Roots And Fruits
Even if you haven’t been able to bask on the glistening sands of a Caribbean island this spring, you can still enjoy an assortment of island food in town. Caribbean food, also affectionately known as roots and fruits, varies from island to island. Jamaican and Cuban are perhaps the most popular, but also the best…
It’s A Family Ho-Down
When times are tough, it’s not unusual for young twentysomethings to move back in with their folks after a financial setback. But the way Tracy Howard went about it was a bit unorthodox. After police raided Howard’s apartment in the Eastpointe Apartment complex in 2001, he moved back in with his mom, along with his…
Spears of Spring
There’s nothing like spring to make you simultaneously giddy and depressed. Just as I take an excited whiff of crocuses popping their pretty little boobies through the soil, it seems that an enormous gust of chilly wind blows right through my panties, reminding me that it ain’t time for sandals just yet, dear. Inevitably, I…
Electronic Waste Growing
When you dutifully deposit your old computer at the local dump, it’s recycling of a sort, but probably not quite what you had in mind. Industry experts say 50-80 percent of the electronics collected for recycling ends up on container ships bound for Asian dumping grounds, where its toxic components begin their journey into bloodstreams…
Playing Hard To Eat
They say that anything worth having is worth working for. That’s valuable advice in terms of ambitions, relationships and careers, but I wonder if some difficult foods are worth the effort. The pomegranate, currently a darling of the pro-antioxidant set, is a pesky member of the produce family. The edible parts of this fruit are…
Death of a Gentle Genius
One of the most important men in my life died last week, yet I hardly knew him. Ralph Erskine was an Anglo-Swedish architect, revered throughout Europe but almost unknown in America. He passed away at his home in Sweden, aged 91. I was privileged to work with his office in the early 1970s, and that…
Smile When You Drink That
I love wineries that don’t take themselves seriously. They have the balls to slap a fun, non-grape name on the bottle, along with an equally cool artistic flourish, and see if it sells. More often than not it does, since plenty of people shop via the “pretty label” method. Bonny Doon’s Randall Grahm, the best…
Highway Robbery
During the 20 years it has managed Boston’s disastrous Big Dig project, the engineering firm of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas has been investigated by federal, state and local authorities for everything from shoddy design to fraud and corruption. The company has been accused in government reports of lying to everyone from taxpayers to Wall…
Wine List
Wine Classes What is wine? Apr. 5, 6:30-8pm. $30. Mint Museum of Craft & Design, 220 N. Tryon St. 704-344-8027. Wine Classes Great for beginners. Every month on the first and third Saturday, 12:30-1:30pm. $15. Dean & Deluca Wine Room, 6822-G Phillips Place Ct. 704-552-5283. Wine Classes Vine to Wine: Sample 8 wines from around…
What Happened to Civil Discourse?
At this writing, Terri Schiavo drifts toward death in a world that we can’t fathom. Shadow land? Parallel universe? Or nothingness? Science can determine many things these days, but the distinction between conscious and “out there” is still one that’s difficult to make. Thanks to a family feud, the courts and politicians, we’ve all been…
Got Testosterone?
Spring has sprung, so naturally a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of firearms. Rifles, semi-automatics, automatics – I can feel myself becoming more manly just writing about it. Actually, I haven’t fired a gun since I was about 12, when my grandfather took me bird hunting, put a 12-gauge shotgun in my arms, pointed…
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…
Schiavo Lives!
Terri Schiavo lives, absolutely. My faith in her life is a result of, well, my faith. I believe her soul thrives because I’m a Christian. The only question is whether Schiavo and the heavenly hosts are laughing uproariously at the pathetic circus that infests Pinellas Park, FL, where the flesh that once housed the woman…
A Huge Whore
As huge a whore as I am, you’d think all this would come easier to me, this door-to-door begging I’ve been doing lately. Jesus God, I remember when I was good at this. Every year when I was little, my sisters and I would sell cupcakes to our neighbors to earn money so we could…
True Love Waits
Because Tom Waits wears so many different hats – musician/actor/preacher/philosopher/street poet/beatnik/flim flam man/lounge lizard/gravedigger/cabaret maestro/circus Carney/Mephistopheles/drunken angel – he’s easy to caricature, and that’s just fine by him. Inhabiting a character, he’s free to do what he wants; free to make the kinds of songs or movies that move him without having to worry about…
News of the Weird
LEAD STORY: Sales of bottled water for dogs are growing, according to a March Wall Street Journal report, spurred not only by sudden concern about vitamin deficiency but apparent certainty among some owners that their pets find tap water disagreeable and thus are dangerously at risk of dehydration. Of course, veterinarians cited by the Journal…
Two Years Later
J.A. “Jay-bo” Ludwigson Barber “All the grief over the death of 1,500 young Americans and thousands more maimed for life, a drained national treasury, and a ruined reputation around the world are small prices to pay for the freedom of people we called rag-heads just two years ago.” Sally Huntley Beautician “Hell, no! The price…
Corporate Punks
If you can’t beat them, join them. This is the message of the Yuppie Pricks, who have set aside their usual sloth and self-indulgence to raise the consciousness of those who have not yet submitted to their cultural dominance. They’ve already secured the support of Dead Kennedys frontman, former San Francisco mayoral candidate and liberal…
Letters
Get Out of Our Faces Thank you for the marvelous “Gay Pride and Gay Porn” column by Tara Servatius (March 23). We are a gay male partnership, with a fetish that I will not bore you with, and a liking for porn, and all of that remains within the walls of our home, and among…
