Feb 19-25, 2014

Feb 19-25, 2014 / Vol. 27 / No. 52

Cover Story

Urban explorers capture the invisible

Urban exploring is hardly a new practice, tracing back to the 1970s, but in recent years, it’s grown increasingly popular. The social news and entertainment website Reddit has tens of thousands of contributors to its AbandonedPorn and Urbanexploration forums. There’s even an iPhone app that offers suggestions of “hundreds of locations” to explore, GPS mapping…

Kimberly Lawson

Theater review: Sizwe Bansi is Dead

What elevates Athol Fugard to the ranks of the world’s great playwrights is his willingness to go too far — and his ability to pull it off. Honing his crafts — writer, director and actor — in apartheid South Africa, Fugard would have been worthy of acclaim if he had simply defied the ruling white…

Perry Tannenbaum

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (Feb. 20)

Snow fight: Police responded to a call in east Charlotte after some kids needed their parents to clean up their mess. A 42-year-old woman told officers she was driving down the road when her car was nailed with a snowball. She got out of the car and attempted to speak to the parents of the…

Ryan Pitkin

Pompeii: Lava limp

POMPEII *1/2 DIRECTED BY Paul W.S. Anderson STARS Kit Harington, Emily Browning Pompeii? Oy vey. Just as James Cameron used a historical disaster as the backdrop to a romance between two kids from opposite sides of the tracks, so too does director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, The Three Musketeers). But that’s where the comparison…

Matt Brunson

Charlotte Jewish Film Festival turns 10

Ten years ago, Debby Block and Amy Montoni of the Charlotte chapter of Hadassah invited the women of their group to view two films. Since both movies were being shown the same night, they didn’t call the film screening a festival; the term would’ve seemed laughable. When Block talks about that weekend, she even puts…

Page Leggett

CD Review: Lost in the Trees’ Past Life

Ari Picker ran listeners through the emotional ringer with Lost in the Trees’ first two LPs, especially 2012’s A Church That Fits Our Needs, a set of songs constructed from the grief, anger, bafflement and finality of his mother’s suicide. That record’s sublime orchestral textures belied the narrative rough ride, providing a sound cushion for…

John Schacht

Book review: Christopher Golden’s Snowblind

Start with the ending. A chilling finale with knife-twisting verve closes Christopher Golden’s novel, the perfect send-off for readers exhausted by a blizzard of scarred lives and scared New Englanders. Snowblind comes with the Good Housekeeping seal of horror and fantasy writing, in the form of glowing blurbs from Stephen King and George R.R. Martin.…

Erik Spanberg

Boys don’t cry

I’m a crybaby. Always have been, always will be. I remember being teased about it pretty much from kindergarten onward; it annoyed my teachers and frustrated my family. My nickname in the house eventually became “Godzilla,” because apparently my wailing sounded similar to the roar of a giant radioactive lizard. This nickname, theoretically given with…

Ashley Spurgeon

Tender and tenacious: Where to find good octopus

For those of you who have only encountered octopus while studying binomial nomenclature in middle school science, it may come as a shock to learn that this gangly armed ballet dancer of the sea has long been a staple of many coastal food cultures. These mysterious and highly intelligent creatures are considered a delicacy in…

Keia Mastrianni

Blackberry Smoke’s defining moments

While millions of people celebrate the recent 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ debut U.S. appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, 40-year-old Blackberry Smoke singer/guitarist Charlie Starr can’t think of a similar defining music moment for his generation. Perhaps, instead, it was a combination of smaller things — he vividly remembers the creepy doll heads in…

Jeff Hahne

Bosom of the Father

I remember watching the movie Deep Impact as a teenager, seeing Morgan Freeman in the role of leader of the free world and thinking to myself, “Whoa, the office of the presidency can be held by someone other than a white dude?” I always technically knew it was possible; after all, the requirements listed in…

Ailen Arreaza

Weekly horoscope (Feb. 21-27)

For All Signs: On Feb. 18 we welcome the Sun into the sign of Pisces, the two fish always swimming in opposite directions. It is interesting that throughout the week there are strong aspects to Neptune, Pisces’ planetary ruler. Sometimes Pisces gets a bad rap for being a dreamer with non-realistic expectations. Well, those things…

Vivian Carol

Duke sludge spill makes things clear

Duke Energy’s Dan River coal-ash spill has become a “clarifying moment” for North Carolina. As the initial shock of the spill — the third largest coal ash “incident” in U.S. history — receded and people began looking into how it happened, an increasingly clear picture emerged of a utility company and a state government entwined…

John Grooms

5 things you didn’t know you’d need on your wedding day

When I visualized my wedding day as a little girl, it was always big picture: smiling faces, a special dress (back then it was rhinestone-encrusted denim), anonymous foods and ambient music. Now a 30-something tomboy/priss-pot who works as a wedding coordinator and who recently planned my own unconventional wedding (sans denim), I know that the…

Megan Henshall

Stress test: Read to Achieve inspires more headaches than results

Up to 60 percent of North Carolina third graders could be held back this year as a result of a mandate that some are calling a well-intentioned disaster. Read to Achieve, passed by the General Assembly in 2012 and enacted this school year, requires third graders to demonstrate the ability to read at grade level…

Sara Patterson

Local Love: Linda and Yameka

Name of the couple: Linda Williams, 32 and Yameka Jackson-Williams, 31Date of wedding: April 20, 2013The venue: Wedgewood Baptist Church, with a reception afterward at Venue 1801. (They were legally married in the District of Columbia two days later.)Attending: 25 people What were you trying to accomplish on your special day?Linda: We simply wanted to…

Massive solar energy spill grips California!: Ivanpah Solar Project opens

During the madness of the Duke Energy coal ash spill into the Dan River, some good energy news emerges. Ivanpah Solar Project, the world’s largest photovoltaic solar plant, opened yesterday, promising to power 140,000 homes with renewable energy. Here’s a 3D panorama from the middle of the Mojave Desert of the facility: Yes, this is…

Desiree Kane

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