Rep Bids For a Reprieve
Hemorrhaging from a host of self-inflicted wounds, Charlotte Repertory Theatre is one company that desperately needs a break. Yet at the finest hour of their current season, the house at last Saturday night’s performance of The Exonerated wasn’t sold out. This production reminds us what Rep can be at its best, bringing us a compelling,…
Love Brokers
What does it say about the state of romance in America that the two movies being released to coincide with Valentine’s Day both center on relationships that in one way or another are based on financial arrangements? Has Pretty Woman begat Pretty Woeful? During an age in which seemingly every day a money-grubbing rube will…
Part of the Story
It’s no surprise that Salman Rushdie’s two-day visit to Davidson College last week felt at once miraculous and mundane. His novels, after all, juxtapose those two qualities, offering delirious deliberations on everything from cultural assimilation and religious doctrine to advertising jingles and vainglorious actors. His appearance here represented the typical (an eminent author discoursing on…
View From The Couch
GANGSTERS COLLECTION (1930-1949). Back during the golden age of Hollywood, MGM famously boasted that it had more stars than there were in heaven. Maybe so, but the studio whose lineup was truly celestial was Warner Bros., whose stable merely included the likes of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Bette Davis. All four…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Cantus The male vocal ensemble’s repertoire spans many periods and genres, including Renaissance motets, contemporary sacred works, art songs, jazz standards, and pop songs. Mon., Feb. 14, 8 p.m. $15-$50. Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St. 704-372-1000. Charlotte Symphony Neighborhood Concerts Intimate and informal concerts encompassing four centuries of works for…
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…
Banana Republic
Central Avenue, between Plaza Midwood and Sharon Amity, has always felt like another place – not Charlotte, not Carolina. I mean a completely different place, like a small town in the Yucatan or a wadi off the Nile. Central Avenue enjoys a realism that many sections of this city lack. The only plasticity of the…
Men in Aprons
My kitchen is the crime scene and I am the culprit. To underscore this, a strip of yellow police tape cordons off the cooking area, where the crime was perpetrated. The tape, emblazoned with black lettering reading “Do Not Enter,” is a stray tassel I picked off the ground near a condemned building and tacked…
History Today
GRAND OPENING: This past Wednesday, February 2, starting with reservations taken for dinner only. February 15 is the anticipated date for lunch hours to begin. OWNERS: John Duncan and Ashli Wilson. Duncan is also the owner of Bonterra. EXECUTIVE CHEF: Blake Hartwick. Hartwick has been the Executive Chef at Bonterra for the past five years.…
City Crawls Closer to Cool
Hey You! Yeah, you with the iPod, nouveau vintage T-shirt, carefully disheveled hair and new college degree. Over here. Hi, my name is Charlotte. Wanna be friends? What’s that? Charlotte: C-h-a-r-l-o-t-t-e. You know, Charlotte, NC, the Queen City – Panthers, Bobcats, lots of banks and um . . .did I mention I have two pro…
Chef Cupid
If you want to cook up something to stir the senses this Valentine’s Day, use ingredients that have mythical powers of arousal, er, love. For thousands of years, certain foods have been said to increase desire, but a dietician at the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center says, “There’s no proof to it. There hasn’t been…
Cool, or What?
Here are three projects in the works that could help kick-start Charlotte’s “cool” makeover. ¨ The US National Whitewater Center is a public park that will offer a custom-made whitewater river as its centerpiece. It will be located along the Catawba River where Interstates 85 and 485 intersect approximately 10 miles from downtown. The Center…
Be my velvet Valentine
With or without an admirer this weekend, one needs an antidote for the irrepressibly goopy love stuff on center stage at the local CVS. Walk on by those bags of cupid-themed M&Ms and pick up a few bottles of red food coloring instead. No, we’re not paint-balling love birds in Piedmont Park; we’re making red…
Telling Fact from Fiction
Last week a conference took place 4000 miles from Charlotte that was vitally important to the Queen City’s citizens and leaders. Near my home in Devon, the quiet cathedral city of Exeter – once razed into ruins by Hitler’s Luftwaffe – played host to an important international conference on global climate change. As we in…
Life Is Like…
Candlelight, a card, chocolates and a little lust – I mean, love – are elements of a “romantic” evening. And although Valentine’s Day may be institutionalized romance as well as a major business event for restaurants, greeting card companies, florists and chocolatiers, any lover of consequence should at least provide some, if not all, of…
True Crime:
Until recently,the official story around here was that crime is down, and that that’s a good thing. Now the story is that crime is up slightly in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, but not to worry, they have it under control. Overall, that’s true, but statistics can hide a lot, particularly when it comes to crime. Since the crime…
Hollywood & Wine
When I first heard about a wine movie coming out, I nearly wet my pants. I mean, introducing wine to the mainstream – the Hollywood mainstream – that’s the kind of publicity wine really needs to penetrate the American psyche. Sideways, the multi-Oscar-nominated movie about two middle-aged guys on a wine country vacation, didn’t initially…
Radio On TV
“They’ve already got that chemistry, and they work as a tandem: we couldn’t be happier.” Fox Charlotte news director Ken White is understandably pleased about the station’s decision to hire WLNK-FM’s Matt Harris and Ramona Holloway to host Fox News Edge, its not-so-newsy 10:30pm show, starting this week. When the pair did fill-in work in…
Bowled Over
Local songwriter Benji Hughes has been a constant on the local music scene for a number of years. Generally considered something of a “musician’s musician” – or songwriter, at the very least – Hughes has done time in a number of great local bands: Muscadine, who were once signed to Sire Records, the McClintock G’s,…
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…
News of the Weird
Recent Alarming Headlines: 1) “Man Says Tight Jeans Caused Aggravated Assault Charge” (Sean Duvall, arrested for pulling a gun on police in Belle Vernon, Pa., said he was holding it only because it was impossible to stuff it in his pants; USA Today, December). 2) “Man Arrested for Dumping Dirt in a Forest” (federal law…
Bill
I should have known Bill would die. He always does what he says he will. In most cases, it takes him a long time to get around to it, but he does it. When he met my mother, he was living in his car. They met at a dusty auction house in Chula Vista, Calif.,…
Valentine´s Day— Heaven or Hell?
