Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th, 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Brixx Wood-Fired Pizza, 801 Scott Avenue, 704-376-1000; 225 E. 6th Street, 704-347-2749; 16915 Birkdale…
Religion-Free Zone
The churches of Europe are full — of tourists. Except for a few middle-aged and elderly people, the great vaulted cathedrals and small parish churches are mostly empty of worshippers.My work as an architect and historian takes me to many churches across Europe, particularly Italy and England. So much of our history and culture resides…
Time To Rise Up
Falling is a word indelibly associated in the minds of many Americans with September 11. We saw the World Trade Center towers fall. We saw people faced with the choice of being burned alive or jumping, falling to their deaths. We felt the uneasy prospect of planes falling from the sky. The days that followed…
In A Lather At UNCC
A little slice of bigtime drama is coming to UNCC this fall, and it won’t involve exams or how the hoops team is shaping up. The soaps are coming to town. CBS’ Emmy award-winning As The World Turns has picked Charlotte as part of its “Catch Us If You Can” bus tour of college campuses…
Open Mike Night
Way back when, Joy Division sang that “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Which is undeniable, of course. Witness divorce. Witness independence, or lack thereof. Witness two folks breaking up, wherein immediately both persons get sick for weeks. Easy enough, right? Love will tear us apart.The bigger question is: Can it put us back together again?…
Reader Response
A reader recently wrote CL to say she couldn’t believe the paper would print a column by someone whose “life revolves around her vagina.” I started to think about that statement. . .and I wondered: Does my life really revolve around my vagina? Hmmm.First of all, I thought, there’s my name. It’s pretty safe to…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 7.31 Fozzy — This band features wrasslin’ superstar Chris Jericho, as well as members of the band Stuck Mojo, although all involved go by pseudonyms. Go figure. Expect lots of pomp and circumstance and pretending to be a rock band, minus the ironic wit of Spinal Tap. Were he alive, Muppeteer Jim Henson oughta…
The Blotter
In the Line of Duty An officer was working in uniform off-duty at Memorial Stadium, providing security for a sports team. While the team was trying to get on their bus, someone tried to break through and get to the team. While holding the charger back, the officer was then bit on his left arm.…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Jul. 31 Amos’ Southend Fozzy Arnie’s Tavern, Huntersville Scott Johnson Bayou Kitchen Bill Noonan Big Al’s Pub, Cornelius Jes & Sherry Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Cajun Queen, Pineville 7th Street Gator Band II Charleston Chops, Cornelius Kent Steel Connolly’s Craig & Rich Acoustic Double Door Inn Travis Allison Band The Evening Muse…
News of the Weird
Carpet caveat: Despite a warning label reading “Do not use indoors because of flammability” on its carpet adhesive, the Para-Chem company was ordered by a jury in Akron, Ohio, in July to pay $8 million to two professional installers who were severely burned in an explosion when they tried to use the product indoors. One…
Lights! Camera! North Carolina?
Pop quiz, hotshot: You want to make a major motion picture, but you don’t want to pay the production prices of California or New York.What do you do? What do you do? Time’s up, pal. Answer: You go to North Carolina, the nation’s third-largest movie-producing state. That’s right. For years, the Old North State has…
See & Do
JULY31 WEDNESDAY The 107.9 Wednesday Happy Hour Free Concert Series continues today at Gateway Village with Superglide as the featured act. The evening begins at 5pm, and admission is free. For more information, call 704-374-3500. A Tuff Shuffle: Backstage with Louis Armstrong, a one-man show written and performed by Danny Mullen will be presented starting…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER Where the difference in quality between, say, Jaws and Jaws: The Revenge, or Psycho and Psycho III, can only be measured in light years, the three films in Mike Myers’ Austin Powers series have been remarkably consistent, each one alternately soaring and sinking for the same reasons. In relating…
Ask the Advice Goddess
League of combinations A female coworker likes to push my buttons with her occasional flirtations. I know I’m not special, because I’ve seen her make the same moves on other men in the organization. She also has a boyfriend she indicates is an important part of her life. She seems to pay attention to me…
The Stealth Crusade
At 8 o’clock on a warm Monday morning in January, 20 students file into Rick Love’s classroom at Columbia International University in Columbia, SC. Eyes glassy from writing papers all weekend, they clutch Styrofoam cups of coffee as they settle into their seats. In front, an overhead projector hums; it is hooked up to the…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser:When I was in my early 20s, I tried my best to dress and act older. I usually succeeded, and always dated guys at least six or seven years my elder. I usually would not tell them my real age, and most of them never knew how old I really was. Now I’m…
News Director Leaves Channel 9
