Pianist Sarah Fridrich performs this weekend at Luce Unplugged. Photo by Isabelle Carbonelle.

Friday, January 4: Meet Joseph Henry

Climb aboard our history time capsule and have a chat with the Smithsonian first secretary, a well-turned-out gent, who walked the halls of the red brick Castle during the Civil War and ran the Institution from 1846 to 1878. Reenactors portray professor Joseph Henry (1797-1878), a man great intellect whose foresight and vision defined the Smithsonian and his words ring true even today. “There is poetry in science and the cultivation of the imagination,” he once wrote, “is an essential prerequisite to the successful investigation of nature.” Hang out with Henry most Fridays and Saturdays 10:30 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m., and 3:30 p.m. National Museum of American History

Saturday, January 5: Maya Weaving Demonstration with Juanita Velasco

See something done right. Mayan weaver Juanita Velasco, who is fluent in the Ixil language spoken in Santa Maria Nebaj, Guatemala, shows you an unusual way to weave, demonstrating the traditional backstrap weaving techniques of her people. 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. National Museum of the American Indian

Sunday, January 6: Luce Unplugged with Sarah Fridrich

An acoustic concert series, Luce Unplugged invites local musicians to perform. First take a tour with a museum staffer and then enjoy free coffee or tea and enjoy the music of . singer, song-writer and pianist Sarah Fridrich and drummer Kirk Kubicek. Their indie-pop, jazz influenced sound is reminiscent of Regina Spektor and Fiona Apple but with a sound completely their own. Talk at 1:30 p.m., music at 2 p.m Smithsonian American Art Museum

And if you happen to have a herd of family members curious to explore all the Smithsonian has to offer, just download our specially created Visitors Guide App. Get the most out of your trip to Washington, D.C. and the National Mall with this selection of custom-built tours, based on your available time and passions. From the editors of Smithsonian magazine, the app is also packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

Spooky and historical, this Jack-o-Lantern was photographed by the J. Horace McFarland Company. Photoprint, 1906. Archives of American Gardens

A pumpkin is nothing more than a squash, but somehow like Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin, it has risen in fame, far beyond that of its cucurbita cousins. Why has the pumpkin become a Halloween favorite? One can only guess that its smooth surface makes just the right medium for happy face carvings or ghastly ghoulish gashes. But how has the simple vegetable been collected here at the Smithsonian? A host of images, some paintings, some sculptures, some very early photographs–even a daugerrotype. Hail to the mighty pumpkin and Happy Halloween from the Around the Mall blog team.

Still Life with Pumpkin, Book, and Sweet Potato. Daguerreotype, circa 1855. American Art Museum

Pumpkin Patch by Winslow Homer. Watercolor, 1878. American Art Museum

From the J. Horace McFarland Company. Photoprint, 1906. Archives of American Gardens

More from the J. Horace McFarland Company. Photoprint, 1906. Archives of American Gardens

Squash Blossom by Sophia L. Crownfield. Watercolor, early 20th century. National Design Museum

Pumpkins by Yayoi Kusama. Fiberglass, 2009. American Art Museum

Tian Tian chill-axing at the Zoo. Photo by Beth Py-Lieberman

For everyone who hunkered down for Hurricane Sandy yesterday, it might be the animals at the Zoo who enjoyed it most. “For the most part all the animals were fine. It’s a cooler day and they like cooler days,” says animal keeper Juan Rodriguez. “Having a quiet day was good for them, they are so used to having noisy crowds around that they appreciated a day off.”

As Washington, D.C. was shaking itself off this morning and getting a look around at the hurricane damage, animal keeper Juan Rodriguez, who incidentally didn’t get any chance to hunker down, was already at work.

The Zoo weathered the storm just fine. “It’s pretty much, with exception of a lot of foliage,” says Rodriguez, “not that bad. I’ve been hearing a little chain sawing around the bird house where a tree may have come down. But that’s it. The soil is very saturated, and we’re keeping an eye on the trees now, but there’s no damage to any of the yards.”

As for the animals, did they notice the low pressure as the storm headed inland? Any odd behaviors? Nope, says Rodriguez. “Basically like everyone wants to do during a storm, the animals, particularly the bears and the pandas, just wanted to stay in a comfortable bed, and eat, and chill-ax.”

The museums and the National Zoo, which report no damages from the storm, will reopen tomorrow at their regularly scheduled times. Check here for a schedule.

