Learn the history of the Mississippi River and our influence on it in the documentary Troubled Waters: Mississippi River Story, on view at the Anacostia Community Museum this Thursday. Photo courtesy of Flickr user bluepoint951.

Tuesday, May 21: Charles A. Lindbergh Memorial Lecture: Bud Anderson

Aircraft enthusiasts, WWII buffs and anyone who has ever dreamed of flight, unite! WWII fighter pilot Bud Anderson is in the house this evening to talk about his experience in 116 combat missions, and what he has learned from logging more than 7,500 flying hours in more than 130 types of aircraft. If you want a preview of what’s in store, check out his memoir, To Fly and Flight. Free. 8 p.m., with a 7 p.m. screening of the film Fighter Pilot. Air and Space Museum.

Wednesday, May 22: Museum Highlights Tour in Japanese: “I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story”

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! In celebration, the American History Museum has launched I Want the Wide American Earth, an exhibition that explores how Asian Pacific Americans of diverse cultures have shaped and been shaped by America, from the earliest Asian immigrants centuries ago to modern Asian communities. For a particularly authentic experience of one of the cultures represented, stop by the museum this afternoon and listen to a tour led in Japanese as you peruse the exhibition’s artifacts and stories. Free. 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. American History Museum.

Thursday, May 23: Troubled Waters: Mississippi River Story

The Mississippi River stretches over 2,530 miles from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, which means that once a drop of its waters has completed its journey, it has traveled across the entire country. America’s heartland has had a profound effect on the river, from canal and dam construction projects to pollution. The 2010 documentary Troubled Waters: Mississippi River Story traces our civilization’s effects on the river throughout our nation’s history, and offers some concrete solutions to the river’s troubles. Following the film, education specialist Linda Maxwell will lead a discussion on the the river and what we can do to improve it. Free (for reservations call 202-633-4844). 11 a.m. Anacostia Community Museum.

Also, check out our 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 packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Alex Trebek says, in many ways, his show represents ordinary people fulfilling the American dream—wit and skill bring success. All photos by Leah Binkovitz

Longtime host of “Jeopardy!” Alex Trebek, has often called game shows, “the best kind of reality television” for the way they encapsulate the American dream. On his show, he says, anyone can earn success with enough wit and skill. Now a donation from Trebek to the National Museum of American History of several items from his popular game show cements that idea in popular culture. In a new partnership with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the museum accepted a cache of items, representing three categories of the Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards–daytime dramas, game shows and children’s programming.

Trebek, who was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Daytime Emmy Award in 2011 as well as five Daytime Emmy awards, contributed a script with handwritten notes from one of his 1984 shows. Also making a donation was the 1999 Daytime Emmy Award-winner Susan Lucci, better known as Erica Kane from the popular soap opera “All My Children;” and 2001 award-winners Kathy and Phil Parker, creators of the 1990s children’s television program, “Barney & the Backyard Gang.” Lucci’s pink gown and shoes from her cover of People magazine played colorful companion to the plush purple dinosaur that was donated along with the script from the first “Barney” video.

“Game shows have been an important part of daytime television since the 1940s,” says curator Dwight Blocker Bowers, “when the radio series, ‘Truth or Consequences,’ made its debut as a television show.” The show selected ordinary citizens as contestants to answer trivia questions and to perform zany stunts. Over time, he says, the questions got tougher and the prizes, bigger.

Trebek, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Canada, says his show gives people “opportunity.”

“All My Children’s” Lucci, who was a one-time contestant on one of the “Jeopardy!” celebrity episodes, says she was worried about  the challenging questions that might come her way. But, it wasn’t the questions that stumped her. “Once I got one of those buzzers in my hand and was on camera,” she says, “I realized that I had no buzzer technique at all.”

Lucci signs over the deed for the dress and shoes she wore on the cover of People magazine after her Emmy win.

From left to right: Bowers, Trebek and Parker stand in front of the table of donated items, which include Lucci’s dress, her pair of Manolo Blahnik heels, a ‘Jeopardy’ script with Trebek’s notes and a buzzer from the show, along with items from the “Barney” show.

We talked with Trebek at the donation ceremony:

Why has the show enjoyed so much success since its debut in 1964?

It’s a quality program and it appeals to the aspects of American life that are very important to us: opportunity, we give everyone an opportunity to compete even if you’re an ordinary citizen. It doesn’t matter what your background is, you can compete on our program and do well if you have knowledge. You can fulfill one of the American dreams, which is to make a lot of money. You’re not going to be elected president just because you appear on ‘Jeopardy.’ Although we’ve had ‘Jeopardy’ winners in the past who have done very well in the public arena. One of them is the current director of our consumer affairs department, nominated by President Obama. He was a ‘Jeopardy’ winner and in fact, when he first ran for Congress in Ohio, his bumper sticker said, ‘The answer is.’

We are now part of Americana so we’re accepted, people know us, they like us, we’re familiar, we’re part of the family.

If you were a contestant what would your biographical detail be?

I’m willing to try everything once. I’m just thinking back to sky-diving, scuba-diving, running military equipment, flying in a F-16 and taking 8Gs, parachuting, it doesn’t matter. I’m a little too old now to get out and do that stuff but there are a few things on my bucket list.

You’ve been hosting since 1984. Are we getting smart or dumber?

There are bright people in all walks in life and probably in the same percentage as there have always been. We’re attracting more of them so people think America is getting smarter, I don’t know about that.

But not dumber?

Some people are.

Rev. Dennis Kamakahi performs at the 2012 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Joann Stevens, of the American History Museum, is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM). She last wrote about Darius Brubeck.

With his quiet dignity and self-assurance, leadership becomes Slack Key guitarist Reverend Dennis Kamakahi. Whether leading a cultural renaissance in his home state or a day of recognition at the Smithsonian, the Grammy-award winning composer, recording artist and Episcopalian minister exudes a presence as solid and beautiful as the music he composes and performs. Kamakahi was a member of the folk music group “The Sons of Hawaii” from 1974 to 1992 and his music was featured in the award-winning 2011 George Clooney film, The Descendants.

Kamakahi’s achievements as an Hawaiian folk musician and cultural historian recently found a welcome spotlight as curators at the National Museum of American History accepted his 6-string guitar, albums, sheet music and personal photographs as part of the museum’s music and history collections, a first for a modern Hawaiian composer.

