Eat Well and Prosper
Did the latest bout of cold and flu have you opening cans of chicken noodle soup? Homemade chicken soup has long been thought to possess healing properties. Perhaps this can be attributed to the marrow in chicken bones or to the associated memories of mom’s lovingly made broth laced with thick egg noodles brought to…
NBA Needs Attitude Adjustment
Get a grip on yourselves, people. Pull yourselves together. For the second time in five years, we’re making a pathetic spectacle of ourselves in front of the entire nation, and for what? So the NBA will like us, look favorably on us, allow us to cover their business operating deficits, placate their obnoxious owners and…
Restaurant Wine Service Demystified
There’s a hilarious scene in The Muppet Movie where Kermit and Miss Piggy are enjoying their first romantic dinner date together. Kermit is decked out in a red velvet smoking jacket, Piggy is draped in a shimmering pink gown, and expectations are running high. Kermit summons the waiter, played with delicious sarcasm by Steve Martin,…
Poetic License
“Where’s the poet? show him! show him,/ Muses nine! that I may know him.” — from “Where’s the Poet” by John Keats Here is a confession, just between you and me: I am a poetry snob. I’m not really a snob about most other things. I don’t notice what clothes people wear most of the…
THE WINE LIST
CAROLINA WINE CLUB Morning classes run from 10-11:30am. Evening classes run from 6:30-8pm. All classes are held at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design. Sessions include: Feb 26, Ordering Wine in A Restaurant & Purchasing Wine in a Grocery Store. Cost is $100 for any four sessions or $30 per individual session. For more…
Enron: From Texas With Love
The well-documented crimes of predatory capitalists — actual and de facto slavery, child labor, sweat shops, armies of thugs and strikebreakers, unimaginable environmental destruction with its legacy of death and disease — are such a constant theme in the modern history of the West that they’ve become a political cliche, a litany that identifies anyone…
Good Eats
ALL AROUND TOWN ANNTONY’S CARIBBEAN 2001 E. 7th, 704-342-0749; 145 Brevard Court, 704-339-0303; 20910 Torrence Chapel Road, Cornelius, 704-894-0280. A fun, change-of-pace restaurant for a casual lunch or dinner. Limited menu features rotisserie-cooked barbecued meats, what else, Caribbean style. $ BRUEGGER’S BAGEL BAKERY All over town. Chewy bagels, crisp on the outside, and served with…
Who Knew?
The 2002 Winter Olympic Games have provided a number of grand events: the majestic beauty of figure skating, the athletic prowess of snowboarding, and of course the “what the. . .?” of curling. You probably caught a glimpse of this odd spectacle on TV. One player grasps a kind of rounded stone with a handle,…
Measuring Up
* After having called it quits more than two years ago, the members of 14 Feet Wide have decided to get back together. Original members Jamie Peavey (vocals), Jon Rozzelle (guitar), Hayden Mauney (bass) and Matt Doughten (drums) have scheduled a reunion show for Sunday, March 17, at the Irish Cue in Cornelius. According to…
A Little Red, White and Blue Goes A Long Way
From the depth of my considerable feeling for our fatherland I proclaim, “Enough with the red, white, and blue, already!” It’s my respect for the flag and its colors that makes me rankle at their recent appearance on just about everything, from celebrities’ shoulders to cigarette lighters. The implications appear to be that Meg Ryan…
Scene & Herd
If the size of the crowd for Gigi Dover’s solo CD release party is any indication, she may see her on CMT before you know it. Dover, the raven-haired chanteuse of the Rank Outsiders, released her new solo album, Unpicked Flowers, Friday night at the Double Door. The record is a push for the big…
Eyes On The Prize
So is Charlotte really losing its soul over trying to build an uptown arena? Hardly. To a degree, the soul of this community is dealmaking. Who runs Charlotte? It’s not artists and entertainers, not social reformers, not educators, not politicians. It’s first and foremost, business people. Charlotte is not that much different today from when…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 2.20 Jojo & C. Dawg & Luther & Cody — In case you’re not exactly on a first name basis with some of these folks, let me explain who all’s involved with this project. Widespread Panic keyboardist John “Jojo” Hermann released an album last year titled Smiling Assassin (Fat Possum). The group he recorded…
Another Week Already
* The most important, momentous issue of our time was settled last week when Canadian figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were awarded gold medals at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. Controversy and tension had mutated to gargantuan proportions after judges initially awarded the gold to error-prone Soviet skaters Elena Berezhnaya…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Feb. 20 After Hours, Cone Center UNCC Battle of the Bands: Bellglide, Ender, Static, Faded, One Amazin’ Kid & What the Funk? Arnie’s Tavern, Huntersville Scott & Tim Bayou Kitchen Bill Noonan Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Cajun Queen, Pineville 7th Street Gator Band II Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro Maura O’Connell Connolly’s Craig &…
Letters
We’re Going As Fast As We Can To The Editors: Regarding Tara Seratius’ article, “Just Leave Us Alone” (CL, February 6): While I usually enjoy and respect Ms. Servatius’ courageous and hard-hitting journalism, something seems to be clouding her perspective when it comes to the proposed expansion of SouthPark Mall. A primary goal of the…
One Film To Rule Them All
There are two ways to look at this year’s crop of nominees for the 74th Annual Academy Awards. For those who care to ac-cent-chu-ate the positive, it’s clear that, for the most part, Academy members chose wisely, picking a palatable mix of mainstream blockbusters and independent gems to create a playing field that found favor…
