Stargazer
For All Signs Easter and Passover are “scheduled” by the occurrence of the full moon in Libra, which was on April 16 this year. Libra is the sign of relationship and the full moon represents the joint commitment of any partnership. Passover, which begins the day after this full moon, celebrates the promise of freedom…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS Director James Cameron heads back to the subject that made him “king of the world” a few years ago, only this time he tackles the Titanic in a documentary format. Ghosts of the Abyss, created specifically for IMAX theaters and regular movie houses that can accommodate its 3-D presentation…
Brave New War
According to the Washington Post, the US Agency for International Development is preparing to award an estimated $65 million in education-related contracts to “demilitarize” the Iraqi school system by revising textbooks that have taught a generation to be ready to die for Saddam Hussein. No word yet on what role school vouchers will play in…
Mecklenburg Jailhouse Blues
Recent and pending lawsuits by former inmates claiming to have been abused at Jail Central downtown offer a disturbing view of how the sheriff’s office carries out part of its duties. In fact, the lawsuits they’ve filed against Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph, and more than 25 of his deputies, read like tales from a…
Rep’s Play Fest Gets Makeover
If you’ve been to the New Plays in America Festival in past years, you’ll notice huge differences in this year’s In-The-Works makeover. Beginning next Monday, the 17th annual festival will voyage to venues where no Charlotte Rep production has trekked before. Performance times will sidle into late afternoon, inviting uptown employees of all collar colors…
Big Stink Over Asphalt
If anybody knows about the ups and downs of Optimist Park, it’s June Lackey and Lillian Chance. The sisters have resided in the embattled neighborhood all their lives on land that has been in their family for three generations. During WWII, their grandfather opened a little neighborhood store called Keesler Grocery, which was taken over…
Lush, Lusty Landscapes
Woodsongs is a show of paintings by Brian Rutenberg at the Jerald Melberg Gallery in Charlotte through May 10. Rutenberg is a Carolina native, born and raised in the coastal low country between Pawley’s Island and Charleston, SC. The salt marshes, muck and silt air of that curious geography run through Rutenberg’s paintings like a…
Missing War News 2
As we did last week, we’re offering a look at other countries’ reporting on the war in Iraq. We’ve chosen stories that offer a different view from the sanitized version of the war the American media has, by and large, been spooning out. What follows is a summary of each article, an excerpt, plus a…
Humana Festival 2003
When the west wind blows in from Indiana across the Ohio River and the mercury is stuck at 49F, Louisville is a bone-chilling place. Tourists who emerged from the Galt House Hotel when I arrived on March 28 were inexplicably decked out in shorts as the sun went down — more ridiculously in denial than…
Like Russia, Like Us?
A few weeks ago, at an FBI seminar, a federal agent said something that chilled me to the bone. He was very matter-of-fact about it. Given their pattern of attacks over the last 20 years, said the agent, terrorists will strike our country again sometime in the next year or two, if not sooner, and…
Pre-Life
Samuel Ligon’s debut novel, Safe in Heaven Dead, is an unflinching study of a character determined to begin life anew by destroying his old one — if only the guilt and shame of destruction hadn’t, as the title suggests, killed him in the process.And as far as the novel’s plot is concerned, he’s plenty dead;…
Tolerance Shmolerance
Though you wouldn’t know it to hear people talk today, “discrimination” isn’t a curse word. There’s nothing wrong with being a discriminating person. This doesn’t mean that one is racist; it means that one has taste. Intelligent people are always discriminating about their friends and acquaintances. That’s just one of the side effects of being…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Concert on the Green The first show of the season features the Davidson College jazz ensemble and a variety of vocal groups from the college. Sun., April 27, 6-8 p.m. Free. Davidson Town Green. Ensemble Series: Winthrop Chorale Presenting a concert of choral works under the direction of Dr. Katherine Kinsey. Byrnes Auditorium.…
Letters
Freedom, Not Treason In response to a recent letter to the editor from Kelly Boatright (“A Proud and Righteous Nation,” Apr. 2): Mr. Boatright, the day after my Hillary Clinton-lovin’, bleeding-heart liberal, Democratic voting, leftwing-leaning son graduated from UNCC in 2001, he joined the US Army and currently is deployed in Afghanistan. He’s on a…
Shell Game
The colors in a single carton of Mary VerMeulen’s farm eggs range from pure white to speckled brown to a stunning blue-green. The yolks of these organic, free-range eggs are a rich, lustrous yellow-orange and have an intense taste. Once you’ve had a free-range egg, it is hard to go back to pallid store bought…
