Jul 4-10, 2012

Jul 4-10, 2012 / Vol. 26 / No. 19

Cover Story

Debating the i-word

The editors at Creative Loafing knew we’d have to explain why we decided to join the Drop the I-Word campaign. Hosted by United 4 The Dream, the youth-led advocacy group of the Latin American Coalition, it hopes to eradicate the phrase “illegal immigrant” from the country’s vocabulary, starting with newspapers and TV stations. Publications like…

Anthony W. Hager and Ana McKenzie

Layered meanings in Bips, Babbles and Screams

Charlotte-based contemporary artist Selena Beaudry examines what it means to make artistic noise in her newest exhibit, Bips, Babbles and Screams at Hidell Brooks Gallery. Opening on July 13 and running through Aug. 31, the showcase features three segments — piles, collages and oil paintings — inspiring to one another. The piles are three dimensional…

Mary Stevens

CD Review: David Banner’s Sex, Drugs and Videogames

David Banner’s free mixtape Sex, Drugs and Videogames finds our hero in a battle for the soul of hip-hop and his own redemption, as well. Banner has been inching his way back to conscious politics since the 2010 release of Death of a Popstar, and ups the ante here with a tricky plan: to slip…

Emiene Wright

Chariots of Fire, The 39 Steps among new home entertainment titles

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray and DVD.) CHARIOTS OF FIRE (1981). This modest British production wasn’t expected to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, which is why it’s still considered one of the biggest underdog victories in Oscar history. To be clear, there’s no way…

Matt Brunson

Book review: David Talbot’s Season of the Witch

Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance In The City of Love by David Talbot (Free Press, 406 pages, plus notes, $28). As America experienced one wrenching change after another from the mid-’60s through the early ’80s, no city embodied those changes, nor suffered more furor and chaos from them, than San Francisco. It…

John Grooms

Keep on truckin’

Before the recent explosion of gourmet food trucks, the thought of mobile grub brought to mind the jingles of classic ice-cream or hot dog vendors. Obviously not the healthiest of choices, I set out to determine which of the new breed of food trucks in Charlotte served up nutritious offerings. If you’ve been reading my…

Vani Hari

Where to find it: The good cheese

With the SouthPark roster of grocery store chains growing with the addition of Whole Foods later this summer, locally owned Harris Teeter’s flagship store at Morrocroft (6701 Morrison Blvd.), also known as the Taj MaTeeter, has almost completed renovations to the ready-to-eat area. This section now includes an expanded hot and salad buffet lines, more…

Tricia Childress

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (July 5 edition)

Lightly Seasoned: Employees at a local Food Lion called police after a man stole from the store without ever leaving. The reporting person told officers that the suspect picked up a pack of watermelon chunks, multiple plums and salt and pepper shakers. The man then went into the bathroom and snacked out for a little…

Ryan Pitkin

Capsule reviews of films playing the week of July 6

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

Savages: Everybody must get Stoned

SAVAGES * DIRECTED BY Oliver Stone STARS Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively Ridley Scott never cared for it. Neither, for that matter, did Harrison Ford. It was the studio that insisted on the voice-over narration by Ford’s character in Blade Runner, as a way to help connect the story line’s knotty dots. To this day, that…

Matt Brunson

Magic Mike: Dancing with the star

MAGIC MIKE **1/2 DIRECTED BY Steven Soderbergh STARS Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey Less of a Saturday Night Fever and more of a Friday evening shrug, Magic Mike follows the template of that John Travolta disco tale by starting off as a bright movie full of dance moves and music before turning into something decidedly darker.…

Matt Brunson

Finding tranquility at RedSky

The life of artist Sarah Faulkner is a whirlwind of colors, places and artistic styles. But when looking at one of her paintings at Charlotte’s RedSky Gallery, that haze settles to a feeling of serenity. Faulkner paints to ground herself in her thoughts and offer folks a sense of balance in the chaotic world we…

Mary Stevens

Letters and online comments from the readers (July 5 edition)

Sounding off First, let me begin by saying I’ve enjoyed your publication since I began reading it in ’97. There have been tons of great articles, reviews, and recommendations I’ve gotten a lot out of. I think the new print layout is neat, and does offer a more “journalistic” feel. But, I do have a…

Editorial staff

Weekly horoscope (July 5 edition)

Cancer The Crab (June 20-July 21)Your peace is disturbed by lurking fears. Instead of avoiding the problems, you could look directly into Fear’s eyes and determine precisely what it is about. Do whatever seems right to diminish the potential trouble and then let it go, knowing you have done the best you can. For All…

Vivian Carol

Fab Fest breaks the mold

Since the demise of Charlotte Rep, theater festivals have been a scarce commodity in the capital of banking, NASCAR, and Chiquita Banana. But 2012 is bringing us a hearty harvest. The bumper crop began with a weeklong Queen’s Fab Fest at Spirit Square that closed on Saturday night. A more Rep-like festival is yet to…

Perry Tannenbaum

The numbers game at CPCC’s Ross Gallery

Isaac Payne, Chris Watts and Antoine Williams are accomplished young artists who incorporate elements of nostalgia — both false and heartfelt — into their work, as they speculate on how popular culture and the built environment shape and warp us. In two shows at Central Piedmont Community College’s Ross Galleries, they explore the complexities and…

Barbara Schreiber

Hard: The Metal Men Series documents homelessness through art

The expression "One man's trash is another man's treasure" is at the heart of Christina Welsh's Hard: The Metal Men Series, opening at Baku Gallery in NoDa on July 6. Welsh, a local photographer, has been busy snapping photos of homeless people toting chunks of scrap metal and pushing buggies of discarded items, mostly for…

Anita Overcash

Guantanamo Baywatch conjures up a low-budget surf-rock party

Last year, more than 76,000 albums were released — which each sold at least one copy — according to Nielsen SoundScan reports. Of those sales, roughly 90 percent belonged to only 2 percent of the titles. In such a saturated market, it’s hard for a new record to garner any attention. That is, unless there’s…

Bryan C. Reed

Dynamic Duo: Styles&Complete

While attending a January 2011 concert at the Neighborhood Theatre to check out his DJing friend, Your Dirty Habit, perform, Charlotte music producer Alex “A-Styles” Steins decided to stick around for the headliner, Steve Aoki. Aoki’s jaw-dropping electronic dance music set turned the NoDa venue into a massive party. Steins was stunned. “We can do…

Jeff Hahne

Charlotte’s Supastition returns after three-year ‘retirement’

Normally, superheroes don’t retire. They disappear or go underground until the next great adventure arises. It’s happening on the big screen this week when Spider-Man makes his return. And it’s happening on a Queen City stage, when Charlotte’s veteran, cutthroat rhyme-expert Supastition returns to the rap world after a two-year hiatus. In hip-hop, hyperbole rules,…

Eric Tullis

Living hell: Sandlewood Apartments

When Susan Venters moved into Sandlewood Apartments in 1987, she was excited about starting a new life with her children at the east Charlotte complex. She soon became popular with neighborhood kids, selling candy to keep them from running across dangerous Harris Boulevard to the store. But then summer 2011 rolled around, and bed bugs…

Ryan Pitkin

The power of words

Remember when your mom told you, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never harm you”? She was lying. Just ask those who have been demeaned, over and over and over, by the n-word, if they are black, or by the f-word, if they are gay, or by the c-word or the…

Mark Kemp

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