“Every day is Valentine’s Day” Andre 3000 sings on Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and that’s a sentiment we here at CL can really get behind. But Hallmark has made Feb. 14 a mandatory “love your significant other day,” and who are we to argue to argue with a mega-corporation?For many, the day passes without much…
Letters
I’ll Take My Medicine Socialized David Walters is absolutely right (“The Social Contract,” Jan. 26). The medical insurance industry has hijacked our economy, and to survive, we must responsibly socialize medicine in the United States. Medicine has been wrested from American doctors by the insurance industry. The sequence of tests a doctor can use to…
US Attacked By Gay Toons!
Madeline Mims Tax Consultant “First of all, I’m not convinced that SpongeBob is gay, but I’d bet a week’s salary that Velma on Scooby-Do was a major dyke.” Jason Planmos Photographer “To tell the truth, I’ve always wondered about Yogi Bear’s sidekick Booboo. They seemed awfully close to be just friends.’ Same thing for Baba…
Corey Harris: Blues Traveler
Corey Harris isn’t your typical bluesman, even though he’s often associated with the hallowed musical grounds of the Mississippi Delta. His albums, seemingly recorded in sepia as much as stereo, are more Black American-synthesized world music than anything else. Shadows of the Neville Brothers, Ali Farka Toure (whom Harris collaborated with for his 2003 album,…
Pupusa Heat: Restaurante Salvadoreno
Banana Republic Central Avenue eatery takes patrons out of CharlotteCentral Avenue, between Plaza Midwood and Sharon Amity, has always felt like another place – not Charlotte, not Carolina. I mean a completely different place, like a small town in the Yucatan or a wadi off the Nile. Central Avenue enjoys a realism that many sections…
The Blotter
Party Pooper: A woman drank two glasses of wine while at a party and became violently ill. She called police and told them she believes someone at the party slipped drugs into her drink, causing her illness. Welcome Home: Upon arriving at his apartment, a man noticed a suspicious looking van cruising around the parking…
The World According to Dr. John
Take a spoonful of hoodoo, a pinch of gris-gris, a healthy dollop of funk and bake it in a steamy cauldron below sea level with spicy influences from a fistful of cultures. When that dish comes out of its New Orleans oven, it’s transmogrified itself into fonk, spunky cuisine sportin’ legs, driven by a syncopated…
See & Do
09 – WEDNESDAY Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte takes us back to the segregationist South of 1948 for A Lesson Before Dying, Romulus Linney’s adaptation of Ernest J. Gaines’s award-winning novel. Our protagonist is Jefferson, sentenced to die for a crime he didn’t commit. Now he’s devolving into animality under the stress of facing death and…
Sit & Spin
Rachid TahaTekitoiWrasse RecordsFew musicians can merge old-world musical traditions with modern dance music without causing grunts and groans. In the realm of Arabic music, Ofra Haza did it well and Rachid Taha is the current master of this blended world beat. Taha was born in Algeria and cut his musical teeth as a member of…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Swimsuit Issues My boyfriend of seven months is constantly playing Madden (footballer John Madden’s video game) and watching sports. I have zero interest in these hobbies, but I tolerate them because he’s good to me. However, I absolutely cannot stand that, whenever I’m around, he has to make some remark about every thing on TV…
Music Menu
THURSDAY 2.10 North Mississippi Allstars / Corey Harris – Corey’s latest offering, From Mississippi to Mali, neatly summed up the Harris equation: A blend of African-inspired rhythm, raw Delta Blues, and American folk songwriting tradition. Check out Harris’ star turn in Martin Scorsese’s The Blues for a perfect introduction. Opening for North Mississippi All-Stars. (Davis)…
Stargazer
For All Signs We are just beginning the Aquarian Age, an era that will last approximately 2100 years. Astrological ages are understood by blending the sign with its opposite. Our evolution must be in the direction of balancing Aquarius with Leo. In other words, we must find a functional combination between social equality and individual…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Feb. 9 Benchwarmer’s, Salisbury Kenny Floyd Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Double Door Inn The Turnstyles The Evening Muse Steven Delopoulos w/ Reeve Coobs Fire & Ice Lounge Rare Groove w/ D.R. & Buddy The Gin Mill Wizard’s Road Show Graduate, Pineville Clee and Chris Manchester Tavern, Rock Hill Rayen Belchere Project Midtown, Mountain…
