Baby, it’s finally cool outside. And just in time for the return of Smithsonian’s hip Asia After Dark series at the Sackler Gallery and Haupt Garden from 7 to 11 P.M. this Friday night, September 28.

Take a curator-led tour of the gallery, or learn to make your own renewable-frame drum and play a few beats on it. Of course, some of us may need a little help finding a groove. Luckily, Chinatown’s Ping Pong Dim Sum will be there providing specialty cocktails to release your inhibitions. And DJ Spooky will be spinning a plethora of musical genres with a live string accompaniment against the backdrop of the black and white films of 1940s movie star Anna May Wong.

Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, is not afraid of words. Very much the Renaissance man, this DC native brings a literary bent to his sound, and has expanded his horizons beyond the turntable, into writing, lecturing and teaching. He shared his thoughts with me via email below:

As a child you were struck by the fact that the Public Enemy/Anthrax collaboration “Bring The Noise” “blew holes in the neat categories that kept this genre separate from that one.” Now you’re extremely liberal in your sampling of genres–do you look at this as a way to educate the listener, or are you simply pulling what sounds the best?

Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky. Photo by Tobin Poppenberg

We live in a non-linear world. News of an event gets remixed (edited clips of Romney—see what a remix can do to a campaign?!) collaged, and taken out of context, and the material from any part of the digital media landscape can be edited, transformed, spliced and diced. But that’s the point–that’s the way we live now. I loved the way that the last couple of years have made everything from footage from the Iraq War (remember those weapons of mass destruction?) on over to the way right wing types refuse to believe in climate change–everyone has their arsenal of facts and fictions. Let’s play! Museums are usually places that people go to get away and see art in an isolated context–I want to change that, and make the museum a place of irreverence towards the fact that the objects can now be copied. I’m first and foremost an artist, and I play off the idea of the way music is about impermanence and sampling, and collage play with memory. But first and foremost, it should all be about having a good experience. That’s what I go for when I sample material–visual or audio. Sample away!

You often cite literary influences on your work, like William S. Burroughs and Zora Neale Hurston. Are you trying to evoke more of an intellectual reaction, as opposed to a visceral one, from your listeners? 

Yeah, so many musicians think it’s all just about being cool, hanging out, etc. I grew up in DC and both my parents were professors. My dad was Dean of Howard University Law School, and my mother is a historian of design–she writes about the history of African American women designers. So I was always kind of into literature. I grew up near Dupont Circle, and went to bookstores like Kramer Books, and P Street Books, and now I love places like Busboys and Poets. So yeah, Dj’ing a good situation is like creating an essay of sounds.

So what are your guilty pop pleasures, then?

I really like the “Gangnam Style” video by PSY. Super cool!

You keep a very busy schedule, complete with DJ’ing, teaching, photography, lecturing and book projects—so what’s the next on your artistic horizon? 

This year, I’m the first artist-in-residence at The Met museum. The basic idea is to remix The Met and give a different emphasis on how performance and art are in dialog. I love doing projects like that! I’ll be artist in residence for a year, doing everything from remixing the collection to setting up art/music happenings.

As a DC native, what kind of place does Smithsonian hold in your heart?

Recently I took a studio to Antarctica to do a project about the sound of ice (global warming is a really, really, really loud sound). I made a book out of it, and called it The Book of Ice. But the first glimpses I had of these kinds of places was in museums like the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. That kind of place expanded my horizons and made me think about so many of the places that kids from places like DC never get a chance to check out. That plus watching the space shuttle launches on huge screens at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum was super cool!!!

What can we expect to hear from you during your set this Friday night? 

It’ll be a situation where I have a wonderful Korean ensemble (Danielle Cho and Jennifer Kim). It’s gonna be a wild scenario of the history of one of my favorite Asian-American film actresses, Anna May Wong, with hip hop, techno, dubstep, disco, and everything in between–all remixed, live with her films. She was super cool! We look at the history of Asian-American cinema, and build bridges between the different communities. It’ll be a fun, big blow out!

Asia After Dark: Asian Soundscape will take place this Friday, September 28 at the Sackler Gallery and Haupt Garden at 1050 Independence Ave. SW. Tickets are $25 in advance (online) or $30 at the door and include one free drink. 

Immerse yourself in the works that surround and submerge you at the Hirshhorn. Carlos Cruz-Diez, "Chromosaturation," 1965, refabricated 2010. ©2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Iwan Baan

The Hirshhorn Museum‘s new exhibition, “Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color and Space,” is something meant to be experienced. Installations by five Latin American artists whose participatory works tease the senses while incorporating the viewers’ own perceptions into the final experiences breach the theatrical fourth wall. The works literally draw you in and from within, a drama unfolds.

The international group of artists operated on parallel innovative paths, and even served as precursors, in some cases, to the Southern California-based Light and Space art movement of the late 1960s. Alma Ruiz from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, is serving as guest curator for show.

“For me, the most important aspect of the exhibition is to show how avant-garde these artists were at the time–how they conceived art in a different way.” said Ruiz. “It was a different dynamic between the audience and the artwork.”

