Smithsonian.com

It’s 11:18 on a damp Thursday morning. A few women with umbrellas sip cups of coffee outside the doors of the National Portrait Gallery. It won’t open for another 12 minutes, but a crowd is gathering in the foyer.

They’re gawking at a portrait of one of the heroes of the 2008 Olympic Games, the eight-time gold medalist Michael Phelps. The chromogenic print went on display today after a two-year stint in storage, returning to public view when Phelps-mania hit the country this year.

The portrait is by Ryan McGinley, who photographed the entire 2004 United States Olympic swim team for the New York Times Magazine (see the portfolio here, and outtakes here). This picture of Phelps took the cover, as pictures of Phelps tend to do.

A plaque at the gallery’s entrance says that decisions about which portraits to include in the permanent collection depend on “the importance of the sitter’s impact on American history.” It takes a moment to get past the shock that Phelps—born in 1985—has already scored a spot. He seems so young and his accomplishments so recent for that kind of honor.

Phelps’ portrait certainly has legendary company. Across the hall, a self-portrait of novelist Kurt Vonnegut eyes the audience darkly. To Phelps’ immediate left, a picture of John Bradstreet, a major general in the 18th century British Army, blinks at the world. Far down the hall, portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr, Albert Einstein and Rachel Carson add to an atmosphere of grandeur.

Phelps undoubtedly belongs here; the moment when he accepted that historic eighth gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games was the picture that launched a thousand news stories.

But McGinley’s Phelps isn’t the be-Speedoed streak in the water the whole world has gawked at on primetime TV. This Phelps reaches through grainy blue waters for the light of the sun. He could be a kid, surfacing after his first jump into his backyard pool. The audience knows that the guy in the picture is Michael Phelps–the athletic miracle, the physiological conundrum–but at the moment of this portrait, Phelps himself doesn’t seem to know it. He’s not chatting up Jay Leno or fending off paparazzi.

McGinley captures Phelps as he was, and (in his private moments, anyway) might still be: just a guy, in the water.

Image from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. ©Ryan McGinley, courtesy of Team Gallery

Another warm Washington DC summer, another Made in Hong Kong Film Festival.

The Freer Gallery’s 13th annual celebration of Hong Kong includes Exodus, a satirical thriller, and Shaolin Soccer, a farce about – you might not infer this from the name – a martial arts master who battles the dark side with the aid of a team of soccer-playing monks.

I dropped by the festival to see As Tears Go By, a gang drama hopped up on eighties pop and familial piety. The heroes – who also happen to be villains – are a pair of gang “brothers.” The older one has been through fire and back, the younger one can’t stay out of trouble. The younger one, hard up for cash, starts a feud with another gang member. The older one keeps bailing out his kid bro. Jaw-snapping violence and unexpected humor ensue. If nothing else, the story proves that while money and violence have their own charisma, in the end the “family” is all about love.

Old school fans will especially like the romantic interlude set to a Cantonese rendition of “Take My Breath Away.” (Click here to see it on YouTube.) The 1988 film, not unlike Coppola’s The Godfather and Scorsese’s The Departed, features ambiguous heroes getting their tragic but well-deserved due. Director Wong Kar-wai is a Hong Kong cult favorite, and this film is one big reason.

What are some of your favorite gang movies? Let us know in the comments area.

The festival continues this Friday at 7 pm and Sunday at 2 pm with Triangle, a comedy by three different directors about a robbery that doesn’t go as planned.

Scene from “Triangle,” above. Image courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art.

Drinking tea is a serious business.

Observe Brazil, where sitting down with a gourdful of infused yerba mate is a cultural experience.

Or England, where the original Earl Grey (a real man!) alchemized a mix of Indian and Ceylon teas into his uniquely British eponymous brew.

With the age of serious tea drinking dawning in America — exotic blends from Twinings and Tazo are popping up in every coffee shop — I wondered how the genuine tea drinkers of the world got their start. For observing tea in a historical context, there are few better places than Japan: land of the rising sun, also, the land of sencha.

The Freer has tucked their exhibit on popular Japanese tea ceramics into a nook off Gallery 6, which means that those who find it might be pleasantly surprised. The feeling is perhaps like finding Narnia at the back of the wardrobe, if Narnia were a country where people had been drinking tea in ritual style for the past five centuries.

Chanoyu, the Japanese tea drinking ritual, evolved among the upper crust of society. Only the richest warriors, nobles and abbots could afford the expensive Chinese and Korean implements. But in the 19th century, a series of local Japanese kilns started manufacturing cups and bowls, and in the process, brought tea to the masses.

Yes, bowls. In 1800’s Japan, the good stuff was neither shaken nor stirred, but whisked. Powdered green tea was mixed with hot water and drunk from a bowl. Pieces of pickle made for a tasty garnish.