A representative from the office of Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) read a message praising Kamakahi as “one of the finest musicians Hawaii has ever known.”

“Through your humility, grace and love for others,” she said, “you have positively influenced so many and have represented Hawaii with dignity.”

“This is an experience, to be alive at a time you can donate something and pique the curiosity of people,”  Kamakahi, told an audience of well wishers. He then used the donated guitar to play and sing songs with stories and melodies as exotic and mysterious as his state.

Kamakahi’s role as cultural ambassador is as much family mantle as professional choice.  His grandfather and father were guitarists. His father played trombone in the Hawaiian Royal Band and jazz with his mentor James “Trummy” Young, trombonist with the Louis Armstrong All Stars. Hawaiian culture dictated that the eldest grandchild ”be given” to the grandparent of the same gender to mentor as guardian of the cultural heritage.

At the donation ceremony at the American History Museum. Photo by Harold Dorwin

Music is in Kamakahi’s blood and his story is a fascinating one. His goal to become a classical music conductor was abandoned after a music theory teacher encouraged him to “to go back to your roots, to Hawaiian music.” In 1973, Eddie Kamae, ukelele virtuoso and co-founder of the Sons of Hawaii, invited the 19-year-old Kamakahi to join the group.

Now “we’re the last two left,” he says of the legendary band. “He’s the oldest.  I’m the baby. You are what your teachers are.”

That makes Kamakahi a cultural activist, who along with Kamae, ushered in Hawaii’s cultural renaissance of the 1970s, helping to lift stigmas that had repressed Hawaii’s indigenous music and traditions for decades. Slack Key guitar music, predating ukelele music, rose like a  Phoenix from cultural ashes.

Slack Key music history is steeped in the lore of the Vaqueros, Spanish and Mexican cowboys who developed cattle ranching as a business and culture in the American Southwest and West. Vaqueros were brought to Hawaii to tame an overpopulation of cattle and taught Hawaiians to become cowboys or Paniolos. They also brought guitars, trading tunes and songs around camp fires. When the Vaqueros left, the guitars remained, adopted by Paniolos who invented their own tuning—slack key—to  accommodate Hawaiian music.

“It was mostly tuned to the voice,” Kamakahi explains of the style. “The high falsetto style of singing emerged because of [the Paniolos].” Every tuning has a nickname. Families guarded tunings so closely they became family secrets. While the term Paniolo is used generically, today, to mean cowboy, it was originally reserved only for students of the Vaqueros, says Kamakahi.  It’s a ”high title” going back to those days. Descendants of the original Vaqueros still live on the Big Island of Hawaii. And Kamakahi’s songs herald their histories along with those of Hawaii’s culture, religions, landscape, heroes and traditions.

Detail from the donated guitar. Photo by Harold Dorwin

“I write for story telling,” he says of his music. Hula, considered only a dance form by most mainlanders, is actually a form of storytelling that presents Hawaiian music and narrative through motion. Koke’e, a Kamakahi tune that became a Hula  standard, was composed on the guitar donated to the Smithsonian.

“Original slack key music used maybe two chords,” he says. Two stories demonstrate the music’s influence and progression over the years.

Kamakahi counts the late legendary blues singer/composer Muddy Waters as a friend who used the Delta G  slack key tuning throughout his career. He used to ask me, ‘Why don’t I sound like you when I play?’  I told him it’s because you don’t live in Hawaii.”

The 2011 film The Descendants, starring George Clooney, became the first feature length movie offering a full slack key music score. Kamakahi’s tune Ulili E  performed with son David was featured in the film and in promotions. He said the power of the music and Clooney’s insistence on cultural authenticity won over the director after he and others invited them to a jam session at a local club.

“You can sing Hawaiian songs, but if you don’t know what you’re singing about (culturally) it’s not Hawaiian.”

While in DC he turned 60. Alumni and friends of the National Capital Region Chapter of the University of Hawai’i Alumni Association celebrated with a feast of Hula, food,  music, and fundraising to support student interns. Kamakahi says he’ll still perform but wants to focus on educating others in and outside of Hawaii about the region’s history, music and culture.

He marvels that Slack Key has loyal fans as far away as Russia, Finland, France and South Africa.  Exposure from The Descendants generated mail from around the world.  Yet he’s concerned about the music’s future in Hawaii.

“It’s a sad time for Hawaiian music. It’s an exported music now,” he says. “It used to be in Waikiki,” a staple of tourism where musicians like Don Ho developed careers playing music lounges. That changed in the 1980s when hotel general managers recruited from outside Hawaii cut costs by replacing live music with karaoke. “Musicians like me had to go to the mainland,” says Kamakahi.

His hopes for young Hawaiian musicians is that promoting the culture will support its survival and evolution.

“Most people in Hawaii don’t know what the Smithsonian is,” he says. But Kamakahi knows the recognition validates his artistry and his culture. “I hope the Smithsonian recognition will place focus on the music back home. This honor will outlast me because it’s not only for me. It’s for those who came before me and for those who come after me.

“I tell young musicians you need to travel the world so your music will affect others, and theirs yours. Music is a communicator. It breaks down barriers. Music is the universal language that brings us together.”

He explains with an anecdote.

“I was playing at the Vancouver Music Festival and played with a West African band whose rhythms,” rooted in the blues “we hear every day in Hawaii.  The bass player was in nirvana that we knew their rhythms.

“Rhythm is everywhere. Your heartbeat is the first rhythm you hear. The heartbeat is the first thing that connects you to life,” he says smiling broadly. “That’s why we’re all musical. We have a heartbeat.”

Hear from the Slack Key legend himself in an episode of the American History Museum’s podcast, History Explorer. 

When Chinese American Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two autoworkers in 1982 during a time of growing resentment toward Japan’s auto industry, the incident became a rallying point for Asian Pacific American communities. Photograph by Corky Lee

When Christopher Columbus set off across the Atlantic in search of a Western route to Asia, the continent became a footnote in the discovery of America. But before the country was even founded, Asians and Asian Americans have played integral roles in the American story. Some chapters of that history are well known: the impact of Chinese railroad workers or the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. But countless others have been overlooked.

