-by Lori Grisham-
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(Image Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library)
Johnny Mercer wrote lyrics to over a thousand songs — classics like “Moon River” and “Accentuate the Positive.” He performed many of the songs he wrote, won four academy awards and founded Capitol Records.
Born in 1909, this year marks the 100th anniversary of [...]

-by Megan Meyer-
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The other-worldly music in this story comes from…mobile phones.
The composer of this piece is Ge Wang. He’s a professor at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. He started by making music with laptops.
“So we actually have this formal course here at Stanford-and that’s the laptop [...]

-by Eleanor Kagan-
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Posted by Eleanor Kagan
It’s a tradition on Valentine’s Day to give flowers to the person you love, and then they love you more, right? That’s the theory anyway. In this audio postcard from Boston, Eleanor Kagan finds out her friend, a flower delivery man, just isn’t sold.
Galen Mook is is a grad [...]

-by Victoria Rossi | produced by Lauren Evans-
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D.C.’s Mount Pleasant is a neighborhood in transition. Boutiques are popping up next to corner stores and young professionals are moving their families there. The changeover has transformed story hour at the local library.
On any given Thursday morning five years ago, about 20 moms would walk [...]

-by Audrey Meshulam-
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Showtime’s drama, ‘The L Word’ ended its last season in March. It was the first series with a full cast of lesbian characters. Every week, the show guaranteed a big crowd at Phase 1, the nation’s oldest lesbian bar. But, as it turns out, the show itself was less important than [...]

-by Ellen Grafton-
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We all know what Superman looks like. Big yellow S, red cape, lots of blue spandex. But what does Superman sound like?
DC Comics has taken some of their biggest characters — Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern — and turned their comics into audiobooks with a company called Graphic Audio.
I [...]

-by Lynsea Garrison-
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It’s a Thursday night in Downtown D.C., and the clubs are full of people jump-starting their weekend.
But, as people trickle out to the street, they’re missing something.
Standing on the corners are girls who aren’t even old enough to get into these clubs. They’re American girls who have been sex trafficked here. Tonight, [...]

-by Brendan McGillicuddy-
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Funk Carioca, favela funk or baile funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro. It is most often simply known as funk, although it is very different musically from what funk means in the United States. In Brazil, baile funk refers not only to the music, but also to [...]

-by Rachel Kowal-

From The Dark Knight to Spiderman to Watchmen, superheroes seem to sprouting up with increasing frequency, but the action isn’t just happening in comic books and on the big screen. A real life superhero movement of everyday vigilantes has been sweeping the nation. Rachel Kowal has more.
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-by Shauna Miller-
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Posted by Shauna Miller
Chad Phillips is an ex Marine, with the tattoo to prove it. But as he sits backstage at a D.C. nightclub, Chad is nervous. A makeup artist is painting on eyebrows that would make Joan Crawford jealous.
Today is Chad’s first time performing in drag with the Academy of Washington, [...]