The Other Iraq Scenario
Pretend, for a moment, that you’re Bush political strategist Karl Rove. Suppose that Iraq really did have weapons of mass destruction, not full-scale nuclear warheads, perhaps, but smaller scale weapons of mass destruction or the building blocks to produce them. Then suppose, during the snafus leading up to the Iraq war, while the US faced…
Ethni-City
We all know that person who bemoans the lack of “authentic” ethnic cuisine in Charlotte but then spends time looking for these authentic spots solely in SouthPark, Ballantyne or Birkdale. Come on: The best ethnic spots are in ethnic neighborhoods. And for the Yankees-come-lately, Charlotte doesn’t have the neighborhoods reminiscent of “off the boat circa…
Thank God, It’s November 3
When this newspaper comes out on Wednesday, we will either meet the new boss, he’ll be same as the old boss, or the battle of the recounts will have begun. Just the idea that so many stood in line for so long to vote before Election Day was a little stirring for we throwbacks who…
A Hot Scoop
GRAND OPENING: October 9, 2004 GENERAL MANAGER: Fred Baker AMBIENCE: An upscale version of the neighborhood pizza place. The bright decor includes multicolored tiling and bright paintings to contribute to a unique and funky atmosphere. Orders are taken at registers, but the setting evokes a sit-down dinner. Originating in Jacksonville, FL, this franchise is owned…
One Man’s Muffler. . .
“Welcome to Arkansas,” said my new colleague. The short, bearded academic stood in the pool of light at the bottom of the plane’s steps. He held out his hand. “Let’s get your bags and I’ll take you back to the house. I have to stop on the way to get a muffler for my rabbit,…
How Sweet It Is
In the musical Guys and Dolls, rakish gambler Sky Masterson whisks prim and proper “missionary doll” Sarah Browne to Havana and gets her drunk on a potent “milkshake” called Dulce de Leche. Sister Sarah translates that as “sweet of milk,” and thinks it would be a wonderful way for children to get their daily dose…
Letters
Meaningless Voting Your piece on the limits of voting (“Stolen!” by Tara Servatius, Oct. 20) was the best piece I have ever read on local voting realities. The gerrymandering, lack of choices, tendency for extreme candidates to prevail, etc., are all subjects that have been ignored. I have wondered how many others have that strange…
Good gravy, it’s Thanksgiving already
The big feast of the year is only three weeks away. To help get you in the mood, a primer of mashed potato dos and don’ts. DO: Branch out beyond Idaho. Consider the Yukon gold, blue Peruvian and Russian fingerling potato varieties, to name a few. Rinse potatoes well and remove any brown spots or…
News of the Weird
Chinese judges play hardball: After trials in two separate cases in September (in the Chinese province of Henan and the city of Zhuhau), four men were found guilty of defrauding government banks and promptly executed. (According to figures released by China’s Supreme Court in September, more than 4,200 people convicted of fraud in the last…
Red Scare
The first time I tried red wine, I hated it. I was visiting Atlanta’s gorgeous Chateau Elan Winery with a wine-savvy, older boyfriend. Trying desperately to appear sophisticated — since I was underage and I foolishly believed I had to be chic to drink wine — I ended up contorting my face as the tannin…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 11.3 Delta Nove — Hailing from Long Beach, CA, Delta Nove are a pleasant surprise where jazz and funk collide in a happy-go-lucky mood. “We’re gonna make your hips shake, we’re gonna make your liver quiver,” pretty much sums up their lyrical take. The six-piece ensemble is adept in jabbing away at afro-beat, samba,…
Jerry’s The Man
Since some budding Karl Rove is bound to dig it up one day and use it against me, let me go ahead and get it out of the way: I’m a Grateful Dead fan. Not a Deadhead, mind you, but a Grateful Dead fan. Let me repeat: I’m not a Deadhead. I don’t have a…
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…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Nov. 3 Breakfast Club DJ Boney B The Evening Muse Richard Shindell w/ Amy Rigby Founders Hall Tom Billotto (noon) The Gin Mill Wizard’s Road Show Lava Java Open Mic w/ Sam Midtown 51 Scott Jeffrey’s Band Midtown, Mountain Island Mike & Rusty Milestone The Obscene w/ Wisenheimer, Malachi Constant and CanJoann Neighborhood Theatre…
