October 24
Today we honor the tremendous energy and vision and commitment to the American political conversation of Tom Hayden
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October 19
Ever wondered how exactly the Ancient Egyptians preserved their dead? So have we. Problem is that those storied embalmers never wrote down their secret. But with the help of some ancient texts and modern experiments, we have a rough idea. Tamara Bower, author of The Mummy Makers of Egypt, breaks it down.
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October 18
The Price of the Ticket
by Kia Corthron
Originally published in the July/August 2016 issue of The Dramatist
Three years ago I was standing in the lobby of a theater, the typical Broadway cluster-mob awaiting entrance, with more than half the horde African-American. This would be logical, as the show was the musical revue After Midnight, a refurbishing of a prior concert piece entitled Cotton Club Parade celebrating Ellington-era jazz and dance. Inside, my sister and I were led to our orchestra seats, and I looked around: not another black face in sight. It took me a moment to realize that The Mystery of the Vanishing Black Folks likely would have been quickly resolved had we moved up to the balconies. But from where I sat, observing the complexion of the performers versus that of the onlookers, it was the Cotton Club, the Colors entertaining the Caucasians, and that the upper tiers may have been filled with black faces was not exactly comforting, an economically induced throwback to Jim Crow segregation with African Americans relegated to the peanut gallery.
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