White Chick
It’s time to get serious about summer wines. This frickin’ 100 percent humidity and scorching heat make me want to flee as far away as possible from red wine, no matter what the occasion. Give me something white and cold, and give it to me now, baby. To conquer your sweat, slide out to the…
News of the Weird
Big news day: A Palm Beach Post writer, making the point that America’s obesity problem is not limited to humans, reported from the Boca Greens Animal Hospital (Boca Raton, Fla.) in June that “Pumpkin,” a 12-pound Chihuahua, was up and moving after her recent liposuction surgery. The 12 ounces of fat she lost, however, still…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 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. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd.…
Tomi Restaurant
Keep Wokking Taiwanese cuisine prepared and served with excellence Cantonese, Mandarin, Hunan, Sichuan. Most of us can give at least a cursory flavor characteristic description of these Chinese cuisines, but Taiwanese? This island cuisine is perhaps the least understood of all the Chinese cuisines. Taiwanese cuisine is an amalgamation of all the people who have…
The Icelanders Cometh
Iceland — a volcanic isle roughly the size of Kentucky and just a couple of icebergs away from the Arctic circle. Home to long days and even longer nights, roughly 280,000 inhabitants (or 4,000 more than the city of Raleigh, NC), more book readers per capita than any other country on earth (cf. long nights,…
Sit & Spin
The Fiery Furnaces Blueberry Boat Rough Trade Excitability within any objective medium provides an easy target for elitist derision, but no matter — albums such as this strip fallible reviewers like me of all objective integrity. Moreover, they are responsible for making otherwise reasonable men let slip with beastly superlative-driven cliches like “giving 110%,” and…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 7.14 Just About to Burn — Led by Paleface, former roommate of Beck and one-time NYC anti-folk icon, this trio plays an engaging acoustic blend of country, folk and blues on their 2004 self-titled debut. It doesn’t stray far from Paleface’s solo work, which is not a bad thing at all — unless you…
the unbearable weirdness of signings
Book signings are pretty strange events, when you get down to it. Consider: A writer — in this case, UNC-Charlotte professor and forensic thriller writer Kathy Reichs, who was signing her new one, Monday Morning, at Park Road Books last week — spends most of his or her time in solitude, doing the hard work…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Jul. 14 Blue Melinda Hansen, Royce Guin, Korey Dudley & Rob Knox Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Cecil’s Robin Rogers Band Charleston Chops, Cornelius Michelle Smith, Bill & Ray Corkscrew, Huntersville Amy Broome w/ Greg Lilley Double Door Inn Rising Lion The Evening Muse Vee George Washington Bookstore & Tavern, Concord Chanda The Gin…
The Blotter
Canine at Large: A woman reported that sometime between the hours of 3 and 4am an unknown person altered the “integrity of her dog pen,” allowing her errant pooch to escape. Run Away Robbery: A house was robbed of a few random items by some picky thieves, who stole a VCR, $216 dollars in checks…
The Reel World
It’s still unclear whether Michael Moore’s record-breaking Fahrenheit 9/11 will affect the outcome of the November election, but it’s irrefutable that Michael Moore has affected the way moviegoers view documentaries. Fahrenheit 9/11 has emerged as a cinematic first: the blockbuster documentary. Yet it was Moore’s previous piece, the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine, that made American…
A Whore’s Dream
We stepped out of a groovy Boone restaurant and into a winter evening that was surprisingly mild. Usually in the mountains at any time other than the dead of summer you have to brace yourself against the cold’s evil plan to rip your face’s skin off, so the balminess was welcome. Pausing to take a…
View From The Couch
THE BOURNE IDENTITY (2002). Just as Universal re-issued Pitch Black in a new DVD edition shortly before the theatrical release of its sequel The Chronicles of Riddick, they’ve now done the same with The Bourne Identity in anticipation of next week’s release of The Bourne Supremacy. In adapting Robert Ludlum’s Identity for the screen, the…
Word On The Street
Dean Messer High School Teacher “Yes. He has more foreign policy experience than Bush did when he took office, so Edwards would probably only wreck America’s reputation half as much.” Maribel Barnett Securities Broker “Absolutely. They say he’s a great lawyer, so if Kerry screws things up, we can get Edwards to sue him, which…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY Aimed squarely at the open-mouth-breathers who turned Dumb and Dumber and Big Daddy into hits, Anchorman is the movie as litmus test — specifically, how much Will Ferrell is too much Will Ferrell? The Saturday Night Live vet, who had a banner ’03 with Elf and Old…
