Apr 3-9, 2013

Apr 3-9, 2013 / Vol. 27 / No. 6

Cover Story

Joe Pacheco is uncaged

The mid-June sun reigns overhead, broiling the earth below. The heat sits like weights on Joe Pacheco — shrouded in thick sweatpants and a sweatshirt — as his feet thud right, left, right, on the asphalt parking lot. Dehydrated, hungry and out of shape, he’s been running in circles for half an hour trying to…

Ana McKenzie

Book review: Bernard Cornwell’s 1356

For those who like historical fiction, Bernard Cornwell reigns as a one-man treasure trove, spanning the Dark Ages to the Civil War and beyond. He’s one of the rare popular novelists who not only churns out novels at a rapid clip, he also makes sure they’re of high quality. That enviable streak continues with his…

Erik Spanberg

Review: Off With Their Heads’s Home

If the lyrics on Home, the latest release from Minneapolis, Minn.’s Off With Their Heads, are to be taken at face value, singer/guitarist Ryan Young is a miserable guy. Leading off the album with the line, “There are no words to describe the awful feeling I have inside,” Young spends the next half hour or…

Ashton Lewis

Review: Amor De Dias’ The House at Sea

Often, when Brits and Spaniards mix, unpleasantness ensues. The two colonial powers warred regularly and, today, pasty white yobbos on holiday turn the Costa del Sol into a sunnier patch of the East End. But it’s not all gloomy. It turns out that flamenco strums and sunny bossa nova go well with rainy and moody…

John Schacht

Art, full: A cheat sheet for F.O.O.D.

New at the Mint Museum is the exhibit F.O.O.D: (Food, Objects, Objectives, Design), which offers a creative look into objects used to prepare, cook or present food. With approximately 300 selections from the permanent collection of the Mint, loans and new acquisitions, the exhibit was conceived by Annie Carlano, the Mint’s director of craft +…

Tricia Childress

Give your cheers to beer

It’s National Beer Day, which means you’d better be raising a glass to former president Franklin D. Roosevelt. He is, after all, part of the reason that beer can be brewed and bought in the first place – that is, he signed the Beer and Wine Revenue Act, a law that put a federal tax…

Anita Overcash

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (April 4-10)

The Transporters: Police approached two suspicious men on Archdale Drive last week after they attempted to bring a large television onto a light rail car. The men argued over where they found the television after police asked a few questions. They finally agreed that they had both come upon the 50″ flat-screen in a nearby…

Ryan Pitkin

Exhibit adds accessories to nature

It’s no big surprise that Vicki Sawyer grew up with a family that loved nature or that it rubbed off on the Tennessee-based artist, who frequently paints portraits of animals and surrounding aspects of the wilderness. Her acrylic works are realistic, yet somewhat unnatural in appearance. Having worked closely with painting birds, Sawyer deviates by…

Anita Overcash

Evil Dead: Why so serious?

EVIL DEAD**1/2DIRECTED BY Fede AlvarezSTARS Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez It was my high school Spanish teacher who first told me about The Evil Dead back in 1983. Urging me to rent the bootleg cassette at our favorite video store in Nairobi, Kenya, he continued by stating, “It’s gory but it’s not scary. It’s so goofy…

Matt Brunson

Jurassic Park : Dino-mite!

JURASSIC PARK***1/2DIRECTED BY Steven SpielbergSTARS Sam Neill, Laura Dern Whereas Steven Spielberg’s three Indiana Jones films in the 1980s were all winners (as, to a lesser degree, was the belated fourth installment), his Jurassic Park series suffered the same dip as most movie franchises. But the first film, now returning to the screen as a…

Matt Brunson

Discovery Place offers science-friendly festivities

Dissecting a frog in high school can be a traumatizing experience. Not only do you have to worry about your own personal feelings, but there’s also a process to cutting open the dead animal (you know, so no bodily fluids spew) and it’s all done under the pressure of high school peers. Ouch! Probably not…

Danielle Brodie

It’s Raining Cats & Dogs at Charlotte Artery

Cats and dogs and art, oh my! For animal lovers in Charlotte who just can’t seem to resist puppy-dog eyes, comes an art exhibit honoring furry friends. Artists have used varying mediums – including painting, sculpture, and photography – to portray canines and felines. Organized by Charlotte ARTery (a group of local and regional artists…

Danielle Brodie

One-night-only art show at Hart Witzen

Oh, the power of technology. How it tugs at us with its easy access to a world of possibilities. But sometimes we just need to put away the smartphone and experience the world through our own eyes vs. the Internet (or not). Hart Witzen Gallery’s latest shenanigans, Critical Masses: New Dimensions in Assemblage and Sound,…

Anita Overcash

A roundup of farmers markets

The fickle weather might belie the arrival of springtime, but the official start of farmers market season on Saturday, April 6, signals the undeniable entrance of the new season. (Do you hear that, fickle weather?!) Soon, local farmers and vendors will come bearing bounties of colorful produce, fresh cut flowers and local goods to markets…

Keia Mastrianni

Hanging with Tom Waits

He’s more myth than man now. He tours less than John Lennon, stays away from TV and when he does meet the press, he doesn’t discuss depression, Jesus Christ or show you his ugly fucking paintings. In other words, Tom Waits is both legend and lad. And a force of nature, who appears as often…

Peter Gerstenzang

A buffet of afterlives in Miss Witherspoon

Christopher Durang may not believe in God, but as the playwright’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You and Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge have demonstrated, he has a wicked fascination with religion. Rather than arguing that all religions are false, Durang’s Miss Witherspoon impishly rubs our noses in the consequences of all…

Perry Tannenbaum

Weekly horoscope: April 4-10

Aries The Ram (March 20-April 19): You have several aspects this week that suggest general anxiety beneath your confident exterior. Some of this has no bearing in your present day reality, but may have roots in your history. It is a mood and will soon pass. For All Signs: Venus (the lover) and Mars (the…

Vivian Carol

How to resurrect North Carolina’s Democratic Party

The situation in Raleigh gets worse every day. The reactionary policies of Republicans in the General Assembly pose a serious threat to our environment, our safety net, and the public education system that made this state what is today. Once a moderate mayor of Charlotte, Gov. Pat McCrory has stocked his administration with conservative firebrands…

Michael A. Cooper Jr.

The return of Kenny Roby

Kenny Roby was plugging away in an insurance office and going to night school when he wrote “Colorado,” the eight-minute, hit-man-for-hire character study that radiates menace from the center of his first record in seven years, Memories & Birds. When he was finished with the song, Roby, who celebrates his new album at Snug Harbor…

John Schacht

This week’s concert listings (April 4-10)

** Bullet points indicate CL’s critics’ picks** Thursday, April 4 Blues/Roots/International * The Duhks, Kellin Watson (Visulite Theatre) Latin Thursdays (Dream Nightclub, Matthews) Salsa, Cumbia, Norteno, Banda w/ DJ (Las Rositas) Classical/Jazz/Smooth Beats and Keys (Encore Bistro and Bar) Bill Hanna’s Vintage Dance Band (Grand Central Events) Charlie Hunter, Scott Amendola (Evening Muse) John Alexander…

Trans clothing drive provides comfortable environment for shoppers

Constance Brooks is looking at a cream-colored jacket with shoulder pads. The tag says it’s a Bob Mackie, the famed designer of Cher’s sparkling costumes. I insist she take the jacket home, whether it fits or not, simply for the brand’s sake. “Just break my ribs real quick,” she jokes when I can’t button the…

Joanne Spataro

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