Smithsonian articles from August 2008

Smithsonian archives from August 2008

Challenges: to save a wall and understand killers' motives.(FROM THE EDITOR)(Editorial)
August 1, 2008... FORMER Newsweek foreign correspondent Brook Larmer lived in China for some seven years before moving to Bangkok in 2006, and he had crisscrossed the Great Wall on a number of occasions. "It's not just a structure but a living organism," he...

Darwin's predecessors.(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2008... My wedding ring contains five diamonds created in a laboratory["Diamonds on Demand"] by the chemical vapor deposition process, or CVD. Several jewelers have said the stones are flawless and have been surprised to learn they are man-made. When...

Team photography.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2008... HIS PHOTOGRAPHS are staged for a Hollywood effect ["Gregory Crewdson's Epic Effects"], which detracts from their beauty. But I am more concerned there are too many minds contributing to the end product. A Hollywood film needs a crew--but an art...

Carbon scrubbers.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2008... WALLACE BROECKER'S suggestion [Interview] that we need to build carbon scrubbers to minimize global warming is apocryphal. Carbon scrubbers have been around for millions of years. Most people call them "trees." Trees are cheap, natural and fix...

Lunar lost and found.(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2008... THE NEW MEXICO State University Lunar Legacy Web site incorrectly listed Apollo II astronaut Buzz Aldrin's spacesuit among the items left on the moon. The article "Space Race II" repeated this error. While life support systems, boots and other...

Wild things:.life as we know it.
August 1, 2008... Observed NAME: Arthroleptidae, a family of frogs living in sub-Saharan Africa. AT REST: These frogs have smooth and shiny hind feet. IN DISTRESS: They sprout claws from beneath the skin on their toes (above). UNDER SCRUTINY:...

Taking a stand: for 40 years, Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos have lived with the consequences of their fateful protest.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)
August 1, 2008... WHEN THE MEDALS were awarded for the men's 200-meter sprint at the 1968 Olympic Games, Life magazine photographer John Dominis was only about 20 feet away from the podium. "I didn't think it was a big news event," Dominis says. "I was expecting...

The soul man of modern dance.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(Blues Suite)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... WASHINGTON, D.C. On March 30, 1958, an ensemble of nine African-American dancers cobbled mostly from Broadway shows debuted a work at New York City's Young Men's Hebrew Association, a low-cost venue for up-and-coming artists. Choreographed by...

Kerouac slept here.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(Jack Kerouac, Cape Cod National Seashore)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... NESTLED AMONG the dunes of the Cape Cod National Seashore are 19 rustic huts that have neither running water nor electricity but are as sought after as any luxury beach property. Over the decades the mostly one-room shingled buildings, built in...

Dark matters.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(Cherry Springs State Park)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... COUDERSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA WITH ITS REMOTE mountaintop location, Cherry Springs State Park is a mecca for stargazers. In the north-central part of the state, it is a protected skywatching site, meaning white lights are prohibited. Its dark...

Playing fast and loose.(NOTABLE AMERICAN DESTINATIONS AND HAPPENINGS)(Led Kaapana)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... DRESSED IN A FLORAL SHIRT and black cowboy hat, Led Kaapana dazzles the audience at a slack-key guitar festival with fancy fretwork and improvised riffs. He delivers the sweet bell-like tones of a music genre that has gone from backyard luaus...

Mystery in Vietnam: the discovery of the saola alerted scientists to the strange diversity of Southeast Asia's threatened forests.(PHENOMENA)
August 1, 2008... LANDSLIDE HAS BLOCKED the cliff-hugging road into the Pu Mat National Park in northwestern Vietnam. To go farther, we must abandon our car and wade across a shallow river. My wife, Mutsumi, a photojournalist, and I roll up our jeans to the knee...

