Stargazer
For All Signs We have an eclipsed full moon on May 15 at 11:36pm, EDT. Eclipses usually occur in pairs and this is the first of a pair. The second one will occur on May 31. During an “eclipse season” our attention is required to make whatever improvements are needed in a particular area of…
Battle at America’s far edge
Years from now, visitors may never know that Hatteras Village, NC, was once a strong, functioning town of working people, commercial fishermen and artists, storekeepers and doctors and boatbuilders. They may never know the rugged history of the place, or why, for centuries, the same families stayed here, on this spectacularly exposed chain of sand…
Come Fly With W
You might have mistaken him for Michael Dukakis, but that was President Bush doing a tail-hook landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln May 1. If you missed it, don’t fret too much because you’re sure to see it repeatedly during the 2004 Presidential campaign. The White House originally said that Bush was making the unprecedented…
Live From Baghdad
During the war in Iraq we got used to the blaring headlines and adrenaline-stirring fanfares of FOX News, CNN and the 24/7 News Channels. Last Thursday, in a small university town of 7,000 some 20 minutes north of Charlotte, another kind of television history was quietly being made.One hundred fifty Davidson College students filed into…
Village Co-Education
Ending their third season up in NoDa, Off-Tryon Theatre Company seems to be hitting its stride. They certainly raised their game to new heights last month with Never the Sinner, a disturbing docudrama that chronicled the toxic relationship between Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb — and their notorious Jazz Age murder trial.While the current production…
Who’s On Colony? What’s On Second
Mayor Pat McCrory got a nasty surprise when he stepped off the golf course to attend the city council meeting last week. McCrory, who showed up an hour and a half late, decked out in golf clothes, walked smack into a disturbing debate between Council and the city staff.Without bothering to mention it to the…
Birds And Bowls And Rings
Currently at Hidell Brooks Gallery at the South End Steel Yard is an exhibit of recent works by artist David Kroll. Given the economic times, it’s surprising that nearly all of Kroll’s work on display was sold during the recent opening. Fact of the matter is, most people just aren’t spending money on things that…
All Aboard
Single mothers struggling to pay their bills should sleep better knowing that the transit sales tax they paid at the grocery store allowed hundreds of city bureaucrats and politicians to travel.Over the last five years, the agency has sent over 130 people on 441 trips to locations in the US and abroad, including Canada and…
Photogenic Fiction
If Mark Lee’s first novel, The Canal House, is not in pre-production at a major film studio as you read this, then maybe the rumors are true: There is no hope for Hollywood.A former foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times and Atlantic Monthly, Lee has written a fast-paced, globe-spanning tale of love, faith and…
Sheriff Giving County A Black Eye
If they didn’t wear those uniforms, it would be difficult to differentiate between the thugs locked up at Mecklenburg County Jail Central and the thugs running it. As I write this, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph’s legal team is once again warming a bench in a county courtroom at taxpayers’ expense, likely refining whatever new…
Arts Agenda
indicates critics’ picks. Classical Music Concert on the Green Series The Gaston Symphonic Orchestra. Sun., May 18, 6-8 p.m. Davidson Town Green. 704-892-4440. Ein Deutsches Requiem Chancel Choir and members of Charlotte Symphony present this classic piece of work from Johannes Brahms. Myers Park Baptist Church. Sun., May 18, 5 p.m. Free. 704-334-7232 ext. 29.…
Letters
Premature Reviews I am writing to express Charlotte Repertory Theatre’s surprise and disappointment that Creative Loafing chose to print Perry Tannenbaum’s reviews of the plays and musicals currently in development as part of the Rep’s New Play Festival (“Playfest Finds New Frontiers,” Apr. 30). The purpose of the Rep’s New Play Festival is to provide…
Got Milk?
