Nov 6-12, 2013

Nov 6-12, 2013 / Vol. 27 / No. 37

Cover Story

Down and Out: Low-income mothers robbed of health care

Ursula Douglas never stops racing against a 45-day clock. The veteran nurse says it takes an average of 45 days for an uninsured, low-income pregnant woman to obtain Medicaid coverage for her pregnancy. Forty-five days is the time required to unspool the red tape — fill out paperwork, wait for processing and approval, locate approved…

Sara Patterson

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte’s police files (Nov. 7)

Fired up: A 43-year-old man in south Charlotte called police to report a break-in after returning home from work and finding his family room in disarray. When police arrived, they spoke with a neighbor who witnessed the entire thing. The neighbor told officers and the victim that a group of men entered the home without…

Ryan Pitkin

Pretty and precious to distorted and creepy

Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs 1851-1939 Back before the age of the Internet and before we had too many stores to choose from, there were world fairs. From 1851-1939, these fairs unveiled a world of elegance and what were then state-of-the-art designs and global wonders. Mint Museum Uptown spotlights these…

Anita Overcash

Thor: The Dark World: Strong Arm & Hammer

THOR:THE DARK WORLD **1/2 DIRECTED BY Alan Taylor STARS Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman Recently rewatching 2011’s Thor for the first time since its original release, I was pleasantly surprised by how I enjoyed it more this viewing. While recommending it with reservations when it first hit theaters, those initial flaws (most related to the script)…

Matt Brunson

All Is Lost finds Redford at his best

ALL IS LOST **1/2 DIRECTED BY J.C. Chandor STARS Robert Redford We don’t know anything about the protagonist of All Is Lost, except for the fact that he’s played by Robert Redford. We don’t even know his name, since he’s billed in the credits simply as “Our Man.” What we do learn, though, is that…

Matt Brunson

CD review: Soft Metals’ Lenses

On Lenses, gauzy synth-pop duo Soft Metals explores the gulf between distance and desire. Romantic partners as well musical collaborators, synth player Ian Hicks and vocalist Patricia Hall are hardly the first electro duo to balance eerie detachment with meticulously textured electronics. Pilferings from the ghosts of electronica past include Krautrock, New Wave and Shoegaze,…

Pat Moran

What’s sex got to do with it?

With a new baby in the house, life in the bedroom gets a bit more complicated for parents. I lay sprawled next to my husband, both of us breathing quietly. I watched as he rose, the curve of his naked body a blur of elbows and knees without my glasses. I could make out the…

Rea Frey

3 questions with chef Chris Coleman of Harvest Moon Grille

Chef Chris Coleman is tall and maybe a smidge lanky with cleanly combed hair and an easygoing demeanor we liken to a Southern drawl personified: relaxed and deliberate. At the tender age of 30, this self-proclaimed “mama’s boy” is a veteran of Charlotte’s culinary scene. Coleman, who was born and raised here, cut his teeth…

Keia Mastrianni

When did ‘protect and serve’ become ‘comply or die’?

On Oct. 22, people around the country donned black hoodies while marching to protest police brutality and the criminalization of young minorities. On the same day, 13-year-old Andy Lopez lay bleeding to death from gunshot wounds in Santa Rosa, Calif., beside a plastic toy gun police mistook for an assault rifle. That day, his parents…

Erin Tracy-Blackwood

Serena Ryder breaks out

Serena Ryder was trapped in a box. A folk-rock box. It was a comfortable place and somewhere she had been since she was a teenager. But a battle with clinical depression in her late 20s eventually led her to break down the walls around her and free herself musically. After all, why limit herself to…

Jeff Hahne

Mipso goes beyond bluegrass

It’s a sunny October morning — crisp, but not cold yet — and Mipso’s three members are sitting in the airy backroom of Carrboro’s Looking Glass Café. The pop-leaning string band has had a busy year, with a Japan and China tour and a new sophomore LP under its belt. Oh, and they finished school…

Corbie Hill

Weekly horoscope (Nov. 7-13)

For All Signs: In October and early November, we “enjoyed” two major eclipses and a Mercury retrograde. In addition, we are still under the influence of one more exact square of Uranus and Pluto on Nov. 1. On Nov. 10, Mercury will turn direct. The countless errors and misjudgments of recent weeks will need to…

Vivian Carol

Meet the Q-City Charlotte BBQ Championship winners

Based on appearances alone, one look at the Ranucci family and you might assume that they have the kind of pull that leaves others at the bottom of the ocean in a pair of concrete shoes. Or worse — that they are the next iteration of Jersey Shore-esque reality television. There’s Ed Ranucci, “The Dad,”…

Keia Mastrianni

Peter and the Wolf

The J. Geils Band have gone through every phase a group possibly can. They’ve been cultish, sort of popular and, for a while, really huge. Still, I like them best the way they are now — no longer together. They were once okay, I guess. A decent, well-meaning blues band. What really kind of ruined…

Peter Gerstenzang

A Cock-a-doodle wakeup call

As a noun, cock has a long, proud history, stretching back past key appearances in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet, all the way back to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, where the word was spelled c-o-k. Cock has also had a colorful odyssey as a verb, coupled most memorably perhaps with camera shutters and our…

Perry Tannenbaum

Expect Pat McCrory vs. Roy Cooper in 2016

Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s normally reserved attorney general, has put himself in the spotlight in recent weeks, indicating his intention to run for governor in 2016. Behind the scenes, he’s made moves that all but assure he will be the Democratic nominee. On Oct. 15, Cooper published his first Huffington Post blog, “North Carolina: Threatening…

Michael A. Cooper Jr.

So fresh, so clean

Something about the shift in seasons makes people want to change things up. Recently, my mom put my dad through “renovation hell” — his words, not mine — by updating their 35-year-old (and my childhood) home. Well, all she really did was redo the kitchen and rip out the shag carpet throughout the house to…

Kimberly Lawson

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