At the Smithsonian’s greenhouses, orchid expert Tom Mirenda tells tales about a few of the beauties growing there, including from left to right: Aliceara Pacific Nova—“A weird and twisted hybrid made from a combination of several orchid genera.” Brassidium Fangtastic Bob Henley—”Looks like it might bite you. But it is perfectly safe…unless you are a wasp. Brassias lure wasps to their blooms by mimicking the type of spider they parasitize. But this one is just faking ….and quite disappointing to the wasp who has to keep looking for a ‘real spider.’” Oncidiopsis Stefan Isler—”Orchid hybrids like this combine the best features of their parents. This one combines a very small red flowered plant with a larger and more floriferous yellow flowered orchid. Such is the hybridizer’s art.” Photos by Beth Py-Lieberman

An orchid bloom, so delicate and elegant, arises out of a complex symbiotic relationship with, of all things, fungi. It’s a classic case of beauty and the beast, or gorgeous meets gross. But the fundamental relationship between the much-admired botanical family known as the Orchidaceae, which make up more than ten percent of the world’s plants, and the little-understood fungi that live in the soils of a forest floor, is one of the more complex mysteries being studied by Smithsonian orchid ecologists. And as more and more orchid species disappear from North American forests, botanist Dennis Whigham of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, says it’s another example of the canary in the coal mine, a warning that must be heeded. “When orchids are present,” Whigham says, “that means the ecosystem is in good shape.”

Recently, to help foster a better understand of the optimal conditions it takes for native wild orchids to survive, if not thrive, Whigham and his colleagues announced the formation of the North American Orchid Conservation Center, a public-private partnership that includes several regional botanical gardens as well as the U.S. Botanic Gardens. The plan is to establish a national seed bank for the 250 known species of North American orchids and to identify the genetic diversity of the fungi that are central to the life-cycle of each species and figure out how to propagate them. “There were just a few people working on conserving native orchids,” says Whigham, “but now we’ve created a national network.”

Of Rhyncholaeliocattleya Raye Holmes ‘Newberry,’ or just Cattleya Raye Holmes, Mirenda says: “This luscious beauty invites pollinators to visit her with the clear directional signals of the nectar guides in her lip.”

Left: Assorted Dendrobium hybrids: Mirenda says that fall is the best time of year to see these large hybrid dendrobiums in full bloom. The Psychopsis Butterfly at right, he says are “a real orchid mystery, these fantastic orchids resemble butterflies, undoubtedly to lure a pollinator, but in 200 years of cultivation, no one has ever observed its insect partner in action.”

Mirenda (above left) holds a Phalaenopsis flower, to describe what makes an orchid, an orchid. Orchid flowers, he says, “do some pretty awful manipulations to the animals that pollinate them….here one animal is getting even!” Finally, Mirenda mimics the hard exoskeleton of pollinating bee with his
fingernail.

National Zoo Director Dennis Kelly informed crowds of the cub’s death.

Sad news this Sunday, the National Zoo reports that the Panda Cub has died. Details will follow. “We are very upset,” says one official.

Born just a week ago on September 16, to the Giant Panda Mei Xiang, the cub appeared to be doing well with the Zoo releasing a number of videos showing the mother attending to the little cub, grooming it and appearing to cuddle and nurture it. The cub was born after Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated earlier this year. This is the second panda cub born at the Zoo. The first Tai Shan was born seven years ago on July 9, but by agreement was returned to China in 2009.

UPDATE 3:16 pm: In a statement released on the Zoo’s Panda site, they said:

We are brokenhearted to share that we have lost our little giant panda cub. Panda keepers and volunteers heard Mei Xiang make a distress vocalization at 9:17 a.m. and let the veterinarian staff know immediately. They turned off the panda cam and were able to safely retrieve the cub for an evaluation at 10:22 a.m., which we only do in situations of gravest concern. The veterinarians immediately performed CPR and other life-saving measures, but sadly the cub was unresponsive. We’ll have more updates as we learn more, but right now we know is that the cub weighed just under 100 grams and that there was no outward sign of trauma or infection. We’ll share information with you as we learn more.

At a press conference held today, National Zoo director Dennis Kelly called the death “extremely devastating.” Chief veterinarian Suzan Murray added,”Beautiful little body, beautiful little face, the markings were beginning to show around the eyes. [The cub] could not have been more beautiful.”

Mei Xiang is one happy mom after welcoming a new cub Sunday. Courtesy the Smithsonian National Zoo

This morning Washington, D.C. woke up to joyful news. For the first time in seven years, there is a new little cub hanging out with her mother, the Giant Panda Mei Xiang. Visitors flocked to the Zoo when baby Tai Shan was born. Because of an agreement with Chinese officials, all giant pandas born at the Zoo have to be returned for breeding. The Smithsonian wished Tai Shan a heartfelt farewell with a charming video.

The Zoo reports the new cub was born at 10:46 p.m., Sunday, September 16.

