Welcome To The Terrordome
If an unthinkable disaster happened here, the poor, the frail and people without transportation would not be left behind to fend for themselves. That’s the official position of local officialdom. Unlike their colleagues in New Orleans, Mecklenburg County officials say they do have a plan to evacuate people in the case of a nuclear disaster.…
Chug A Jug
CORKSCREW In our culture of excess, more is better. And if you’ve got a houseful of people during the holidays, having more wine is definitely better, if only for sanity. 750-milliliter bottles (the normal size you see everywhere) fail to fit the bill, so why not buy the big jugs? These family-size 1.5-liter helpers can…
Mystery Dance
As Joyce Carol Oates notes in her introduction, “Crimes can occur without mystery. Mysteries can occur without crime.” And superb mystery anthologies? They occur this way: Take an accomplished author and voracious reader (Oates), add crackling dialogue, toss in sublime range, top with a pitch-perfect blend of contributors (famous and fledgling) — and there you…
CL Recommends
The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr (Random House hardback). You know a book is good when you find yourself still thinking about it after you’ve moved on to other books. That’s what happened to me with The Lost Painting. Harr, the author of 1997’s A Civil Action, tells the story of how a famous lost…
Gina Stewart
Talk about Renaissance people! You weren’t talking about Renaissance people? Well, if you were talking about Renaissance people, you’d have to mention Ms. Stewart, one of those singer/multi-instrumentalist/actor-types who’s shown up on Charlotte stages from NoDa to … um, Uptown. Gina is the founding bass player for Charlotte’s pre-riot grrrl pop-punk band the Blind Dates,…
From the Editor
We’ve received lots of mail in the past couple of weeks about our staff-written Nov. 23 cover story, “American Gluttony,” a satirical look at holidays and overindulgence in this city, state, region and nation. Most of the complaints have been along the same lines: Your satire went too far this time — eating disorder is…
Paint Lovers
Here’s an homage to all things wet, gooey and somewhat obscure. I’m talking about paint and painters — and it’s not just a man’s world anymore. Ladies, start your brushes! Vrroooomm! Isabel Samaras http://astrocat.com/samaras Marshall Arisman www.marshallarisman.com Matt Sesow www.sesow.com Jennifer Poon www.jpoonstudios.com Françoise Nielly www.francoise-nielly.com
Letters
Too Far As an advocate for the field of eating disorders, I found your article on American Gluttony (Nov. 29) disturbing, offensive and extremely inappropriate. While I do agree that in our society, Thanksgiving has become a holiday filled with overconsumption, I feel the subject matter was taken too far. The “proper deliberate vomiting technique”…
The Unforgettable Ring of Fire
“Our set list is designed. . . to get to that place where everything feels possible.” — Bono to Rolling Stone editor and publisher Jann Wenner, Nov. 3, 2005 My love affair with U2 officially began April 23, 1983, on a rain-sodden Chapel Hill afternoon at UNC’s Kenan Stadium. The Irish foursome was launching the…
Scandinavia or Bust!
Denmark has Hamlet. Sweden has Ikea. Iceland has green terrain (deceiving). And Norway and Finland are just kind of hanging out (possibly playing hockey). That’s all I knew of Scandinavia, the cluster of countries that dangles over Europe like a senior’s arthritic knuckles, until I attended ScanFest ’05 last month. Commencing the festival, representatives from…
Slippery
It’s not really a critic’s job to focus on a motion picture’s finances — either what it costs or what it grosses. But after watching writer-director Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana, I couldn’t help but scratch my head as I wondered how Warner Bros. thought it would be able to recoup the movie’s production costs. A strong…
Soft Ornaments
I don’t know what it says about a Christmas tree if a damn cat can knock it down, but surely that can’t be a good sign. Maybe I shouldn’t have my tree on top of a table, but my ceilings are seventy million feet high and it’s the only way I can think of to…
View From The Couch
CINDERELLA MAN (2005). No filmmaker in his right mind would want his boxing picture to be released a scant few months after Million Dollar Baby, but Cinderella Man is so structurally and tonally different from Clint Eastwood’s masterwork that it might as well be about jai alai. Almost every summer has one classy Oscar-bait production…
Breaking news
Survey on Charlotte Text-Messaging Finds 41 Percent Use it for Flirting. Nothing says “I want to hop you” like a winking smiley face;) Kenneth Lee Boyd Didn’t Want to be Remembered as No. 1,000 to be Executed Since Reinstatement of Death Penality And Gary Gilmore didn’t want to be remembered as No. 1; John Spenkelink…
¡Feliz Navidad!
