Cover Story
Sentiment shifts on harm reduction practices in addiction treatment circles
It was a comment made almost in passing that struck me the hardest as I wrapped up a 30-minute conversation with Cat Glenn, co-founder of Band Against Heroin, volunteer with the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition and employee at Choices for Recovery, a holistic rehab facility in Charlotte. After spending a half-hour discussing stats, practices…
Today’s Top 5: Monday
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today.
Lunch Break (12/19/16): Non-discrimination ordinance rescinded in surprise vote, expected to lead to HB2 repeal
The weekend already passed us by. What the hell happened?
La La Land hits all the right notes
LA LA LAND **** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Damien Chazelle STARS Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone As effervescent as the finest bottle of champagne, La La Land is an intoxicating motion picture that should particularly please anyone whose heart skips a beat whenever Fred dances on the late show or Judy sings on TCM. More…
Rogue One: The Dark Side of the Series
ROGUE ONE *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Gareth Edwards STARS Felicity Jones, Diego Luna Rogue One comes equipped with the subtitle A Star Wars Story, but let it be known that this isn’t your father’s Star Wars, your mother’s Star Wars, or even your own Star Wars. It’s a different strain of space opera…
Collateral Beauty: Death Be Not Proud
COLLATERAL BEAUTY * (out of four) DIRECTED BY David Frankel STARS Will Smith, Helen Mirren December is a breeding ground for Oscar-bait movies, but Collateral Beauty takes an even greater lunge at the gold than similar films. I daresay it’s not gonna happen: The closest this train wreck will get to Oscar is if some…
Jackie: Portman prevails
JACKIE *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Pablo Larraín STARS Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard That Natalie Portman delivers a tremendous performance as Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie is to be expected. What’s less certain is if the movie surrounding her will be a tediously respectful biopic, a factually challenged piece of fiction, or a movie that…
Lunch Break (12/16/16): Three killed in Charlotte on Thursday
The morning already passed us by. What the hell happened?
Black Christmas, Suicide Squad, The Twilight Zone among new home entertainment titles
(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.) BEN-HUR (2016). This latest adaptation of Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is by no means a terrible picture, but it’s a terribly mismanaged one, operating in fits and…
Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (Dec. 15)
Find a Friend An employee at a 7-Eleven in the University area called police after he was threatened and nearly assaulted by a customer who holds some sort of grudge against anyone working at the convenience store. The victim told officers that a man entered the store in the middle of the afternoon and tried…
Fish fasting for the holidays
The Feast of Seven Fishes is a popular Italian-American way of celebrating Christmas Eve. It isn’t entirely clear how the number seven was arrived upon, or what it means. Many families celebrate with more or fewer fishes, and originally it was likely to have been just one. The tradition’s origins are in La Vigilia, or…
Grace Vanderwaal, Perfectly Imperfect
It might be thought that singer/songerwriter Grace Vanderwaal has all the time in the world to release her music. After all, she’s only 12. However, Columbia Records’ reasoning behind releasing a five-song EP rather than allow Grace the time to put together a full-length album is clear: you need to strike while the iron’s hot.…
Lara Americo, She/They
Over the past two years, Lara Americo has went from a subject of CL’s Pride Guide 2015 cover story to an incredible contributor who has covered everything from live music to the Charlotte Uprising to the transgender community for Creative Loafing. In the meantime, Americo has been putting together She/They, her new EP that touches…
Paul Richards talks California Guitar Trio
Diverse backgrounds have clearly been an outstanding influence on California Guitar Trio’s music. The group consists of Paul Richards, who immersed himself in rock and blues while attending The University of Utah’s jazz guitar program; Bert Lams, who graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels and specialized in classical guitar; and Hideyo Moriya,…
A tribute to those that inspired me in 2016, including me
This year helped me sink knee-deep in my own biases. I could recount the shameless political sufferings we all reckoned to resolve against our personal ethos; or the over 700 people killed by police since January; or the absence of a progressive agenda to score equal academic achievement for the 133,000 students walking into Charlotte-Mecklenburg…
Chickspeare lets the spirits flow with Every Christmas Story
Four centuries after William Shakespeare’s death, Charlotte’s own Chickspeare inhabits a parallel universe. Or maybe it’s retribution: while all of the Bard’s works were performed by all-male theatre troupes, all of Chickspeare’s productions since 1998 have been “All women! All the time!” as originally promised. The “All Shakespeare” in the middle of that slogan was…
Don’t settle for less when you’re spending more
I hate spending money on alcohol, especially if I end up flushing it down the drain just a few hours later. But I really hate spending money on a meal that’s lackluster. My thought process? If I’m going to pick up a hefty tab, the food should be borderline orgasmic. There’s nothing worse than going…
New retail café in NoDa asks that you relax
After Jay Knox’s son Cassius was born two years ago, the frenetic, travel-heavy life of the fashion industry lost some of its appeal for the new father. And, like many new parents, Knox thought about returning to his roots and slowing his pace. Knox’s roots are here in Charlotte, and he’s not only reconnected to…