The works are best experienced on a first-hand basis, just as the artists desired. “They wanted to actually make that space between the viewer and the object disappear,” said Ruiz. “They wanted people to really immerse themselves in the art.”

WARM…WARMER…DISCO:
Step into the ever-changing disco ball light show inside the mirrored cave of Argentinian Julio Le Parc’s 1962 Light in Movement (refabricated 2010) and it becomes easy to linger. The rotating mirrored panels send beautiful, ever-changing light across the interior of the installation. It’s like stargazing indoors and watching the universe slowly revolve around you.

SHAKE YOUR BOOTIES:
“It’s about the color saturations,” said Hirshhorn curator Valerie Fletcher, of the 1965 Chromosaturation by Venezuelan Carlos Cruz-Diez’s  (refabricated 2010). A visually intense experience, the blindingly white walls, ceilings and floors inside the structure provide a sharp counterpart for the striking florescent color grids of blue, magenta or green fixed to the ceilings. Help keep things clean and throw on a pair of the protective booties provided by the museum before entering this room.

Jesús Rafael Soto, "Blue Penetrable," ©2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Iwan Baan

THE BLUE FOREST:
Venezuelan Jesús Rafael Soto creates a sense of artistic whimsy with his 1969 Blue Penetrable BBL (refabricated 1999), as the viewer steps into a sea of hanging blue rubber strands–a virtual cerulean spaghetti forest. Like the brushes in a car wash, the rubber grabs at you and engulfs you as you make your way through. The best part? Looking up while standing in the middle and seeing only blue lines.

LAY DOWN, TUNE IN:
Need a place to take a nap? The very informal atmosphere of the early 1970s is recreated in the 1973 Cosmococa: Program in Progress, CC1 Trashiscapes (refrabricated 2010), by Brazilian Hélio Oiticica and collaborator Neville D’Almeida. Bedrolls are strewn throughout the dark room, and viewers are encouraged to chill out, relax, and listen to Jimi Hendrix while slide show imagery is projected onto the walls. You might want to bring your toothbrush and stay awhile.

UP IN THE AIR:
And don’t forget to look up while riding the escalator to the third floor of the Hirshhorn. Crane your neck and follow the white neon tube abstractly winding its way through space overhead. The ever-changing perspectives of Italian Argentinian Lucio Fontana’s 1951 Neon Structure for the IX Triennale of Milan (refabricated 2010) is like a three-dimensional diagram of an atom gone haywire.

“Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color and Space” will be at the Hirshhorn Museum through  May 13, 2012.

Juanita Velasco (Ixil Maya) grinds cacao beans into chocolate during the 2011 Power of Chocolate Festival. The Maya and Aztec peoples valued cacao pods as symbols of life, fertility and even currency. Photo: Katherine Fogden/NMAI

The National Museum of the American Indian’s annual “Power of Chocolate Festival” returns this weekend, February 11 and 12, longer and stronger, and with more cacao muscle. Participants will be able to create their own chocolate beverages old-school style, grinding up cacao seeds under the expert eye of Mars Chocolate’s Rodney Snyder. And Mitsitam Café’s Chef Hetzler will be there to discuss the use of chocolate in cooking both savory and sweet dishes.

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Catherine Kwik-Uribe, the director of research and development for Mars Botanical, a scientific division of Mars, Inc.,  works hard to give you all the more reason to eat chocolate, and she’ll be speaking about that on Saturday. Kwik-Uribe researches the different ways that cocoa flavanols–the specific mixture of phytonutrients found naturally in cocoa–can potentially maintain and improve cardiovascular health. Her favorite candy bar? Dove Dark, of course.

In honor of this weekend’s festival, Kwik-Uribe assisted me in coming up with some of our Top Ten Surprising Facts About Chocolate:

1. Americans eat almost half of the world’s yearly supply of chocolate.
2. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus gave the cocoa tree its scientific name , Theobroma cacao, which means “Food of the gods.”
3. All cocoa products contain theobromine, an alkaloid similar to caffeine but far less potent–we can trace chocolate use in Mesoamerica by the presence of theobromine in pottery.
4. Chocolate can be potentially fatal for dog, since canines are unable to break down and excrete the high amounts of fat and theobromine as efficiently as humans.
5. Mesoamerican peoples have been reported to have used cacao for over 34 centuries.
6. George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin all drank chocolate.
7. Amelia Earhart had a cup of chocolate during her record-setting flight over the Pacific from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland on January 11, 1935.
8. The world’s largest chocolate bunny was constructed by South African artist Harry Johnson in 2010, and was 12 feet, five inches tall and weighed in at more than three tons.
9. The Aztecs considered chocolate to be an aphrodisiac, and ruler Montezuma reportedly consumed 50 cups of the chocolate beverage, xocolatl, per day.
10. An average cocoa pod contains about 40 cocoa beans–it takes over 1,000 cocoa beans to make one kilogram of chocolate liquor, the key ingredient in milk and dark chocolates.

For the full schedule of chocolate-flavored events this weekend, click here.

