Smithsonian.com

Jimi Hendrix's patchwork coat. Photo by Katherine Fogden

Halloween is two days away—costume parties perhaps even sooner—and if you are anything like me, you are probably Googling “easy costume ideas” right about now. Well, look no further. Here, Smithsonian.com’s Around The Mall team brings you ten clever (if we do say so ourselves!) costume ideas inspired by artifacts and artworks we found in the Smithsonian Institution’s collections.

1. Carol Burnett’s Curtain Rod Dress

We saw it in the collections and just couldn’t resist it. Carol Burnett lampooned the movie Gone With the Wind in a 1976 episode of her weekly sketch comedy show. When her character, Miss Starlett, strutted her stuff on the small screen in a dress obviously made from the living room curtains—with the curtain rod still in place—it was side-splitting television magic, and the costume now calls the American History Museum home. If you have a Southern belle-ish dress with a full skirt, you’re halfway to completing this look. For the rod, I suggest finding something long and lightweight, like a wrapping paper tube or two securely taped together. Since this bit will be covered with fabric, no one would be the wiser and you’re not bearing the weight of an actual metal rod all night. Just attach some finials to either end and the whole curtain rod idea should come across loud and clear. Drape the rod with green fabric, adorn with gold fringe, cinch with cording at the waist, and you’re good to go. How you actually get the rod to stay on your person is going to be a trick. Personally, I’m a proponent of duct tape. And since you have all that loose fabric hanging around, a well-done duct tape job can be easily masked from critical eyes.  – Jesse Rhodes

2. Hirshhorn Museum

Why dress up as a famous person for Halloween when you can go as an entire building? And not just any old building, but one of the most iconic and unique in the entire Smithsonian Institution. The donut-shaped Hirshhorn Museum can easily be replicated by wearing an inner tube painted gray, a gray bodysuit with strategically placed G.I. Joe’s as the sculptures in the museum’s sculpture garden and—if you really want to go all out—a Tupperware bowl over your head (or attach an inflated blue balloon to a hat) to serve as the Hirshhorn Bubble, the proposed new pavilion that would fill the museum’s central courtyard. Dressing as the museum is also the perfect excuse to stay out “After Hours.”    - Ryan Reed

3. Blue Man Group

Though the “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” exhibition that encompassed an entire floor of the Hirshhorn closed over a month ago, I can’t resist its allure for the theme of my abstract costume. Klein created his own intense shade of my favorite color (blue), titled International Klein Blue (IKB), and I’ve *so* got to respect that. So in Klein’s honor I will paint myself from head to toe in IKB, making sure to leave a small, uncovered space on his lower back. Lord knows, I don’t want to end up like Jill Masterson!   – Jeff Campagna

4. Jimi Hendrix

Draw some inspiration from the late rock guitarist, whose iconic patchwork coat is now hanging in the halls of the American Indian Museum. Collect a bunch of old clothes you don’t want anymore, and sew (or even staple if it’s only for one night!) squares of different colored fabrics together. Throw it over your (preferably bare) shoulders, grab any old guitar you can find, tease out your hair and pile on whatever old jewelry you can get your hands on. Rock out periodically throughout the evening.   – Jess Righthand

5. A Boy Scout

Use Norman Rockwell’s painting “Spirit of America,” on display in “Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as a model for how to dress like a Boy Scout. It would be best to wear a campaign hat, a khaki shirt and shorts, tall socks and a neckerchief. If you don’t have a bolo tie, make do with a brooch or hair tie. An external frame backpack (if you have one in the basement) completes the look. Oh, and occasionally give the scouts honor sign by holding your right hand up and touching your pinky finger to your thumb.    - Megan Gambino

6. Michelle Obama

Approximate the first lady’s inaugural gown, on display at the National Museum of American History, by decorating a white sheet with glitter and sequins and then draping it over one shoulder. For a slightly higher-brow approach, look for a white dress at a thrift store, cut out one shoulder and then decorate at will. If the inaugural gown thing isn’t working, you could always go with the bright dress and belted sweater combination that the first lady has made her signature look. Top it off with an American flag pin, wave a lot, and people will know exactly who you are.    - Jess Righthand

7. A Jellyfish

It is hard to miss the enormous model of a Lion’s mane jellyfish in the National Museum of Natural History’s Sant Ocean Hall—and it will be hard to miss YOU, even in a bustling costume party, if you dress like the creature. All you need to do is carry a clear umbrella with streamers dangling from it and perhaps a red shirt and white sweat pants. With the umbrella, you are prepared for the elements; though, if rain is in the forecast, I suggest substituting something more water-resistant, like tinsel, for the streamers.    - Megan Gambino