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, a new traveling show developed by by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center seeks to provide a more complete story of Asian American history. Now on view at the American History Museum, the exhibition “I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story” begins with the pre-Columbian years and spans the centuries, to tell of the Asian experience with a series of posters featuring archival images and beautiful illustrations that eventually will travel the country. A condensed set of exhibition materials will also be distributed to 10,000 schools nationwide as teaching tools.

Though often marginalized with legislation like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Asian Americans were central to American history, “from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement,” explains Konrad Ng, director of the Asian Pacific American Center.

Posters will travel to 10,000 schools to help educate school children about the many contributions of Asian Americans.

The rise of Asian cuisines has had a profound effect on American culture today.

This poster shows members of the Asian American Political Alliance at a Black Panther Party rally in 1968.

The densely packed exhibit resonates with many of today’s conversations around immigration, identity and representation. Beneath the broad banner of Asian American identity dwells a deeper, more diverse set of experiences. The Puna Singh family, for example, represents a unique blending of cultures that occurred when Punjabi men–unable to immigrate with Indian brides–became employed in agriculture in the West, and met and started families with female Mexican fieldworkers. “The story of Asian Americans,” says Lawrence Davis, who worked on the exhibition, “is very much one that’s not in isolation.”

The Asian experience is one that includes a diversity of cultures and countries. As early as 1635, Chinese merchants were trading in Mexico City. By the 1760s, Filipinos had set up fishing villages in the bayous of New Orleans, and Vietnamese shrimpers and fishermen are a large part of the Coast’s current economy. Asian Americans fought on both sides of the Civil War, including two brothers, who were the sons of the famous conjoined twins Chang and Eng, brought to the U.S. by circus-owner P.T. Barnum. In 1898, Wong Kim Ark, a Chinese American, won a landmark Supreme Court case, which established the precedent of birthright citizenship. In the 1960s, Filipino workers marched alongside Cesar Chavez for farm workers’ rights.

The exhibit borrows its title from the 20th-century Filipino American poet, Carlos Bulosan who wrote:

Before the brave, before the proud builders and workers,

I say I want the wide American earth

For all the free.

I want the wide American earth for my people.

I want my beautiful land.

I want it with my rippling strength and tenderness

Of love and light and truth

For all the free.

“When he arrived in the U.S., like most immigrant stories, it wasn’t easy,” says Ng of the poet. “And yet he still came to love this country.” Despite the hardship, discrimination and even vilifying, many Asian Americans came to love this country as well, and from that love, they improved it and became an integral part of it.

Though Ng had a hard time singling out any favorite chapter from the show, he says many present “new ways to think about the community,” including the politics of international adoption, the spread of Asian food cultures and much more.

“I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story” will be on display at the American History Museum through June 18, 2013 before traveling to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

On Friday, take a tour of “Changing America,” an exhibition that tells the story of America’s push towards racial equality from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Movement. Photo by Cocoabiscuit, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Friday, May 3: Exhibition Tour: Changing America

This year is a big one for celebrating civil rights; 2013 marks both the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, in which Martin Luther King, Jr. told the nation he had a dream of equality. Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, and the March on Washington, 1963 celebrates both momentous events with related historical objects, including the pens Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil Rights Act, respectively. Today, stop by the exhibition for a tour that explains the various objects’ significance. Free. 2 p.m. African American History Museum.

Saturday, May 4: I Want the Wide American Earth Family Festival

Happy Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! To kick off the month’s celebration of Asian Pacific American culture, as well as to show off its new exhibit I Want the Wide American Earth, the American History Museum has organized arts, crafts and a scavenger hunt today, along with an afternoon of storytelling and spoken word performances. Guests include local writers Wendy Wan-Long Shang (The Great Wall of Lucy), Eugenia Kim (The Calligrapher’s Daughter) and Scott Seligman (The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo) and spoken word extraordinaire Regie Cabico. Free. 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. American History Museum.

Sunday, May 5: Childen’s Day

Keep the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month festivities going! Today, the American Art Museum celebrates Children’s Day, a traditional Korean holiday for kids, with arts and activities inspired by Nam June Paik (1932-2006), an avant-garde musician and installation and video artist whose work is on display in the museum. Kids can play with interactive TV and robot games and go on a scavenger hunt (in case you missed yesterday’s!). Free. 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. American Art Museum.

Also, check out our 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 packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Celebrate Arbor Day by planting a tree at the Anacostia Community Museum on Friday. Photo by Horia Varian courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Friday, April 26: Arbor Day at the Anacostia Community Museum

Happy Arbor Day! This annual holiday, started by Sterling Morton in 1871, is all about caring for and planting trees. The Anacostia Community Museum is celebrating the occasion with a day-long series of plantings, workshops and hands-on activities for all ages. Learn about the holiday’s history, craft some stick dolls and help save the environment. Free. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Anacostia Community Museum.

Saturday, April 27: My Collection is My Passion

Like collecting things? So do the five panelists in a discussion at Smithsonian’s Craft Show this afternoon—they’re so enthusiastic about collecting, in fact, that they turn the hobby into an art. As collectors of glass, wood, ceramics and other fine crafts, they will talk about the challenges and pleasures of acquiring the objects of their passions. Free. 3 p.m. National Building Museum.

Sunday, April 28: Axelrod String Quartet

The Axelrod String Quartet is back at the American History Museum this evening for the finale of its three-part concert series, which has featured the quartets of Haydn’s Op. 71. Tonight is Op. 71 No. 3, a colorful and energetic piece you can preview here. One hour prior to the show, Kenneth Slowik, SCMS artistic director and recipient of the 2011 Smithsonian Secretary’s Distinguished Research Lecture Award, will give a lecture on Haydn’s music, life and times. $31 general admission, $25 member, $23 senior member (tickets here). 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., with a 6:30 p.m. pre-concert lecture. American History Museum.

Also, check out our 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 packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Secretary G. Wayne Clough testified before Congress today about the effects of sequestration on the institution. Photo by Ken Rahalm, courtesy of the Smithsonian

On April 16, Smithsonian Institution Secretary G. Wayne Clough testified before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the impending effects of sequestration. Though the Obama administration had sought a $59 million budget increase for the Institution in fiscal 2014, this year Clough has to contend with a $41 million budget reduction due to sequestration. Gallery closings, fewer exhibitions, reduced educational offerings, loss of funding for research and cuts to the planning process of the under-construction National Museum of African American History and Culture were listed among the impacts of the sequestration.

