On 20 March 2020, a new grand exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum titled “Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture” was scheduled to open. It was to be the “first to examine Humboldt’s impact on five spheres of American cultural development: the visual arts, sciences, literature, politics, and exploration, between 1804 and 1903.
Needless to note, it didn’t open.
For many years I have followed the natural history observations Kelly Brenner regularly posts to her Twitter feed. Her ability not only to notice but to absolutely revel in the small details of nature that many others would easily overlook is uncanny. So when I learned that she was writing a book, needless to say I was eager for it finally to be published so I could discover more about her remarkable perceptions of the natural world.
As Nick Baker remarked regarding the new “Field Guide to the Caterpillars of Great Britain and Ireland,” “you can’t truly understand a moth or a butterfly without first getting to know the caterpillar.” As the overwhelmingly greatest portions of the lives of butterflies and moths are spent as caterpillars, he was – of course – absolutely correct.
One of the sublime joys in my life is the making of connections. I receive an inexpressible tingle of delight each time I discover a link between two – or more – things of which I hd previously known no such linkage. Not surprisingly, more often than not, at least one of the things I am able to connect is a book.