Yo! It’s the McCrory Museum of Art
JUNE 10, 2077 Welcome to the opening of the McCrory Museum of Art. This eye-popping collection features the work of — yes! — one of Charlotte’s own, the internationally renowned painter/sculptor, Pat McCrory. We at the museum are grateful to the Charlotte City Council for its enthusiasm and generous funding of this prestigious addition to…
With Strings Attached
David Lindley has an obsession with reggae. He was hooked the first time he heard Desmond Dekker on the radio while driving through London with a friend back in 1969. But his English companion told him snidely that the stuff was West Indian-Jamaican music and that skinheads liked it. “So I went, oh — I’m…
The Odd Couple
Practiced by juvenile delinquents and sociopaths, the prank bears fruit both bitter and lame, be it dine-and-dash or arson. But practiced by revolutionaries, conceptual artists, Daily Show comics and activists, the prank is a response to an unjust system — an upturned garden rake left on the bossman’s sidewalk. The Yes Men proves, yet again,…
Word On The Street
Cecelia Armstrong Retired Restaurateur “My late husband Leonard didn’t work because he found two bags of cash behind a bank 40 years ago and invested most of it in the rolling papers industry.” Ross P. Lamartine Warehouse Manager “I guess it would have to be that my wife and I, through superior brain power and…
Your Favorite Band Blows
Long before Ashlee Simpson stormed off the Saturday Night Live stage in a fit of (lip-out-of-synch) pique, many viewers had pre-determined that Ms. Simpson’s music was crass, low-brow, least-common-denominator assembly line bullshit worthy only of their scorn — which is why they watched with such glee as the last remaining veneer was stripped from “that”…
Acting Up A Storm
Back in the mid-sixties, during a period when movies like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Pawnbroker were causing all sorts of headaches for the MPAA’s moral watchdogs, one such ruckus-raiser was 1966’s Alfie, with Michael Caine in a star-making performance as a callow bachelor whose womanizing ways finally catch up to him. The…
The Blotter
STICKS AND STONES: After a potty-mouthed gent called another man’s wife a bitch, he found himself on the receiving end of the following vitriolic diatribe, issued by the man whose wife he had insulted: “You better leave my wife out of this or you will find a bullet right between your eyes. I have cancer…
Finding emo
You could call Taking Back Sunday a band of the people. Rising out of the Long Island hardcore scene that has spawned many popular emo acts such as Brand New, Glassjaw and Movielife (whose former guitarist Ed Reyes anchors Taking Back Sunday), the punk quintet has taken the underground by storm, going gold with its…
View From The Couch
ED WOOD (1994). Tim Burton’s best movie also stands as his biggest box office flop, more proof (as if we needed any) that quality and commerce rarely go hand-in-hand. A spirited Johnny Depp stars as Edward D. Wood, Jr., the hopelessly untalented, cross-dressing moviemaker whose eternally optimistic outlook serves him well as he goes to…
See & Do
NOVEMBER 3 – WEDNESDAY My kid is better than yours — and the preschool we finagled to get her into proves it! Such are the deep insights in Eric Coble’s Bright Ideas, a contemporary comedy that depicts proponents of MacParenting as the ruthless hellspawn of Macbeth. Even murder is an approved tactic when you’re competing…
Sit & Spin
Black Francis/Frank Black Frank Black Francis SpinArt When it comes to Charles Thompson IV — a.k.a., Black Francis and Frank Black — “what’s in a name?” has always been a loaded question. But with the release of Frank Black Francis, the Big Pixie — who for years refused to play any songs at all by…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES STAGE BEAUTY Cross the artistic integrity of Shakespeare In Love with the bawdy behavior of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and you might come up with Stage Beauty, a movie that recognizes the poetry in both Shakespeare and Benny Hill. Set during the reign of King Charles II (Rupert Everett) in…