Clough began his testimony: “Each year millions of our fellow citizens come to Washington to visit—for free—our great museums and galleries and the National Zoo, all of which are open every day of the year but one. Our visitors come with high aspirations to learn and be inspired by our exhibitions and programs.”

“It is my hope,” Clough told the committee, “that our spring visitors will not notice the impact of the sequestration.” Perhaps most noticeable would be the gallery closures, which, while they would not close entire museums, would restrict access to certain floors or spaces in the museums, unable to pay for sufficient security. Those changes would begin May 1, according to Clough.

Clough warned, however, that while these short-term measures will save in the near future, they might also entail long-term consequences. Unforeseen costs may arise in the form of diminished maintenance capabilities, for example. “Any delays in revitalization or construction projects will certainly result in higher future operating and repair costs,” Clough said.

This also threatens the Institution’s role as steward of thousands of historic and valuable artifacts–”Morse’s telegraph; Edison’s light bulb; the Salk vaccine; the 1865 telescope designed by Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer who discovered a comet; the Wright Flyer; Amelia Earhart’s plane; Louis Armstrong’s trumpet; the jacket of labor leader Cesar Chavez,” to name a few.

Around the Mall will keep the issue updated and tweet significant closures.

Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment

In 1947, when Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke major league baseball’s color barrier, the world was still 16 years away from the March on Washington and the Civil Rights Movement as just getting organized. The Montgomery bus boycott was eight years away and housing discrimination based on race would remain legal until 1968. In his first season with the MLB, Robinson would win the league’s Rookie of the Year award. He was a perpetual All-Star. And in 1955, he helped his team secure the championship. Robinson’s success was, by no means, inevitable and in fact he earned it in a society that sought to make it altogether impossible.

Unsurprisingly, his story seemed bound for Hollywood and in 1950, still in the midst of his career, he starred as himself in “The Jackie Robinson Story.” Now Robinson’s story returns to the screen in the new film “42,” this time played by Howard University graduate, Chadwick Boseman, who was at the American History Museum Monday evening for a special screening for members of the Congressional Black Caucus. We caught up with him there.

Are you happy to be back in D.C.?

I’m excited, you know, this room got me a little hyped. It’s fun coming here after having been here a few weeks ago after meeting the First Lady and the President for the screening at the White House. I went to college here and you always think, oh, I’m never going to get to go in that building, I’m never going to get to do this or that so coming here and doing it, it’s like wow, it’s a whole new world.

You said you can’t remember ever not knowing who Jackie Robinson was, but that it was important not to play him as just a hero. How did you get all those details? Did speaking with his wife, Rachel Robinson, play a big part?

The first thing that I did was, I went to meet her at her office on Varick Street. She sat me down on a couch, just like this, she just talked to me very frankly and told me the reasons why she was attracted to him, what she thought of him before she met him, what attracted her once they actually started conversing, how they dated, how shy he was, everything you could possibly imagine. She just went through who they were.

I think she sort of just started me on the research process as well because at the foundation, they have all the books that have been written about him. It was just a matter of hearing that firsthand information.

Then I met her again with children and grandchildren and in that case, they were sort of examining me physically, prodding and poking and measuring and asking me questions: Are you married, why aren’t you married? You know, anything that you could imagine. Actually, before they ever spoke to me, they were prodding and poking and measuring me and I was like, who are these people? And they said, you’re playing my granddad, we gotta check you out. It was as much them investigating me as it was me investigating him.

So they gave you a seal of approval?

They did not give me a seal of approval, but they didn’t not give it. They were willing to gamble, I guess.

Boseman met with Robinson’s family members in preparation for the role. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment

He describes the relationship Robinson had with his wife (played by Nicole Beharie) as a safe haven. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment

What were they looking for, what did they want to make sure you got right?

She was adamant about the fact that she didn’t want him to be portrayed as angry. That’s a stereotype that is often used, just untrue and one-dimensional with black characters and it was something that he had been accused of, of having a temper. In some senses, he did have a temper but it wasn’t in a negative sense.

I, on the other hand, after reading the script knew that it was necessary to not show him as being passive or a victim, which is another stereotype that’s often used in movies. I didn’t want him to be inactive, because if he’s passive, he’s inactive and you run the risk of doing another story that’s supposed to be about a black character, but there’s the white guy, there, who is the savior. There’s a point where you have to be active and you have to have this fire and passion. I view it more as competitive passion as Tom Brokaw and Ken Burns said to me today, that he had a competitive passion, competitive temper that any great athlete, whether it be Larry Bird or Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, they all have that passion. That’s what he brought to the table. . . .My grandmother probably would call it holy anger.

Was that dynamic something you were able to talk about with Harrison Ford, who plays the team executive Branch Rickey, and the writer?

First of all yes. But they already had really advanced and progressive points of view about it anyway and were very aware. Harrison was also very clear, even in our first conversations about it, that he was playing a character and I was playing the lead and that there are differences in the two.

There were instances where I might voice, this is what we need to do, and everybody listened to it and that’s definitely not always the case, definitely not always what you experience on the set. But I think everybody wanted to get it right. I can’t really think of a moment, I know that they came up where it was like, well I’m black so I understand this in a different way, but they do happen and everybody was very receptive to it.

Was there any story that Mrs. Robinson told you about him that stuck in the back of your head during the process?

She just talked about how he adapted after very difficult scenes where he was being abused verbally or threatened. She said he would go hit golf balls because he would never bring that into the house. The question that I asked that brought her to that was:  Did he ever have moments where he secluded himself at home, or where he was depressed, or you saw it weighing on him? And she said: ‘No, when he came into our space, he did whatever he needed to do to get rid of it, so that our space could be a safe haven, and he could refuel, and could get back out into the world and be the man he had to be.’

And she’s going through it just as much as he is. She’s literally in the crowd. People are yelling right over, calling him names right over her or calling her names because they know who she is. That’s something people don’t really think about, that she was actually in the crowd. She has to hold that so she doesn’t bring that home to him and give him more to worry about and that’s a phenomenal thing to hold and to be strong. I love finding what those unspoken things were that are underneath what’s actually being said.

