Cover Story
Dazed city leaders regroup and respond after state legislature reneges on HB2 deal
‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the city, Charlotte’s leadership stood slack-jawed in disbelief. In a rush of pre-holiday emergency meetings and special sessions, the Charlotte City Council had just been railroaded by the state’s Republican legislature on one of North Carolina’s biggest political issues in recent history. The House Bill 2 debate,…
Film 2016: The Best & Worst
Was 2016 a particularly desultory year for cinema, or did I just miss many of the year’s crowning achievements? True, Martin Scorsese’s Silence wasn’t screened in time for the majority of critics not residing in NYC or LA, so that might have made a slight difference (it opens locally Jan. 13). But scanning the list…
Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (Dec. 29)
Unattended A 51-year-old man paid dearly for his decision to warm his car in front of his north Charlotte home during a cold morning last week. The man told police he left his Dodge Nitro running and unlocked in the driveway at about 7 a.m. while he got ready inside his house and, when he…
Jordan Hoban releases new album Songs of Loss the old-fashioned way
Jordan Hoban wrote the music on his latest release, Songs of Loss, with the same emotional intensity and care as someone writing an obituary for a loved one. It only makes sense. The eight-song album was written in response to the death of a family member. Hoban does not name the family member that Songs…
The Year: 2017
Saturn Parallel Pluto: We have a series of six challenging aspects between Saturn and Pluto which began this year in February. The last will occur in November of 2019. The effects of this aspect have been in the air for a few months already. This pair, as all planets, has both positive and negative sides.…
The Ultimate Trojan Horse of Breakfast
Egg-in-a-nest, a perennial children’s favorite, never seems to get old. To prepare it is to create a tractor beam between a child’s mouth and breakfast. As we grow up, it maintains a residence in many an adult heart. The novelty of using edible materials as a form of cookware with which to encase other edible…
Farewell; my time at The Loaf
It’s time to say goodbye — to me, not to the ol’ Loaf. After 10 years of being a part of the CL team in many ways, shapes and positions, I’ll be moving on to a corporate gig. I’ve been promised there’s a nerf gun at the new job, so rest assured I’ll be in…
Local government: the new pride and prejudice
Fuckery, as defined by the Urban Dictionary, is “absolute bullshit; utter nonsense; something rather suspicious that can bring forth uneasy, angry or irritated feelings. A stunt pulled by people who don’t know how to tell the truth or enjoy messing with people’s heads as a hobby.” Faith, on the other hand, per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary,…
Milling around Haberdish
A visit to Haberdish, a new modern Southern eatery in an old renovated building on North Davidson Street, might make you rethink NoDa’s history. The restaurant’s name (a play on haberdasher/haberdashery, an old-fashioned word for a person or place that sells small articles of clothing; dish replaces dash…get it?) goes back to mill town times.…
Artist Leo Twiggs tells the story of the Charleston church massacre through batik
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered. —James Weldon Johnson, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” When a pistol-toting white supremacist walked into historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., in June 2015, and gunned down nine worshippers, the…