Still from Ali Kazma's "O.K.," 2010, courtesy of C24 Gallery and Vehbi Koç Foundation, New York.

Step into the Hirshhorn’s Black Box theater and you’ll find Turkish video artist Ali Kazma’s “O.K” (2010) showing on seven small screens arranged across the wall. Looped and played in real time, each shows a different perspective of the hands of a notary public rapidly stamping piles and piles of paper with extreme expediency. The cacophony of sound and the repetition of imagery becomes more and more hypnotic the longer the viewer stays in the theater.

“I sought someone out who was really fast and had nice hands,” Kazma told Art in America this past September of his subject. That well-manicured, faceless worker smartly dressed in a slim-fitting gray suit becomes a highly efficient machine in “O.K.”–with no assistance from rubber-tipped fingers or the stationary equivalent of steroids. Just a man, his piles of paper and a stamper.

Still from Ali Kazma's "O.K.," 2010, courtesy of C24 Gallery and Vehbi Koç Foundation, New York.

“We, especially in the art world, are always talking about the idea that the world has moved on, that the world has become a superhighway of information, that it’s mobile.” Kazma continued. “But I wanted to remind us all that we still live in a world where such work as stamping papers exists.”

The blitzkrieg of rapid-fire sound and movement in a generic office setting immediately triggered my memories of the classic 1980s Federal Express commercials featuring motor-mouthed John Moschitta. And watching detailed images of people at work brought to mind Eadweard Muybridge’s early photo studies of human movement.

“The work is mesmerizing but also redolent of the caffeine-infused work-a-day tasks we all hope we accomplish as masterfully,” says Hirshhorn curator Barbara Gordon. “Kazma seems to ask us to slow down, to sit and take in, to appreciate and consider the process, and progress of as well, the so-called fruits of our labor.

“Black Box: Ali Kazma” will be on display at the Hirshhorn Museum until April 2012

"Superfudge" author Judy Blume. Photo by Sigrid Estrada

One of America’s most beloved authors, Judy Blume, will receive the John P. McGovern Award from the Smithsonian Associates in recognition of her contributions to the American family.

“Blume is a longtime champion of children’s education and advocate of intellectual freedom,” says Barbara Tuceling of the Smithsonian Associates. “She’s given a voice to young people coming of age that they may not have otherwise had, and she’s done so with honesty and great care for her young readers.”

Blume is best-known for her work in children’s and young adult fiction, with books such as Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, Blubber, Forever and Tiger Eyes. With identifiable characters that readers could relate to, she has unflinchingly and realistically dealt with coming-of-age issues like menstruation, bullying and teen sex. Her books have sold more than 80 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 31 languages. Now 73 years old, Judy Blume is currently at work on a young adult novel set in the 1950s. “I like the 12-and-under set,” she wrote in a recent email to me. “and also the adult voice. Yet here I am writing a long, complicated novel from various viewpoints, all of them teenagers in the ’50s.”

Following the presentation, Blume will reflect on her career and discuss today’s children and the challenges of the American family, as seen through the lens of her work, with NPR arts correspondent Lynn Neary. Be sure to check out my interview with Blume in the upcoming January 2012 issue.

Judy Blume and the Right to Read: Monday, November 28, from 7-9 p.m. at the Ripley Center. Tickets for members is $18, non-members $23.

The film, "Under Control," is showing tonight at the Hirshhorn. Photos courtesy of Volker Sattel

Brush up on your German, zip up your lead-lined pants and bring your NukAlert badge when you go check out the film Under Control [Unter Kontrolle] tonight, Tuesday, November 15, at 7:00 at the Hirshhorn Museum. This timely work explores both the design aesthetics and the behind-the-scenes of what really happens behind the scenes at nuclear reactors.

Filmed in the wide-screen Cinemascope, the camera moves deliberately over several locations, running the gamut from active nuclear plants, decommissioned reactors, training classes and radioactive waste storage facilities—even shooting over an open research reactor while the fuel rods were being changed. Kind of gives you a warm, glowing feeling, doesn’t it?

Hollow, echoing sounds reflect the underlying menace that’s present. Yet there’s an appeal to the clean lines of the sterile, industrial design and a retro Eastern European feel to the furniture and instrument panels that ironically control some of the most powerful forces on the planet.

Hirshhorn associate curator Kelly Gordon first saw the piece at the Berlin Film Festival this past February and came away impressed. “It is a mind-blowing study of the haunting elegance of the hardware of the industry,” she says. “The film meditates on the poetry of technology but also the echo of mass destruction.”

Control panel, a still from the film, "Under Control."

Director Volker Sattel, who will be on hand for tonight’s screening, came up with the idea for the piece in 2007 while in Vienna. He was visually inspired by the concentric construction of UNO-City, the 1970s-style high-rise headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Additionally, the men in dark suits and stylishly-dressed women there reminded him of the men-in-black portrayal of the secret service in American cinema.

Sattel actually grew up where nuclear reactor towers loomed on the horizon, in the German town of Speyer. He brings an objective and stylized eye to the German nuclear discussion.