What do you hope people will take away from the film?

I hope they get a sense of who he really is. I think what’s interesting about it is that he played himself in that original 1949-1950 version. . .What I found is that him having to use the Hollywood script of that time does not allow him to tell his own story because he couldn’t really be Jackie Robinson in that version.

It wasn’t his exact story, if you look at the version it says all he ever wanted to do was play baseball and he didn’t. Baseball was his worst sport, he was a better football player, better basketball player, better at track and field. He had a tennis championship, he played golf, horse back riding, baseball was the worst thing he did. I’m not saying that he wasn’t good at it, I’m saying that it’s not the truth. He was a second lieutenant in the army, he was All-American, he led his conference in scoring in basketball and he could have been playing in the NFL, but he had to go to Hawaii and play instead.

So what is that? Why did he end up playing baseball? Because baseball was where he could actualize his greatness, it wasn’t the only thing that he was great at and so just that little untruth in the script skips all of the struggle that he had getting to the point of being in the minor leagues. He’s doing this because it’s one more thing that he’s trying to do in that United States at that time that maybe will allow him to be the man that he wants to be. He could have done any of those other things, it just wasn’t an avenue for him to actualize his full humanity, his full manhood and so that version doesn’t allow him to be Jackie Robinson.

When I look at this version, we live in a different time where you can tell the story more honestly. Ultimately I think that’s what you should take away from the film, I get to see who he is now because we’re more ready to see it.

Learn how to knit! Classes run by Smithsonian Associates start on Tuesday. Photo by terribomb, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Tuesday, April 15: Pottery and Knitting Classes

Kick start spring with some beautiful crafts to show off to guests when they visit on sunny days. Smithsonian Associates runs a whole variety of art classes that start this evening. Drawing and photography are sold out (click links to join the wait list), but there’s still space for pottery and knitting. Make some fantastic presents for your friends and family, or something for yourself to satisfy that creative itch. Prices vary, see links. Pottery: Tuesdays from April 15 to June 4, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Knitting: Tuesdays from April 15 to June 4, 7:15 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. Ripley Center.

Wednesday, April 16: Wash, Wring, Repeat: 19th Century Laundry

If you think loading up your washing machine is a pain, wait until you see all the steps families had to take in the 19th century to keep their clothes clean! Before you run away screaming from this hands-on demonstration, though, think of how much easier your laundry at home will be once you figure out how much of a task it used to be. After the wash, you can learn more about 18th century domestic life in Within These Walls . . ., an exhibit that features a full-size, partially reconstructed Georgian-style house. Free. 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. American History Museum.

Thursday, April: 17: Peacock Room Shutters Open

Want a taste of luxury? The Freer Gallery’s Peacock Room, once an opulent British dining room, now hosts more than 250 ceramics from Egypt, Iran, Japan, China and Korea that museum founder Charles Lang Freer collected on his travels. At noon, the museum opens the room’s shutters to bathe the collection in sunlight, and the room glows blue, green and gold. The shimmering colors won’t fade any time soon, either; special filtering film on the room’s windows prevents the sun’s effects on the ceramics. Free. Noon to 5:30 p.m. Freer Gallery.

Also, check out our 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 packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

With each new frontier of exploration and travel came new challenges. All images courtesy of the Air and Space Museum

The first several Soviet and American spacecrafts sent to the moon missed it completely, crashed on the moon or were lost in space, according to a new exhibition at the Air and Space Museum. Navigation is a tricky business and has long been so, even before we ever set our sights on the moon. But the steady march of technological advances and a spirit of exploration have helped guide us into new realms. And today, any one with GPS can be a navigator.

From the sea and sky to outer space and back, the history of how we get where we’re going is on view at the National Air and Space Museum’s new exhibit “Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There,” co-sponsored by both Air and Space and the National Museum of American History.

Historian Carlene Stephens, who studies the history of time and is one of four Smithsonian curators who worked on the show, says: “If you want to know where you are, if you want to know where you’re going, you need a reliable clock and that’s been true since the 18th century.”

In pursuit of a sea clock, Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, changed timekeeping forever when he patented the first working pendulum clock in 1656 and later devised a watch regulator called a balance spring. He worked with several Dutch clockmakers,including Johannes van Ceulen, who made this table clock around 1680, one of the earliest clocks with a pendulum.

The sextant, invented in the 18th century by British mathematical instrument makers, became the most essential instrument for celestial navigation. Jesse Ramsden, who made this sextant, also devised a machine to divide the scale on the sextant very precisely.

That interplay of time and space is at the heart of the exhibit—from sea to satellites. As technology allows for greater accuracy, so too does it ease navigation for the average user, so that by World War II, navigators could be trained in a matter of hours or days.

What began as “dead reckoning,” or positioning oneself using time, speed and direction, has transformed into an ever-more accurate process with atomic clocks capable of keeping time within three-billionths of a second. Where it once took roughly 14 minutes to calculate one’s position at sea, it now takes fractions of a second. And though it still takes 14 minutes to communicate via satellite with instruments on Mars, like Curiosity, curator Paul Ceruzzi says, we were still able to complete the landing with calculations made from earth.

“That gives you a sense of how good we’re getting at these things,” says Ceruzzi.

The exhibit tells the story with an array of elegantly crafted and historical instruments, including models of clocks designed by Galileo, Charles Lindbergh’s sextant used to learn celestial navigation, artifacts from the Wilkes Expedition and Stanley, the most famous early robotic vehicle that can navigate itself. It as much a testament to the distances we’ve traversed as it is to the capacity of human intellect  that first dreamed it was all possible.

While this instrument does not look like a traditional sextant, the basic procedure is descended from centuries-old methods used by navigators at sea and in the air. This instrument was used by Apollo astronauts to first locate a single star with a telescope and then take a fix using a sextant.

Developed by the Stanford Racing Team, Stanley is a 2005 Volkswagen Touareg modified to navigate without remote control and without a human driver in the seat and successfully completed the Grand Challenge, a robot race sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), by navigating 212 kilometers (132 miles) across desert terrain.

Ebbetts Field opened April 9, 1913. Photo courtesy of the American History Museum

You may think we’re sick of baseball here at Smithsonian Mag, seeing as we’ve already written about its sheet music and poetry just 10 days into its season, but no way! We can’t stop digging up cool artifacts relating to America’s favorite past time.

