Smithsonian articles from February 2002

Smithsonian archives from February 2002

Role Models : OUR WRITERS EXPLORE NEW WORLDS IN TIME AND SPACE.(Editorial)
February 1, 2002... Reporting our story about David Hockney's theory that old masters secretly used curved mirrors and lenses to help with their artistry ("Mirror Images," p. 76), Jennifer Carrell was invited to pose--on a Los Angeles soundstage--a la Flemish...

Barren Lands.
February 1, 2002... Barren Lands Kevin Krajick * Times Books, $26 Chuck Fipke, a Canadian Geolo-gist who is the central character of Kevin Krajick's nonfiction Barren Lands, certainly does not waste a lot of time trying to be liked. In this tale of his...

Sputnik: The Shock of the Century.
February 1, 2002... Sputnik: The Shock of the Century Paul Dickson * Walker & Company, $27 On october 4, 1957, the day leave It to Beaver premiered on American television, an event took place that so stunned the United States it would be exceeded in...

Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere.
February 1, 2002... Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere Jan Morris * Simon & Schuster, $23 Jan Morris is less a travel writer than a writer who travels, leaving glorious gusts of literature in her wake. She has written some 40 books, including celebrations...

Trouble in Paradise : THE IDYLLIC MEDITERRANEAN RETREAT OF CORSICA, WHERE SEASIDE VILLAGES AND RUGGED SCENERY BECKON, ALSO HARBORS HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS, BENT ON ACHIEVING THE ISLAND'S SECESSION FROM FRANCE.
February 1, 2002... "In Corsica," said the gas station attendant, "we give directions more often in terms of up and down than of left and right. If you want to see the country, go along the coast in either direction, and when you see the chance, go up." ...

Give the Devil his Due : Blame bugs Bunny and a Nasty yawn for the Tasmanian Devil's Bad rap.
February 1, 2002... "MURDEROUS AND MALEVOLENT," READS THE PROMOTIONAL material for a wildlife video, "with gore-encrusted faces, these slashed and disfigured undertakers terrorize Tasmania." Encyclopedias sketch a portrait of a vicious-looking beast, a cross...

Digging Ditches : NARROW, HUMBLE IRRIGATION DITCHES CALLED ACEQUIAS SUSTAIN AN ENDANGERED WAY OF LIFE--BUT FOR HOW LONG?
February 1, 2002... Ages ago as a college kid i was happily driving lost through northern New Mexico's high sierra landscape of dirt-road villages and pinon-juniper forests when I saw an old farmer lying facedown beside a narrow irrigation ditch. Unsure if I...

Prized Pachyderm.(artificial insemination of elephants in the United States)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Rachel Moreland was worried. the Smithsonian animal researcher had gone to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport one day nearly two years ago to pick up a sperm sample donated by an elephant in Ontario, Canada, but the package could...

A New Day Begun.(Smithsonian Institution. Anacostia Neighborhood Museum)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... A major face-lift has turned the Anacostia Museum into a muscular building with drum-shaped columns, textured brick patterns and movie- premiere-style lighting. Located four miles from the National Mall in southeast Washington, D.C., the...

Julia's Kitchen : . . . SINK AND ALL.(Julia Child)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Like many seniors downsizing to smaller quarters, Julia Child, 89, wondered what to do with a lifetime of possessions--especially those in her 14-by-20-foot kitchen. Like her famous poached fish, it was stuffed to the gills. "I'm fully...

Visit the Smithsonian.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... For a free Associates' planning packet, call Smithsonian Information, 202-357-2700 or 202-357-1729 (TTY), 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, or send an e-mail to info@si.edu. INFORMATION CENTER Upon...

Mirror Images : DAVID HOCKNEY'S BOLD THEORY THAT CARAVAGGIO, LEONARDO AND OTHERS USED LENSES TO CREATE THEIR MASTERPIECES HAS TURNED THE ART WORLD UPSIDE DOWN.
February 1, 2002... I am standing in a small, dark room with artist David Hockney. On a canvas in front of us floats the image of a toga-clad youth, his dark curls twined with fruit, his cherubic lips pursed in a sly smile, and his body soft with a grace that will...

Crisis at Central High.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Photographer will counts had just begun working for the Arkansas Democrat when Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus made a surprise televised announcement on the evening of Labor Day, September 2, 1957. In defiance of the federal government, Faubus...

