Broadcastus Interruptus
Cindy H. Maness Securities Sales “Yes, I really do. My boyfriend and I used to watch Channel 3 news just to see if she’d gotten any better.” Mabel Torrence Retired Teacher “I wept for days. But dammit, man, don’t pester people when the city’s in mourning.” Gus McAfee Dry Cleaner “My wife is freakin’ cause…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 3.16 Situationals – Featuring former members of TabascoHottie, Bruce Joyner’s Reconstruction, The Bond, and White Merle, The Situationals are fronted by singer Candy Bassett, and backed by Shane Human, Bryan Askew, Mike Carinelli, and Kelly Morse. Figure on an equal mix of pop, post-punk, and college-rock coloring, heavy on the indie-go blue. Local garage-pop…
See & Do
MARCH 16 – Wednesday The Royal Shakespeare Company continues its performances at Davidson College’s Duke Family Performance Hall, as part of their residency at the school. The RSC shapes Julius Caesar as a strikingly modern political tragedy that explores the machinations of seizing power and the corruption of attaining it. It will be performed tonight…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Mar. 16 Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Comet Grill The Relics Connolly’s Hunter & Travis Coyote Joe’s Out of the Blue Double Door Inn The Situationals w/ The Sammies The Evening Muse Clay Price w/ Justin Kyle Hasty Milestone The Independents w/ Minority Party, Queen Anne’s Revenge & Southside Punks Neighborhood Theatre Acoustic Showdown…
Stargazer
For All Signs Mercury, the planet that rules communications, common business practice and travel, turns retrograde on Mar. 19 and will remain so until April 12. During this period it is best to avoid finalizing major decisions or signing contractual agreements. Seemingly good ideas are often discovered later to have flaws or missing information. Projects…
Water Works
The last time he played an ill-fated real-life writer (Cuban novelist and AIDS casualty Reinaldo Arenas in 2000’s Before Night Falls), Javier Bardem became the first Spaniard in history to earn an Academy Award nomination for acting. A second trip to the Oscars may have eluded him for his latest film, Alejandro Amenabar’s The Sea…
A Necessary Congregation
In a former high school basketball gym in Hickory, NC, now the Coe Gallery at the Hickory Museum of Art, is Aftermath: Images from Ground Zero, 31 pictures chronicling the clean up at Ground Zero. Joel Meyerowitz, a street photographer from NYC, was granted exclusive unimpeded access to the site for the first few months…
Why, Robot
There’s probably only one way to fully enjoy Robots, and that’s by watching it at home on DVD, with the mute function engaged and the fast forward button at the ready. If ever a movie warranted the Second Coming of silent cinema, it’s this animated effort from the same studio (20th Century Fox) and director…
Plugged-In Shakespeare
The Royal Shakespeare Company, now in residence at Davidson College through Sunday, proudly hails from the playwright’s native land. It is headquartered in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the holy place of the Bard’s nativity and burial. And for the first time ever, they have brought relics of past productions to the USA for a special “Break Thy Leg”…
View From The Couch
THE INCREDIBLES (2004). Aside from Fahrenheit 9/11, this Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature was the most topical release of 2004; for proof, check out a recent Observer article about a girls high school basketball team that withdrew from the finals because others complained that the team was too good and nobody else had a…
Beaten Bloody in Brighton
Welcome to Brighton, Ohio, a small town full of friendly neighbors, civic pride – and a subterranean river of racism. It’s the place Ray Stanton finds himself when he’s sent in to cut costs at the local textile mill. Ray is an industrial engineer who streamlines plant operations by firing workers. A “lone gunman” accustomed…
Film Clips
New Releases HOSTAGE Maybe it’s because it was produced by his own company, Cheyenne Enterprises. Or maybe it’s because the part of his character’s imperiled daughter is played by his real-life daughter, Rumer Willis. Or maybe it’s simply because he’s been slumbering too long. Whatever the reason, Bruce Willis has woken up in time to…
CL Recommends
Hardbacks God’s Politics by Jim Wallis (Harper SanFrancisco). Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, says that both the right and the left are full of it when it comes to religion. Like many other believers, he is appalled at how rightwingers have co-opted the Christian label and use it to polarize. He argues that liberal…
49ers Going To The Big Dance
“Rivers ran upstream. Sphinxes keeled over. Pyramids turned to dust. Hell froze over, the great 49er in the sky struck gold and his UNCC basketball team rose up and slew a giant.” — Glenn Rollins, The Charlotte Observer, March 20, 1977 “I told you (in the media) that Charlotte may have the most talented starting…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Charlotte Symphony A concert of three American landmark compositions featuring Canadian pianist Ian Parker. March 18, 8 p.m.; March 19, 8 p.m. $14-$68. Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St. 704-972-2000. Lalgudi GJR Krishnan & Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi Classical Music Association of Charlotte present a performance of Carnatic music by violin duo accompanied…
The Baby Jesus
Lo! And he went amongst them, preaching against the rolling of dice and the shuffling of cards and the cranking of the one-armed bandits, and he did maketh them cast out gambling by our dear brethren, the American Indian. Yes, beloved, it’s Good Book time with Brother Doug, reading from our special revised “Loafing” version.…
