Smithsonian articles from November 1995

Smithsonian archives from November 1995

Smithsonian perspectives: as the Institution grows in size and complexity, we are proceeding to decentralize and revitalize its parts.(Column)
November 1, 1995... The Regents recently adopted guidelines enlarging the role of commissions and boards associated with many of the Smithsonian Institution's museums and directed the other museums and research institutes to establish such boards. I write about this...

A Love Affair with Life and Smithsonian.
November 1, 1995... A new book from Smithsonian's founding editor recounts tales of writers and wars, photographers and Presidents, and the experiences of an extraordinary life in journalism This month the University of Missouri Press is publishing A Love Affair...

The object at hand.(tiger display at the Smithsonian Institution's World of Mammals Hall in the National Museum of Natural History)
November 1, 1995... The story behind the Smithsonian's display tiger leads back into tiger history, man-eating and otherwise, and sadly, back to the fact that tigers are now endangered Its "fearful symmetry" arrested in midair, a Royal Bengal tiger, 11 feet 1...

Risk: where do real dangers lie?
November 1, 1995... The first of a two-part series We have always had to assess the chances that bad things will happen; now, new tools give us hard numbers but also raise new questions The aftermath of the earthquake is frightening: fanned by strong winds from...

Now playing in academe: the king of rock 'n' roll.('In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Religion, Art, Performance' conference at the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture)
November 1, 1995... At the University of Mississippi, the first annual International Conference on Elvis Presley brought together fans and scholars "My mom doesn't understand Elvis at all," says Marjorie Wilkinson. "She thinks I'm otherwise sane." Wilkinson, 50,...

Congress couldn't have been this bad, or could it?(Congress in the first half of the 19th century)
November 1, 1995... If you think things are pretty messy on Capitol Hill today, just take a look at what was going on up there a century and a half ago When Charles Dickens visited the U.S. Congress in 1842, he found "some men of high character and great...

Bringing ancient ways to our farmers' fields.
November 1, 1995... From her research plots at Cornell, scientist Jane Mt. Pleasant wants to take agriculture back to its Native American roots--and into the future "That's Iroquois white-flour corn coming up," says Jane Mt. Pleasant, pointing to sprouts in her...

Time stands still in the harmonious world of Vermeer.(Johannes Vermeer, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)(Cover Story)
November 1, 1995... It's a must-see show at the National Gallery of Art; not since 1696 have so many of his paintings been brought together in one place In this age of the museum blockbuster, when we are inured to exhibitions demanding acres of walls and...

Harmonicas are ... hooty, wheezy, twangy and tooty.
November 1, 1995... They're from the Old Country, but there's nothing better for American music, from blues to honky-tonk--and the fans are blown away It's all the fault of "Peg o' My Heart." It must have been around 1947 or 48 when I first heard this amazing...

Sepulchral portraits reveal the way we were in ancient times.(excerpts from the book 'The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt' by Euphrosyne Doxiadis)(Illustration)
November 1, 1995... Two-thousand-year-old mummy paintings show neither gods nor heroes but the sophisticated men and women of the provinces of Roman Egypt At first glance the portraits seem not at all ancient, the work perhaps of an Impressionist artist; some...

The granddaddy of the nation's trails began in Mexico.(El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro)
November 1, 1995... The Camino Real, after languishing in the shadow of the Santa Fe, the Oregon and the California, is finally getting its due My wife, Christine, and I are standing in the middle of the Jornada del Muerto, or Journey of the Dead Man, a vast...

Pliny's world: all the facts - and then some.(Pliny the Elder)
November 1, 1995... In A.D. 77 a workaholic called Pliny the Elder published the first encyclopedia, Natural History. Headless people were among the many marvels My grandmother is afraid of snakes. There's nothing unusual about that, but Grandma's fear goes deep....

Smithsonian's notable books for children, 1995.(includes bibliography)(Bibliography)
November 1, 1995... One afternoon in Stockholm, during the winter of 1944, a 37-year-old housewife, about to become as famous as can be, sat in bed, propped up on pillows, writing away. Astrid Lindgren had slipped on an icy walk the day before and wanted to set...

Sure the piano-violin can do two things at once - but can it do them well?(humor)
November 1, 1995... One fall afternoon--red leaves, silver drizzle--a friend and I were given a tour of Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire. We learned many things: how the Shakers believed in a life of unceasing prayer, for instance, with prayer defined as...