Just Looking.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... The annual Venice Carnival, held in February, boasts a dizzying whirlwind of concerts, costume parades in Saint Mark's Square (captured by photographer Toni Anzenberger), masquerade balls and tours of the Grand Canal. For the occasion, writes...

To the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2002... BRAVE NEW WORLD This article should be read by anyone who ventures an opinion on the ethics and possibilities of gene therapy, cloning and stem cell research. Too much of the public debate on these issues reflects ignorance about the most...

Crackdown! WHEN BOMBS TERRORIZED AMERICA, THE ATTORNEY GENERAL LAUNCHED THE "PALMER RAIDS".
February 1, 2002... During the midnight hours of a placid June evening in 1919, homemade bombs shattered the silence across America. One explosion destroyed the home of Cleveland's mayor. Another damaged the house of a Massachusetts legislator. In Pittsburgh, two...

Virus Vanquisher : D. A. HENDERSON LED THE GLOBAL CAMPAIGN TO ERADICATE SMALLPOX; NOW HE'S WORKING AGAINST ITS RETURN.
February 1, 2002... At 3 p.m. on the sunday follow-ing September 11, the telephone rang in D. A. Henderson's spacious Baltimore home. It was the office of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson inviting him to a 7 p.m. meeting. "Fine,"...

Won't You Be My...? OUR PERIPATETIC PHOTOGRAPHERS FIND THE UNIVERSAL SYMBOL OF LOVE IN ALL THE FAR-FLUNG PLACES.
February 1, 2002... Milagro, Peru: Dragon's blood tree sap has magical healing powers. Havana, Cuba: Chalk one up to a free market in romance. Bluffwoods forest, Missouri: A heart truly made of stone. Voh, New Caledonia: Tides shape mangroves and...

Gods and Moguls : AFTER THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11, EVEN HISTORICAL FICTION TAKES ON NEW MEANING. JUST ASK TED TURNER.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Even standing nose-to-nose, Ted Turner addresses you as if you're in the next county. "It's a silly thing for young men and old men to kill each other," he trumpets, with his odd inflections. "You don't see many women doing it. They're too...

The Artful Dodger : LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHER ANSEL ADAMS, BORN 100 YEARS AGO, ALSO PUT ON A GREAT SHOW.
February 1, 2002... Ansel Adams is in his bathrobe, framed by the interior window of his bedroom loft. There is magic in a frame, as he knew better than most. A frame focuses attention on the elements within, setting them off from the rest of the universe. It...

Keepers of the Flames : from the secretary.(volcanism research)(Editorial)
February 1, 2002... You might expect a center for short-lived Phenomena to be preoccupied with pop stars and political agendas, but the enterprise of that name that existed at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1968 to 1975 had a properly scientific...

Piece-Making : WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSE?(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... For this department, a distinguished writer is asked to read the magazine's articles before publication and to comment or elaborate on them or take issue with them. I'm being paid more than a thousand dollars to write this piece. You might...

BOSS : THE NEW YORK CITY COURTHOUSE THAT CAUSED HIS DOWNFALL HAS BEEN RETURNED TO ITS FORMER GLORY, AND WILLIAM MARCY TWEED'S ODIOUS REPUTATION HAS LATELY BEEN REFURBISHED AS WELL.
February 1, 2002... When the official ceremony capping the restoration of New York City's historic Tweed Courthouse was held last December, the wily rascal who built it was back in the place he loved best--the spotlight. Although he never actually became mayor of...

Cheese Holes, Blobs and Woggles.(Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota)
February 1, 2002... FROM CADILLACS TO COFFEE TABLES, A NEW EXHIBITION EXPLORES THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIC FORMS ON POSTWAR AMERICAN ART AND DESIGN War was hell on women's fashions in the early 1940s. Hemmed in by government restrictions that limited the fabric a...

Any Bonds Today? WHEN UNCLE SAM PASSED THE HAT IN WORLD WAR II, AMERICANS CAME UP WITH $185 BILLION TO BUY U.S. BONDS.(war bonds)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Take a 700-pound pig, paint its toenails bright red and dangle silver bangles from its ears. Put that porker up for auction and what would it fetch? How about $19 million? By some reports that's what "King Neptune," the war bonds hog, made...