“We encountered an industrial-scale technology that was both fascinating and creepy at the same time,” Volker told Berlin Art Link in April of 2011. “Looking at the long term, you can sense the enormous challenges and ludicrous efforts that this form of energy generation demands of human beings.”

Magician Harry Houdini / National Portrait Gallery, SI

Master magician Harry Houdini made a living wowing audiences and escaping from death-defying situations. But this day in 1926 the Great Houdini was unable to cheat death one more time and succumbed to peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix at age 52.

“Harry Houdini is famous for his incredible feats of magic,” says historian David C. Ward of the National Portrait Gallery, “all of which required meticulous planning and preparation.”

Born Erik Weisz to Jewish parents in Budapest, Hungary in 1874, Houdini’s family immigrated to Appleton, Wisconsin, when he was four years old. He adopted the “Harry Houdini” moniker in 1891 when he became a professional magician, in honor of French magician Jean Eugene Robert Houdin and American magician Harry Kellar.

Houdini started out with card tricks at small venues and progressed to escape acts on the vaudeville circuit, eventually earning the title of “The Handcuff King.” “For him,” illusionist David Blaine noted to The New York Times in October of last year, “sometimes the difficult thing was keeping the handcuffs on.”

As Houdini’s stature as a performer increased, he had to up the ante with new stunts to please spectators. “I knew, as everyone knows,” wrote Houdini, “that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death.”

Houdini performing the Chinese Water Torture Cell. Image courtesy Library of Congress

Houdini escaped from a wide variety of objects, including items suggested by his audience: straitjackets, boilers, wet sheets, milk jugs and supposedly even the belly of a preserved “1,600-pound sea monster” that had washed ashore in Boston.

His 1912 underwater box escape in New York’s East River was proclaimed by Scientific American magazine as “one of the most remarkable tricks ever performed.” And Houdini continued his string of legendary stunts, debuting his legendary Chinese Water Torture Cell later that year. In it he was suspended upside-down in a locked glass and steel cabinet overflowing with water.

“Amidst the sensation,” says Ward, “what is not as well known, however, is that Houdini also spent much of his career debunking and exposing charlatans and con-men who used aspects of magic, especially séances with the dead, to dupe a credulous public. Spiritualism had an upsurge after World War I as populations that had suffered horrendous loses sought ways of coping. But Houdini dismissed claims of the supernatural as so much quackery that cruelly played on the hopes of those who had lost loved ones.”

But how did he finally die? Houdini apparently had been suffering from appendicitis for weeks before his death on Halloween of 1926, but hadn’t sought out treatment. Things came to a head after an October 20 performance at the Princess Theater in Montreal. According to eyewitnesses, Houdini was laying on a couch having his portrait sketched by a student when Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead, a McGill University student, entered the room. Whitehead asked to test Houdini’s claim to be able to absorb any blow to the body above the waist without injury.

Upon Houdini’s supposed approval, Whitehead delivered multiple blows to Houdini’s stomach, reportedly hitting him three times before the magician was able to tighten his stomach muscles to protect himself sufficiently.

It’s likely Houdini’s appendix would have burst on its own without striking. Houdini still continued to travel while in severe pain, and arrived in Detroit on October 24, 1926 for what would be his final performance. He took the stage at Garrick Theater even with a fever of 104 and a diagnosis of acute appendicitis. When Houdini had surgery to remove his appendix later that afternoon, doctors discovered it had ruptured and that he was suffering from peritonitis. Houdini died of peritonitis seven days later October 31 at age 52.

“Houdini’s death was ironic and tragic in equal measure, ” says Ward. “His escape artistry required him to be in incredible physical condition, able to endure small spaces in a twisted pose and capable of wriggling free from straitjackets, chains and other ingenious restraints. His body was battered and bruised both by the acts themselves and all the training.”

More than 80 years later, Houdini still captures imaginations. “I am so amazed that even though Houdini died in 1926…the world is still baffled and mystified by him,” Dorothy Dietrich wrote on the Harry Houdini Museum website. Dietrich, who is a leading female magician and a board member for the museum says, “He instills a feeling of wonder to everyone just by mentioning Houdini’s name. Poof!”

Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison sparked the project. Brooklyn Museum, Promised gift of Michael Sloane ©2007 Timothy Greenfield-Sanders/NPG, SI

Toni Morrison’s gaze in a large-format portrait seems to stare knowingly at you when you enter the new multimedia exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Opening today, The Black List: Photographs by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders features 50 portraits of prominent African Americans from different fields ranging from entertainment to medicine to politics. For photographer Greenfield-Sanders, his collaborator, film critic and radio host Elvis Mitchell, and executive producer Tommy Walker, the term “blacklist” becomes a badge of honor.

“We were fortunate to be able to have a project that could deliver a message that pulled us away from stories and films that were about victimization [to ones that were] more about success,” said Walker.

It’s only fitting that Morrison’s portrait is the first viewers see, since her 2006 conversation with Greenfield-Sanders provided the initial creative spark for the project. And her participation in the project gave credibility to it as far as other celebrities’ participation. “It’s easier to make the call and say ‘We just interviewed Toni Morrison, would you like to be in this film,’” said Greenfield-Sanders.