Thai One On
It’s dinner time at Thai Taste in Matthews. A young family walks in and has no problem ordering from the menu after situating their two squirmy children beside them. Next, a woman and her son arrive. The boy loudly proclaims his dismay that his mother embarrassed him by asking the server questions about the menu.…
More Ralph Reed Fun Facts
You’d think someone who aspires to higher office would want a full picture of the national debate on various issues, but Ralph Reed says no. In a speech in Nevada, Reed told an audience that he relies on the Internet, conservative talk show hosts and the Fox News network to get his information about the…
Counter Culture
During the 1850s, folks could sit at a drugstore counter and order a medicinal drink like cocaine and caffeine to cure a headache. But the US government put the kibosh on that in 1914, so drugstores turned to non-medicinal, carbonated drinks and ice cream floats. As these new counters became popular, other counter places opened.…
Locals Anchor March Madness
If you’ve got the office pool in gear and “The Bracket” tacked on the fridge or cubby at work, then I don’t have to tell you it’s that time of year again, when radios are sneaked into work, and lunch spots with TVs will get a lingering (i.e., hooky-playing) crowd on Thursday and Friday. NCAA…
Ruby needs a sweet talker
Spring means the arrival of green things, like asparagus and peas and leeks, but it also means the debut of Miss Scarlet, aka rhubarb. Her ruby-red stalks are too sour to be eaten alone – and please, don’t eat them raw. The gentle sweetness of strawberries mellows out the rhub’s tart swipe, yet allows room…
Teaching Preaching In Theocracyland
It hardly seems like a theological hotspot. It’s a modest house with a small sign that proclaims “The Craddock Center,” just down Cherry Log Road from one of North Georgia’s finest cultural establishments, the Pink Pig Barbecue. The town of Cherry Log itself is very unimposing, a small hamlet located between Ellijay and Blue Ridge.…
The Pot Luck of the Irish
This week is St. Patrick’s Day, which conjures up images of dancing leprechauns, pots of gold, shamrocks, beer, and corned beef and cabbage. According to the US Department of Agriculture, which evidently considers itself an authority on Irish customs, in rural Ireland this dish was traditionally served for Easter Sunday dinner – the first taste…
Unnoticed Exodus
When 26,000 people disappear, you’d think someone would notice. In the space of just a decade, that’s exactly what happened. Nearly 10,000 white people packed up the moving boxes and abandoned what until recently were solid, diverse middle-class neighborhoods along a four-mile wide stretch of land between Albemarle and Monroe Road. Like clockwork, they were…
Brews Clues
I’m so far from a beer connoisseur it’s pathetic. But that doesn’t stop me from drinking beer on brew-saturated St. Patrick’s Day. My formal beer knowledge is limited to the few tidbits gleaned from hanging out with a beer snob friend whose man-purse doubles as a cooler for craft beer. After months of drunken observation,…
Playing the Global Game
Change can be scary. We know this from personal experience, but magnify change all the way up to the scale of a city and a lot of people get very apprehensive. Charlotte is in the midst of changes that will determine whether we remain competitive in the global marketplace or decline in comparison to more…
Green Day
The Loaf managed to commandeer a St. Patrick’s Day float this year, which I was invited to ride on throughout the parade route. “Sounds fun,” I said. “Do I get to throw stuff?” “New rule,” I was told by someone at the office. “Throwing things is now prohibited.” “You’re shitting me,” I replied. “No candy…
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…
Letters
Proud Liberal Heritage I thought Hal Crowther’s “Doughface Nation” (March 9) was an excellent essay, but I’m afraid it also demonstrates what we liberals are so good at — pointing out to everyone else that the prince is wearing no clothes. I find the company of other thinking people, liberals and conservatives, a welcome reprieve…
Hard Head
I can’t believe I was conscious when my head was cracked open. And, for the record, I’d like to say I’ve always resented how my family blames me for it and refers to the incident as the time “Holly cracked her head open.” It’s not like I picked up the brick myself and hit my…
Pyramid Powers
You don’t have to be in a band to know that they are collaborative efforts, and you don’t get any more collaborative than the local octet Pyramid. For almost a decade now the core group has been making experimental music together, pushing and pulling at the boundaries of traditional song structure, defying most of rock’s…
News of the Weird
LEAD STORY: Producers announced in February that they were still planning to bring the 3-year-old London stage show Jerry Springer, The Opera to America in early 2006, despite increasingly vituperative protests of religious groups. The show features “Jerry” mediating confessions in hell between Satan, God, Jesus, Mary, and various biblical characters, complete with a raucous…
The Blotter
Real-Life Slapstick: While carrying a ladder across the parking lot of a Central Avenue restaurant, a roofer slipped on a spot of oil, lost control of the ladder, and watched it as it crashed onto the roof of a car. The accident caused about $250 worth of damage to the car’s hood, roof and windshield.…
Sit & Spin
Keren AnnNolitaMetro BlueThe latest French chanteuse of note, Keren Ann, has already done something most of her contemporaries and many of her predecessors have never done: made a splash in America. To be fair, Ann enjoys some key advantages over her sisters (yes, she’s also tres hot, in that languid, post-coital French fashion, but we’re…