The Blotter
Video Vandals: Video store employees called police after two suspicious-acting characters grabbed several DVDs and fled the store without paying for them. Police caught up with the video vandals in the parking lot, and discovered what they believe to be several other stolen movies in their car. Middle School Mayhem: A middle school student caused…
Music Menu
THURSDAY 3.31 Drums & Tuba – It’s not just drums and tuba, there’s also guitar in this eclectic trio’s mishmash of musical genres. There are thick-bottomed instrumentals that funk it up and high-five rock while New Orleans jazz pops its head in and out of the mix at leisure. All is game here except the…
Sangam Indian Cuisine
Good KormaLake area offers refreshing Indian cuisineThe evolution of a neighborhood restaurant is usually an organic process which generates patrons’ loyalty slowly. Then there are other places which open and instantly become a neighborhood success. Typically, these places fill an immediate need of that neighborhood. Such was the case for Sangam Indian Cuisine, which opened…
See & Do
MARCH 31 – thursday Opera Carolina never lets too many years go by before delivering a fresh fix of Tosca. That’s a good thing. Passion, idealism, jealousy, brutality, torture, suicide and murder are all part of Puccini’s supreme operatic ragout. A whole new cast wallows in the principal roles, as Cynthia Lawrence plays the tempestuous…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Mar. 30 Amos’ Southend Cerebrum w/ Sick Sanity & Word of Few Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Coyote Joe’s Out of the Blue Double Door Inn Incognito Mosquito w/ Haywire The Evening Muse Charleston Lime Fingers w/ The Verdict; Michael McNevin and Michael Troy Milestone Chiodos w/ Halfway Home, My Hero is Me and…
Stargazer
Aries – The Ram Near the end of January you conceived a new idea in one of the following areas: Loans, legal matters, education, publishing, church life, the internet, or travel. At this point you may be just starting to materialize the structure. You are a silver tongued devil this week. Everyone is listening. Use…
Sit & Spin
Pyramid The First American www.sidewalkexplosion.com We here at CL often refer to Pyramid as an “experimental” rock group, an easy pitfall given the octet’s own anecdotes about late-night, chemically altered mad laboratory recording sessions and rather spontaneous live shows. But like all truly inspired recordings, the band’s debut, The First American, forces listeners to re-examine…
The Unknown Soldier On
The lives of mill workers – the sentence alone could put my TV generation to sleep. Mill workers are so not Paris Hilton. Paris is famous for being famous. Mill workers are anonymous for being ignored. These citizens are granted counterculture status for no greater reason than their silence in a high volume world. As…
Black And White And Red All Over
Storyboards, those elaborate drawings used by directors as they map out individual scenes for their respective motion pictures, have long been a mainstay in international cinema, with everyone from Alfred Hitchcock to Akira Kurosawa having employed them as an integral step in the moviemaking process. With Sin City (*** out of four), Robert Rodriguez already…
He’ll Be Comin’ ´Round the Mountain
Hurry. Quick – before Hollywood decides to let Ron Howard or Oliver Stone ruin another epic story – grab a copy of David Anthony Durham’s fizzy account of Carthaginian commander Hannibal Barca’s blood-soaked military marches. In Pride of Carthage, the young novelist conjures a cinematic vision of ancient warfare, tribal feuds, violence, cruelty, crushing homesickness…
Ab Flab
Even taking into account its status as a prefabricated, by-the-numbers sequel, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous doesn’t quite qualify as opium for the masses. Instead, it’s more like two weak hits from a cracked bong. The 2000 box office hit Miss Congeniality, in which a sting operation forced unkempt FBI agent Gracie Hart (Sandra…
CL Recommends
Hardbacks In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon). The sixth installment of McCall’s well-written series about Precious Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana is one of those books that will slow you down and help you appreciate a good cup of tea. This time around, Mma Ramotswe…
View From The Couch
CLOSER (2004). How much one enjoys Closer fully depends on how charitable one feels toward the four characters at the center of Mike Nichols’ lacerating film. These men and women, originally created by scripter Patrick Marber for his stage play of the same name, are alternately petty, vicious, narcissistic, perverse, illogical and frustrating. Viewers not…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Charlotte Symphony The Charlotte Symphony performs “The Music of Led Zeppelin: A Rock Symphony.” Amplified by a full rock band and accompanied by singer Randy Jackson. Fri., April 1, 8 p.m. $18-$38. Ovens Auditorium, 2700 E. Independence Blvd. 704-972-2000. Charlotte Symphony A performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 and Brahms’ A German Requiem.…
Film Clips
New Releases MILLIONS Movies that traffic in whimsy often step over the line into pure treacle, and there are occasional moments when Millions appears to be on the brink of doing just that. Perhaps Danny Boyle, the director of such hard-R fare as Trainspotting and the zombie flick 28 Days Later, wanted to prove that…
Good Korma
The evolution of a neighborhood restaurant is usually an organic process which generates patrons’ loyalty slowly. Then there are other places which open and instantly become a neighborhood success. Typically, these places fill an immediate need of that neighborhood. Such was the case for Sangam Indian Cuisine, which opened in Cornelius in August 2003. Within…
CL’s 18th Annual Charlotte Theater Awards
So maybe you’re looking ahead to the 2005-06 season and wondering what the local theater scene will look like, now that Charlotte Rep has taken its final bow. Without the city’s flagship Equity company, who will come to the fore in the years ahead? You can get a pretty clear picture of Charlotte’s future without…