The process began on a napkin. Greenfield-Sanders and Mitchell scrawled on it a veritable who’s who list of the African American world. Twenty-five subjects were selected for The Black List: Volume One; Greenfield-Sanders shot the portraits and directed the film while Mitchell interviewed the subjects. Eventually two more volumes were produced, and this exhibition is the first time that all 50 images from all three volumes are being shown together. “It’s a very special moment for me,” revealed Greenfield-Sanders.

The crisp, clean large format portraits are elegantly shot using one light source and a gray backdrop. The five-foot by four-foot prints are pasted into simple white frames with no matting, yet the large-format of the images gives them an element of grandeur and reflects the dignity and importance of the subjects.

In the video portion, subjects share bits of wisdom or anecdotes from life with Elvis Mitchell. Interviews can be lively or compelling, and the visual style is the same as Greenfield-Sanders’ portraits. “You always think when you look at Timothy’s pictures, ‘what are they thinking, what should they be saying,’ and this time they’re actually saying it,” noted Mitchell in HBO’s Making of The Black List documentary.

Greenfield-Sanders masterfully captures the character and style of his subjects in his portraits, whether it be the intensity in the expression of hip hop artist and mogul P. Diddy or the Asian elements reflected in the pose of hip hop producer RZA. “If you let people do what’s natural to them, I think that’s the best approach for a portrait,” said Greenfield-Sanders. “For me it always has been.”

View more photos from the exhibit.

The Black List: Photographs by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders will be at the National Portrait Gallery until April 22, 2012.

Film still from 55 Days at Peking (1963). Courtesy of Freer/Sackler Gallery, SI.

There’s a wonderful little nip in the air that’s invaded the Metro area, and finally taken the edge off that dreadful humidity that had been lingering like in-laws that just won’t take the hint to leave. It’s the perfect time for you and that special someone to go out for the evening and kick up your heels, or get out to learn something.  And wouldn’t you know it, the Smithsonian museums have a full slate of varied evening events scheduled for pretty much every night this month. We’ve selected an uneven eleven, because that’s just how we roll.

1. See a film: If you’re a fan of Asian cinema, Friday nights at 7:00 at the Freer Gallery this October could be your bag, baby. The ambitious Boxer Rebellion tale, 55 Days at Peking, featuring Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner, is playing October 7. You can check out Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, the aptly-titled film about Puyi, the last emperor of China on October 14. And in Rebels of the Neon God, October 21, a street hood gets a overly zealous student admirer.

2. Gaze into the starry, starry night: Get all romantic and hold hands with that special someone while you do some stargazing at the museum’s Public Observatory at the Air and Space Museum. No excuses, guys. You’ve got three dates to chose from—October 8, 21 or 22.

3. Get your dose of intellectual: Share an art outing Wednesday, October 12 at 7:00 and head over to the Smithsonian American Art Museum for figurative painter and portraitist Elizabeth Peyton’s lecture on the creative experience. Peyton is best known for her smaller-scale paintings of stylized, elongated, androgynous figures.

4. Play ball: True, the Nationals didn’t make the playoffs, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to stop loving baseball. The authors of Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress will be on hand for signing and discussion at the National Portrait Gallery Wednesday, October 12 at 6:00 7:00. The book uses the Library of Congress’ vast trove of baseball goodies to cover over two centuries of baseball history.

5. Expand your music horizons: Go hear the performance of American composer Daron Hagen’s new concerto for Japanese koto and string quartet Thursday, October 13 at the Freer Gallery. The piece is based on the eleventh-century work of Japanese literature, Tale of Genji, and the soloist Yumi Kurosawa has appeared at Carnegie Hall.

6. Go the sophisticated route: Take your date to After Hours at the Hirshhorn for modern art, cocktails and live music October 14 at 8:00. Tickets are $25 in advance, and the event usually sells out!

7. Chase storms like the pros do: Head over to the IMAX Theater at the Natural History Museum October 20 at 7:00 to catch Tornado Alley 3-D. Director Sean Casey, along with featured scientists Josh Wurman and Karen Kosiba, will be on hand to answer questions like, “Why the heck do you go outside while there’s a gigantic tornado going on?” Tickets are $10 for members, $13 for general admission.

8. Do the locomotion: Receive a history lesson in cinematic form, courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. American Experience: Transcontinental Railroad covers the six-year construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, in all its laborious glory Thursday, October 20 at 6:30.

9. Be a problem solver: Head over to the Anacostia Museum Thursday, October 20 for the lecture and book signing The Heart of the Race Problem: The Life of Kelly Miller. Author Ida E. Jones will be discussing the accomplishments of Miller, the first African American admitted to Johns Hopkins University in 1887. Miller, who pursued a doctorate in mathematics, physics and astronomy, later became interested in improving relationships between the races.