8. The Fonz

Ayyy, Halloween costumes don’t get much easier than this; however the key component is finding a leather jacket, like the one in the American History Museum’s collections once worn by Henry Winkler, a.k.a Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli, on the sitcom Happy Days. Aside from that, all you need are jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt, leather boots and hair styled into a pompadour. And if you somehow master the knack of turning on a jukebox by banging on it with your fist, you totally have this costume mastered.    - Jesse Rhodes

9. Abel the Monkey

This little guy helped to pave the way for human explorations in space. Strapped into a specially designed fiberglass cradle that allowed scientists to monitor the rhesus monkey during his space flight. Sadly, he didn’t survive the voyage, but, through the wonders of taxidermy, you can see him at the Air and Space Museum. If you’re crafty enough to cobble together your own monkey suit—or live near a costume rental place—you can complete the Abel “look” with a straight jacket and a white polo helmet. Or you can get really fancy schmancy and craft a more faithful re-creation of his body armor. Cardboard and duct tape anyone?    - Jesse Rhodes

10. And last but certainly not least:

The perfect costume for you and six of your laziest (or possibly most pretentious) friends: dress as Lawrence Weiner’s “A RUBBER BALL THROWN ON THE SEA.” The conceptual piece, on display on a length of wall in the Hirshhorn, is bold and blue and is easy enough to recreate on a collection of white T-shirts. A word to the wise: don’t stray too far from members of your work of art or else you’ll just be “that guy wearing the ‘ball’ shirt.”   – Jamie Simon

If none of these strike your fancy, our friends at the Archives of American Art came up with a few ideas of their own.

And the 2010 People's Design Award goes to...the Braille Alphabet Bracelet. Photo courtesy of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Last night, at its 11th annual National Design Awards gala in New York City, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum announced this year’s People’s Design Award winner. Can I get a drum roll please?

After over one hundred designs were nominated and thousands of votes were cast, the Braille Alphabet Bracelet prevailed as the public’s favorite. Designed by Leslie Ligon of At First Sight Braille Jewelry, the bracelet has the complete Braille alphabet on the outside and the print alphabet on the inside.

Ligon, whose son is blind, created the jewelry piece to increase the awareness of Braille literacy, the statistics of which are rather shocking. Only 10 percent of the blind population is Braille literate, and yet literacy could be the answer to the high unemployment rate, hovering around 70 percent, among the blind. After all, at least 90 percent of employed, legally blind individuals can read and write Braille. To back the bracelet’s statement, Ligon donates a percentage of the profits to Braille literacy organizations, such as National Braille Press and BrailleInk.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the People’s Design Award winner seems to parley the priorities of today’s consumer. The voters’ social awareness is reflected in other nominees, including the EyeWriter communication device, the SHINEON low-cost LED lamp, the SODIS water disinfecting method, the five-dollar-per-square-foot house and the touch signalization tiles that help blind people at crosswalks.

“I’m delighted that the public has chose to honor the Braille Alpahabet Bracelet, which looks good, communicates without a glance and feels great too!” said Bill Moggridge, director of the museum.

Tim Gunn, of Project Runway fame, will be speaking at the Teen Design Fair. Photo by Richard Patterson. Courtesy of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

Tonight more than 400 New York City high school students interested in pursuing careers in fashion, architecture and industrial, interior and graphic design will gather at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s Teen Design Fair in Manhattan. The fair, which the museum has hosted annually since 2007, offers teens the opportunity to meet top designers and learn about programs and scholarships offered at design colleges across the country.

Tim Gunn, Chief Creative Officer at Liz Claiborne Inc. and co-host of Lifetime TV’s Project Runway, will deliver the event’s keynote address. He has spoken at the last few fairs (hear his speech from last year here), and said, in a phone interview, as long as he is invited, he will keep coming. Gunn is committed to mentoring aspiring students and at Parsons The New School of Design, where he was a faculty member and administrator for 24 years, and in the Project Runway work room, he has seen such promise in the new generation of emerging designers. ”They have a sincere passion for designing,” he says. “They have a vision, and they want to make their mark on the world.”

Fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, chief Google webmaster and logo designer Dennis Hwang, New Yorker and New York Times illustrator Maira Kalman, architect Stephen Kieran, comic book illustrator Phil Jimenez and interior designer William Sofield, among others, will be in attendance to meet with students.

