Wine List
ASID SHOWHOUSE SEMINAR The Art Of Wine Collection & Cellaring will be offered October 1 at Ratcliffe on the Green, 425 South Tryon St. Self-guided tour of the condo showhouse starts at 6pm, followed by vintage wine tasting, lecture, and tutored tasting of Burgundy and Bordeaux wines. Wine educator Angelus Rickenbaker is the special guest…
Your New Favorite Bands
If popular music renaissances have a patron saint, it’s Dave Grohl. There was the whole drumming with Nirvana thing, of course. A little less recognized was the role he took in fashioning the melodic post-grunge that now gives us most of the melodic mush played on alternative radio. And then there’s his latest project, one…
Write On
Last summer, nearly 200 songwriters from across the country, and a couple of folks from as far away as Canada, journeyed to the Queen City for the first ever Music Row to Charlotte songwriting conference and showcase. The Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) hosted the event, and Charlotte’s local chapter and its members, who meet…
Music Menu
Wednesday 9.25 The Damnations — This band plays such an intentionally dry variation of country punk as to make your tongue dive into your throat seeking moisture. Their one-off record for big label Sire gave them some room to roam around the country and they’ve used the tread-wear well in furthering the sparring male/female vox…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Sep. 25 Amos’ Southend Roots Revival Reggae Tour: Jah Creation, General Top Rankin & Donovan Arnie’s Tavern, Huntersville Paul & Jannette Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Cajun Queen, Pineville 7th Street Gator Band II Charleston Chops, Cornelius Kent Steel Connolly’s On Fifth Jester Fizz Acoustic Double Door Inn Interstellars w/ The Trace The…
See & Do
SEPTEMBER 25 – WEDNESDAY The Off-Tryon Theatre Company continues with their presentation of the First Ever NoDa New PlayFest and Short Play SLAM! today at Off-Tryon Theatre. With never-before-seen scripts from local, regional and national playwrights, the event will give audiences a chance to participate in the creative process with critiques following each play. Wednesday…
The Empire Strikes Back
A.E.W. Mason’s century-old novel The Four Feathers may not be an instantly recognizable work of literature like, say, Great Expectations or Sense and Sensibility, but it’s never been too far removed from the minds of moviemakers searching for their next cinematic endeavor. This venerable tale has been brought to the screen on seven separate occasions:…
Wedding Bell Blues
Sometimes I really and truly wonder what makes men want to take the final plunge and get married. The older I get, the more I believe women get married for reasons that are totally opposite from men’s. If you ask men, they say women marry for money. Ask the women, they’ll say men marry to…
Formula Won
A spanking new season may be under way on network television, but at the movies, it often feels like we’re trapped in rerun hell, thanks to such been-there-done-that efforts as Sweet Home Alabama and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. It’s sad to witness once-exciting actresses like Ashley Judd and Angelina Jolie now wasting their talents in…
Karma Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser:The cruelest plot I have ever hatched against an unsuspecting enemy has to do with my old boss. I was working a retail job while taking night classes, and, suffice it to say, the job sucked big time. It was a small store in a college town and our store manager, “Terry,” treated…
Film Clips
CURRENT RELEASES THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH This Eddie Murphy comedy has been sitting on a studio shelf since circa the time the wheel was first invented; it cost $100 million to make; it wasn’t screened in advance for critics; and it grossed a paltry $2 million on its opening weekend. A review at this…
Stargazer
For All Signs: The Saturn/Pluto opposition, about which I wrote so many articles in the past year, is technically completed. It has been my expectation for several years that the effects of this difficult combination will not fully abate until after June of ’03, when these planets are no longer in opposing signs. We are…
Real Retro
Picture yourself in mid-20th century Charlotte, say, about 1955. You’re tooling about town in your dad’s DeSoto, listening to a song by a wild new singer known as Elvis Presley on AM radio station WBT. You’re a teenager — it’s a given you don’t have much money — so where are you gonna take your…
Peaks Of Valleys
The day I visited Center of the Earth Gallery in NoDa, a commercial film crew and countless others were moving in and out of the gallery space as they prepared to shoot a commercial. Interestingly enough, amid this three-ring circus of sorts, I wasn’t distracted in the least as I looked at Christopher Stephens’ Paintings…
Orcs and Goblins and Skaven, Oh My!