In those cups would be sencha, perhaps the most famous of Japanese green teas. Sencha was brewed from dried leaves in a ceramic pot. People drank sencha and coarser-leaved teas from cylindrical cups that had no handles. Members of a family each had their own teacup, which they used for years.

The exhibit has many of these heirloom cups on display. They’re signature items. One has dripping brown glaze scattered over the brim. Another, bumpy and rough, looks like it was outfitted in “snakeskin.” Yet another has thick ropes of brown glaze criss-crossing the surface and interior. I wonder if these cups reflect the personalities of their owners, who would have chosen them with an eye toward the coming years.

I have my own personal tea ritual, perhaps more prosaic than the Japanese one. I prefer black tea brewed with passion fruit pieces. It sounds fancy, but it comes from Starbucks. While I drink it, I scroll through the news online and wait for the caffeine to hit me. Then I toss the cup and get on with my day. It’s not much, and it’s hardly original, but it’s my moment to relax. So in a limited sense, I can identify with the Japanese tea drinkers of yore.

What’s more difficult to imagine is if future Smithsonian displays will feature used Starbucks cups, possibly as lovingly conserved as these Japanese relics?

Do you have a favorite teacup or a favorite brew? A tea ritual of your own? Tell us about it in the comments area below.

Photo courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution: Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1899.86.

In spite of months of maternal showboating, Mei Xiang will not be bearing a panda cub this year. Experts at the National Zoo speculate that she either experienced another pseudopregnancy or lost an early-stage fetus that failed to develop. Having kept close tabs on Mei since her artificial insemination last March, this news is a major letdown—especially since resident panda cub Tai Shan is currently set to remain at the Zoo through 2009 before returning to China.

A few words to you, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian: your adoring American public demands an overload of baby panda cuteness and you haven’t exactly been toeing the line. So for next year, if you need scented candles, slinky plus-sized lingerie, a well-stocked open seafood buffet—anything that might get y’all in the mood and facilitate a successful pregnancy, just say the word and we’ll make it yours.

And for those of you who remember our panda poll a few blog entries ago: 118 votes were cast, and 20% of you were right. Pat yourselves on the back—your cynicism about successfully breeding pandas in captivity prevails!

In spite of months of maternal showboating, Mei Xiang will not be bearing a panda cub this year. Experts at the National Zoo speculate that she either experienced another pseudopregnancy or lost an early-stage fetus that failed to develop. Having kept close tabs on Mei since her artificial insemination last March, this news is a major letdown—especially since resident panda cub Tai Shan is currently set to remain at the Zoo through 2009 before returning to China.

A few words to you, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian: your adoring American public demands an overload of baby panda cuteness and you haven’t exactly been toeing the line. So for next year, if you need scented candles, slinky plus-sized lingerie, a well-stocked open seafood buffet—anything that might get y’all in the mood and facilitate a successful pregnancy, just say the word and we’ll make it yours.

And for those of you who remember our panda poll a few blog entries ago: 118 votes were cast, and 20% of you were right. Pat yourselves on the back—your cynicism about successfully breeding pandas in captivity prevails!

Imitation may very well be the sincerest form of flattery, and this summer at the Smithsonian, eleven American personalities receive loving tributes. A tour of highlights from the National Portrait Gallery’s collections, Portraits Alive! is a series of short dramatic monologues researched, written and acted by high school students participating in a summer internship program. The performance pieces correlate to images currently on display and expand on the tiny biographical placards that typically accompany the artworks.

It was refreshing getting new perspectives on people I only knew in a certain capacity. (For example, I loved Dorothy Dandridge for her performances in films like Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess, but was previously unaware of her work with the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation to help the mentally retarded.)

But the most fun to be had is in seeing how each student was able to match his or her costume to the pictures on the wall and the mannerisms they adopt to convey these celebrities—such as Charlie Chaplin’s signature shuffle or Martha Graham’s distinctive dance moves.

So if you’re in town, come on down and show your support for an up and coming generation of dramatic artists (and enjoy some awesome works of art). Performances are held August 12-14 at 2:15 p.m., August 19-21 at 2:15 p.m. and August 22 at 1:00 p.m.

Courtesy of the National Zoo

We were born on July 17th at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo.

We’re usually born in sets of twins.

All members of our family take care of us (we’re on dad’s back here).

More than 178 of us have been born at the National Zoo – the last before us in May 2007.

We are endangered, and only 1,500 of us are left in the Atlantic coastal forest of Brazil.

In the wild, we eat fruits, insects and lizards. And hawks, cats and large snakes tend to eat us!

The National Zoo is working to reintroduce some of us into the wild.

Do you know what species we are?

Recent visitors to the United States Capitol might have noticed the frescoes. The building’s frescoes are like a sailor’s tattoos: each one tells a story. Take the famous Apotheosis of Washington, which dangles overhead in the Capitol rotunda and shows George Washington surrounded by Liberty, Victory, Science, War, and other allegorical figures. Or the naturalistic scenes that dot the Senate-side corridors.