Ask the Advice Goddess
No Plane, No Gain I’ve been dating this wonderful guy for six months. He just got a promotion requiring him to travel three days a week for the foreseeable future. This means we’ll miss huge chunks of each others’ lives, and I’m afraid we’ll grow apart. Is it possible to stay emotionally connected if you…
Bella Trio, A California Fresco Kitchen
California Dreaming Bella is a beauty Making people feel at home, as well as having a staff who offers helpful suggestions about the menu rather than an autobiography, is typically only found in the most exclusive restaurants. So imagine my surprise to find these characteristics at a breezy breakfast place in the south Charlotte burbs.…
Vera Drake: Your Friendly Neighborhood Abortionist
By the time this newspaper hits the streets, the presidential election will be over. Or not. (If it’s 2000 Part 2, we might not know for days, weeks, months.) Either way, one issue discussed by the nation’s breathless pundits isn’t going away — Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in…
Stargazer
For All Signs The election is over. I don’t know who won because I write this column weeks in advance. Aspects suggest that there is much confusion and considerable angry energy in our world. Those who are not pleased with the election results may decide to retaliate. On a personal level, we need to channel…
Past As Present
Many of Mike Leigh’s comic melodramas seem to take the political and social pulse of England during the period when they are made. In High Hopes and Life is Sweet, he rendered with the freshness of a newspaper headline the social despondency of Thatcher’s England, and in Secrets and Lies, he uncovered the racial tensions…
How A Medium Was Born
No one knew what to expect when the first issue of Action Comics hit the stands in the late spring of 1938. Comic books then were barely a step removed from novelty items, promotional giveaways to help sell soap powder or children’s shoes, and the first crude pamphlets of reprinted or rejected newspaper strips that…
The “A” Word On Film
Not surprisingly, over the years, the movie industry has chosen to largely steer clear of the controversial subject of abortion. Some studios and directors, nonetheless, have joined the fray. Here are 10 titles bold enough to address the issue in one form or another. Where Are My Children? (1916). A district attorney (Tyrone Power Sr.,…
Stump Chumps
Ideas at Moving Poets tend to gestate, mutate, and evolve in an unending sequence, producing works newly embarking on the process for our delectation right alongside radically transformed old works returning after prolonged absences. The whole rep for Poets’ two-week Halloween extravaganza was a harvesting of the company’s unique husbandry. Dracula, the company’s signature fusion…
When Priests Play Politics
Two weeks before the national elections, WUSA’s Inside Washington political talk show held a brief exchange which showed that in a country that boasts that it is one of the most religious in the world, ignorance of our own religious beliefs can have costly political consequences. The discussion began with a news item about evangelical…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Alexander String Quartet The concert features works by Mozart, Shostakovich and Brahms. Sun., Nov. 7, 3 p.m. $15, students free. Dana Auditorium, Queens University. 704-337-2213. The Billy Goats Gruff Opera Carolina and the Public Library of Charlotte and Meck. County to offer performances of the Opera Express touring program. www.operacarolina.org. Nov. 6, 2pm…
New Tax Considered for School Needs
While politicians argue over how to pay for schools, the Charlotte Chamber’s education group has been working on a solution behind closed doors. Among the options they’ve studied are real estate transfer taxes. If passed by the county commission, one percent of a home’s value would pass to the county every time it is sold.…
California Dreaming
Making people feel at home, as well as having a staff who offers helpful suggestions about the menu rather than an autobiography, is typically only found in the most exclusive restaurants. So imagine my surprise to find these characteristics at a breezy breakfast place in the south Charlotte burbs. Fortunately, the 47-seat Bella Trio, A…