The Blotter
Smooth Operator: A woman who had left her boyfriend began receiving phone calls, or at least phone messages, from the ex-paramour about 10 times a day, asking her to come back. By the end of each day, the messages became more and more threatening. Finally, lover boy said he was going to rip the side…
The Perfect Wine Rack
Congratulations. You’ve found the coolest eight-bottle wine rack to adorn your barren kitchen countertop. Besides figuring out the direction it should face for full decorative-impact, the fun part is filling the rack with wine, then, of course, drinking it. But filling it with the right wine for your lifestyle is another story. If you’re single,…
News of the Weird
ADBUSTERS: Lawsuits were filed in both Chicago, Ill., and Hangzhou, China, demanding that theaters stop showing advertisements and commercials (not just the “previews”) that run past a movie’s announced starting time. Lawyers Mark Weinberg and Zhang Yang charged the theaters with fraud because of the three- to four-minute ad blitzes they endured recently after they…
Good Eats
Dilworth/Southend 300 East, 300 East Blvd., 704-332-6507. Locals have long gathered at this casual neighborhood bistro in a vintage house featuring an eclectic menu. L, D $$$ Berrybrook Farms Natural Foods, 1257 East Blvd., 704-334-6528. Homemade soups, herbed tofu sandwiches, bean burritos, and freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices found in a natural food shop.…
Inka Grill, Peruvian and Latin American Cuisine
Inca Gold Peruvian cuisine is much more than potatoes BY TRICIA CHILDRESS Think Peru. There’s Macha Picchu, the Incas, llamas, exiled ex-president Alberto Fujimori, and Arequipa, Charlotte’s sister city. But Peruvian cuisine?”Peruvian food is famous in most of the world,” says restaurateur Aldo Sevillano, a native of Lima, Peru, and owner of the 150-seat Inka…
The Boys From Brutalsville
May 19, 1984: It’s definitely not business as usual at the Yellow Rose, a blue-collar bar located on Tyvola Road near South Boulevard. The patience of the joint’s regulars — aging alkies, hirsute bikers, dusty construction workers — has already been tested by the antics of the Spinal Tappish Jeff Leopard and hardcore thrashers Social…
CD Disc-overies
Attention! Blah Blah BlahHopeless Atom and His Package is exactly the sort of thing that would’ve irritated the shit out of me back when I was first getting into underground music but still had no tolerance for smart people being cleverly stupid (Dead Milkmen, anyone?). And apparently, I haven’t evolved to the degree that I’d…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 4.16 Pearl Jam / Sleater-Kinney — At this point in their career, Pearl Jam has become something of the wise old conscience of 90s alt.rock, having fought Ticketmaster, Clear Channel, hair loss, drummer loss, and loss of radio play. What they have done is retool themselves as a sort of modern-rock Grateful Dead, playing…
Protest, Frolic and Relax
There’s several ways to celebrate and promote freedom. The best one, in my humble opinion, is through the world of art. This was the overriding theme at the “War Charlotte: Life in a Nameless Decade” event held Friday and Saturday at the Steeple Lounge. Five dollars gained you admission to the gala, with all proceeds…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Apr. 16 Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Connolly’s On Fifth Rich Acoustic Double Door Inn Leisure McCorkle w/ Empire of Sound & The Blaring TVs The Evening Muse David Childers, Darlyne Cain & David Piephoff Fairwinds Coffee Co., Cornelius Lena Mars Fat City Jah Creation Graduate, Gastonia Simplified Hickory Tavern Meet Mary Ann…
See & Do
APRIL16 WEDNESDAY Pearl Jam, still going strong almost 15 years in the semi-limelight, play the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre tonight, along with opening act Sleater-Kinney. Come see what some say is the best band in America (Sleater-Kinney)! Come see Eddie Vedder fight the war from the stage! Come see hit after hit (after hit!). Tickets are…
French Fried
IRREVERSIBLE DIRECTED BY Gaspar Noe STARS Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel Offhand, I’d be hard pressed to think of a motion picture that I’ve enjoyed as little as Irreversible and yet still felt compelled to give a positive review. This controversial French import has its merits, but sending audiences dancing out into the streets isn’t one…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I was recently laid off from my job, a job I didn’t like anyway. Then, literally within weeks, I found another job that is really great. The pay is twice what I was making and the office is nicer and the people are friendly. But, during this huge crisis, I wasn’t feeling…
Sight Unseen
It seems as if no country has yet officially elected to ban Irreversible (see lead review), but if so, that’s only because of the leniency of the times — if ever a movie seemed likely to be blocked at the border, it’s this one.After all, banning movies — or, at the very least, limiting their…
