Arts Agenda
Classical Music Charlotte Symphony British conductor Anthony Bramall will lead the Symphony featuring works of Purcell, Haydn, Elgar and guest cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. Feb. 18, 8 p.m.; Feb. 19, 8 p.m. $14-$68. Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St. 704-372-1000. Rachmaninoff and Romance A performance by the Charlotte Philharmonic featuring Tanya Bannister, Pianist. Sat.,…
Confessions Of A Drama Queen
As Pedro Almodovar eases into middle age, his films have lost some of their superficial, guilty pleasure flamboyance and become deeper and richer. The Almodovar of old, steeped in shock value, wild sex, campy bad behavior and carnival colors in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,…
Gastronomy In Cyberspace
They’re known as FatMan Seoul, tastee, Splendid Spatula and Sal Monella. And they like to hang out in places like the Accidental Hedonist, Hungry Tiger and Food Porn Watch. Sometimes they chime in with a comment, but mostly they just like to watch. Or read. Or pretend they’re eating. They’re not sexual deviants, but “food…
View From The Couch
HOWARDS END (1992). The best of the countless Merchant Ivory productions – and arguably the most appreciated by those who don’t even like Merchant Ivory movies – this rich adaptation of E.M. Forster’s Edwardian-era novel remains one of cinema’s defining statements on the rigid class structures that too often create irreparable riffs between a nation’s…
Pick a Peck of Food Blogs
From the hundreds of food blogs out there, we’ve chosen a selection of some of the best. But once you visit one, you’ll find columns of links to dozens of others, and you’ll soon find yourself happily traveling from one food crossroads to another. Remember to leave a trail of bread crumbs to find your…
Film Clips
Current Releases ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 A favorite of critics and cultists alike, John Carpenter’s 1976 Assault On Precinct 13 was a nifty little “B” flick about an LA street gang that descends upon a police station with the sole purpose of wiping out everyone inside. This flashy update is a competent but entirely generic…
Blogs With Local Connections
Blog, blog, blog. It’s all out there somewhere in the digital world. The big stir in Charlotte, though, involves the e-mails that zapped around area restaurants following the New York Times article “The Waiter You Stiffed Has Not Forgotten.” It seems that some waiters are tired of the one-way complaint system and now have several…
Cyberslackers Beware!
Behind the walls of his cubicle at a global insurance firm, he spent hours on end surfing the Internet. As co-workers strolled busily by, he brazenly ogled porn sites, his monitor tilted so if anybody happened to stop by they would not immediately notice the naked women splayed on his screen. And if a visitor…
The Boss Lunch
That cozy intimate spot you just chose for the romantic dinner is not necessarily the best spot for your next business lunch. While it’s true that having knowledge of a restaurant is an absolute requirement for a business lunch, ambience and service will play a large part in whether you get the raise or the…
The Art of Taking It Easy
There are many websites devoted to wasting time on the job. Here are a few we tried when the boss wasn’t looking: www.ishouldbeworking.com is an impressive effort for a slackers’ page. Ironically, the mastermind behind it says he’s just been too busy lately to update the site properly. It has an Office Survival game and…
I Dream of Genie Soup
In spite of my culinary background, I do, on occasion, dream of a genie who’s focused only on my needs as I trudge home on the bus after a cranky day at the office. As the bus dodges potholes, I can see, through the winter-crusted windows, my genderless genie shimmying away in the kitchen. He/she…
Clean Air Agenda
In response to Charlotte’s ongoing environmental woes – the most recent being the EPA’s 2004 ruling that the Charlotte area is in violation of federal air quality standards for ozone – a regional organization has come up with a multi-pronged plan to help clean up Charlotte’s dirty air. The plan offers ways to curb both…
It’s That Time Again
Be on the lookout. They’ll be out hawking their wares this week. You can’t avoid them, and you can’t resist them. It’s time for the Girl Scout Cookie Drive, when troops of uniformed little girls wave boxes of Thin Mints and Do-si-dos under your nose as you try to slip into Harris Teeter for something…
Medium Cool
Much hot air has been expended recently trying to decide if Charlotte’s “cool” enough to attract the hip, young professionals who are touted to be the great wealth producers of the next generation. This “creative class” (so named by economics professor Richard Florida) comprises the young “knowledge workers” in key sectors of the economy who…
Choose Your New Weapon
My dad used to say boredom is evil. I know what he means. When I’m numbing my brain with Law & Order re-runs, I sometimes wander back and forth from the couch to the refrigerator, and that dried-out hunk of cheese looks more attractive each trip. Then there’s that bottle of opened, aging wine that…
Free Money!