10. Go trick or treating: Have kids, or just want to remember the good old days of trick-or-treating? Head over to Boo at the Zoo at the National Zoo on either October 21, 22 or 23 at 5:30. Throw a costume on your child, or don one yourself and enjoy wildlife and treats. Tickets are $20 for FONZ members, $30 for non-FONZ members.

11. Take flight: If you and your special someone happen to dig airpower, check out the lecture over at Lockheed Martin IMAX Theatre by Captain Rosemary Bryant Mariner October 27 at 8:00. Mariner was one of the first eight women to enter military pilot training back in 1973, and was the first woman to fly a front-line attack aircraft.

Update 10/12/2011: The baseball event this evening takes place at 6 and not 7 p.m., sorry for the inconvenience.

Former Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart on the drum kit. Courtesy Smithsonian Folkways

Mickey Hart, the former percussionist for the legendary San Francisco jam band Grateful Dead has never met a world beat he didn’t like. And that’s reflected in the new Smithsonian Folkways world music series that he’s curating, “The Mickey Hart Collection,” that will be released October 11.

Comprised of 25 albums, the series includes music from regions that span the globe, including Sudan, Nigeria, Tibet, Indonesia, Latvia and Brazil. Listen to the albums in this series and no doubt you’ll come away having heard genres and instruments you’ve never heard before, like the ngoma, oud, bouzouki, darabukka, or the dungchen. The album series includes Hart’s solo projects, plus other artists’ productions, as well as re-releases of out-of-print titles.

But how did the drummer for a counter-culture jam band become entranced with rhythms from around the globe? It turns out he’s been worldly for some time. “I was entranced as a young boy by the rhythms of West Africa by way of Cuba, Haiti,” Hart told Smithsonian Folkways in a recent interview. “They all were the rhythms that spawned the music of American music, because they were everywhere and you could dance to them. They were polyrhythmic. They were dance music. And I loved the music that made you dance.”

While living in the Bay Area during the late 1960s, Hart recorded exotic musicians like sitarist Ravi Shankar and sarodist Ali Akbar Khan. Though the musicians weren’t household names in the United States at the time, Hart respected their virtuosity.

“I treated each recording as if it would sell a million copies,” Hart recalled to Smithsonian Folkways. “I always recorded it at the highest resolution and had it mastered at the same place I was mastering Grateful Dead material.”

Listen to audio samples from “The Mickey Hart Collection.”

Ubaldo Vitali's Tureen for "Risotto alla Pescatore" (2001). Image: Gift of the James Renwick Alliance/Smithsonian American Art Museum

Each year the MacArthur Foundation embraces “genius” in many forms, providing a $500,000 no-strings-attached five-year fellowship to select individuals that show an innate creativity in their respective fields. Plus, of course, the potential for more of that creativity in the future.

Proudly, one of this year’s recipients has a Smithsonian connection. Silversmith Ubaldo Vitali, age 67, was one of four artists featured in the recent Renwick Gallery exhibition History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational (March 25 – July 31, 2011).

Vitali fuses old-world style craftsmanship with modern design. I spoke with him this past spring and he told me that silver was in his blood, and that it “always kept pulling me back.” The Italian-born and trained, Vitali came up in the old-school guild system in Rome, later emigrating to New Jersey in the late 1960s. And he maintains those roots, still a member of a Roman goldsmith’s guild. In fact, he’s the only member allowed to reside outside of Rome. Read the full interview.

Congratulations Ubaldo Vitali!

Still from "67 Bows" (2006) by Nira Pereg. Courtesy of the artist.

If flamingos were able to watch the new Hirshhorn “Black Box: Nira Pereg” presentation of the looped video 67 Bows (2006), no doubt they’d warn each other about Israeli digital artist Nira Pereg. In her video, she explores herd response theory when she appears to disrupt the serenity of a German zoo’s flamingo community with the repeated cocking and firing of a gun.

But all is not what it seems.

67 Bows was filmed during a snowstorm over Christmas in a nearly empty Karlsruhe Zoo. Though Pereg had initially desired to shoot a portrait of a flamingo, her project expanded into a study of group behavior utilizing the indoor colony of social birds.

“While visiting and studying the flamingo exhibit, [she] realized when visitors put their hands up, if one bird ducked, they all started to,” explained Hirshhorn curator Kelly Gordon. “This behavior inspired how this work was filmed and “scored.”” After shooting video of the flamingos being flamingos, making flamingo sounds, and then nodding and ducking in unison, the “score” was added.

The “score” in this case, being the repeated threatening sounds of a gun being cocked and then fired that break the silence and appear to shock the pink feathered video stars. Pereg synched her “score” with the pre-existing ducking “choreography” of the flamingos, making it appear as if they were reacting to the gunshots.

The timing of the gun soundtrack provides the illusion that the flamingos are actually responding to the sounds–and doing so in a Pavlovian manner. Initially, they only appear to duck when a shot is fired; however, eventually they cower at the sound of the cocking of the weapon and don’t even wait for the sound of the blast. The sight of flamingos bobbing their heads in unison almost in rhythm with the gun blasts is almost hypnotic. View a clip of the piece here.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1969, Pereg was raised in an environment where the threat of  terrorism loomed daily. So was this piece designed to see if a potential threat affects individuals in a community the same way? “I was trying to make them [the flamingos] do a certain move in order to see the ones who don’t move,” Pereg said in a July 2010 Artis Video Series interview. “So 67 Bows is a lot about the ones who don’t bow.”

