Oct 19-25, 2005

Oct 19-25, 2005 / Vol. 19 / No. 33

Karma Cleanser

Dear Karma Cleanser: A few years ago, I had a baby. I thought things would work out. They didn’t. So I’m walking the single mom walk, which I can deal with except for the Babydaddy drama. I have full custody, but I let him see our kid. But Babydaddy’s broke, so he doesn’t pay child…

Film Clips

New Releases DREAMER: INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY Considering that every third movie made these days seems to have been “inspired” by a true story (as opposed to “based on,” thereby allowing for even more mangling of the actual facts), it’s amusing that this film goes ahead and places its disclaimer right in the title.…

Matt Brunson

Letters

Volunteers Speak Up I read with interest your article about the plight of the animals at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Animal Control (“A nice gesture, but….,” by Tara Servatius, Oct. 5). I’ve been volunteering at the shelter for over three years now and I don’t recall ever seeing you there to help out. I don’t remember seeing your…

Doughnut Take It for Granted

In some circles, the North vs. South battle rages on. And those circles happen to be doughnuts — donuts, if you prefer. Dunkin’ Donuts is the combatant from up North. The company was founded in 1950 in Quincy, MA. From down South is Krispy Kreme, born in Winston-Salem in 1937. Doughnuts have been around for…

Linda Vespa

Police Blotter: Rape, Violence, Murder, Mayhem

They were supposed to be the good old days. A hundred years ago, we’ve all been told, there was no need to lock the doors, children didn’t have to worry about “strangers” and violence was a rarity. But in the last few decades, the story goes, we abandoned our morals and society went to Hell.…

Asian Restaurant Magic At Home

“How do I make my favorite Asian dish so it tastes like the restaurant?” is a question I hear often in this line of work. Since I consider myself still very much a student of the many varied cuisines of Southeast Asia — particularly Thai, Vietnamese and Malaysian — I stumble, too … until I…

Kim O'Donnel

Blonde Venus Revisited

No issue in music gets us as twisted as the white guy making black music: Elvis, Eminem, the Righteous Brothers, Michael Bolton, Mick Jagger, Paul Simon — I could go on and on. Claims that a bevy of shady record bizzers — akin to Specialty Records’ Art Rupe — conspired to jack the mid-century dreams-deferred…

Mark Anthony Neal

Use Your Illusion

Follow these hot linx into provocative new realms and tease your mind with the possibility that things are not as they seem. Oh, illusion! Just when you thought you had a grip… Airworld www.airworld.net Surreal Coconut www.surrealcoconut.com Akiyoshi’s Illusion Pages www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html Race: What a Concept www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00-Home.htm TinaVera www.tinavera.org

Little Shiva

Back in Black

There’s not a whole lot of “new” in the New Blacks’ music — and not all that much “black” either, unless you count their clothing — but the band does have a lot going on. The New Blacks really know their audience. They aggressively market themselves. They look the part. Oh, and they know how…

Timothy C. Davis

Ben Jackson

The origin of love for Ben Jackson’s local prog-rock band Shadowflag came when the singer/guitarist teamed up with keyboard player Matt Olin during rehearsals for the Charlotte production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was a random number generation: Who could have predicted that two members of the glammy backup band for sugar daddy…

Spins

FIONA APPLE Extraordinary Machine Epic Rating: ***1/2 For all the chick singers counted as her forebears, Fiona Apple would be nowhere without Nina Simone (see review below). Apple’s solitary piano brooding and sour-girl demeanor find precedent in Simone’s contentious relationships with both her fans and music bizzers. After several years’ hiatus, Apple continues to mine…

Kandia Crazy Horse

Environmental Debate Heats Up

Would you like to know what that gray cloud hovering over the industrial plant down the street is? You can find out by looking at the Toxics Release Inventory, a public database that tracks nearly 300 potentially harmful chemicals used for everything from manufacturing plastics to treating water. But if the Environmental Protection Agency has…

Karen Shugart

Elmo’s Coloring Book

It’s a Sesame Street Live presentation for the young and old. Elmo and friends join Professor Art and his helpers, the Palettes, as they travel into their drawings to ancient Egypt, the land of the dinosaurs, and a very musical junkyard. The colors begin to vanish as the characters perform an array of musical numbers,…

See & Do

Wednesday, October 19 Beginning today, the Novello Festival celebrates its 15th year with a dozen events scheduled over the next two weeks, including celebrated writers, illustrators and other literary luminaries. This year’s line-up includes novelists Elizabeth Berg and Chris Bohjalian, plus award-winning children’s writers and illustrators such as Bruce Colville, Valerie Hobbs and David Christiana.…

CL Recommends

Sharon and My Mother-In-Law by Suad Amiry (Pantheon hardback). Alternately poignant, angry and utterly hilarious, this memoir by a Westernized woman living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is based on Amiry’s personal diaries and e-mails of the past 20 years. Her mix of the nasty public face of living in occupation, with its roadblocks, harassments…

The Blotter

ULTRA VIOLENCE: Two armed robbers kicked in the front door of a 62-year-old woman’s house. Once inside, they pointed their weapons at the woman and her four grandchildren, the oldest just 9. One of the gunmen repeatedly shocked the grandmother with a stun gun, forcing her upstairs to open a bedroom safe. The Clockwork Orange-like…

Sam Boykin

Oct. 20 — Oct. 26, 2005

Scorpio The Scorpion (Oct. 23 — Nov. 20) Mars, the god of war, is in your partnership territory. Therefore it’s important not to attack another, verbally or physically. If you have enemies, let them make the first move, and you will be assured of ultimate victory over the issue. Your significant other may be seething…

Vivian Carol

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