The frenzied throng jostles for position, shouting and laughing. All eyes are pointed upward, focused on the man holding a bag in his upraised hand. He is dressed in black jeans and a black shirt, and his black hair is tied back in a ponytail. A giant, silver, eagle-shaped belt buckle completes his outfit. “What’s…
My Great Western Adventure
For the past three summers, my wife and I have crossed the Atlantic to sample the theater, opera, museums, restaurants, architecture, scenery and tourist traps of Europe. In the wake of September 11, 2001, Sue and I reevaluated our summer ritual. So this summer, we looked westward. We confirmed that the region is teeming with…
Continental Drifting
I don’t go to lots of parties, but occasionally, even I get a hankering for good old-fashioned Big Beer Excuse. As in, good excuse to go and drink for free. Last Wednesday night, Creative Loafing held their yearly “Best Of” party in the heart of SouthEnd, at a place called the Design Center. After being…
We’re All Hybrids
Like the usual hero adventure, Jeffrey Eugenides’ second novel, Middlesex, presents us with a hero/ine who learns to experience the supernormal range of human spiritual life and then comes back with a message. But the “usual” part ends there. Calliope “Cal” Stephanides is a Greek-American hermaphrodite who eventually lives functionally as a 41-year-old male working…
Letters To The Editor
Pushing Good Taste? I’m all for freedom of speech, and I don’t even think a pretense of impartiality is warranted when the publishers of a periodical believe certain views and want everyone who reads their periodical to know and believe their views as well. When the Republicans want to publish a free magazine they are…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Charlotte Symphony Season Debut Music Director Christof Perick and musicians of the Charlotte Symphony take center stage on opening night in the Belk Theater. California composer Donald Crockett will unveil Blue Earth, commissioned by the Charlotte Symphony. Sept. 27, 8 p.m.; Sept. 28, 8 p.m. $12-60. Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon…
So You’re in Love, Huh?
Once it got started, it didn’t stop. It’s been over three months since I wrote a column that questioned whether it was actually possible to fall “in love” with someone, and if so, whether it was possible to maintain that state indefinitely. At first, the letters and emails came only from folks who live in…
Grapea Glut
The wine cups of the world runneth over. For the past few years, reports have circulated that soon the world would produce more juice than consumers could drink. Well, the wine surplus is here. The year 2002 is the year of the grape glut. What is not good for wine producers is a bonanza for…
Green Lung Disease
Charlotte center city is going gaga over green space. Previously absent from Charlotte’s urban environment, several new “green lungs” are now planned to improve the quality of life in the heart of the city.The biological metaphor is no accident. Ever since the polluted heyday of the industrial city, grass and trees have been thought to…
Corn, The Wonder Plant
As a cook and culinary historian, I have often found the multifunctional uses of food interesting. Take corn, for example. Besides it obviously being a vegetable and grain (botanically speaking it’s actually a type of grass), it also produces cooking oil and a myriad of sweeteners, mainly corn syrup, and its natural starch is refined…
The Blotter
It’s Curtains For You:When a Charlotte woman arrived home, she was welcomed by a ransacked apartment. It seems that someone managed to gain entry into her home and decided to trash the place. Once the woman somewhat recovered from the shock of her home being in shambles, she soon realized that two items had apparently…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th, 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. $$ Brixx Wood-Fired Pizza, 801 Scott Avenue, 704-376-1000; 225 E. 6th Street, 704-347-2749; 16915 Birkdale…
News of the Weird
Stiff cash: The 12-story, earthquake-proof, $190 million Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels was dedicated in Los Angeles in September, celebrated not only for the obligatory gift shop ($24.99 for house Chardonnay), the ATM, and the $12-a-day parking garage, but for the private crypts underneath at prices of $50,000 to $3 million.…