BK Adams' “Blue Horse,” 2009, (foil, acrylic paint), Photo courtesy of John Woo/Anacostia Community Museum, SI

A Jackson Pollock-esque spatter seems to follow Washington, D.C.-based artist BK Adams wherever he goes, whether it be on his pants, his hands or his canvas. Yet the often be-goggled Adams maintains a sartorial splendor, resembling a friendlier, more dapper version of MMA fighter Kimbo Slice. Locally, BK’s image has become semi-iconic, and you can find stickers bearing his likeness plastered around the area.

Adams’ brightly-colored works fill the Anacostia Community Museum‘s main gallery in the bold “Exercise Your Mynd—BK Adams I Am Art” exhibition that opened yesterday and runs through November 27. He operates in a variety of mediums, from sculpture to painting, and frequently incorporates found objects into his work. Stylistically, he ranges from the figurative to the abstract. Certain ideas that are important to Adams, such as family and traveling the world, pop up repeatedly in his works, as do certain design motifs including bicycles and airplanes.

The soft-spoken yet enthusiastic Adams finds inspiration in life’s little things and encourages creativity in himself and others through his “100% mynd use” mantra. ”I’m into details,” says Adams with a slight drawl. “I’m into making a small detail big and living it big. Celebrating a small thing like a small moment. Those are the things that turn my world.”

BK Adams's likeness appears locally. Photo: Flickr user romana klee

This exhibition is the first of three series that spotlight the creative forces of Washington, D.C. locals living east of the Anacostia River, home of the museum. ”When we first found out about his work we were just completely blown away,” said Anacostia Community Museum curator Portia James. “Once we found out we had a person doing this kind of work living right in the community we knew that we had to try to present his work to the public.”

But museum galleries aren’t the only places to view BK Adams creations. He’s been unexpectedly placing pieces in public spaces for some time. Adams installed his first work in a public space in 2009 when he and collaborator Steven M. Cummings built a towering chair sculpture in an abandoned lot full of junk on the corner of 3rd and H Streets in Northeast, D.C. The reaction of the public to his work is important to Adams. “It’s like if all of a sudden you see a roller coaster,” he says, “and it’s like, ‘Where that roller coaster come from?!’”

Though BK Adams hails from the nation’s capital, he’s a worldly individual, a man on the move, and he left me with the following thoughts: “I’m a traveler, man. I was born and raised in Washington, DC. I left one way a thousand times or more. So D.C. has a hold of me. But I’m ready to go.”

“Exercise Your Mynd—BK Adams I Am Art” will be at the Anacostia Community Museum from August 22-November 27, 2011. There is free weekend round trip shuttle service from the National Mall to the museum through September 5. You can find the schedule here.

Portrait of Non-Native Man, James Butler Hickok, Known As "Wild Bill Hickok," Cavalry Scout and Showman, with Knife And Two Rifles 1867. Courtesy of National Anthropological Archives, SI

Always sit with your back to the wall. Always. And especially in the American Old West. Had Wild Bill Hickok, the legendary gunfighter, Army scout, lawman and avid gambler not violated this cardinal rule in order to snag the last remaining spot at a poker game in a Deadwood saloon, I wouldn’t be writing this post today.

James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok (1837-1876) was the archetypical Wild West character. At six-feet tall, draped in buckskins and with long, flowing hair, blue-gray eyes and a straw-colored moustache, Hickok cut a striking figure.

And his weapon of choice? More than one, actually. He carried a pair of ivory-handled .36 caliber Colt 1851 Navy Revolvers in an open-top, dual-holstered rig. Hong Kong film director John Woo would have been proud. (See one of his guns on display in the new American Art Museum exhibition, “The Great American Hall of Wonders.”)

Though Hollywood has created an highly idealized version of the iconic Old West quick-draw gun duel, Wild Bill’s infamous deathblow to Dave Tutt on July 21, 1865, in Springfield, Missouri, is likely the first duel that comes closest to Tinseltown standards.

Tutt, a Confederate-turned-Union soldier—and a good shot himself—confronted Hickok in the town square from approximately 75 yards away. Tutt drew first. The two gunmen fired at nearly the same time, with Tutt’s shot straying while Hickok’s found its mark.

Though Hickok bragged about the number of men he had killed (hundreds), he likely exaggerated (six, maybe seven). But his expert marksmanship needed no embellishing. In a February 1867 interview, Harper’s Monthly writer Colonel George Ward Nichols recounts how Hickok drew a letter ‘O’ on a sign-board against a wall, “no bigger than a man’s heart,” wrote Nichols.  And then from 50 yards away without even “sighting the pistol,” Hickok fired six shots from his Colt revolver into the center.

