Jul 18-24, 2012

Jul 18-24, 2012 / Vol. 26 / No. 21

Cover Story

Book review: Alan Brinkley’s John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy by Alan BrinkleyTimes Books/Henry Holt, $23, 202 pages From Camelot to carousing, historical opinion swings from one extreme to another when it comes to John F. Kennedy. One thing that every account confirms: endless fascination with our 35th president. Expect another flood of JFK articles, books and documentaries next year, a deluge…

Erik Spanberg

CD Review: Birds with Teeth’s Two

As a band name, Birds With Teeth gives you little idea what to expect. It’s just menacing enough to work for an aggressive metal or hardcore band, but it’s also lightweight enough to function for a pop-punk or modern rock outfit. It’s an especially good fit for the Charlotte quartet that bears it, a puzzling…

Jordan Lawrence

CD Review: David Daniell and Douglas McCombs’ Versions

Versions is the second collaborative effort from tone-and-form-bending guitarist David Daniell (now an Asheville resident) and Douglas McCombs, bassist for the powerfully experimental rock polyglot Tortoise. Though culled from the same seven-hour session that birthed the duo’s 2009 effort, Sycamore, Versions sounds like the result of a fresh trip to the studio, building on Sycamore’s…

Jordan Lawrence

Mad for Mong Kok

Mong Kok is the market district that features little street shops to buy anything you could possibly ever want, and it is crazy amazing.

Desiree Kane

You’ve graduated. Has your kitchen?

Recent college graduates and others who are new to the business of food shopping, meal planning, and preparation don’t need to spend a lot of money on dozens of single-function gadgets and appliances. Even though I’m an experienced cook, I probably prepare 90 percent of my meals using nothing fancier than a chef’s knife, whisk,…

Monica Reinagel

Where to find: N.C. Cow Cheese

Cheeses, like coffee and wine, tend to develop a sense of place in their flavor profile. Currently North Carolina has 28 companies (inspected by NCDA&CS Food & Drug Protection Division) producing farmstead cheese, and a handful of larger cheese making facilities. Farmstead means that the milk comes from animals on that farm and the cheese…

Tricia Childress

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (July 19 edition)

Cashing in: Police responded to a vandalism call in west Charlotte last week after someone took the name of a business too literally. Employees at Strike It Rich told police someone threw a rock through the front window, presumably to run off with all the register’s booty. Bus-ted: A 23-year-old man called cops after a…

Ryan Pitkin

Capsule reviews of films playing the week of July 20

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Perhaps it’s best to think of Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man and Marc Webb’s 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man as the cinematic equivalents of Coke Classic and New Coke. Despite some alterations to the source material (hey, where’s Gwen Stacy?), the Raimi take earned the trust of most purists, offering a near-perfect Peter Parker…

Matt Brunson

Holy franchise, Batman!

To prepare for The Dark Knight Rises (reviewed here), here’s a look at all the past live-action Bat-films. Ratings are on a 4-star scale. BATMAN (1966). A passing fancy, the campy Batman TV show debuted in January 1966, emerged as a teen favorite and Top 10 series for one year, and then limped its way…

Matt Brunson

The Dark Knight Rises: Final at Bat

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES ***1/2 DIRECTED BY Christopher Nolan STARS Christian Bale, Michael Caine To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of Batman’s death are greatly exaggerated. I’m not referring to the fate of the character in The Dark Knight Rises, as that would be a spoiler of such gargantuan proportions, even I would agree that…

Matt Brunson

Beasts of the Southern Wild: Making waves

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD ***1/2 DIRECTED BY Benh Zeitlin STARS Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry Fully aware of the blasphemous nature of this statement, I nevertheless will go on record as acknowledging that I’ve always felt John Carpenter was better as a composer than as either a writer or director. His excellent scores for (among…

Matt Brunson

Weekly horoscope (July 19-25)

Cancer The Crab (June 20-July 21): Your mood is expansive and optimistic this week. It is one of those sunshine times that occasionally happen to the Moon Children. You have a grasp of the big picture and could use this energy to promote your projects and gain support. Or you could simply kick back and…

Vivian Carol

Deny reality!

An exciting, visionary political trend is sweeping North Carolina, and Charlotte’s city council and mayor are on top of it. The trend? Rejecting reality itself. The pessimists among us grumble that Foxx & Friends (F&F) are incompetent and irresponsible — just because they couldn’t agree on how to raise money for roads, bridges, affordable housing,…

John Grooms

A father laments his daughter’s lost Olympic dream

“The most important goal in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.” — Olympic creed It’s funny how true that little chestnut is.…

Scott Lucas

Southern comfort: Whitey Morgan

There’s a common misconception that being country is a Southern phenomenon. If that were true, Flint, Mich. native Whitey Morgan might be playing in a garage punk band rather than fronting the best outlaw country band in all of Michigan. (It’s a low bar, but still.) Like many Flint residents, Morgan’s heritage is elsewhere. His…

Chris Parker

Brooklyn’s A Place to Bury Strangers loves it loud

In their concert-going lifetimes, rock fans will experience plenty of “don’t bother yelling, I can’t hear you” performances. After all, a lot of bands enjoy jacking the volume until it rattles foundations and threatens their fans’ hearing — it’s all just another middle finger to common sense that’s come to define rock ‘n’ roll rebellion.…

John Schacht

Legally Blonde — A Musical: An ocean of pink at CPCC

With one less musical on tap for 2012, CPCC Summer Theatre seems to have reached the last week of its 39th season in the blink of an eye. A somewhat shabby-looking, beautifully sung Guys and Dolls was followed by a really snazzy — but underpowered — Noises Off at Halton Theater, paired with a truly…

Perry Tannenbaum

This week’s concert listings (July 19-25)

Thursday, July 19 Blues/Roots/International Bayou Butch Lucas (Villa Antonio (Ballantyne)) Classical/Jazz/Smooth Beats and Keys (Encore Bistro and Bar) John Alexander (Blue Restaurant & Bar) Country/Folk Caleb Davis (Leroy Fox) The Hackensaw Boys (Double Door Inn) Open Mic w/ Brett Greer (Tommy’s Pub) Speakeasy Thursday Open Mic (The Nickel Bar) Whitewater River Jam, River Whyless (U.S.…

Letters and online comments from the readers (July 19 edition)

History lesson Thought I would add a little history to your article (“Fight for your right to fight,” June 28) which disparaged the “tombstone” with [Ella May Wiggins’] name misspelled. For many years, I never saw her name spelled any way other than “Mae,” and if you do a Web search, many instances will be…

Editorial board

Soundboard returns

Creative Loafing music fans, you are some loud, passionate folks. Somebody rattles your cages, you react like pit bulls, all snarly, quivery-lipped, teeth-baring, saliva-dripping growls and barks. Y’all can be downright scary. And that’s a good thing. I’m talking, of course, about the music-section controversy that lit up the Charlotte Interwebs like a Southern California…

Mark Kemp

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