Are you a wealthy executive looking to pocket a cool million for doing absolutely nothing? Do you have plans to expand your present operations in Charlotte? Well, have I got a deal for you. First, call the City of Charlotte and make up a story about how South Carolina has offered your company incentives to…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 6434-F West Sugarcreek Rd., 704-598-6863; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd. (Gastonia), 704-866-7574. A favorite of…
FORGET RADIO
Come hell or high water, every week I get an e-mail updating me on an area rock band. I’ve never seen them or heard their music, and despite all attempts to unsubscribe myself from their list, “I’ve got mail” each week. Considering that local bands have about as much luck getting played on radio as…
See & Do
16 – WEDNESDAYThe newest interactive exhibit at Charlotte’s Discovery Place is If These Walls Could Talk. The exhibit investigates the science and history of the structures that humans create, from mud-brick houses to soaring skyscrapers. Created by the Science Museum of Minnesota, the exhibit features an array of interactive displays and hands-on activities. The science…
Double-edged Wilco World
Music geeks love to talk about “discovery records,” the ones they were turned onto when they first began listening to music that wasn’t necessarily from their parents’ collections. Ask rock fiends who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, and they might recite a litany of records by unknown heroes from that era: Mission of…
News of the Weird
LEAD STORY: Most competent criminal: Jeffrey “Roofman” Manchester, 33, was finally recaptured after six months of inspired police-dodging in Charlotte, after having smuggled himself out of a previously escape-proof prison nearby. According to a January profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, Manchester (a handsome, athletic, personable man who got his nickname from a multistate series…
Ask the Advice Goddess
The Sound And The Furry My boyfriend of three months is adorable on every level, except for his beard, which he refuses to trim. When we started dating, it was short and looked sexy, but now it’s grown to mountain man proportions, which he believes “adds character.” I’ve told him as sensitively as possible that…
Funky Junkie
Jason “J-Rocc” Jackson, like most musicians, spends a lot of time digging. But whereas most artists do their digging by way of dusting off their catalog of memories or plucking away at a guitar until finding that perfect note, J-Rocc digs in musty old crates of soul, funk and jazz records for his artistic expression.…
Letters
Freedom & Slavery: Mental States In reference to George Thompson’s letter in response to “Still Left Behind” (Feb. 2), I would like to dispute several critical points. The letter made references to slavery inhibiting people from having a better life. Statements such as, “When slavery ended, blacks found themselves with no economic opportunity, much like…
Stargazer
For All Signs Cosmic conditions for the next four months demand that we integrate new systems with whatever has been traditionally used. We may do this on multiple levels: political, economic, social, or personal. We are pressured to inaugurate improved solutions in order to accomplish an updated format that will build a better future. If…
Merritt’s star keeps rising
It didn’t have to be like this. The treasure of the North Carolina roots and alt-country scene, Tift Merritt, might never have graced us with her supple, tender vocals, and North Carolina’s loss might have been The New Yorker’s gain. “I really didn’t imagine that people would pay to come see me sing. You can’t…
Bobbing For Excitement
This week’s Scene and Herd begins with a sports item. As with any subject, there are probably some of you out there that really like sports, and will gladly read anything concerning them (even the Observer sports section!). Of course, there are others that would just as soon read a detailed description of the photosynthetical…
Hirschfeld’s Fabulous Follies
Last century’s most famous American caricaturist invites you to a tour of Harlem’s happy days. Hirschfeld’s Harlem, a show of 26 lithographs by Al Hirschfeld, is now showing through March 6 at Gallery L in the Main Library. His work is both absurd and profound. Who can’t warm up to that? Harlem in 1941 was…
Sit & Spin
M83Before the Dawn Heals UsGooomFor M83, the band named after one of the heavens’ picturesque spiral galaxies, the element of suprise is gone. In its place are equally fantastic and sky-high expectations. The American debut of M83 (essentially now just Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez) was one of last year’s pleasant surprises; Dead Cities, Red Seas &…
You Be the Man
When I was 5 I used to fantasize about fainting into the arms of a man, preferably during a dangerous battle of some kind. I don’t know what that says about me, but there it is; I thought the ultimate was to flat out faint in the middle of everything and be carried away from…
Failure To Communicate
While there has been no abatement over the past week in new theater fare you’ll find apt for marking Black History Month, there’s a continuing undercurrent of Chekhovian comedy and satire that might fly better in a Failure to Communicate Month. What doesn’t happen in Chekhov’s bittersweet comedies is often more important than what does.…
Music Menu
THURSDAY 2.17Cowboy Mouth – People love this band! I’m not sure whom, or why, but their live shows are, according to their PR staff, akin to a “religious experience.” As a lapsed Catholic, I can only assume they mean that in a good way. The band’s latest release, Easy, is actually a re-mastered and re-sequenced…
Cat Gouge Fever
Leo Toms Auto Mechanic “Not really, I don’t usually eat much during the NBA season anyway.” Goldie Moss Librarian “Not if you compare them to tickets for, say, a ride on the space shuttle. Plus, I hear the food on the shuttle really sucks.” Arn Johansen Stockbroker “I don’t care – my company’s paying for…
Brainy Brit Bombs
Stella Rimington, retired director general of Britain’s MI5 intelligence bureau, has written At Risk, a highly cerebral novel dealing with counter-terrorism efforts in post-9/11 Great Britain. Choosing to forgo the cloak and dagger James Bond format in order to explore the analytical thought processes of MI5 work must have seemed like a good idea at…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Feb. 16 Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Comet Grill The Relics Double Door Inn Wideload McKenna The Evening Muse Scott Jeffrey’s Band w/ Simplified and Jared Allen Fire & Ice Lounge Rare Groove w/ D.R. & Buddy The Gin Mill Wizard’s Road Show Manchester Tavern, Rock Hill Josh Coley Milestone Beyond All Reason w/…
The Blotter
Been Caught Stealing: A worker at a local delivery package service was caught on tape stealing a package from a conveyor belt. When the suspect was confronted, he admitted to stealing the package, but then explained that he threw the package away when, much to his chagrin, he discovered it contained only machine parts. Stolen…
CL Recommends Recent Books
Hardback The Moon in Our Hands by Thomas Dyja (Carroll & Graf). Author Dyja takes his starting point from a true-life episode in the life of Walter White, an early 20th century civil rights pioneer who easily “passed” for white. The NAACP sent White to Tennessee in 1918 to infiltrate the town’s establishment and investigate…
Hell To Pay
Constantine kicks off with a bang – two of them, to be precise. The first establishing sequence finds a Mexican peasant unearthing an artifact that’s been carefully wrapped in a Nazi flag. The object in question is the Spear of Destiny, the fabled weapon that was plunged into Christ’s body by a Roman Centurion while…