“Hickok typified the era of the man-killer or shootist, better known today as the gunfighter–a term in use as early as 1874 but not popularized until post-1900,” wrote Joseph G. Rosa, the gunman’s biographer in the June 2006 issue of Wild West magazine.

So here’s what went down 135 years ago today. Wild Bill was playing poker at Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood in the Dakota Territory. Though he usually sat with his back to the wall, Hickok was forced to take the only seat available and no one would switch seats with him.

John “Crooked Nose Jack” McCall was able to get the drop on him.

Wild Bill Hickok's present-day gravesite in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, SD. Courtesy Flickr user Travis S.

McCall strode into the saloon, drew his pistol and shouted, “take that” and fired a a bullet into Wild Bill’s head, killing him instantly.

Hickok was holding a black pair of aces and a black pair of eights, which eventually became known as the “dead man’s hand.” Some claim the assassination may have been a paid hit; however, McCall later said that Wild Bill had killed his brother several years earlier.

McCall was arrested and brought to trial, but was acquitted by a jury of miners. After bragging about killing Hickok following his release, McCall was re-arrested, tried again, found guilty, and then hanged. Double jeopardy, you ask? Not applicable in this case, Deadwood was not a state and was located in Indian country. One final victory for Wild Bill.

The Barakaat Middle Eastern Dance Company. Photo by Stereo Vision Photography/Stereovisionphotography.com

Looking to infuse your nightlife with a little culture? Then maybe it’s time to get your Asia After Dark on this Thursday evening, July 28, at the Freer and Sackler Galleries. The “One Thousand and One Nights”-themed event kicks off at 6:30 p.m. and features Arab beats courtesy of DJ Turbo Tabla and a belly dancing performance by the Barakaat Middle Eastern Dance Company. Cocktails and finger foods will be provided available for purchase, and each guest gets one free drink with his or her ticket. Themed attire is encouraged, naturally.

But let’s get back to the belly dancing, shall we? As a newbie to this graceful, flowing genre, this was the perfect chance for me to uncover the meanings behind those mysterious hand gestures the dancers make, as well as find out if dancing really does work the abs. I caught up with Mariza, a seven-year belly dance veteran and one of the members of the six-person Barakaat Middle Eastern Dance Company, via email below:

Why were you initially interested in belly dancing?

I’ve always loved dance and took classes here and there as a kid, but as a very tall kid I always felt like the lumbering giant in the back. Belly dance does not require a certain body type, nor does it require that you begin training at the age of three. So as a very tall adult I was glad to finally find a place where I could enjoy dance movement without feeling too weird.

What style of belly dancing do you practice, and what makes your style distinctive?

I have trained in Egyptian Cabaret, Tribal Fusion and Oriental style belly dance. My style is a conglomeration of everything I’ve learned plus things I make up and other stuff I see on America’s Best Dance Crew.

Are there levels of certification, like belts in karate?

There is no generally accepted certification or credential system in belly dance. Some individuals have taken it upon themselves to create certification programs but these are particular to that individual and their philosophy. The vast majority of belly dancers do not possess any certification, and it is far from required.

Mariza strikes a pose. Photo by Stereo Vision Photography/Stereovisionphotography.com

Are there specific meanings attributed to the body motions and movements?

Dancers will at times make gestures, such as pointing to their heart, but belly dance movements themselves are not imbued with any particular meaning.

What are some popular misconceptions about belly dancing?

One common misconception is that belly dance is inappropriate for certain audiences. Belly dance is fun for the whole family. Kids in particular love the joyful nature of the dance and often get up and try to dance along. Another is that the dance is derived from some mystical fertility dance. Belly dance as it is today arose out of the social dances of the Middle East, which were then stylized for the stage.

What’s your favorite dance move, and why?

“The Shopping Cart” because it’s awesome.

What do you find the most challenging about belly dancing in general?

A lot of the movements require you to isolate the lower abs and obliques, muscles that we don’t consciously use in our day-to-day life. It can be difficult, particularly at first, to access these muscles. After their first belly dance class, many people comment that they can feel muscles they never knew they had!

Do you think belly dancing offers benefits that other types of dancing don’t?

Belly dance offers the same benefits as other types of dance—a great way to get moving and increase strength and flexibility. Belly dance is also a very accessible, low-impact form of dance. Dancers are often very grounded and movements are usually within the body column so it is not as stressful on the joints as other dance forms. Plus, in any city of decent size, there is often a friendly, supportive dance community.

And are you limited in the type of music that you dance to?

Dancers who choose to perform a very specific folkloric style of dance would be limited to the culturally appropriate music for that dance, but many belly dancers–particularly American belly dancers–dance to a variety of music, including Middle Eastern traditional music or pop music, Western pop and rock or the Muppets’ “Mahna Mahna.”

What kind of dances should the audience expect to see at Asia After Dark?

Barakaat has prepared a modern sword fusion piece; we’ll also be improvising with drummer/DJ Turbo Tabla. It’s going to be a great night!

Asia After Dark takes place this Thursday, July 28, from 6:30-10:30pm, at the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Tickets are $22 in advance and $25 at the door. Purchase them here.