid genera.” Brassidium Fangtastic Bob Henley—”Looks like it might bite you. But it is perfectly safe…unless you are a wasp. Brassias lure wasps to their blooms by mimicking the type of spider they parasitize. But this one is just faking ….and quite disappointing to the wasp who has to keep looking for a ‘real spider.’” Oncidiopsis Stefan Isler—”Orchid hybrids like this combine the best features of the

Sneak Peek at “FOOD: Transforming the American Table, 1950-2000″

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 06:05:39 GMT

The incredible changes in food production and consumption in the second half of the 20th century provide a proverbial feast for thought in the upcoming exhibit. Courtesy of the American History Museum You can thank the U.S. ballistic missile program for CorningWare’s ubiquitous, simple white dishes with the dainty blue blooms painted on like pressed wildflowers. “That’s a complete Space Age material,” says Cory Bernat, one of the curators on the American History Museum’s upcoming exhibit “Food: Transforming the American Table, 1950-2000.” Touring the space where the exhibit will open next month, Bernat points to the place where the CorningWare

Events October 26-28: Boo at the Zoo, Dinner and a Movie and Trunk Shows

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 03:07:36 GMT

Spooky fun for everyone at the Zoo. Courtesy of the National Zoo Friday, October 26: Boo at the Zoo Put on your cat ears and whiskers for a fun night of trick-or-treating among your critter friends at the Zoo. The grounds will be transformed into a spooky (not too spooky, don’t worry) wonderland and visitors will have special chances to meet with animal keepers and even some of their animals. Boo at the Zoo is one of the best Halloween events in all of D.C. and will be a sure draw for all the ballerinas, firefighters and superheroes wandering the streets Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Each kid will get a special tote bag to fill with goodies from 30 trick-or-treat stations. Fillin

Spotlight

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:30:00 GMT

Northern Exposure Ends January 2, 2013 The first recorded contact between Europeans and Inuit occurred in the 1570s, but explorers from Northern Europe had been visiting the American Arctic for centuries before then. The Inuit artist Abraham Anghik Ruben contrasts the lives of natives and newcomers in the 23 works of “Arctic Journeys/Ancient Memories: The Sculpture of Abraham Anghik Ruben,” at the American Indian Museum. His figures of stone, bronze and tusk incorporate both Norse and Inuit traditions and highlight a kinship between two cultures rooted in the rigors of the polar north. A District in Full Coming October 30 In the mid-1800s, before Washingt

Did the Pilgrims Really Land on Plymouth Rock and More Questisons From our Readers

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:30:00 GMT

Did the Pilgrims really land at Plymouth Rock? Slade Labadie Dixon, New Mexico It’s hard to be certain. According to oral tradition, the Mayflower Pilgrims landed near the landmark rock in 1620—but first-person accounts of their arrival make no mention of it. The legend is attributed to Thomas Faunce, an acquaintance of the earliest Pilgrims, who recalled hearing it as a boy. William L. Bird Curator, National Museum of American History Why do I see sea gulls in large parking lots miles from any water? Larry Seaver Plainfield, New Jersey Gulls often stop to rest (and forage for French fries) in parking lots when they’re migrating, usually in spring and fall. And while

What Does it Mean to be Seriously Amazing?

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:30:00 GMT

From oceans deep to Mars’ surface, from the age of dinosaurs to the age of plastics, from the art of the great masters to the art of video games, and from saving our nation’s historical treasures to rescuing endangered species—the Smithsonian does the unexpected. And we want as many people as possible to share in the excitement. So this fall, for the first time in our 166-year history, we’re launching a national advertising campaign to proclaim that if you thought you knew the Smithsonian—think again. While we’ve stayed true to our traditions, a spirit of renewal runs through the Smithsonian today, in our museums, research facilities, galleries and educ

Discussion

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:30:00 GMT

From the Editors Readers of the October issue grooved on “How Music Works,” by Talking Heads co-founder David Byrne. “The concept of Music of the Spheres has always rung true to me,” said Mark Nutting. “Is it not possible that it has influenced our genetic makeup?” Our story about CIA operative Douglas Groat, “The Code Thief,” elicited sympathy and criticism. “It is unbelievable that a person who risked his life for our country received such a ‘thank you,’ ” Robert O’Fisch says, while Shawn Wilson felt Groat’s actions after he left the agency were “criminal.” Henry Wiencek’s piece about T

PHOTOS: Stanley on the Move

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:25:19 GMT

After Stanley navigated through the desert in 2005 without a driver, the Mall was a piece of cake. Courtesy the Stanford Racing Team The robot car that made history in 2005 when it successfully completed a 132-mile driverless navigation test has made another momentous journey. This time, the car traveled roughly seven city blocks to move from the American History Museum to the Air and Space museum in preparation for the spring 2013 exhibit, “Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting From Here to There.” We covered the move in a previous post, but now we’re bringing you the latest photos from Stanley’s trip on the back of a flat bed truck early Wednesday

Sirius Satellite Comes to Udvar-Hazy

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 05:41:43 GMT

The satellite (shown in its display at Udvar-Hazy) was a backup for an innovate three-satellite system for Sirius satellite radio. Photo by Dane Penland No, Udvar-Hazy did not spring for a subscription to satellite radio and start listening to the all-Bruce Springsteen all-the-time station. It did, however, acquire a piece of communications history with the addition of a Sirius FM-4 broadcasting satellite. That the technology, first conceptualized in the 1980s and launched in 2000, is now a piece of history just indicates how rapidly the industry is evolving as satellite technology becomes a greater part of every day life each year. Satellite technologies only became a private enterp

Q&A: Joe Bataan, The King of Latin Soul

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 03:27:42 GMT

Dancing in the aisles at a recent Joe Bataan concert at the Smithsonian. All photos courtesy of Marie Antonette A. Ramos, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center Joe Bataan’s Band is slamming, delivering high energy salsa rhythms and soulful funk with a 1960s intensity and a new freshness. A few original members remain in the band but it is Bataan, the smooth, Afro-Filipino vocalist and keyboardist reared in Spanish Harlem, who drives the eclectic sound. At a recent performance at the National Museum of Natural History nearly 500 fans, mostly Asian, Black, and Latino—aging from millennial to middle age—clapped and danced in the aisles or their seats. Some waved album covers and san

Robot Car Stanley is on the Move

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:19:22 GMT

Stanford Racing Team’s robotic vehicle Stanley revolutionized driverless car technology. Courtesy Stanford Racing Team “It will not be enough for a car to have a strong body,” said Stanford University computer science professor Sebastian Thrun. “It will also need a strong mind.” With those words on May 18, 2005, the robotic, driverless car known as Stanley was introduced to the world. Stanley went on to make history when it won the 2005 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Grand Challenge and successfully navigated across 132 miles without a driver. Now Stanley will make yet another historic journey; traveling across the National Mall. As part of th

Scenes from After Hours at the Hirshhorn

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 05:20:08 GMT

The Hirshhorn hosted another successful After Hours party. Photo by Leah Binkovitz Despite the day of rain, the After Hours party at the Hirshhorn could not be stopped. Guests got in some late-night gallery wandering before heading to the courtyard for drinks, music and the world premier of Peter Glantz‘s memorable performance, The World. The film and theater director took the crowd on a magical journey, after first verifying that everyone in attendance was, indeed, in favor of fun. Crowds took in some late-night artwork in the galleries and sculpture garden before a live performance in the courtyard. Photo by Leah Binkovitz Drinks and DJs ushered people outside. Photo by Lea