The copycat illnesses have ruined everything. To hear the health experts tell it, it’s almost impossible now for influenza to stand out in a crowd. A dry cough, a sore throat — even a runny nose — is not enough to get anyone’s attention anymore. Those other illnesses got influenza down, copying its symptoms so the disease […]
The scene is nighttime. A woman struts down D.C.’s U Street, ready for a night out on the town. Everything about her exudes feistiness. Every bit of that spunk and spirit is in her thigh-high dress and wide shiny belt, her fishnet stockings and black leather jacket. Even her auburn-colored blowout is flared in peacock […]
Looking up from a paperback, you notice the bookstore’s packed but no one’s reading or buying anything. Not the ladies blocking the aisle to the restrooms, laughing loud and talking to each other over bookcases. And, certainly, not the couple making out over in the poetry section. Those groups leave when a hostess calls them […]
If you asked him 30 years ago what he wanted to be, Randall Dottin would have said, “An actor like Bill Cosby.” He would have told you he raced home after school every day to catch Cosby in old episodes of I Spy and The Electric Company, and how he even tried to catch him on the silver […]
An old religious maxim says prophecy and imagination go hand-in-hand. So while society’s collective conscience can be limited, prophets operate on an elevated understanding of the world around them. These individuals were community historians and storytellers of their generation. Ask Averlyn Archer, founder and director of the Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery in Harlem, who the modern […]
n. pl. rites of passage A ritual or ceremony signifying an event in a person’s life indicative of a transition from one stage to another. Much like its predecessors, hip hop has its own rites of passage that varies little among local scenes throughout the country. Gabe Benn (emcee “Asheru”) was 21 when he went through […]
Ira Aldridge was a teenager discovering his love of theatre before becoming the first of his kind to be known internationally. William Henry Brown established a theatre before writing what many considered to be the first play of its kind. James Hewlett was a tailor by trade before becoming the first of his kind to […]
Stand in any metropolitan corridor and ask the art scene denizens there what they know about Aniekan Udofia. Some might list the 33-year-old among the most talented visual artists of his generation, with national attention on his work in hip hop magazines such as XXL, Vibe and The Source. And on a local level, others might […]
Hey, parents. Remember scolding your kids for sitting in front of the TV all day, or for texting at the dinner table? Or maybe you considered it a waste of time for them to be on the computer – playing with other online gamers from around the world, or surfing the net to watch their favorite music […]
“this is not an interview? I didn’t come all the way around the beltway for this” — a disgruntled applicant It was almost noon, when I was crammed with more than 40 applicants into a conference room meant to hold only 24. I had arrived early for what was supposed to be a job interview, and […]
Alan W. King 