Spit & Polish
I saw two art shows this weekend. One was Memoirs of a Single Mother by Cordelia Williams, showing through July 6 at the Light Factory in Spirit Square. The other was Diverse Works, showing through July 15 in the former Cargo Kids store behind Harpers at SouthPark. SouthPark offers everything a bunch of money can…
Lou Dobbs, the new Hispanic journalist
My People
Sympathy for the Devils?
In the sports pages of the nation’s newspapers, North Carolina is always well represented. In the news sections we rarely appear, unless some spectacular crime or criminal — Jeffrey McDonald, Velma Barfield, Eric Rudolph, Jim Bakker, Rae Carruth, Mike Peterson — momentarily captures the tabloid imagination. If the crime involves race, like the current Duke…
See & Do
Thursday, June 22 An American landmark unto himself (sort of like a Stonerhenge), Tommy Chong continues to forge ahead in his zealous support of getting high. Chong, best-known as the other half of America’s favorite stoner ne’er-do-wells Cheech & Chong (Cheech Marin was his partner), shakes up the Bible-belt as only he can. He likely…
Film Clips
Current Releases THE BREAK-UP There’s a fine movie trapped inside The Break-Up, and it’s a shame that it couldn’t break free. As it stands, this picture about a rocky relationship is never able to compensate for the staggering miscalculation that cripples it. From the start, Gary (Vince Vaughn) is painted as a self-centered, insensitive man-child,…
Serenity to Change the World
Oprah Winfrey has said something to this effect numerous times and it bears repeating, “Any woman born in the United States is the luckiest woman in the world.” Keep in mind these words are in contrast to the 1200 women who are killed by an intimate partner each year (Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics: “Family…
View From The Couch
EIGHT BELOW (2006). Parents watching this DVD with their kids should reasonably be expecting a dog day afternoon; instead, those perky creatures known as actors keep getting in the way of total enjoyment. Based on a Japanese film that was itself inspired by a true story, Eight Below relates the tale of a scientific expedition…
Cheap Thrills
4TH SATURDAYS UPTOWN Billed as “A Cultural Exchange & Global Marketplace,” this free event boasts something for everyone. Shopping for the shopaholics, entertainment for the perpetually bored, food for everybody and peace for the single moms in the form of a children’s village (hallelujah!). It’s ongoing, on the fourth Saturday of every month from 10am-5pm…
Bored Of The Ring
For a movie that many people (including me) tagged as this summer’s off-the-beaten-path sleeper hit, Nacho Libre turns out to be a surprisingly mild affair, one of those films where the creative juices dried up at some point between conception and execution. The premise held promise: Nacho (Jack Black), the lowly cook at a Mexican…
The Blotter
TO PASS IT QUICKLY YOU ARE BOUND: An unknown suspect threw a potato though the bedroom window of a west Charlotte woman’s home. A motive is also not known at this time. Most likely this is another incident of a hot potato game going horribly awry. Play responsibly, people. THE STONER: A man, possibly from…
Bleak To The Future
Back in 1994, when Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock costarred in the critical and commercial hit Speed, few would have imagined that time would reveal Reeves to be the better actor of the two. Bullock’s star-making performance in that fast and furious flick rushed through auditoriums like a welcome breeze on a muggy summer day:…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: About three years ago I dated this guy named “Mark.” On two separate occasions, I kissed a guy while partying with some girlfriends. Needless to say, months later our relationship was on the rocks, but for other reasons. Mark went out of town for a couple of months and ended up meeting…
Pearl Jam
Mouthful 68Corkscrew 70Good Eats 7268
Letters
Cry Me a River Re: “Drivin’ N’ Cryin'” (by Tara Servatius, June 7): Where is the stress on the alternatives to rush hour and more cars on the road in Tara’s cover story? We’re glad that you have highlighted the congestion coming down the pike, literally, but stressing carpooling, working from home, taking the corporate…
The wall
Moodswing
Stargazer
CANCER The Crab (June 21 — July 21) Your primary ruler is shifting into Pisces, a water sign, and will be there for the next 18 months. The next cycle will bear more kinship to who you are growing to become. Your attention will move toward the arts, music, things of beauty and travel. For…
Echoing through the Ages
Redneck Negress 84Rory Lewis 85NAP 86Hyphy 8888
Captain Trips
See & Do 10Moodswing 1212
Badass Bombay Brits
Book Review
Pop Radio Eats Itself
Lost amid the pointless hand-wringing and finger-wagging that accompanied recent pay-for-play scandals at Clear Channel, Citadel and other radio conglomerates was more statistical proof of FM radio’s imminent demise. In the first quarter of 2006, radio adds (new songs added to play lists) were down a whopping 27 percent from just the year before. Critics…
Eco Art
I never got to see Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, but images of it have haunted me for years. Discover the jetty, new uses for industrial waste and other eco art in these hot linx. Herb Parker www.cofc.edu/~parkerh Patricia Johanson www.patriciajohanson.com Buster Simpson www.bustersimpson.net Reduce/Reuse/Reexamine www.wavehill.org/arts/reduce_reuse_reexamine.html Robert Smithson www.robertsmithson.com
Hyphy fidelity
“We relate to hyphy here in terms of it being the Bay Area version of crunk,” says DJ Nabs of Atlanta’s Hot 107.9 FM. “It doesn’t really mean that we know what’s going on there, though.” Even people in Northern California scratch their heads in amusement and confusion when it comes to hyphy, the term…
Try our Wine, eh?
I took a trip to the Niagara Peninsula near Toronto in late May, seeking a respite from the Florida heat. I packed heavy clothes expecting cool and refreshing weather. Big mistake. Little did I know that Toronto and its surrounding areas can swelter at up to 90 degrees, and it can get even hotter around…
Passion Plays
Love waxes and wanes. If young men’s thoughts turn to amour in springtime, mine are preoccupied with good summer soundtracks. So consider this a blueprint towards devising an audiophile’s cure for the summertime blues. Personally, I have sought illumination and sonic succor in Marvin Gaye’s ol’ skool masterpiece Here, My Dear this season. One of…
Appetito Buono
By all accounts, Charlotte and its surrounding neighborhoods have taken on so many relos from the North that the accents in some neighborhoods have that distinctly fast clip and vowel inversion spoken by Tony Soprano and his friends. (Well, maybe not exactly the Essex County, NJ, drawl, but close.) This accent shift has created a…
The Ancestor Within
Boomer With Attitude
Rory Lewis Band
In my 20 years as an editor, I’ve never encountered the level of fanatical hysteria that I’ve seen in followers of Charlotte’s Rory Lewis. Mention him with the slightest bit of negativity (or even just silly humor) and his fans go positively rabid, foaming at their mouths and spewing vile, mean-spirited profanity. Don’t mention Rory…
Is Zarqawi’s Death a Turning Point in the Iraq War?
Don’t Panic: Your War Questions Answered
The Subdudes
When the former Continental Drifters’ audiences repeatedly told band members the music was too loud, they listened: John Magnie unplugged his piano, guitarists Tommy Malone and Johnny Ray Allen went acoustic, and Steve Amedée joined on tambourine. In 1987, the mellower sound spawned the Subdudes. “We were doing a kind of music that we thought…
From Catwalk to Courthouse
Don’t Panic 17Fish Wrapper 25Boomer with Attitude 2417
Once Upon A Rainbow
ArtsPulse
Techno-blues
Fishwrapper