Today is the 100-year anniversary of the opening of Ebbets Field, Brooklyn’s now-demolished major league baseball park, and in celebration we’ve compiled a few images of items related to the park that are currently in Smithsonian’s collections. Above is a pair of seats from the park’s stands, which were torn down along with the rest of the stadium in 1960 three years after Brooklyn’s home team, the Dodgers, relocated to Los Angeles, and below is a Dodgers jersey and a postage stamp commemorating the park’s iconic facade (after which the exterior of Queens’ Citi Field is modeled).

Ebbets Field made history on April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson debuted as Major League Baseball’s first African American player the modern era, covering first base for the Dodgers. Over the following decade, the franchise’s enormous success (including a 1955 World Series victory) ultimately was its undoing, because the stadium’s small size and lack of parking could not accommodate the team’s growing number of fans. The Dodgers’ departure and the field’s demolition were seen by many New Yorkers as a departure from baseball’s old-time values to an increasingly commercial focus.

“The move showed even a team with an entrenched fanbase and a lot of love could leave, and it changed baseball’s relationship between its fans and its franchises,” says Eric Jentsch, curator at the American History Museum. “Ebbets field has a special place in the hearts of America, because it fought for New York City’s love. Its demolition signified a more modern take on the sporting world, in spite of the affection the park won.”

A Brooklyn Dodgers jersey, c. 1913. Photo courtesy of American History Museum

A 2001 stamp commemorating Ebbets Field. Photo courtesy of National Postal Museum

A crowd gathered for the donation ceremony and performance to kick off this year’s Jazz Appreciation Month. All photos by Leah Binkovitz

From the Latin rhythms of jazz drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez to the uniquely African-infused sounds of jazz composer and pianist Randy Weston, jazz is having a global moment. To kick off this year’s Jazz Appreciation Month, the American History Museum began with a festive donation ceremony as the two living legends offered pieces from their illustrious careers, including a purple drumset and a black tunic and cap from a special international appearance.

Weston had in fact been to the museum 15 years earlier when he came to take in its collection of Duke Ellington materials, an archive which confers a sort of mecca status onto the Institution. In the intervening years, Weston was honored with the nation’s highest achievement for a jazz musician, earning the status of a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2001.

Born in 1926 in Brooklyn, Weston says his life was always full of learning and music. His parents surrounded him with books about great African leaders and civilizations and sent him to piano lessons from an early age. Tall even then, Weston says, “In those days, I thought I was going to the circus,” but he stuck with piano. He still relishes memories of playing records with the window open as the sounds drifted to the city streets. “The whole community was music,” he says. Eventually, Weston was able to travel abroad to Africa and learn more about the cultures he had studied from afar. “By traveling and studying, I realized music was created in Africa in the first place,” particularly the blues and jazz, which he says he heard elements of everywhere. His musical career has worked to highlight and expand upon these musical and cultural intersections, earning him no end of honors. In 2011, the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI, held a ceremony to celebrate Weston’s role in bringing the country’s Gnaoua music traditions to the West. Standing alongside the outfit he wore then and which is now a part of the museum’s collections, Weston says, “I’m still studying and learning.”

Joined by his wife, Weston, curator John Hasse and Hernandez took in the show.

From Cuba by way of Italy, Hernandez not only brings a fresh perspective on Afro-Cuban music but his percussive skill alone is a bit of a musical revolution. Curator Marvette Pérez told him, “I just don’t know anyone who can do with the drumset what you do.” His musicality, she says, turns the drums into something more akin to a piano. Before playing one last set on the kit, Hernandez told the crowd he was honored to have a piece of his music forever surrounded by “memories of people that I always dreamed to be with since the day I was born.”

Members of the Jazz Masterworks Orchestra performed two songs before the ceremony.

Lionel Hampton donated one of his famous vibraphones to the museum back in 2001, but this was the first time members of the Smithsonian’s own Jazz Masterworks Orchestra were able to perform with this iconic instrument.

The museum’s Jazz Appreciation Month is in its 12th year.

A month of performances and talks means there’s something for everyone.

Hernandez signs over his drumset to curator Marvette Pérez and says his final goodbyes.

The set Hernandez donated, complete with a special cowbell designed by him to capture Latin rhythms.

Weston posed for cameras after speaking about growing up in Brooklyn and then traveling the world to learn more about the music he loves.

Weston wore this outfit in 2011 when he was honored by King Mohammed VI of Morocco for bringing the country’s Gnaoua music traditions to the West.

Head here for more information about Jazz Appreciation Month and this year’s calendar of performances.

Father and son: Darius and Dave Brubeck in Wilton, Connecticut, September 2011. Image courtesy of Darius Brubeck

Joann Stevens of the American History Museum. She is the program manager of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) and last wrote about the Aloha Boys.

Dave Brubeck.  The legendary jazz pianist, composer, and cultural diplomat’s name inspires awe and reverence.  Call him the “quintessential American.” Reared in the West, born into a tight knit, musical family, by age 14 he was a cowboy working a 45,000 acre cattle ranch at the foothills of the Sierras with his father and brothers.  A musical innovator, Brubeck captivated the world over six decades with his love for youth, all humanity, and the cross-cultural musical rhythms that jazz and culture inspire. In 2009, as a Kennedy Center Honoree he was feted by President Barack Obama who said “you can’t understand America without understanding jazz.  And you can’t understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck.”

In 2012, Dave Brubeck passed away a day before his 92nd birthday, surrounded by his wife of 70 years, Iola , his son Darius and Darius’ wife Cathy.  To understand Brubeck’s legacy one must know him as a musician, a son, husband, father and friend.  In tribute to Dave Brubeck during the Smithsonian’s 12th Annual Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) and UNESCO’s International Jazz Day, his eldest son, Darius, offers a birds-eye view into life with his famous father and family and how their influences shaped his personal worldview and career as a jazz pianist, composer, educator, and cultural activist, using music to foster intercultural understanding and social equity. A Fulbright Senior Specialist in Jazz Studies, Darius Brubeck has taught jazz history and composition in Turkey, Romania, and South Africa, among other nations.  He has created various ground breaking commissions such as one for Jazz at Lincoln Center that set music he composed with Zim Ngqawana to extracts of speeches from Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, read by actor Morgan Freeman.