See & Do
JULY 14 – WEDNESDAY This month, Theatre for Change alights at the Evening Muse at 36th Street where the gadfly theater guerrillas will present a reading of Kill Your TV. Kelsey Rullmoss and Maddie Howard conceived the new script, taking satirical aim at American talk shows and sitcoms using weaponry familiar to fans of SNL,…
A Fine Disregard
In college, most of us are too self-conscious and too anxious about our own uncertain fortunes to make accurate judgments of our peers. We’re attracted to style without substance, often to individuals with neither if a deadly jump shot or a famous family is part of the package they present. The hardest thing of all,…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Pragmatic Cling Three years ago, my longtime friend “Jon” and I became involved. Back then, I was in a long-distance relationship with my daughter’s father. A year later, he moved to be closer to me, and I ended my relationship with Jon by not talking to him or returning his calls. Last month, I saw…
Dynamic, Even Electrifying, But…
“Hi, John Edwards!” I yelled out the window of my car. He was alone, making his way down North Myers Street, most likely to his stoop on the sidewalk in front of The Leader newspaper, or to Green’s Restaurant on Trade Street. Edwards’ face lit up when I recognized him and he stuck out his…
Stargazer
For All Signs We will have a New Moon in Cancer at 7:24am EDT on July 17. This is the sign that relates most to home, hearth, family and property matters. On the New Moon in this sign we are prone to be strongly subjective and influenced heavily by early life history. Consider third party…
The Prehistoric News
So I went to Anchorman this past weekend. Having spent many years in local TV newsrooms hither and yon, I had to see if Will Ferrell would get it right. Yep, the look and the feel of a 70s local newsroom weren’t bad, and the laughs were there, though it felt a little like an…
That 90s Show
Later this month, VH1 will take the wrapper off a new series called I Love the 90s. So soon? The 50s, after all, weren’t that big until the 70s. That “70s Show didn’t make it on the air until the 90s were nearly over. Isn’t it a tad early to start feeling nostalgic for a…
It’s A Big Country
I spent the 4th of July at Knights Stadium watching baseball and fireworks with my family. Except for the fact that it was Sunday in South Carolina, which meant I couldn’t enjoy a cold beer with my hot dog, it was about as American a way as any to celebrate the holiday, even for an…
The Proper Balance
Asheville artist Barbara Fisher presents paintings filled with pleasing color and often too much to see. The multilayered works featured in her exhibit Balance (currently at the Hidell Brooks Gallery) require a commitment of time to glean their sometimes hundreds of different elements. Looking at these visually packed works is like looking at everything that…
Speed Camera Sham
The point of the speed cameras, the police department said, was to save lives. In retrospect, with traffic fatality maps spread across my desk, it’s easy to see how public officials bought that argument, especially with the police department hurling statistics at them like the one about how one-third of the fatal crashes in Charlotte…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Charleston Symphony Orchestra Gospel Choir A concert event entitled Retrospection: African-American Sacred Songs. Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, 3301 Beatties Ford Rd. Sat., July 24, 7 p.m. Free. 704-392-0392. Comedy Bayou Kitchen Comedy. Extreme Improv: Fridays 8pm – Chicago Style long form improv “The Gallery”; Saturdays 8pm – “Who’s Line Is it?” style improv;…
Real City or Suburban Pipe Dreams?
During talks and book signings to promote our new book on urban design and city planning, my wife, Linda Brown, and I are consistently asked one question: What do you think will happen to Charlotte? It’s a fair question, as we use several developments from Charlotte in the book to illustrate both good and bad…
Keep Wokking
Cantonese, Mandarin, Hunan, Sichuan. Most of us can give at least a cursory flavor characteristic description of these Chinese cuisines, but Taiwanese? This island cuisine is perhaps the least understood of all the Chinese cuisines. Taiwanese cuisine is an amalgamation of all the people who have settled on that island for thousands of years. Miso…
Letters
Liberal and Christian I was astonished to read Bill James’ comments about how liberals “just make it up as they go along” because they lack “the anchor of Christianity,” and “espouse some of the views they do” because of an “inability to accept that Christ is the only way to God” (“Holy Wars,” by Frye…
