Tonight's guests are Jessica Chastain on The Daily Show and Toni Morrison on The Colbert Report.
Jessica Chastain is an actress best known for her role as Maya in Zero Dark Thirty. Tonight she is on to promote her new movie
Interstellar
In the near future, Earth has been devastated by drought and famine, causing a scarcity in food and extreme changes in climate. When humanity is facing extinction, a mysterious rip in the space-time continuum is discovered, giving mankind the opportunity to widen its lifespan. A group of explorers must travel beyond our solar system in search of a planet that can sustain life. The crew of the Endurance are required to think bigger and go further than any human in history as they embark on an interstellar voyage into the unknown. Coop, the pilot of the Endurance, must decide between seeing his children again and the future of the human race.
View on YouTube
Interstellar looks like an amazing movie and is certainly something I would like to see. I wish the Imax theater was a bit closer though.
Toni Morrison is a novelist, editor, and professor.
I found a few things in the news recently about her.
Toni Morrison's papers found a permanent home at Princeton University, where Morrison was a faculty member for 27 years. While the move was met with applause from most at Princeton, not all of those inspired by her like the move.
Morrison famously got her start at Howard University, a leading HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Some think that Morrison's papers should be held there, as she is one of the most successful black authors in this country's history and they credit Howard for sparking the ideas behind her works.
Do Toni Morrison's Papers Belong At Princeton Or Howard?
The following story is far more interesting.
Nyack will soon host a monument to the painful period of history when African slavery was a global industry.
The project to reinterpret the ordinary park bench as a place to ponder public history began with a turn of phrase. In response to an interviewer’s question in 1989 about the inspiration of her novel Beloved, Morrison said:
“There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves . . . There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There’s no 300-foot tower, there’s no small bench by the road. There is not even a tree scored, an initial that I can visit or you can visit in Charleston or Savannah or New York or Providence or better still on the banks of the Mississippi. And because such a place doesn’t exist . . . the book had to” (The World, 1989).
The compelling comment became a call to action for the Toni Morrison Society. In 2006, the Bench by the Road Project was established and the metaphor was made real. Nyack will be the 14th bench location around the globe.
The process that led to Nyack’s selection was set into motion when a shrine to the Underground Railroad near Main Street was condemned in late 2013. A meeting of leaders of the African American Community was held at the home of Village of Nyack Mayor Jen Laird-White in December of 2013 to discuss the impending demolition. The group expressed their concern that an important chapter of the African American experience in Nyack was being erased from the local landscape if the commemorative structure created by Joseph Mitlof was lost.
Nyack Sketch Log: Toni Morrison’s Bench By The Road
It is worth reading the whole story, I found it to be very interesting.
This Week's Guests
THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART
Th 11/20: Eddie Redmayne
THE COLBERT REPORT
Th 11/20: Jon Stewart
The week of Thanksgiving (11/24-11/27) they are taking off but will return Monday 12/1.