Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Arts & Culture

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

The widening of the canal has exposed a trove of fossils, including megalodon teeth.

A New Opportunity at the Panama Canal

The ongoing expansion of the waterway has given Smithsonian researchers a chance to find new fossils

None

The Conversation

Readers respond to the May Issue

A plate of assorted oysters at Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco.

The Decades-Long Comeback of Mark Twain’s Favorite Food

When America’s favorite storyteller lived in San Francisco, nothing struck his fancy like a heaping plate of this Pacific Northwest delicacy

In southwest Bolivia, the world’s largest salt flats sit atop a vast pool of brine on the Salar de Uyuni.

A Tasting Tour of Salts Around the World

Food critic Mimi Sheraton samples the different kinds of the world’s most ancient and essential ingredient

According to famed chef Pierre Gagnaire, an egg slowly cooked at 149 degrees Fahrenheit would be unmatched in flavor and texture.

How Do You Cook the Perfect Egg

Chefs and scientists try to solve the ultimate culinary puzzle

None

The Chicken and the Egg

A new poem from the Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet

Everyone's favorite gumbo is the one their mother makes.

Creole Gumbo Recipe From Mrs. Elie

Invite your friends and family over to dig into the Creole version of this classic Southern dish

New Orleans in a bowl: Proper gumbo is an appetizer as filling, rich and complicated as any dish that follows it.

Best. Gumbo. Ever.

He ate far and wide, but the author found only one true version of the New Orleans dish—Mom’s

Vince Rossi wields a laser to document a whale fossil in Chile.

How Two Laser Cowboys Saved The Day

Paleontologist Nick Pyenson was in a race against a construction crew to salvage a bed of whale fossils, so he called upon 3-D technologists for help

None

How a Federally-Regulated Safety Message Distinguished a Brand

If you’ve flown Virgin America, you’ve seen its distinctive safety video. But what’s the story behind it?

Joe Odagiri, Koki Maeda, Nene Ohtsuka, Ohshiro Maeda in I Wish, a Magnolia Pictures release

Beyond Kung Fu: 5 Movies From Asia to Catch

Will the recent purchase of AMC theaters by a Chinese billionaire mean more Asian films in theaters? Likely not, but here are some to watch in the meantime

None

Meat is From Mars, Peaches are From Venus

It might be predictable that hamburger is considered a masculine food, but what about rabbit or orange juice?

Uniforms for Pan Am (1969-1971), United (1968-1970), and Southwest (1995-2004)

Judging an Airline by its Uniform

What flight attendant uniforms say about airline brand identity, cultural attitudes, and passenger psychology

None

A Restored Version of Let There Be Light Available Online

Here’s your chance to see a haunting and long suppressed WWII documentary about PTSD

Ross Braught, a largely forgotten artist who surely knew Jackson Pollock, painted the mural Mnemosyne and the Four Muses for the Kansas City Music Hall.

Where Did Jackson Pollock Get His Ideas?

A talented painter who died poor and forgotten may have inspired the influential American artist’s work in ceramics

Page 233 of 370