Support System
Sitting on a bench by a window, Tom Snyder applies tiny mirrored tiles to an urn-shaped vessel. As he carefully rotates the pot in his hands, the mirrors sparkle in the sunlight. Outside the back loading dock, Rose Hawley is staining the platform overlooking the trolley tracks — during the last Gallery Crawl, kids spilled…
Blues Cruise
Who is this guy, strutting around the joint, talking shit in a voice like a bass trombone, practically drowning out David Lee Durham’s blues band? The man is tall, balding, beefy, pot-bellied, glassy-eyed and white, and he acts like he owns the place. He doesn’t. Mary Shepard has been the proprietor of Club Ebony in…
It’s the Art, Stupid
Artists and administrators at Charlotte Repertory Theatre are never fired. With amazing frequency, they resign. Since 2000, when Rep board chairman Michael McGuire announced that the company was on a quest to win a Tony Award within five years, resignations have come in waves. First, after taking Rep from deep deficit at his arrival to…
Heads up
For you intrepid concert-goers always on the lookout for the next big thing, here are some Southeastern acts whose names may pop up in a conversation, music video or a radio station near you in the not so distant future. This is your chance to be the dude who’s like, “Yeah, man, I’ve heard of…
Whirlpool of Fame
In 1970 a then little-known Southern poet named James Dickey shocked American audiences with his debut novel about four Atlanta suburbanites whose weekend canoe trip down the fictitious Cahulawassee River devolved into a horrific tale of male-on-male rape, death and ultimately redemption. Not long after, director John Boorman adapted Deliverance into a film of the…
Rock & Roll Call
It’s impossible, of course, to ever be truly comprehensive when compiling a list of local artists, no matter the medium. That sentiment’s especially true when it comes to music. Some artists may have broken up their band or recently left town, and some bands may be just getting started. And then you have the bedroom…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Davidson College Symphony Orchestra Performance featuring works by Haydn, Vaughan Williams and Tchaikovsky. Tue., April 20, 8 p.m. Free. Duke Performance Hall, Davidson College, Davidson. 704-894-2357. Harmonies of Earth and Heaven A mirror on the past with medieval and renaissance music, presented by Carolina Pro Musica. Fri., April 16, 8 p.m. Free. Belmont…
The Best of the Fests
People move to the Southeast for all kinds of reasons, one of the most popular being the temperate climate. Sure, it may get a little steamy in the summer, but not enough to keep us indoors if there’s something worthwhile going on outside. And, judging from the music festivals that take place across the region,…
Second Helpings
A second book that follows a successful first book is possibly the hardest to write since the writer is aware of the inevitable comparison and contrast. Sequel restaurants have a similar difficulty. Typically the entrepreneur honed his or her skills in the first restaurant and uses that hard-fought experience to create a new endeavor that…
Host Search Continues
WBAV-FM is close to announcing its new morning host, although the last few weeks’ on-air auditions may not be where the new man/woman will come from. Program director Terri Avery told me “we’re close to announcing something in the next week or so.” The station had to begin looking for a personality and a new…
Wedding Wine Bliss
Although people get hitched all year “round, the brides’ magazines bloom on supermarket racks in the spring. Filling their pages, in between the infinite glossy ads, are articles designed to make the ceremonious marriage rite run smoother, classier and sometimes cheaper. Browsing through these mags makes me realize that the endless wedding decisions can drive…
The Worth of A Life
The name Juan Carlos Zaragoza Lopez probably doesn’t ring a bell with most Charlotteans. That’s likely because his death at the hands of an intoxicated driver on Sharon Amity Road in May merited only one line in a 145-word blurb buried on page 3B of the Charlotte Observer’s Metro section. I have no idea whether…
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.…
Where’s There’s Flies, There’s. . .