Buca, the master tractor driver, sits helplessly at the helm of his Kubota, its huge wheels spinning themselves deeper and deeper into the damp earth. I’ve seen him behind the wheel of a Bobcat, twirling and swerving gracefully among perfect rows of valuable evergreens, like a ballet-dancing bull in a china shop. At the moment,…
No Really, He’s A Racialist
When Doug Hanks abandoned his bid for city council in August, he claimed he wasn’t a racist. The reason he was posting stuff to stormfront.org, the Web site founded by a one-time Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, Hanks said, is because he was researching a book. Four months have passed and Hanks is still posting…
East Village Others
The dwindling avant-garde and glitzy entertainment worlds are such uneasy partners, it’s hard to believe they could spawn the widely popular experimental-jazz outfit Medeski, Martin & Wood. But there they are, poised between the overlapping traditions of loft jazz and the kind of deep, alpha-wave-inducing grooves that have endeared the trio to the vast jam-band…
Comin’ Round the Mountain
As so-called New Country crests its second decade of mainstream dominance, the genre is suddenly giving up the Funk. Drums may’ve been verboten at the Opry during country’s initial mid-20th century heyday, but Nashville’s own Bonepony skipped the memo. As the trio’s September opening slot for Shooter Jennings in Charlotte showed, the young members of…
Welcome to the jungle
North Carolina native Blair Tindall’s recent book is a tell-all about music, corruption, racketeering, sex, drugs, alcohol and extramarital affairs. There are no Led Zeppelin-like pairings of groupies and mud sharks, but the book’s plenty sordid, if relatively subdued. “Another cash-in tell-all,” you’re probably saying — right before you scratch your head and blurt out,…
Film Clips
New Releases AEON FLUX While director Karyn Kusama probably deserves a lavish Hollywood mansion and a three-picture deal as much as the next filmmaker, she’s one person whose career might have benefited more had she stayed hungry. Her low-budget debut feature, 2000’s Girlfight, was an indie knockout, signaling her arrival as a moviemaker with grit,…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I started a new job last week. I was not eager to join the company, because the people here have a lot of attitude. But the money is better and it’s no worse than my last gig. The office is on two floors. I sit upstairs with one project manager. Downstairs is…
Wine List
HOLIDAY WINE TASTING A tasting of six wines. Dec. 7, 7pm. $7. Dolce Vita, 3205 N Davidson St. 704-334-1052. WINE CLASSES Fall classes presented by the Carolina Wine Club. www.carolinawineclub.com. Dec. 13: Optional session, 6:15-8pm. $35. Westye Group Southeast Showroom, 127 West Worthington Ave. # 104. 704-344-8027. WINE TASTING A different sampling of wines every…
Stargazer
Sagittarius The Archer (Nov. 22 – Dec. 20) Take every opportunity this week to give of yourself emotionally. One or more people are in your life because you have something to teach them. This is a great time to make positive changes in your appearance. For All Signs The planet Mars, ancient god of war,…
Cheer To Go
If you are seeking an out-of-the-ordinary gift for your favorite atavistic gourmand, take a stroll uptown to Reid’s and talk with Bucky Frick, Jr., in the meat department. Among the wild game he carries are full racks of elk, venison and wild boar. Frick can also order kangaroo or alligator. The meats are sealed in…
Ralphie and the BB Grail
Back in October, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte opened their new ImaginOn facility with an unprecedented Center City splash. Well, if The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a warning to fasten your seatbelts and grab firm hold of your expectations, their current production, A Christmas Story, politely serves notice that it’s safe to walk…
See & Do
December 7, Wednesday Chatty Hatty is Charlotte’s first black, female disc jockey and she began her career at WGIV Radio back in the ’50s when she was only 14. She was on the air for almost three decades and recently penned her autobiography Chatty Hatty, The First Black Female D.J., the legend, Radio WGIV, Charlotte,…
King
Locally, we like our ceramics to be straightforward, handsome and classic — preferably in the form of recognizable vessels. Defining the role of ceramic art in Charlotte’s panoply of taste usually comes down to one word: safe. Rarely do we Charlotte folk opt for the edgy form; the broken not whole; something that is questionable,…
“It’s Child Abuse”
The average person might wonder what would lead Antonio Deron Pruitt, 19, and Juan Lawrence, 22, to believe they could get away with popping a cap into each other — or any other passerby who happened to get caught in the crossfire during their rolling gun battle on North Tryon Street last week. From their…
The Blotter
Cruise on out: A Tom Cruise fan ran out of a video store with five DVD copies of War of the Worlds valued at $100, though in truth the video store might not have made that return on rentals. Cruise, however, made a reported $70 million on the film for signing a deal that included…
Judgment Day for Judge Roy Moore
Sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Montgomery, AL, I’m thinking about two dates. The first is Dec. 1, the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up a bus seat to a white man, one of the seismic events that launched the civil rights movement. The other date was mentioned earlier in the day:…
Meditating on Food
Zen is a name currently in vogue for trendy Asian restaurants. My favorite is New Zen — as if Zen itself could be improved upon. Seeing into one’s own nature and understanding that nature is the whole of Zen. This process, while simple enough, may take a lifetime to achieve. So naming a restaurant Zen…