Darius Brubeck on tour summer 2012 with Darius Brebeck Quartet. Image courtesy of Darius Brubeck

What did you learn from your father as a musician and cultural ambassador that guides and inspires you today?

Nearly everything.  But here is what I think relates to JAM and this UNESCO celebration. Dave combined being as American as you can get—raised as a cowboy, former GI, always in touch with his rural California roots—with being internationalist in his outlook. People in many countries regard him as one of their own, because he touched their lives as much as their own artists did. If it were possible to explain this with precision, music would be redundant. Of course it isn’t.

He was always curious, interested in people, intrigued rather than repelled by difference, and quick to see what people had in common. I realize, now especially, that I absorbed these attitudes and have lived accordingly, without really thinking about where they came from.

How was it growing up with a famous jazz musician father who had friends like Louis Armstrong, Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis?

In retrospect, the most important thing was seeing what remarkable human beings these musicians were. They had their individual hang-ups and struggles, but in company they were witty, perceptive, self-aware, informed, and, above all, ‘cool.’   I learned that humor and adaptability help you stay sane and survive the endless oscillation between exaltation and frustration— getting a standing ovation one moment and not being able to find a place to eat the next. Dave and Paul (Desmond) were extremely different people but their very difference worked musically. You learn perspective because your own vantage point is always changing.

For your family music, and jazz in particular, is the family business. How did that shape you as a person and your family as a unit?

It made us a very close family. People in the ‘jazz-life’ really understand that playing the music is the easiest part. The rest of it can be pretty unrewarding. My mother worked constantly throughout my father’s career, and still does. Many people contact her about Dave’s life and music. In addition to writing lyrics, she contributed so much to the overall organization of our lives.  We were very fortunate because this created extra special bonds between family members as colleagues, and as relatives.

Performing together as a family is special. It’s also fun. We all know the score, so to speak. We all know that the worst things that happen make the best stories later. And so we never blame or undermine each other. There have been big celebratory events that have involved us all. Dave being honored at the Kennedy Center in 2009 must count as the best. All four musician brothers were surprise guest performers, and both my parents were thrilled.

During the seventies, my brothers Chris and Dan and I toured the world with Dave in “Two Generations of Brubeck” and the “New Brubeck Quartet.” Starting in 2010, the three of us have given performances every year as “Brubecks Play Brubeck.”  We lead very different lives in different countries the rest of the time. The professional connection keeps us close.

Darius Brubeck with students from Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, 2007. Image courtesy of Darius Brubeck

The Jazz Appreciation Month theme for 2013 is “The Spirit and Rhythms of Jazz.” How does your father’s legacy express this theme?

I know you’re looking for something essential about jazz itself but, first, I’ll answer your question very literally. Dave wrote a large number of ‘spiritual’ works, including a mass commissioned for Pope John Paul’s visit to the U.S. in 1987. His legacy as a composer, of course, includes jazz standards like In Your Own Sweet Way. But there is a large body of liturgical and concert pieces in which he shows people how he felt about social justice, ecology, and his faith.

The ‘spirit of jazz’ in Dave’s music, as he performed it, is an unqualified belief in improvisation as the highest, most inspired , ‘spiritual’ musical process of all.

Cultural and rhythmic diversity is what he is most famous for because of hits like “Take Five,” “Unsquare Dance” and “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” The cultural diversity of jazz is well illustrated by his adaptation of rhythms common in Asia, but new to jazz.  He heard these during his Quartet’s State Department tour in 1958.

Brubeck (above, with local musicians) traveled to India on a State Department tour in 1958. Image courtesy of the Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

You were a Fulbright scholar in jazz studies in Turkey. Your father composed “Blue Rondo” after touring the country.  How did Turkey inspire him? What did you learn from your time in Turkey and touring there with your father?  

Dave first heard the rhythm that became the basis of “Blue Rondo a la Turk” in Izmir, played by street musicians. I was actually with him in 1958, as an 11-year-old boy. He transcribed the 9/8 rhythm and when he went to do a radio interview, he described what he heard to one of the radio orchestra musicians who spoke English. The musician explained that this rhythm was very natural for them, “like blues is for you.” The juxtaposition of a Turkish folk rhythm with American blues is what became “Blue Rondo.”

The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s music encounter with Indian classical musicians at All-India Radio was also very significant. Dave didn’t perform the music of other cultures, but he saw the creative potential of moving in that direction as a jazz musician, especially when it came to rhythm.

Jazz is open-ended. It always was fusion music, but that doesn’t mean that it is just a nebulous collection of influences.

When I was in Istanbul as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in 2007, my first thought was to encourage what musicologists call hybridity, the mixing of musical traditions. This was met with some resistance from students and I had to re-think my approach. In effect, they were saying, ‘No!  We’re not interested in going on a cross-cultural journey with you during your short time here.  We want to learn what you know.’

They were right.  When, and if, they want to combine jazz and Turkish music, they’ll do it themselves, and vice versa. Jazz is world music. It’s not ‘World Music’ in the sense of ‘Celtic fiddler jams with Flamenco guitarist and tabla player.’ Rather it is a language used everywhere. Anywhere you go you’ll find musicians who play the blues and probably some ‘standards’ like “Take the A-Train” or “All the Things You Are.”  The other side of this is that local music becomes international through jazz.  Think about the spread of Brazilian, South African and Nordic jazz.

In Turkey, Brubeck (above: arriving with his family) first heard the rhythms that would form the basis of “Blue Rondo” from street musicians. Image courtesy of the Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

In the eighties in South Africa, you initiated the first degree course in jazz studies offered by an African university. Jazz is known globally as ‘freedom’s music.’ South African was under apartheid when you did this.  Why was it important for you to do this on that continent, in that country, at that time?

Before I answer, I have to say that my wife, Catherine, is South African. Her political and music connections led to my going to Durban in 1983 to teach at the University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal).

There wasn’t a university degree in jazz studies in the whole of Africa. It is somewhat ironic that the first one should be taught by a white foreigner in apartheid South Africa. The ANC in exile was in favor of my going or we wouldn’t have gone. They knew they would be in government sooner or later  and saw that transforming important institutions from the inside was a positive step.