“Mei Xiang is behaving exactly the same way she did when Tai Shan was born,” says chief veterinarian Suzan Murray. “She is cradling her cub closely, and she looks so tired, but every time she tries to lay down, the cub squawks and she sits right up and cradles the cub more closely. She is the poster child for a perfect panda mom.”

For now, the staff will have to monitor the giant panda from afar, giving the mother time to bond with the cub. One of the caretakers, Juan Rodriguez says the team is now surveying the pair 24-7; “We’re rotating amongst the keepers, overnight shifts.”

The cub was first discovered when one of Rodriguez’ colleagues just happened to turn on the panda cam at home and noticed some funny noises, indicating Mei Xiang might have some company.

“They’re very vocal when they’re young,” explains Rodriguez. The team has largely been observing the pair of pandas through audio cues. “We really havent gotten the chance to get a good visual yet, just a few glimpses here and there, but we have been hearing the baby.”

According to Chinese tradition, says Rodriguez, the cub won’t be named until 100 days after the birth, just in time for holiday season. Name suggestions have already come rolling into Smithsonian magazine’s twitter feed, including Shu Yun, which means gentle cloud and Country Crock, a riff on older brother Tai Shan’s nickname Butterstick.

Tweets about “#namethepanda”

Like Tai Shan, the new cub will eventually have to go to China for further breeding. Though that transfer usually occurs when the panda is around two years old and would be independent in the wild, Tai Shan was granted a two-year extension.

After seven years and five failed pregnancies, the giant panda population (only around 1,600 in the wild) can claim another victory.

“Everyone’s very, very excited,” says Rodriguez. “Just statistically, the numbers were very, very low, so this is a very pleasant surprise. We’re ready to take on the responsibility now.”

Rodriguez explains, “The first month is one of the most crucial in terms of the survival of the cub,” but, he says, the team has no reason to worry. “She’s a very good mom.”

Rodriguez says the entire effort has been immense. “It’s a lot of work from different departments working together to help an endagnered species, the fact that you have the rebirth team, the veterinary staff, the animal care staff and even the public relations staff, it’s just so intricate and everyone is working together as a team and that team effort is what brought about the whole process.”

“Now we’re just very eager to see this cub develop and partake in the betterment of the species,” says Rodriguez.

For now, the public can get updates on the cub from the camera feed online. Staff expects the new baby will be on view in four to five months.

The public has been cheering for the giant panda since the artificial insemination on April 29. Courtesy the Smithsonian National Zoo

Mei Xiang began exhibiting behaviors that gave caretakers reason to believe she was pregnant several weeks ago, including nesting. Now that the baby has arrived, the mother and cub will remain secluded for around a week. Courtesy the Smithsonian National Zoo

Like the rest of the staff, the Zoo’s director Dennis Kelly must monitor the pandas using the panda cam while the mother bonds with the new baby. Courtesy the Smithsonian National Zoo

Leah Binkovitz contributed reporting to this article.

Phyllis Diller, the much-loved comedic star of zany wigs, painful gag lines and an inimitable blast of a laugh, died this morning at her home in Brentwood, California. She was 95.

Last fall, the National Museum of American History debuted a collection of highlights from Diller’s multifaceted career. The show, entitled “Have You Heard the One . . ?”  included a relic from the star’s life that might be among the most unique artifacts in the history of the performing arts—Diller’s joke file. The 48-drawer, steel file cabinet, which the star called “my life in one-liners,” contains 50,000 jokes, each typed on an index card and filed under such prophetic taglines as “Science, Seasons, Secretary, Senile, Sex, Sex Symbols, Sex Harassment, Shoes, Shopping…” and “Food Gripes, Foreign (incidents & personalities), Foundations (bra & underwear), Fractured Speech, Freeways, Friends, Frugality, Frustrations, Funerals, Funny Names…”

Diller’s famous one liners took self-deprecation to new limits. “When I first got into this business, I thought a punchline was organized drinking.” One can almost hear the ensuing blast of her famous laugh. And of course her relationship with her husband Fang was without exception, always good fodder. “Fang has some very strange ideas about housework. He thinks I should do it.”

“The [joke] file is like a tree,” Diller told the magazine’s Owen Edwards in 2007. “Leaves drop off, and new leaves are added—the new stuff pushes out the old.”

Diller, it turns out was not only the boisterous comic of late night television. She was a multifaceted artist who besides stand-up comedy enjoyed painting and sculpture and was a classical pianist. According to American History’s curator of the performing arts, Dwight Blocker Bowers, she also harbored tendencies toward museum curation. Bowers remembers arriving at Diller’s home in 2006 to arrange for the donation. “She was the most organized donor I’d ever met.”