Paul Polak social entrepreneur, golden, Colorado: his new book advocates helping the world's poorest people one tool at a time.(INTERVIEW)(Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail)(Interview)
August 1, 2008... PAUL POLAK HAS BEEN HELPING people escape poverty in Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and elsewhere for 27 years In Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail, the 74-year-old former psychiatrist and founder of International Development...

August anniversaries: momentous or merely memorable.(THIS MONTH IN HISTORY)
August 1, 2008... 125 YEARS AGO "THERE IS ONLY ONE CHANEL" Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel is born August 19,1883, in Saumur, France. Orphaned as a child, she opens a hat shop in 1913. Her elegant and comfortable clothing designs--she introduces the "little black...

Keeping up.(FROM THE CASTLE)(Smithsonian Institution)
August 1, 2008... WE CAN EASILY UNDERSTAND the first part of Smithsonian benefactor James Smithson's mandate,"... the increase and diffusion of knowledge," as an imperative to do original research; less clear is the second part. In my online dictionary, the...

Photo find: with a Rolleiflex camera, a pioneering botanist documented his fieldwork--and created art.(FROM THE CASTLE)(Richard Evans Schultes)
August 1, 2008... RICHARD EVANS SCHULTES, an explorer and botanist, spent much of his career penetrating remote reaches of the Amazon, where shamans taught him the healing properties of plants often unknown to science. In his pursuit of natural pharmacopeia, he...

Jukebox.(FROM THE CASTLE)(Utah Phillips)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... DOGGED UNDERDOG U. Utah Phillips, who died May 23 at age 73, once described himself as a "ne'er-do-well, wino, tramp philosopher, typical family man, folk intellectual and conversation assassin." Phillips was widely revered for his witty blend...

All that glitters: Carol Channing can't forget the night her gown got ransomed.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
August 1, 2008... WHEN BROADWAY STAR CAROL CHANNING sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in the 1974 musical Lorelei, all that glittered was not what it seemed. Designer Bob Mackie created the show's eye-catching costumes, including a bejeweled dress for the...

Q&A.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)(Laurie Anderson)(Interview)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... LAURIE ANDERSON's career has ranged far and wide since she emerged in the 1970s as an avantgarde performance artist and scored a hit on the pop charts in 1980. Recently, Anderson gave a talk at the Smithsonian's Reynolds Center. She spoke with...

Making history.(rare horses)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... ROLE REVERSAL Animals are usually the "guinea pigs" for human medicine, but a recent case at Smithsonian's National Zoo worked the other way around. After inventing a procedure that reverses vasectomies and performing it on about 13,000...

Vintage voyagers.(What's Up)(chinese landscape painting)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Chinese landscape paintings such as this one on an 18th-century fan romanticized gentlemen travelers. Follow the "Guests of the Hills" opening August 23 at the Freer Gallery August 23.

Luxurious living.(What's Up)(watercolor painting and european architecture)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... "House Proud," at New York City's Cooper-Hewitt, presents watercolors (and furnishings like this French clock, below) that depict the lavish interiors of 19th-century European bourgeoisie homes. Opens August 12.

New faces in town.(What's Up)(Philip Alexius de Laszlo's works at the National Portrait Gallery)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... Through January 25, the National Portrait Gallery is showcasing recently acquired photographs, paintings and drawings, including this portrayal of Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg, painted by Philip Alexius de Laszlo in 1925.

The dirt on dirt.(What's Up)(Dig It! The Secrets of Soil)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... The Natural History Museum looks at a hidden world, that is home to myriad insects, bacteria, plants and fungi. The earth beneath your feet comes alive at "Dig It! The Secrets of Soil," through January 3,2010.

Dazzling physics.(What's Up)(Magnetic Movie)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... "Magnetic Movie" (right) uses striking animation to depict the wildly undulating magnetic fields that scientists create at a NASA lab. Playing at the Hirshhorn Museum from August 25 through December 14.

