Arts & Culture

While grotesque, the faces in Louis-Leopold Boilly’s The Grimaces (1823) were carefully studied from life. The figure with a twisted mouth at the upper left is a self-portrait.

A Serious Look at Funny Faces

A history of caricatures exposes the inside jokes

Neil Young

Musicians on the Road: Film vs. Reality

How Hollywood portrays musicians—rock, jazz and country—as they tour

The cover to Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports

Music for Airports Soothes the Savage Passenger

Brian Eno's Music for Airports is a sound environment created specifically to complement the experience of waiting in an airport terminal

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Elderberries, Liqueurs and Meat Stamps

These elder-containing concoctions, credited with reviving a taste for liqueurs, came about as folk remedies

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The Origins of the Drive-In Theater

How the drive-in theater became an American icon

John Wayne and Geraldine Page in Hondo

John Wayne’s Hondo Comes Out on Blu-ray

The Duke's daughter-in-law Gretchen Wayne talks about the restored version of one of his moodier Westerns

Kristen Stewart plays the "fairest of them all" in the new film adaptation of the classic fairy tale.

A Grimm Review of Snow White and the Huntsman

Fairy tale expert Jack Zipes shares his thoughts on the latest adaptation

The r-TWR remote air traffic control center

Saab Reinvents Air Traffic Control With a Digital Panorama

With Saab's new digital panorama, the local air traffic controller may soon go the way of the technical support specialist

Photo by Jim McGuire for the Memories album

Finding Doc Watson on Film

Searching for folk music on movies can be surprisingly difficult

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A Taste of Edible Feces

Ambergris, the subject of a new book, "is aromatic—both woody and floral. The smell reminds me of leaf litter on a forest floor."

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The Peas that Smelled the Leaky Pipe

In 1901, a 17-year-old Russian discovered the gas that tells fruits to ripen

Pollock’s studio in East Hampton, New York, is now the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center.

Sharing Pork Chops With Jackson Pollock

Richard Field was an undergrad with gumption when he visited the painter at his Long Island home. Nearly 60 years later, Field recalls the memorable affair

Shuttle passenger: Buzz Lightyear.

To Orbit and Beyond

Buzz Lightyear

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Those (Waxed Fruit) Times

The artist pays tribute to a family centerpiece that was both inedible and indelible

For Borderlands, out May 29 from Smithsonian Folkways, Wu Man joined forces with seven Uyghur musicians to improvise on their traditional music.

LISTEN NOW: Wu Man Brings East and West Together in New Album

In Borderlands, the Chinese musician highlights the culture of the Uyghur people

Fragments

Spotlight

Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story by Daphne Sheldrick

Loving Elephants, the Meaning of Life, a London History and More Recent Books

A pioneering elephant rescuer looks back on the loves of her life and a collection of essays investigates the history of happiness

Rosanne Cash, the daughter of Johnny Cash, is not a country and western singer in the tradition of her famous father. She's American music's theoretical physicist of love.

Rosanne Cash and the Many Meanings of Love

One of the most gifted singer-songwriters of our time talks love, science and the deep space between men and women

From the 1920s on, major figures in American arts and letters—Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Tennessee Williams and E.E. Cummings—gravitated toward Provincetown.

What Do Jackson Pollock, Tennessee Williams and Norman Mailer Have in Common?

Cape Cod's dune shacks are American culture's home away from home

The installation “We the people (detail)” was a deconstructed replica of the Statue of Liberty housed at an art museum in Kassel Germany.

Re-envisioning the Statue of Liberty

Sculptor Danh Vo deconstructs the American icon

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