“She had a rack of her costumes that she wished to donate. Each costume came with a plastic bag attached to it and inside the bag, she had carefully included not only the props—her cigarette holder, the head-dress, the gloves, the shoes—but also a photograph of her wearing the entire ensemble. She was better at curation than I was,” Bowers jokes.

The museum is now home to an impressive Diller collection that includes ten of her costumes, a wig, and a cigarette holder, one of Diller’s signature props. (The cigarette was wooden: “I’ve never smoked,” Bowers says she always insisted.)  The cache also includes a number of photographs—including one of her wearing the green and gold lame gown from her Vietnam tour with Bob Hope in 1967—three of her comedy albums, and the scripts from two of her 1960s television shows. She also donated several of her sculptures including a self-portrait bust and one made of her hands. A curious relic of her artistic talents includes the painting she called “The Phyllis Fuge.” It depicts the notes of a musical score that she wrote.

“She was an artist,” Bowers says. “She was an accomplished pianist, she painted, she sculpted and she did stand-up comedy.”

“We even received two recordings of her singing,” Bowers added.

But did she have a good voice? “Well, she was not the recording industry’s best singer,” Bowers demurs, “but she was the best comedian.”

“I think the most important thing I can say about Phyllis Diller,” says Bowers, “is that she was like Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique. Just like Friedan, Phyllis Diller chronicled the daily lives of woman. But she did it with laughs.”

Greatest hits, guided tours and interactive postcards are some of the goodies packed inside the Smithsonian’s new app.

The new Visitors Guide & Tours app, created by the editors of Smithsonian magazine and Around the Mall was released today in the Apple Store, an Android version was released in Google Play last week. The app, which is a 99-cent download, simplifies the overwhelming and vast choices to be made when touring the Smithsonian’s 15 Washington, D.C.-based museums and the National Zoo

The new app includes ten customized tours, a list of this summer’s must-see exhibitions, easy-to-use floor plans, a Google map of the National Mall, and more than 100 “Greatest Hits” artifacts and Smithsonian treasures that should not be missed. We designed the tour with everyone in mind, not just families, but for nature lovers, science geeks and history buffs, plus a specialty tour for those who have only three-hours to see it all.

For the Around the Mall team, the Smithsonian is our playground, and we’ve become accustomed to being the go-to guide for visiting guests and families. We’ve scribbled out plenty of quick lists, taking into account the special interests of our mothers (Hope Diamond and Katharine Hepburn’s Oscar), our fathers (Archie Bunker’s chair and the Wright Flyer), our friends (the cool beaded kicks over at the American Indian museum.)

But for all of you others, we know that when facing down the idea that there are 137 million objects, specimens, artifacts and works of art that are contained within the 19 different Smithsonian museums in D.C. and New York, you just need a little tour guide in your pocket to help you find you’re way.

Our favorite part about the app? A postcard feature that allows you to snap photos of yourself or your friends wearing the Hope Diamond, walking the stegosaurus like it was dog, hanging out with the Zoo’s orangutan, or finding your way around D.C. with Lewis & Clark’s compass.

We’ll be continually updating the app with the latest exhibitions, crafting new tours and selecting more of the Smithsonian’s treasures to profile, all while keeping you abreast of the latest happenings Around the Mall with Twitter feeds and push notifications.

To those visitors and DC residents who have failed to visit the Smithsonian museums for fear of not knowing where to start, you just ran out of excuses. Buy the app here.

Photographer Eric Long captures a rainbow over the Air and Space Museum.

The roses in the Katherine Dulin Folger garden.

My morning starts early, usually 6 a.m., and hopefully with a cup of coffee in hand to get me started, I walk to work. I saw the rainbow, one that I hadn’t seen in my 29 years as a Smithsonian Institution staff photographer, and I could only think of one thing—my camera. I hurried inside, grabbed what I could and dashed back out to the National Mall, knowing that the sun was rising and perfectly illuminating the north and east sides of the Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian Institution “Castle” building. Photography is about capturing the moment, whether it be a space shuttle flying over DC, or a beautiful sunrise followed with a rainbow. As I took the shots, I continued walking towards the Castle because my experience has told me that another part of photography is working with the light that makes the moment possible. I caught the couple presumably on their way to work, the sunlight pleasantly warming their moment. At the Castle, the roses in the Katherine Dulin Folger garden are majestic this time of year. The heavy early morning rain had left water droplets on the pedals. The Castle doors of the east entrance are not normally closed at this time of day, a bit of luck for a passing photographer. I knew the sun striking the solid wood  with the iron decoration would make for a handsome backdrop for the roses. On my walk back to work at the Air and Space Museum, I could see the sun striking the tall stems of the flowers, more photographic opportunity—a pleasant end to a morning shoot.

Eric F. Long is a staff photographer at the National Air and Space Museum. His recent work can be viewed in the new book A Guide to Smithsonian Gardens by Carole Ottesen.

Reader questions have a way of bringing out some of the best of Smithsonian Institution knowledge. In the video above, curator Evelyn Hankins gives us a better understanding of the materials used to make contemporary art. And thanks to your questions, we learn that Ben Franklin’s kite experiment may have been a bit of a tall tale, but that he did invent the lightning rod. How bees make honey is another sweet story. And finally, when you snuggle up with your cat and hear that familiar purr, don’t you wish you knew how they do that? You asked and we answered. Hey, this is fun: send us more.

What is lightning, and did Benjamin Franklin really fly a kite in a thunderstorm?
Janice Lee, Bethesda, Maryland

Thanks to Franklin, we know lightning is simply a discharge of atmospheric electricity—but historians still debate whether he conducted the kite experiment.

That debate, however, misses a more important story. In 1749, Franklin published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning and electricity are the same; that experiment involved erecting a tall metal rod to accumulate atmospheric electricity. In 1752 a team of French experimenters became the first to try it. Franklin’s experiment gained credibility because the French scientists—men of standing, not some British colonist—lent it their imprimatur. Franklin would apply the knowledge collected in this experiment to invent the lightning rod.

Steve Madewell, Interpretive Exhibits Coordinator
National Museum of American History

How do honeybees make honey?
Elsie Talbert, Los Angeles, California

Foraging bees siphon nectar out of flowers with their proboscis (tongue), store it in their crop (“honey stomach”) and feed it to hive bees when they return to the hive. The hive bees “process” the nectar with enzymes and regurgitate it into empty waxen cells as honey. Since nectar is more than 70 percent water, hive bees will fan the developing honey to encourage water evaporation. Bees make honey to feed themselves when little or no nectar is available (e.g., winter). In temperate zones, honeybees remain in the hive unless it’s 54 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer; while in the hive they consume the honey they made over the summer.

Nathan Erwin, Entomologist
National Museum of Natural History

How do cats purr?
Stacey Flynn, Germantown, Maryland
As cats inhale and exhale, the muscles of the larynx alternatively dilate and constrict the glottis; that movement of the glottis produces sudden separations of the vocal folds, or cords; those separations produce the purring sound. The muscles that move the vocal folds are driven by a free-running neural oscillator that generates contractions and release every 30 to 40 milliseconds. Except for a brief transition pause, purring is produced during both inhaling and exhaling and sounds like a continuous vocalization. Purring is nearly ubiquitous among the cats, but it is not heard in lions and tigers.

John Seidensticker, Conservation Biologist
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park

We’re ready for still more questions. Please submit your queries here.

The night was ablaze on the National Mall yesterday evening when suddenly at about 7:40 pm, the circular building that critic Ada Louis Huxtable once derided as the “largest donut in the world” became, with a burst of image and sound, one of the most unusual movie screens in the world, maybe the universe. Hyperbole not withstanding, it was a moment. Runners stopped running. Bike messengers leaned on their bikes. Buses on Seventh Street slowed to crawl, the passengers inside craning their necks. And dozens of passersby sat down on the Jersey barricades and granite walls along the streets.

Tilda Swinton appears in Doug Aitken's SONG 1. Courtesy of FCharles Photography

It was a night to remember. Normally, the nighttime quiet on the National Mall is broken only by the footsteps of marathoners hitting the pebble pathways. The nine to fivers flee and the city sidewalks roll up for the night. But even a New Yorker from that city that never sleeps, that urban epicenter of art and culture, might begrudge this southern town of politicos and policy wonks, just a brief acknowledgement.

Because last night, the Hirshhorn Museum’s debut of SONG 1, a  360-degree projection screen work by the internationally acclaimed Los Angeles artist Doug Aitken, briefly changed all that.

At least that’s my humble opinion. I was up on the rooftop of the adjacent National Museum of Air and Space with my colleague Ryan Reed filming scenes for the video presented above. When the sun finally dropped below the clouds and the 11 projectors and multiple outdoor speakers blared, we both said in unison. “Now, that’s cool.”

Framed by the springtime blooms, the Hirshhorn rocks the city. Courtesy of FCharles Photography.

The work, described in the April issue of Smithsonian magazine, revolves around the classic 1934 pop song “I Only Have Eyes for You.” A number of musical artists, including Beck and Tilda Swinton, perform the song in ragtime, gospel, doo-wop and high-speed percussion variations. “The music evolves with each playing, sometimes resembling a torch song, or a country standard, or raw electronica,” reports Abigail Tucker. “Its rhythms shape the images streaming across the Hirshhorn, from highway traffic patterns to the movements of clouds.”

Says Aitken: “It’s about bringing architecture to life.”

Dear Ms. Huxtable, the largest donut in the world is now one of the most exciting 360-movie screens and its playing nightly from just past sunset until midnight through May 13. Now, that’s cool, don’t you think?

Readers questions continue this month with some really intriguing queries. Can you identify a bird just by its feather? The aptly named Carla Dove, a Smithsonian ornithologist weighs in on that one in the video above. And speaking of our fine feathered friends, another reader wonders why it is that birds all seem to want to hang out near electrical transformers? From dinosaurs to telescopes to gemstones, you asked and we found the answers.

Are there any paleontological discoveries, such as dinosaur bones, left to be made in the United States?
Susanne Ott, Bern, Switzerland

There sure are. This is such a large country, and there are so many areas yet to be searched, that we may not run out of finds for several lifetimes. Just think: We have found only about 2,000 species of dinosaurs for the 160 million years they were alive on Earth. Given that a species lasts only a few million years, we must be missing many thousands of dinosaur species. The most promising places are out West, where it’s drier and paleontologists can get access to fossil-bearing rocks.

Matthew Carrano, Paleontologist
Museum of Natural History

How much artistic license do scientists use when they portray astronomical features detected by radio telescopes?
Jeanne Long, Atlanta, Georgia

A lot, actually. Radio-telescope images differ from the images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope—while Hubble images are recorded in the visible wavelengths of light we see in rainbows, radio telescopes record electromagnetic radio waves sent out by distant galactic objects. They detect what our ears might pick up if we could hear the universe. (Luckily, we can’t, or the world would be a jumbled mess of rumbling sounds.) Based on the intensity of the radio waves, astronomers plot signal strengths and assign different colors to them.

Although it would be handy and logical, there is no set convention to those color assignments. Scientists choose different colors to bring out specific details or molecules found in the image. (If you do a quick Google image search for the Trifid Nebula, you’ll see images with different color representations of the same object.) Is it fair to randomly assign different colors to objects in space? To astronomers, that’s not an issue. They are simply trying to isolate data. And the truth is, the human eye is not sensitive enough to pick up the true colors of these objects anyway. So, the next time you see a breathtaking picture from space, thank a scientist for putting it all together.

David Aguilar, Astronomer and illustrator
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Is it true that the Smithsonian is still cataloguing items from Charles Wilkes’ United States Exploring Expedition?
Kevin Ramsey, Washington, D.C.

That expedition returned from its four-year exploration of the Pacific in 1842 with an immense trove—hundreds of fish and mammal specimens, more than 2,000 bird specimens, 50,000 plant specimens, a thousand live plants, some 4,000 ethnographic objects, such as Fijian war clubs, Samoan fish hooks and New Zealand baskets. But no, the Smithsonian is not still cataloguing them. That job largely fell to the scientists who accompanied Wilkes, and they completed it, well, expeditiously. The collection was exhibited in the Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C. for several years, before it came to the Smithsonian.

Pamela M. Henson, Historian
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Did Mathew Brady really take all the Civil War photographs that are credited to him?
Patrick Ian, Bethesda, Maryland
No. By 1861, Mathew Brady was one of the best-known photographers in America, with portrait studios in New York City and Washington, D.C.  While his staff handled day-to-day operations, Brady provided the creative vision and marketing expertise that made his studios famous. When the Civil War began, he assembled and outfitted teams of photographers and sent them into the field to ensure that his cameras would be present to produce a visual record of the conflict. Although Brady traveled periodically to battlefields and encampments, the Civil War photographs that carry his credit line were typically made by his cameramen. The look of the portraits produced in Brady’s studios—such as those featured in the National Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition, Mathew Brady’s Photographs of Union Generals (March 30, 2012-May 31, 2015)—reflected his aesthetic even when he was not present for the portrait session.
Ann M. Shumard, Curator of Photographs
National Portrait Gallery

Why do birds like to congregate around electric transformers?
Luis Tewes, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

While the ever-growing electrical grid spells trouble for most species of birds, some have incorporated human structures into their lives. Power lines are a flight hazard to many species, but they also provide elevated perches, particularly in open country where there are few natural alternatives, for sit-and-wait predators, such as bluebirds, shrikes and small raptors. Many species use electric lines to rest or monitor their territories; and flocks of blackbirds and starlings and other birds gather on wires before they join large communal roosts. Power-line poles and towers and their attendant transformers provide additional support and protection for flocks and larger species, such as raptors. A few species even commandeer power poles and transformers as nesting sites. Transformers may produce some heat, which may explain why some birds like them. The monk parrakeet, introduced from Argentina, nests and roosts around transformers and has expanded into some pretty cold urban areas.

Birds’ use of power equipment illustrates their impressive adaptability, but awareness of high-voltage electric currents is not in their DNA.  While a bird can perch on a high-voltage line in complete safety, as soon as it makes secondary contact with a conductor that leads to a ground, it will be fried. Large birds taking flight or producing “streamers” of fecal material often complete the circuit to their demise. Fecal build-up, gnawing (by parrots) and nesting material can short out lines or transformers, leading to massive power outages.  Bird mortality might be reduced, and electrical service might be more reliable, if we had a better-designed grid.

Russell Greenberg, Wildlife Biologist,
Migratory Bird Center, National Zoo

In aserated (or “starred”) gemstones, such as the ruby and sapphire varieties of corundum, what is the average amount of rutile per square millimeter? And how many asterated gemstones does the Smithsonian Institution have?
Davis M. Upchurch, Fletcher, North Carolina

In synthetic asterated corundum, about 0.1 to 0.3 percent titanium oxide is typically mixed with the aluminum oxide. That gives you a ballpark idea as to the fraction of rutile (which is usually given as an amount per cubic millimeter). The Museum of Natural History has about 50 asterated gems in its collection, including, 21 specimens of corundum. We add new ones sporadically, and we’re always on the lookout for different or better examples.
Jeffrey Post, Curator of Gems and Minerals,
Museum of Natural History

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Historian David Ward discusses his new book of poetry. Photo courtesy of Ward.

The National Portrait Gallery’s historian David C. Ward is a biographer of Charles Willson Peale and has written extensively about such figures as Hart Crane and Ernest Hemingway. He has curated exhibitions on Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, as well as last year’s controversial “Hide/Seek. Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.” Over the past two decades, however, he has occasionally turned from history to verse and has recently published a small volume of poetry entitled, Internal Difference, from Carcanet Press. “Ward’s carefully plotted chapbook describes American social spaces, past and present, and the links between them,” writes critic David Kinloch in the June/July issue of PN Review.  In one poem, the historian amusingly offers a poet’s take on the imagined inner world of Andy Warhol, an artist attempting to escape the confines of his own accelerating celebrity.

“Camouflage Self-Portrait”

In 1987, aged fifty-nine Andy Warhol bored
and played out in the modern life he made
(after the first lunch with Jackie O/there is no other)
faked his own death—routine gallbladder procedure:
gone awry—slipped quietly from the hospital
back into his mother’s house, his Pittsburgh boyhood
home. Wig gone, black suit and fancy glasses trashed,
he donned the clothes and life of a nondescript ordinary
working man, took a bakery assistant’s job making crullers
and cakes, introduced himself as Stosh from somewhere
vaguely somewhere else, and joined the local bowling
league. He learned to polka at the Legion Hall, amiably
fending off the local widows, and grew quietly old alone.
He cooked for one and after dinner would sit and watch
as the neighborhood wound down from dusk to night.
He developed a real fondness for baseball:
it was so slow.

Ward is currently at work on an upcoming exhibition entitled “Poetic Likeness,” scheduled to open at the Portrait Gallery in November of 2012. We asked Ward to discuss his multiple muses—poetry and history.

Ward's new book is now available through tkpublisher. Photo courtesy of tk.

Why poetry?

I started writing poetry in my late 30s, just over 20 years ago. I think at that time I needed a creative outlet that was different from my professional work as an historian who works in a large institution. Also, around that time I was starting to do more as an historian so feeling more creative in that may have made me open to the odd idea of taking up poetry. The immediate trigger was the death of Robert Penn Warren. I had never read his poetry so to pay tribute, I bought his Collected Poems and went through it and something in the way he wrote about America and American subjects clicked with me. I can remember thinking, “hmm. . .I should try this.” I batted out a poem called “On A Recently Discovered Casualty of the Battle of Antietam”—it’s very “Warren-ish”!—and it was published and since it would look lame if I only ever had one published poem, I had to keep writing. I also was lucky enough early on to develop a connection with a very good poet, editor, publisher, Michael Schmidt in England who has been very supportive of my work. I am self-taught as a poet but Michael has been an excellent tutor. And friend.
Where do you find inspiration?

Let me turn this question around: now that I’ve demonstrated to myself that I can get individual poems on random topics published, I’m trying to write poems around themes or subjects so that I can have a group of at least loosely linked work that will add up to something. I do find it helpful to set myself a topic and just make myself write on it. For instance, this year I’ve started writing about my family history, re-imagining it in a way that derives somewhat from Robert Lowell. I have some political poems going as well as some on art and artists—I had been resisting writing about art because it’s too close to my work at the Portrait Gallery, but that seems kind of foolishly self-denying. In general, I think my poems have tried to explore the disjunction between ideals or dreams and the reality of life: how choices or accidents ramify in unintentional or unseen ways and you end up somewhere that you didn’t expect to be. The challenge is to do that in a clear- eyed way and not to devolve into self-pity.