For those of you who didn’t hear National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission last Thursday, allow me to offer a brief, Brave New Summary of the three-hour session: Republican Panel Member: Dr. Rice, you have a difficult and complex job, as does our esteemed president. You both are doing an excellent…
Homegrown Electronica
For Charlotte’s electronica community, success has been a mixed blessing. In the late ’90s, Charlotte’s electronic music scene underwent a surge in popularity that, as it had elsewhere throughout the US a few years earlier, brought in thousands of new followers, made rock stars of a select few DJs and producers, and became the hottest…
To Die in Fallujah
The public reaction to recent pictures of mutilated American corpses in Fallujah reveals a lot about Americans’ opinions of the big, bad world beyond their borders. Judged by responses in the local media, a minority of Charlotteans have thoughtful, balanced views of events, understanding the grisly photographs must be shown, however distressing. The images document…
Sit & Spin
TV On the Radio Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes Touch & Go Bobbing and nodding contentedly at the confluence of Brooklyn meltdown post-rock, street-corner doo-wop, and bleeding-heart singalong soul, TV On The Radio’s full-length debut is more than simply a challenge to accurately distill. Gratefully, it’s proof the pioneering road the band paved with last…
Letters
Tomorrow’s Terrorists I really appreciated Tara Servatius’ insight in her “Today They Blow Up Stuff” column (Mar. 31), which made the link between our societal dependence on Saudi oil and the proliferation of hate-indoctrinating madrasas that inculcate young boys into the typology of terror. The great Swiss psychoanalyst C.G. Jung once made the observation that…
Like flies on, um, honey
How do you get hundreds of people to descend upon a bookstore on a weekday afternoon? Simple. Get a basketball coach to come sign autographs. Of course, Dean Smith isn’t any basketball coach. He’s the basketball coach, with 879 career victories, the most of any coach in NCAA basketball history. And there he was at…
Music Menu
THURSDAY 4.15 Clutch — Neil Fallon and Co. have always been branded something of the thinking man’s hard rock band. Which is understandable — their songs have titles like “I Have the Body of John Wilkes Booth,” for crying out loud. However, the band — thinking men though they may be — also manage to…
Superior Specimens Only
Are you a busy, successful, single professional? A busy, busy professional, so busy that you barely have time to read and forward all those e-mails filled with trite prayers and nasty threats, let alone get your highly important work done? So busy that you don’t have an extra minute for the basic human interaction dating…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Apr. 14 Amos’ Southend Crash Test Dummies Back Alley Music Hall, Concord Open Mic w/ Jon Teague Baoding Robert Fernandez Blue Melinda Hansen, Royce Guin, Korey Dudley & Rob Knox Bricktop Lounge Christian & Brigmunton Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Cecil’s Robin Rogers Band Double Door Inn Simplified The Evening Muse JIM w/…
The Blotter
THEFT OF THE WEEK: Someone with extraordinary thievery skills stole 200 linear feet of a six-foot-high chain link fence. The fence was installed in the ground and surrounded a construction site. It covered two city blocks and is valued at $2000. NO HOTMAIL HERE: Someone called police to report that someone had burned his mailbox.…
Kill And Kill Again
The inability to notice that the emperor had no clothes — not even a bandanna — helped turn Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 into a critical darling and a favorite of fan-boys everywhere. Seeing masterful artistry in that picture where I saw only monotonous bloodletting, these enthusiasts have been eagerly counting the minutes until…
Baskets, Brunch, What?
Geneva Seabrook Seamstress “I showed off my new hat at church and then my boys and their families brought me lilies and took me out to eat. It was lovely. They wanted to hunt eggs, too, but I told “em I was too tired for all that mess.” Mark Rothstein Clothing Store Manager “Same thing…
The Good Ol’ Bad Days
In the German import Good Bye, Lenin!, Alex Kerner has already seen his mother, Christiane, suffer enough. She’s been abandoned by her husband and had to work as an East German party official to support Alex (Daniel Bruhl) and his sister Ariane (Maria Simon). Then, after she sees her son protesting the Berlin Wall and…
See & Do
APRIL 14 – WEDNESDAY Christopher Durang’s jaundiced view of religion and America gets a fresh airing as Carolina Actors Studio Theatre brings Laughing Wild to their eponymous Central Avenue location. Leslie Beckham tackles her most important role to date as the Woman recently released from Creedmoor Mental Hospital, and C.A.S.T. producer/artistic director Michael Simmons plays…
View From The Couch
KILL BILL VOL. 1 (2003). Timed to coincide with the theatrical release of Vol. 2, the first half of Quentin Tarantino’s saga about a woman warrior (Uma Thurman) seeking retribution against the former associates who left her for dead hits shelves in a rather threadbare DVD, though one has to assume that a Special Edition…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Bride And Seek I’m a pre-law student looking for a healthy, supportive relationship, not necessarily an engagement ring. My problem is that I have a hard time trusting the men I date. I’ve been burned many times; none of my relationships has lasted more than three months. I’m terrified that my current boyfriend will abandon…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES THE ALAMO Forget The Alamo… again. John Wayne’s 1960 take on the historic battle of 1836, the one detailing the valiant if futile efforts of 200 Texans to defend their fort against thousands of Mexican soldiers, was fairly useless as history and barely involving as entertainment, but it at least had the benefit…
Stargazer
For All Signs We have a partial eclipse of the sun on April 19 at 9:21am EDT. It will not be visible in the northern hemisphere. The symbolism suggests endings and terminations of outmoded ways of being, which ultimately trigger the growth of fresh beginnings. It is possible there will be violence on the globe…
Fables Of The Reconstruction
As the situation in Iraq grows ever more tenuous, the Bush administration continues to spin the ominous news with matter-of-fact optimism. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Iraqi uprisings in half a dozen cities, accompanied by the deaths of more than 90 soldiers in the month of April alone, is something to be viewed…