A big change at WSOC-TV is in the works, as news director Vicki Montet resigned her job at the city’s number one-rated news operation. Little birds had told me Montet’s home had been on the market in recent weeks, so perhaps it isn’t a huge surprise. But unlike most “I’m leaving, and here’s where I’m…
Stargazer
For All Signs: Give some thought to a dream you began to build in 1989-90. Maybe there was more than one fresh start at that time. In 1999 there was a significant challenge to the original plan and it is possible you abandoned it. If you chose instead to adapt to the realities on hand,…
Arena Negotiations Re-re-dux
If you’re new to Charlotte, you might wonder why the city manager is huddling with the NBA in arena negotiations so secret that city leaders won’t even tell the media where they’re taking place. Why not send an experienced business executive to do it? And why must it be done in secret? The answers lie…
In The Abstract
The work of Barbara Fisher can best be described as abstract, relying upon a highly personal visual vocabulary. It appears to be as much about articulating an inner world as it is about participating in the creative process.In New Paintings, the current exhibit at Hidell Brooks Gallery, her mixed media pieces are decorative patchworks of…
Cogdell’s J’Accuse
It could be that freshman Charlotte City Council member Harold Cogdell is suffering from hallucinations and needs to be medicated. Or it could be that the shifty ways of his colleagues regarding to a new arena for the NBA have finally pushed the sometimes temperamental council member over the edge. Either way, Cogdell emerged from…
Satch Comes to the Neighborhood
All of Charlotte is invited to an audience with America’s jazz ambassador, beginning Wednesday at the Neighborhood Theatre in NoDa. A Tuff Shuffle: Backstage With Louis Armstrong is a one-man show, written and performed by Danny Mullen.The Albemarle Road Middle School teacher has resided in Charlotte for the past five years, but he’s never performed…
What The Crapper
Humankind has always been faced with certain fundamental questions: Who or what created the earth? What happens after we die? Why is P Diddy famous? How do toilets work? I can only answer the latter question.That porcelain contraption that makes stuff go bye-bye is actually quite the engineering marvel. Before explaining how it works, a…
Return of the Old Avant Garde
It is time, once again, for someone to speak the truth about John Barth. Since his debut novel, The Floating Opera, and its companion piece, The End of the Road, Barth’s writing has remained among the most challenging and distinctive artifacts of American post-modernity. Now, more than 40 years later, and leaving aside the question…
Old Crowd, No Crowd
One of the great dichotomies in my life is the subject of movies. Despite what some of my friends might think, I love them dearly, and think they’re a great artform. Why I don’t go see a lot of movies is another question entirely. Simply put, I’m an elitist. Unless I’m going to see, say,…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music American Guild of Organists Summer Recital Series featuring Jay Oden. Sun., Aug. 4, 7:30 p.m. All recitals are free and open to the public. However, a free-will offering will be taken to cover the costs of the series. First United Methodist Church. 704-588-1290. Brightstar Music Festival Chamber Music Concert Series three different spectacular…
Indian Summer
The key to a positive experience in any ethnic market is having a savvy proprietor who is keenly aware of the dual functions of such a market: providing home foods for ex-pats and being an outlet for those hard-to-find ingredients for indigenous cuisine. One such proprietor is Nepal native Tulsi Bhandari who opened Mukti Indian…
Letters To The Editor
WHERE’S THE BIG O? I just finished reading Tara Servatius’ article on Ray’s Splash Planet (“For The Children,” July 24) and I have two questions: Where did CL get a journalist as interesting and informative as Ms. Servatius and why isn’t the Observer, with all of its staff, able to do the same type of…
Downhome Gourmet
Word is out that Johnson & Wales University will be building an $82 million culinary campus in Gateway Village which will include residence halls, classrooms, labs and hands-on training facilities. Classes will start in 2004 with about 825 students, and there are plans to more than triple that enrollment by 2007.Johnson & Wales, with campuses…
A Needless Tragedy
At his funeral, they called Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Sergeant Anthony Scott Futrell a hero. But Futrell, who died in a plane crash two weeks ago while scouting marijuana plants in the fields of Chowan County, was more than a hero: he was also the latest victim of this country’s increasingly absurd war on illegal drugs. That…
Second Helping
If you’ve ever heard wine-swilling folks refer to “second label wines,” you may have wondered just what the hell they were talking about. Were they referring to bottles that sport two labels instead of just one? OK, I know you’re not dumb enough to fall for that, but the term could use some clarifying all…
TIPS of the Iceberg
I am frankly appalled that the government would instigate something like the new Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program launched by the Department of Justice. The basic intent of the program sets Americans against each other by encouraging people who frequent the homes of their fellow citizens, such as mailmen, cable guys and…