There was already an established jazz scene in South Africa that had produced great artists like Hugh Masakela  and Abdullah Ibrahim, but they couldn’t work in their own country. So this was a crucial choice for me at the time and an opportunity to do something that mattered. Local musicians didn’t have the training for the academic world; working in a university certainly isn’t the same as gigging and giving music lessons. A lot of ‘improvisation’ made it work. For example, changing entrance requirements so that African students and players could join the program.

How we progressed is too long a story to go into here, but the new opportunities and, eventually, the especially created Centre for Jazz & Popular Music visibly and joyfully changed the cultural landscape on campus, in Durban, and also had an impact on higher education generally. Today, 30 years later, there are numerous universities and schools that offer jazz.

What are your aspirations as a jazz musician and educator? What impact do you want to have on the world?  

I’ve just described the biggest thing I’ve done in my life. It took up almost 25 years and I’m in my sixties now. So that might be it, but who knows? I’m back to playing music full-time because I love doing it, not just the music but the life-long friendships and connections that develop in the jazz world.

Also the travel, the especially strange and wonderful opportunities like playing in Israel and Saudi Arabia within a few months of each other. I secretly hope that in some instances my concerts and compositions help people see beyond the barriers of race, nationalism and ideology. That’s what I try to do, anyway.

I don’t have particular career aspirations, except the desire to continue improving as a musician. When I feel I’ve gone as far as I can, I’ll quit. Meanwhile I enjoy having my own quartet, touring sometimes with my brothers, and also lecturing and teaching when the occasions arise.

Dave Brubeck (center) with sons, 1973; Image courtesy of the Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

What’s on the horizon for the Brubeck Institute and your career that most people don’t know?

I hope the Brubeck Institute will take on an even more international role. While it is historically fitting that the Institute and the Brubeck Collection be located at the University of the Pacific in California where my parents studied and met, the true mission is global.

At the start of this conversation I said my father was instinctively internationalist.  I think the Brubeck Institute should carry this spirit of cooperation and ecumenism into the future. I will certainly help where I can.

This year I’m hoping to play in far flung Kathmandu, where they have a jazz festival, also to return to South Africa for some reunion performances. I really appreciate that although I live in London, the university where I taught for 25 years has made me an Honorary Professor.

JAM 2013 explores jazz and world culture with Smithsonian museums and community partners in a series of  events.  April 9, free onstage discussion/workshop with Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez at American history; free Latin Jazz JAM! concert with Hernandez, Giovanni Hidalgo and Latin jazz stars at GWU Lisner Auditorium; April 10, Randy Weston and African Rhythms in concert w. guest Candido Camero/onstage discussion with Robin Kelley and Wayne Chandler ; April 12 Hugh Masakela at GWU. 

Use of historic materials in the Brubeck Collection  are granted by permission of the Brubeck Institute at the University of the Pacific.

The less-than-annual April Fool’s Day conference at the American History Museum takes on all things grease this year.

In case you missed the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association‘s national conference this past weekend in Washington, D.C., the American History Museum is offering another chance to have some academic fun, including a repeat performance from Jim Deutsch, curator at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage on the wonders of Crisco. “Laughing out Lard: The Folklore of Crisco,” explores the early days of the shortening’s marketing up through its current slang connotations, most of which Deutsch says can’t be printed.

In honor of April Fool’s Day, the American History Museum is once again getting as wild as a scholarly institution can and throwing a just-for-laughs conference all on the topic of grease. The tradition began in 1991 with a thorough investigation of Jell-O and continues this year with an art and food contests as well as paper presentations that are encouraged to be historically accurate when possible.

Presentations begin at 1 p.m. in the museum’s Warner Brothers Theater and include discussions of “Comic Art and the Manly Do,” “Lard Times Come Again No More: Resurrecting the Traditional Aesthetics of Our Nation’s Lost Grease, Fat, and Multi-purpose Lubricant,” and “Greasepaint Glamour.”

In addition to looking at some of the more outrageous modern uses of the word “crisco,” Deutsch says he will cover the product’s early naming–”Crisco is an acronym for its main ingredient, which is crystallized cottonseed oil. Apparently, the name Cryst was considered at the time of its introduction (in 1911), but was rejected for obvious reasons,” its clever marketing courtesy of Procter & Gamble– “Your stomach welcomes Crisco.” This is Sandy Becker saying, “Keep cooking with Crisco. It’s all vegetable. It’s digestible,” and even playing a track with the lyrics, ”Disco, disco, disco. I am going to Mount Kisco. I am going to buy Crisco / To bake a cake so I can / Disco, disco, disco.”

The tiny parasitic wasps flourish by laying eggs inside other insects (above: a wasp punctures a fruit fly). Photo by USDAgov, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Friday, March 29: The Secret Life of Parasitic Wasps

Parasitic wasps are some of the creepiest bugs on the planet. To further their species, they hunt down other insects and inject eggs  into them. When the eggs hatch, the baby parasitic wasp larvae feed on the host’s insides and grow, until they burst out Alien-style—eeeewww!! Today, Dr. Matthew Buffington of the USDA Systematic Entomology Lab is in the house to tell you everything you wanted to know about these wicked wasps. (You might want to avoid eating anything too heavy for lunch before you go.) Free. 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Natural History Museum

Saturday, March 30: Historic Theater: Meet Joseph Henry

Just how did the Smithsonian Institution begin, anyway? Joseph Henry, the first secretary, is cruising the American History Museum’s halls today (actually, he’s a historical reenactor) to talk about the Smithsonian during the Civil War and Henry’s great influence on the Institution from during the years 1846 to 1878. Ask him about electromagnets! Free. 10:30 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. American History Museum.

Sunday, March 31: “Pictures in the Parlor”

Family portraits were a luxury reserved for the rich in until the 1840s, when the invention of photography allowed Victorian-era America to begin documenting—and flaunting—their loved ones. “Pictures in the Parlor,” a newly-opened exhibition, features more than 50 portraits that show how seemingly simple decisions about where and how to display these new status symbols reflected a quiet revolution overtaking the middle-class home. Great for comparing and contrasting with your own living room! Free. Ends June 30, on display during regular museum hours. American Art Museum.

Also, check out our 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 packed with handy navigational tools, maps, museum floor plans and museum information including ‘Greatest Hits’ for each Smithsonian museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.