Name some animals that have vanished or are in the process of vanishing from Mecklenburg County. That list might include buffalo, elk, black bear, polecat, wild cat, golden eagles, red fox, turtles, and Holstein cows. Cows? Well, they are not native to Mecklenburg County, nor to North Carolina, but cows, especially dairy cows, are vanishing…
The Blotter
Not The Blotter: A woman called police after she received disturbing phone calls about an article she had written. Just The Right Size:While washing his clothes at a laundromat, a man stepped away from his dryer for a few minutes. When he returned, he found that someone had taken a couple of work shirts and…
Summer Sangria
Nuthin’ screams summer more than sweet, sultry Sangria. This delicious Spanish mixture of fruit juice, sugar and wine satiates the need for a relaxing shot of summer. Red Sangria was introduced to the US in the early 60s at the New York World’s Fair. Since then, Americans have branched into Sangrias featuring lighter white and…
News of the Weird
CRIB TREK: Tony Alleyne, 50, recently placed his small Leicestershire, England, apartment on the market for the equivalent of $1.7 million (U.S.), a price he said was realistic because he has spent nearly 10 years crafting the premises as a finely detailed model of the “Star Trek” starship Enterprise. Included, according to an April report…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. 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.…
Taqueria Guadalajara
True — Not Tex — Mex Go south of the border in North Charlotte BY TRICIA CHILDRESS The server looked panicked as she approached the table with menus. Before we could proceed, she gestured for us to wait a minute and then vanished. A second server soon stood in her spot. This time we had…
The Unusual Suspects
You might not liken a banjo player to a jazz guitarist, but then again, if you know anything about Danny Barnes, former frontman of Austin’s innovative punk-bluegrass band the Bad Livers, then his latest collaborations may not come as too much of a surprise. Barnes is a fella who has always strolled happily down the…
AudioVisual
Since we first published our inaugural music DVD review column a month or so ago, we’ve received loads of new music DVDs. Music folks nationwide are hitting upon what I call the 50 Cent theory, in which a visual image is packaged along with a musical product, therefore multiplying that artist’s potential commercial viability. Smaller…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 5.14 The Benjamin Circle — Turntables, cello, trumpets and flugelhorn are strange bedfellows indeed for a rock band, or even a post-rock band. The Benjamin Circle find a way to make suitable use of the above instruments along with guitar and percussion treatments for an eclectic spin. An intriguing show to relieve your mid-week…
Soundboard
Wednesday, May. 14 Asheville Civic Center, Asheville Bob Dylan Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Double Door Inn The Benjamin Circle The Evening Muse Bloom Fairwinds Coffee Co., Cornelius Lena Mars Fat City Jeff & Vida Graduate, Gastonia Acoustic Jam w/ Clee & Chris Sheridan Lynn’s Randy Rowland Mama Mia Too at the Holbrook House…
You Nuge, You Lose
I mean, you gotta go see Ted Nugent, right? He’s the original Amboy Duke. He used to run around stage clad in nothing but a loincloth. In the 70s, back before he opened his mouth much, there were rock guitarists, and then there was The Nuge. So yes, I went to see Nugent when he…
Blown Away
Let’s make it clear from the start: A Mighty Wind, the latest “mockumentary” from writer-director-actor Christopher Guest and his posse, doesn’t contain nearly as many laughs as his previous effort, 2000’s Best In Show, or probably even the one that came before that, 1996’s Waiting for Guffman. Don’t get me wrong: There are plenty of…
See & Do
may14 WEDNESDAY Who knew that a play revolving around nuclear physics would be a Tony Award winner? British playwright Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen not only won awards, it’s become one of the most acclaimed plays of the past decade. Based on the mystery of what was discussed during a famous 1941 meeting between Danish physicist Niels…
Movie Missives
The Light Factory will no longer simply be booking and promoting regional films but will also begin encouraging Charlotteans to make their own motion pictures. In an ambitious move, the venue will start offering a number of film classes this summer in an effort to get local movie fans to better appreciate and understand the…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: My friend and his girlfriend came to visit for a weekend from out of town. We decided to have a party with other friends of ours. The party got pretty wild and soon the only people up were his girlfriend and me. We had sex several times throughout the weekend and we…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES DADDY DAY CARE There’s been a lot of grousing lately about how any time Eddie Murphy appears in a family film, he’s wasting the hard-edged skills that initially made him a star in R-rated hits like 48HRS. and Beverly Hills Cop. I’d be more sympathetic to that argument had Murphy only made good…