How and when and where do you write?

It’s kind of hit or miss, which I suppose is a sign of the non-professional poet. I’d like to be more disciplined and set aside a fixed time, especially on the weekends, to write poetry. But I don’t keep to that resolution, maybe because I need poetry to be creative play instead of the routine of work. Either that or I’m lazy. So topics and poems tend to show up rather randomly at rather random times. For instance, I wrote two political poems when I woke up in the middle of the night, suddenly thinking of opening lines, and how I could make a poem work from those starting points. Obviously something was working in my subconscious and jelled into realization. That tends to be how things go, although not usually at 2:30 a.m.  The problem is that relying on your subconscious suddenly popping out a starting point, let alone a whole poem, is kind of chancy and I can go for a long time without writing anything. Once I get a “hook,” I can write a poem pretty quickly. I am trying to make myself revise and re-write more.

Do you draw any parallels between your day job as an historian scholar and your poetry?

Well, I think they are self-reinforcing in the sense that both involve intellectual application through the creative use of language.  I should say that I also write a fair amount of literary criticism (actually, I’m a better critic than poet) and that work helps to bridge the two disciplines as well. I have certainly improved as an historian from writing poetry (and criticism)—a better writer, and I think more questioning and imaginative. Without being too hard on myself, though, I think that being a historian limits my poetry: I’m aware that my writing tends to be observational or distanced from its subject, like a historian objectifies a problem. (For instance, “Camouflage Self-Portrait” came out of my exhibit Hide/Seek and thinking about how Andy Warhol just seemed to disappear as his passing was so undramatic, and I came up with the conceit that he faked his death precisely because he was tired of all the drama.) Some of that distancing, I’m sure, derives from my upbringing and personal temperament, but regardless, I can’t merge my poetic voice with the subject in the way that Emerson suggested was necessary for the poet. I find it nearly impossible to write poems about emotions themselves, although I can show how emotions are acted out in behavior.

In the poem, “Angle of Deflection,” you write of the “ironic voice” that “works well for scholars,” what then is the poet’s voice?

As I suggested earlier, I think my poetic voice is overly ironic! That I retain the “scholar’s voice” in writing verse in a way that shapes my poetry in ways that can become restrictive in all sorts of ways. “Angle”  was as much about me as it was about my father who was also an historian. But what I’ve tried to do as I’ve moved along is to develop a self-awareness about the way that I write, so that I can take what I think is a weakness and turn it into a strength. I am always going to be an historian first and my temperament will always tend toward the detached and skeptical—ironic, in both senses of the word. But I think there are a lot of interesting things to find in voicing the gap between self and subject. At least I hope so.

The Smithsonian Castle Building is closed today, however all museums and the National Zoo are open. Photo by Eric Long

The Smithsonian Institution announced that all museums and the National Zoo would be open today. The Castle, however, which sustained some damage in yesterday’s earthquake, will be closed until further notice.

The Castle did have some damage, according to Smithsonian officials, mostly cracked plaster, windows and there some issues with some of the door frames.

Also of concern are the stability of some of the turrets in the Smithsonian’s original home, a Medieval Revival building designed by James Renwick Jr, and completed in 1855. The Castle building’s nine towers, battlements and chimneys have become the iconic symbol of the Smithsonian Institution.

Structural engineers today are assessing the building.

Other historical buildings that house Smithsonian museums, including the Old Patent Office building at 8th and F streets, NW, home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, and the Renwick Gallery at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue suffered no damages.

The Renwick is a Second Empire-style building and was designed by architect James Renwick Jr. in 1859 and completed in 1874. Today, it is a National Historic Landmark. The Old Patent Office building is considered one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the United States. Begun in 1836 and completed in 1868, it was the site of Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural ball in March 1865.

At the Natural History museum, spokesperson Kelly Carnes reports that several exhibitions—the Dinosaur Hall and portions of the Gems and Minerals Halls—will be closed off to the public while collections managers and curators assess any damages. The museum, housed in a 1910 Beaux Arts building, however, is open today.

At the National Zoo, many resident animals acted as warning bells for the quake, showing changes in behavior shortly before it struck. Gorillas, orangutans and lemurs sounded alarm calls seconds beforehand, while the flock of 64 flamingos huddled together in preparation. During the shaking, snakes, tigers, beavers and deer, among others, appeared disturbed and interrupted their normal activities.

More updates to come throughout the day, as curators, engineers and archivists inspect the collections and exhibits

Photos of damage caused to the Smithsonian by the earthquake.