Up against the wall: a journalist's travels along China's 4,000-mile Great Wall reveal widespread deterioration despite the efforts of a few embattled preservationists.
August 1, 2008... THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA snakes along a ridge in front of me, its towers and ramparts creating a panorama that could have been lifted from a Ming dynasty scroll. I should be enjoying the view, but I'm focused instead on the feet of my guide, Sun...

Four political conventions that changed America.(PARTIES TO HISTORY)(Brief article)
August 1, 2008... NOWADAYS, the Republican and Democratic conventions to nominate a presidential candidate are little more than coronation ceremonies--carefully choreographed political theater in which the outcome is preordained. Every detail is accounted for,...

Return of the Rough Rider.(1912 * REPUBLICAN)(William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt)
August 1, 2008... WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT and Theodore Roosevelt had once been friends. But when the Republican Party met in Chicago to choose its presidential candidate in June 1912, the nomination battle between the two men was brutal, personal--and ultimately...

The South secedes again.(1948 * DEMOCRATIC)(Harry S. Truman)
August 1, 2008... THE DEMOCRATS CAME to Philadelphia on July 12, seventeen days after the republicansRepublicans, meeting in the same city, had nominated a dream ticket of two hugely popular governors: Thomas E. Dewey of New York for president and Earl Warren of...

Revolution from the right.(1964 * REPUBLICAN)(Republican National Convention)
August 1, 2008... THERE WERE ONLY THREE small elevators at the Mark Hopkins, the splendid old San Francisco hotel that served as headquarters for contenders Barry Goldwater and William Scranton during the 1964 Republican National Convention. The wait that hot...

The bosses strike back.(1968 * DEMOCRATIC)(Democratic National Convention)
August 1, 2008... AS DELEGATES ARRIVED in Chicago the last week of August 1968 for the 35th Democratic National Convention, they found that Mayor Richard J. Daley, second only to President Lyndon B. Johnson in political influence, had lined the avenues leading...

A passion for tomatoes: which is more nutritious, the commercial variety that goes into ketchup or the precious heirloom beloved by gourmets? Why has a Florida genetic engineer developed a tomato that tastes like wintergreen? Undeterred by this summer's salmonella scare, a culinary correspondent still has.
August 1, 2008... Nothing quite showcases the industrial bounty of California agriculture like a vast field of tomatoes baking in the August sun. A rich, dusky red emanates from beneath the curled, dying leaves. A nearly two-story-tall mechanical harvester run...

The beach: a new exhibition of oversized photographs by Richard Misrach invites viewers to have fun in the sun. Or does it?
August 1, 2008... YOU MIGHT THINK that Richard Misrach took the photographs on these pages while hovering over different beaches around the world. But he actually shot them all from the same high-rise hotel in Hawaii. Misrach, a 59-year-old fine arts...

Criminal minds: in 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy. An outraged nation cried for vengeance, but the famed attorney Clarence Darrow had a trick up his sleeve.
August 1, 2008... NATHAN LEOPOLD WAS IN A BAD mood. That evening, on November 10, 1923, he had agreed to drive with his friend and lover, Richard Loeb, from Chicago to the University of Michigan--a journey of six hours--to burglarize Loeb's former fraternity,...

Who Do You Love? Bo Diddley's beat changed the course of rock music. And his lyrics evoked a history that reached all the way to Africa.(TRIBUTE)
August 1, 2008... I HELPED BO DIDDLEY FIND A DRUMMER ONCE. It was in 1971. I was 19, reading underground comics one sleepy afternoon at Roach Ranch West, a spacious, hippie-stuff shop in Albuquerque, when a black man wearing a big black hat walked in and...

Growing up Gambino: confessions of an alleged Mafia princess.(THE LAST PAGE)(Gambino family)
August 1, 2008... WHEN IT COMES TO THE MAFIA, there are five infamous surnames: Lucchese, Colombo, Genovese, Bonanno and the best known--my own--Gambino. And that name inevitably provokes two words that I've heard more times than I can count, so I might as well...