The Blotter
* Respect Your Elders: An elderly woman reported to police that $12,000 cash was gone after she gave it to her “life insurance salesman” to invest over a year and a half ago. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that not only had the phony salesman made off with the $12,000, he had somehow convinced…
8 Days A Week
WEDNESDAY 20 Dirty Blonde, Claudia Shear’s five-time Tony-nominated comedy based on the life of Mae West, continues today through Sunday at the Belk Theatre of the Performing Arts Center. The show will be presented at 8pm today and tomorrow and 8:15pm Friday and Saturday, with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2pm and an additional 7:30pm…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES HART’S WAR Certainly one of the more ambitious projects of the new year, this WWII drama falls just shy of qualifying as an out-and-out hit. The problem rests with the pontification, as an initially absorbing storyline eventually gets railroaded by a final half-hour in which everyone boasts about the sacrifices they’ll make before…
One Man’s Trash
The Weird: The seller advertises this auction item as the original Arkansas quarter for 2003, but then notes it’s a proposed design. . .hmmm. Let’s see. What popular American icon of past years was from Arkansas? Ah. Bill Clinton, you say? I think you might be right. And what is Bill Clinton best known for…
Stargazer
For All Signs This is the second week of challenging aspects concerning Venus, goddess of love and the arts. “She” also deals with money and financial resources as well. As we experience these hard aspects, issues over money and other resources may cause us to question our relationships. There are those who would let these…
The Cult of Neil Diamond
“Money talks/But it don’t sing and dance/And it don’t walk/And long as I can have you here with me/I’d much rather be/Forever in blue jeans”– from “Forever In Blue Jeans” by Neil Diamond Almost everybody in the entertainment industry received a career boost after September 11. Performers who hadn’t had a hit in years (see:…
Homefront Advisor
The FBI recently issued a warning about “teddy bear bombs.” What’s going on? The answer, in a word, is profiling. The answer in two words is ethnic profiling. On January 15, a Middle Eastern-looking man who appeared to be 22-35 years old walked into a California Wal-Mart and paid cash for a bunch of Valentine’s…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: If I’m a witness to a bad thing but decide not to do anything about it, does that make me a bad person? How do you know when you’re doing the right thing by doing nothing? It’s been three weeks since this happened but it has been eating on my thoughts since…
What You Need to Know About Enron
In a nation where more than half of all households are invested in the stock market, the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history should put the fear of God in us. Primarily, it seems to have fueled fears about our retirements. It’s true the Enron scandal is mind-boggling and complicated. Kenneth Lay, the former chairman…
A Jewel Of A Show
It’s no exaggeration to say that the work of one fine art jeweler from Seattle reflects an entire generation of metalworkers, perhaps even a whole craft movement. Ramona Solberg’s jewelry, on view in the small space upstairs at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design through March 31, may look familiar to you, even if…
Enron and the Bush Administration
* George W. Bush was Ken Lay’s “golden boy of politics.” Ken Lay has been Bush’s number one financial backer since Dubya ran for governor. No other American or Saudi has given Bush more money than Lay and his gang at Enron. When Bush needed a way to fly around to all the primaries and…
Setting Up Shop
For 12 days, the Royal Shakespeare Company is residing at Davidson College, teaching classes, reaching out to the community, schooling local actors, staging The Merchant of Venice, and helping the venerable liberal arts institution draw attention to its newest campus jewel. RSC’s base of operations will be north of Richardson Stadium at the new $36…
Unscrambling Arena Money Rhetoric
Over the last two weeks, elected officials’ rhetoric about their latest arena deal has changed almost daily. It began with promises that no property taxes would be used to pay for the arena. Then, when the city staff came back to the Charlotte City Council with a new deal that did include property taxes two…
Small Truths
Elizabeth Berg’s new collection of 15 stories unfolds like a quiet Sunday morning spent chatting with a close friend, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. There are no extraordinary moments here, just prose pregnant with the qualities for which many readers have grown to love Berg’s fiction: great, generous dollops of intimacy, honesty and humor…
Budget Ax Falls Hard on Housing Authority
For years, federal money that could have gone to fix crumbling public housing units has gone instead to operating the Charlotte Housing Authority (CHA) or paying for social programs to help people get out of public housing. Now, to catch up, CHA officials are proposing a balanced budget that slashes 51.5 positions — about half…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Bach B Minor Mass presented by Charlotte Symphony Classics. Featuring the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte with David Tang conducting. March 1, 8 p.m.; March 2, 8 p.m. $12-$55. Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St. 704-972-2000. Charlotte Symphony Pops w/Roger Williams take a walk down memory lane with legendary pianist Roger Williams.…
News, Rumor, and Innuendo
Highly credible sources say that the same ownership stipulations the NBA has applied to Charlotte — that city leaders find an ownership group willing to pay $200 million to buy the team and keep it in Charlotte — also apply to New Orleans and have been made a part of any deal there. The difference…
