Image of the dress worn by Esperanza Spalding during her 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony performance in Oslo, Norway. The dress was donated to the National Museum of American History Monday. (Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution) (Smithsonian Institution) Esperanza Spalding is solidifying her impression in American society by earning a spot in the Smithsonian - or at least her dress has.

The Grammy-award winning bass player presented the Smithsonian National Museum of American History with the dress she wore during her 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony performance in Oslo, Norway, upon which she was invited by President Obama to participate.

The donation of Spalding’s dress falls in line with the museum’s initiative focused on women in jazz, which kicked off in April during Jazz Appreciation Month.

The White House favorite made the presentation yesterday at the museum.

It’s a winter epidemic that spreads each year as soon as the thermostat dips, but this season, you can protect yourself from a scourge that fashionistas fear more than the flu: Ugg Boots.

Landline TV and Babelgum urge you to protect yourself from elephant feet in its PSA for a new vaccine called Uggcitrin. Symptoms: Wearing leggings as pants, holding oversize Starbucks cups to make your hands more petite. Even in 2009, Washington Post fashion writer Holly Thomas advised readers that “Uggs should be a last resort.” Temperatures are still mild. It’s not too late to take a stand.

With a bit of skillful tweaking — including a new tribute to the monologue’s subject — Mike Daisey has brought his bravura solo show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” to the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York. And what he presents is now to my mind the best original American play so far this year.

Mike Daisey is both the creator and performer of 'The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.’ (Astrid Riecken)

Daisey performed this exquisitely written piece in the spring, in a successful run at Woolly Mammoth Theatre; it had its formal off-Broadway opening Monday night. The two-hour monologue, intoned from behind a sleek table, is Daisey’s account of his geeky obsession with iPads and MacBook Pros, a love affair tempered by the knowledge he acquired in an investigation of the conditions under which Apple products are manufactured in China.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has some musical competition. (Matt Sullivan - Getty Images) Herman Cain — currently a Youtube sensation for his all-too-earnest cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” with lyrics extolling the virtues of Godfather’s Pizza instead of world peace — isn’t the only musically gifted presidential candidate. Although none of his competitors have sung or played music with as much gusto (or with a full backup chorus), Cain has competition from his fellow candidates, who have exhibited their musical talents at rallies and meetings as well.

Harry Belafonte — singer perhaps best known for the Banana Boat song (“Day-o, me say daaaayyy-o”), actor and political and civil rights activist — was the subject of last night’s HBO documentary “Sing Your Song,” a biography detailing both his musical accomplishments and his activism.

Entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte poses in Washington, DC, on Oct. 11, 2011, next to a poster of "Sing Your Song," the HBO documentary film about his life and career. (JEWEL SAMAD - AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Our TV critic Hank Stuever gave it high marks, saying:

Tom Wolfe—pioneer of New Journalism, wearer of white suits, frequent user of this very em-dashed-style sentence—will be at the Newseum on Wednesday night for a reception, discussion, and excerpt from a play based upon his work. The production, “WOLFE! The Electric Kool-Aid Ice-Cream-Suited Right Stuff Man-in Full-On-the-Beat," was written by Judith Auberjonois and stars her husband, René Auberjonois. It is comprised almost entirely of language taken directly from many of Wolfe’s works, including “The Right Stuff” and “A Man in Full.”

The reception begins in the Knight Conference Center at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $75 for Newseum members, $100 for the general public, and can be purchased at the Newseum’s website.

Just as the Occupy movement has inspired protest songs, political cartoons and parody, the visual and performance art that has emerged from the movement has mirrored the protest itself: A wry but earnest grass-roots response of frustration and hope.
(Courtesy Shepard Fairey - The Occupation Party)

In New York, the “No Comment” art exhibit, which closed yesterday, occupied the former J.P. Morgan building, across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. An art response organized by Loft in the Red Zone, “No Comment” exhibited everything from anti-capitalist paintings to protesters’ clever signs. Rolling Stone spoke with an artist who flew from Berlin to participate. Although many art bloggers praised the work and the spirit of community that emerged from the pop-up exhibit, Hyperallergic was critical of one display:

In case you missed their Sunday Arts stories, here are two reviews from dance critic Sarah Kaufman and art critic Philip Kennicott.

Kennicott traveled to Baltimore to look at “Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes” at the Walters Art Museum. “It is an exhibition about ancient science and the drama of how thoughts from the 3rd century B.C. were transmitted from the mind of the great mathematician Archimedes to papyrus to sheepskin to digital files now available to anyone with access to the internet,” wrote Kennicott.
Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough in "Footloose." (Paramount Pictures)

Kaufman sat back and reviewed the remake of the classic 1980s movie, “Footloose.” She found “on the plus side, diversity has arrived in Bomont, the film’s fictional town. Newly multicultural, it looks a good bit more realistic than the all-white, somewhat stagey setting of the original. And in keeping with the urban demographics, the dancing is tougher, rougher and all-out sexier.”

Philip Levine, the 18th Poet Laureate of the United States, will give his inaugural reading on October 17 at the Library of Congress.

When Levine spoke with the Post upon receiving the honor, he said his career started with a simple passion: “It began with a love of just the language. There was nothing that I had ever read that moved me as powerfully as some of the poetry I read. . . .Poems were something I could memorize and carry with me, and recite them in my head, and live with them.” (Read the rest of the story on Levine here.)

The reading is free and open to the public. It will take place at 7:00 in the Coolidge Auditorium on the ground floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, at 10 First Street SE and serve as the opening to the Library’s 2011-2012 literary season. A book-signing will follow the reading. No tickets or reservations are required for the event.

It wasn’t just a culturally insensitive gaffe when retailer Urban Outfitters put a line of Navajo-inspired items — including panties and a flask — in their stores: It might be a lawsuit. A Native American blogger recently denounced the company’s wares as “perverted cultural appropriation,” launching a blogosphere conversation about when fashion goes too far.
Urban Outfitters’s Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask (Urban Outfitters)

By naming their items after the Native American tribe (i.e., the Peace Treaty Feather Necklace or the Staring at Stars Skull Native Headdress T-shirt), the company may have to pay a hefty fine for violating trademark law. The Navajo Nation owns 12 trademarks on the use of the word “Navajo,” and according to the Department of the Interior, it’s illegal to sell items in a manner that falsely suggest they are produced by Native Americans.