Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2013

Mar 27 - Apr 2, 2013 / Vol. 27 / No. 5

Cover Story

Alternative arts take the stage in NoDa

All you need to know about the crazy world of fringe theater played out four summers ago in a Central Avenue parking lot, within a stone’s throw of the railroad tracks, in the middle of a rainstorm. James Cartee, founder of Citizens of the Universe, was presenting the company’s new stage adaptation of Fight Club,…

Perry Tannenbaum

On the Road‘s enduring appeal

I realized Jack Kerouac had made his transition to yet another generation of college students when I noticed something missing from my closet after the holiday break in January. The old grey Kerouac sweatshirt that dated back to my own college years in the early ’80s was nowhere to be found. “Your daughter headed back…

Mark Kemp

The Met goes to Vegas

Well, there I was, somewhere in the wilds of New Jersey, enjoying the gurgling charms of my new grandson, when the snowing began to get serious. Broadcast media were in their apocalypse mode, mother and daughter were warning me of the perils of the highway, and another helping of irresistible infant cutesiness was tempting. But…

Perry Tannenbaum

CD review: Deniro Farrar’s The Patriarch

There’s something to be said for a Charlotte rapper who isn’t concerned with pursuing hometown notoriety while successfully cultivating a wider, national audience. Deniro Farrar accomplished that feat and released his latest mixtape, The Patriarch, just in time for his recent SXSW romp. The Patriarch finds Farrar settling into a groove sonically. He’s found a…

Mike McCray

Heist Brewery, The King’s Kitchen make the dough

The process of making bread might seem mysterious to someone who’s not a baker. Waiting for the dough to rise. Punching it back down. Waiting for the yeast to expand again — it’s a laborious process. Bread-making is much more science than art. Altitude, humidity and temperature all play a role in the loaf’s outcome.…

Kelly Davis

Daniel Hartis’ Charlotte Beer: A tipsy history

“For some time, Johnson Beer Company was the largest craft brewer in North Carolina. In 1997, the company was brewing about twelve thousand barrels of beer a year. The only brewery producing more beer in the Southeast was the Abita Brewing Company, their [owners Tim and Susan Johnson] friends in New Orleans.” That statement may…

Tricia Childress

Bizarre crime from Charlotte police files (March 28)

Seeking Roommate: A 49-year-old woman called police after a terrifying incident left her shaken up and probably a bit confused. The woman told officers she was sleeping when she was awoken by the sounds of two men breaking into her apartment at about 10:30 p.m. The men came into her room and started yelling, “Where’s…

Ryan Pitkin

CAST introduces Miss Witherspoon

When playwright Christopher Durang tells you the sky is falling, you better believe it. His latest satire, Miss Witherspoon, might have been titled “Steven Spielberg Meets the Afterlife” if he had chosen a better-known protagonist. But Durang has chosen Witherspoon, actually a very-depressed Veronica in a previous life, and she has the colossal task of…

Anita Overcash

G.I. Joe: Retaliation: Soldiering on

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION**DIRECTED BY Jon M. ChuSTARS Dwayne Johnson, Bruce Willis Released in the waning weeks of the summer of 2009, after Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had done the Hasbro brand (although not cinema itself) proud with its blockbuster grosses, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, likewise based on a Hasbro line of toys,…

Matt Brunson

On the Road misses the Beat

ON THE ROAD*1/2DIRECTED BY Walter SallesSTARS Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund There was enough of a hint of all that jazz to director Walter Salles’ 2004 effort The Motorcycle Diaries, a look at the early years of Che Guevara, to signal that he might have been the proper person to tackle On the Road, the screen…

Matt Brunson

Double the pleasure in Artistic Relationships: Partners, Mentors, Lovers

They say you get by with a little help from your friends, and the proof is presently hanging at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition Artistic Relationships: Partners, Mentors, Lovers pairs artists who were friends, acquaintances, mentors or lovers, showing their work side by side. According to John Boyer, CEO and president of…

Grace Cote

Weekly horoscope (March 28-April 3)

Aries The Ram (March 20-April 19): The major, five-year Uranus-Pluto square is being heavily triggered in your sign at this time. You seek freedom from whatever powers that be in your life. If you have thought carefully about the next step, then now is the time you will probably make the leap. If you haven’t…

Vivian Carol

Business uber alles: Why the MetLife deal stinks

The Carolina Panthers are in effect blackmailing city and state taxpayers into paying for stadium upgrades. US Air insists it must play a major role in picking a new director for the airport, a public facility. The Charlotte Knights’ new stadium is being built in Third Ward after voter-approved plans for a large, eight-acre park…

John Grooms

Futurebirds, Apache Relay stay true to trend

In about a month, Band of Horses will settle in at Charlotte’s Fillmore for a two-night stand, dominating the city’s largest rock club for most of a weekend. By March 13, their May 10 appearance had already sold out, with the May 11 follow-up not far behind. Currently based in Charleston, the comfortably distorted folk-rock…

Jordan Lawrence

Midlife of a masterwork: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In the 50+ years since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? stormed onto Broadway in October 1962, things have loosened up. Actors and directors can now wield all the language that Edward Albee originally wrote without fear of the consequences that assailed the playwright, who was censored on Broadway and in Hollywood — and denied the…

Perry Tannenbaum

Speak Up magazine gets a second chance

It has been four years since Matt Shaw first felt the spark of something bigger stirring in him. That spark, he says, was the planting of a seed that would eventually grow into Charlotte’s first street magazine. Aimed at giving a voice to the voiceless, Speak Up magazine assists homeless and vulnerably housed individuals, or…

Keia Mastrianni

Carolina in my mind: DAG exhibit features state celebrities

There’s a sense of honor and preservation for pastime icons in the paintings by David Alan Goldberg, better know as DAG. The longtime Q.C. artist, who was homeless for 16 years before a change of circumstances in 2011, paints some of his favorite celebrities and places related to the Carolinas in Carolina Reveries: Legends and…

Anita Overcash

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