The Teen Design Fair is part of the museum’s National Design Week (October 9-17) programming, taking place in New York City and around the country. Added bonus: Admission to the Cooper-Hewitt is free for the week. Take advantage!

John Franklin, director of partnerships and international programs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, recently visited historic sites in Central Florida. Photo courtesy of flickr user Steve Snodgrass.

“I first heard about the Moores of Mims in the song,” says John Franklin, director of partnerships and international programs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

It seems I hear Harry Moore
from the earth his voice still cries:
“No bomb can kill the dreams I hold, for freedom never dies.
Freedom never dies, I say. Freedom never dies.
No bomb can kill the dreams I hold for freedom never dies.”

The “Ballad of Harry T. Moore,” as it’s called, was written by poet Langston Hughes and adapted into a song by Sweet Honey in the Rock, the African-American a capella group founded in 1973 by former Smithsonian Folklife Festival participant and Smithsonian Folkways artist Bernice Johnson Reagon. A stirring spiritual, it tells the story of Harry Moore, a civil rights leader and NAACP official who was killed with his wife Harriette when their home was bombed Christmas night 1951.

At the end of September, Franklin visited the “little cottage” of the song, the Moores’ gravesites and the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex in Mims, Florida. “To go to the place of the bombing, with an excellent new exhibition situating the Moores in the larger context of Florida and U.S. history, was a moving experience,” he says.

His visit to Mims was part of a larger four-day research trip to Central Florida. In Orlando, Eatonville, Sanford, New Smyrna, Mims, Bartow, St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater and Bradenton, Franklin was given guided tours of museums and historic sites, such as author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston’s home and the L.B. Brown House, a home on the National Register of Historic Places that was built and owned by a former slave. All the while, he kept in mind how the stories of African Americans like Harry Moore could be incorporated into the National Museum of African American History and Culture, opening on the National Mall in 2015.

“We really need to represent the different regions of the United States and the different experiences of each region,” Franklin told FloridaToday.com. Each trip, he says, is an opportunity to learn.

In July 2009, he traveled around Northern Florida, particularly Jacksonville and Tallahassee, with Althemese Barnes, director of the Riley House in Tallahassee. This time around, the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network selected the sites Franklin visited. “We are interested in networks and institutions in each state of the U.S,” says the curator, who is currently working with groups in Virginia, Louisiana and across New England.

Kids are back to school. Cravings for homemade chili and freshly picked apples kick in. And across the country, football season officially begins. (If you haven’t seen high school and college players, strengthened by arduous two-a-days, suiting up for their season openers, you’ve surely witnessed office mates tinkering with their fantasy football teams, right?)

In due tribute to the excitement of another season of pep rallies and Friday night games under the lights, the Smithsonian Channel premieres “The Rivals” this Saturday, September 11, at 9 p.m. The documentary, directed by Kirk Wolfinger, follows two high school football teams from Western Maine, both hell-bent on winning the state championship, through their 2007 season.

The football field is just about the only place where the Falcons of Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Maine, and the Capers of Cape Elizabeth High School in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, are evenly matched. Rumford is a blue-collar town struggling to be supported by a paper mill in town, while Cape Elizabeth is a white-collar town teeming with successful doctors and lawyers. The Mountain Valley Falcons play on a worn field in the shadow of the mill’s smokestacks, and the Capers have a new turf field funded by their Booster Club. Plain and simple, it is the “haves” versus the “have nots.” And, as the narrator of the film points out, football, in this case, is more than just a game. It is a clash of cultures.

But the Mountain Valley Falcons do have experience on their side. Coach Jim Aylward has led them to six conference titles and two state championships during his long tenure. Ninety miles south of Rumford, Coach Aaron Filieo, three years into establishing a football program at Cape Elizabeth High School, is just trying to make a name for his Capers.

The film transported my husband and I back to our high school sports days, reminding us of rivalries, coaching styles, spaghetti dinners and, most of all, the sense of community that sports create. ”When you’re carrying the ball,” Coach Aylward tells his players, “you’re carrying it for the whole town.”

Though particularly poignant to former athletes, the story, with its life lessons of respect, pride and perseverance, has been enjoyed by a wide audience. On the independent film festival circuit, “The Rivals” has won the Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Woods Hole Festival, Best Picture at the 2010 Phoenix Film Festival and Best Documentary at the 2009 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival.