And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

In 1987, a book carrying the title _And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic_ reached retail stores. Few of the people involved in the book’s acquisition, production and marketing harbored hope that it would sell briskly. Not all that many potential readers even understood the meaning of the AIDS acronym. The full name of the disease did not roll off the tongue, as the cliché goes. Go ahead, say it three times fast: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Those who did understand the workings of the newly identified virus knew that the subject matter was depressing, dark and vaguely dirty—pretty much unmentionable in polite society, where reading salons exist.  read more

Grad Student Uses HIV DNA to Record Album

A grad student at the University of Georgia has composed an instrumental album based on the DNA of the HIV virus....  read more

Scenarios From Africa: Film Project Promotes HIV Prevention

In 2003, 20-year-old Sandra Nsambi Nzali was buying groceries with her mother in Matongé, an African district in Brussels, when she spotted a folder on the store’s counter.  read more

David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, Gillian Welch, The National, Feist, many more contribute to Dark Was the Night comp

Today is World AIDS Day. Appropriately enough, it's also the day that the line-up was revealed for Dark Was the Night, a compilation release which will benefit AIDS/HIV awareness group, The Red Hot Organization....  read more