CALENDAR
Vroman’s
Live
Bookstore boasts stellar lineup for July
T
By Arroyo Staff
he bookstore Vroman’s is hosting virtual and in-person programs throughout July. Register through vromansbookstore. com. Anyone with questions is asked to contact email@ vromansbookstore.com. Vroman’s Virtual events will be presented through Crowdcast. John Vercher and Chris L. Terry discuss “After the Lights Go Out” 6 p.m. Thursday, July 7 Xavier “Scarecrow” Wallace, a biracial MMA fighter on the wrong side of 30, is facing the fight of his life. Wallace can no longer deny he is losing his battle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy or pugilistic dementia. Through the fog of memory loss, migraines and paranoia, Wallace does his best to stay in shape by training at the Philadelphia gym owned by Shot, a retired champion boxer to whom Wallace owes an unpayable debt. Wallace makes ends meet while he waits for the call that will reinstate him after a year suspension by teaching youth classes at Shot’s gym and living rent free in the house of his white father, whom Wallace was forced to commit to a nursing home. The progress of father Sam’s end-stage Alzheimer’s has revealed his latent racism, and Wallace finally gains insight into why his Black mother left the family years ago. Wallace is offered a chance at redemption: a last-minute, highprofile comeback fight. If he can get himself back in the game, he’ll be able to clear his name and begin to pay Shot. To register, visit crowdcast.io/e/john-vercher-in. Ned Beauman and Joshua Cohen discuss “Venomous Lumpsucker” 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 13 Soon, thousands of species are going extinct every year and an entire industry has sprung up around their extinctions to help preserve the remnants. For example, biobanks secure archives of DNA samples from which lost organisms might someday be resurrected. But one day, a mysterious cyberattack hits every biobank, wiping out the last traces of the perished species. Karin Resaint and Mark Halyard are concerned with one species in particular: the venomous lumpsucker, the most intelligent fish on the planet. Resaint is an animal cognition scientist consumed with grief over what humans have done to nature, and Halyard is an executive from the extinction industry complicit in the mining operation that destroyed the lumpsucker’s last known habitat. 22 | ARROYO | 07.22
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