Sep 6-12, 2011

Sep 6-12, 2011 / Vol. 25 / No. 28

Cover Story

Duke Energy abandons North Carolina; wind-power company steps in

It seems everyone but Duke Energy thinks North Carolina is a good place to generate electricity though wind power. As reported by WUNC 91.5 radio, Invenergy, a Chicago-based utility, wants to build an 80-megawatt wind farm in eastern North Carolina. The company has applied to state officials for the OK to build a site with…

John Grooms

Photos from Fashion’s Night Out at Metropolitan

Thursday night, Sept. 8, at the Metropolitan was packed with people ready to ooh and ahh over fall designs presented by 26 boutiques and designers during Fashion’s Night Out. Here are some of my favorite looks from the show, shot by yours truly. It was a long show, but so worth it.

Kimberly Lawson

Snug Harbor, 9/8/11

Drag queen extraordinaire Lilith Deville is leaving the Shiprocked crew to go up north for bigger and better things. Last night was her last party at Snug Harbor and we sent out Justin Driscoll to capture the shenanigans.

Kimberly Lawson

Photos from Fashion’s Night Out at NC Music Factory

Looks from designers like Beth Pilger and Lore Emelio and boutiques like KLa and Luna were on display at the 2nd Annual Fashion’s Night Out at the NC Music Factory. We’ll let the photos do most of the talking, but we’ll just say the crowd came out in support of fashion — and that makes…

Kimberly Lawson

Fashion’s Night Out, at the NC Music Factory

Across the globe on Sept. 8, people celebrated Fashion’s Night Out, an initiative started by Vogue, etc., in New York City back in 2009. These photos of those in attendance were shot at the NC Music Factory by Jeaumane McIntosh. (Fashion photos can be seen on our blog Klepto.)

Kimberly Lawson

Live review: Manu Chao

Multi-culti singer surges through two-hour set of Spanish, English, French — not to mention plenty of pogo-ing — at the Fillmore in Charlotte

Patrick Moran

Bar Charlotte 9/2/11

Kicking off the Labor Day weekend right, here are photos from Bar Charlotte on Friday, Sept. 2. Shot by our resident party photog, Jeaumane McIntosh.

Kimberly Lawson

Weekly horoscope Sept. 7-13

Virgo The Virgin (Aug. 22-Sept. 22) You have been considering your next agenda for several weeks. This may have to do with presenting your true feelings within a relationship. Somehow you are thwarted. The “other” may be ill or otherwise unavailable. Circumstances are beyond your control. Wait a week for better aspects. For All Signs:…

Vivian Carol

Fall Guide: Upcoming movies

The good news: No damned Transformers sequels on the schedule. Other than that, it’s hard to gauge the fortunes of the upcoming fall film season, during which time dozens of titles will be released across the nation. Among the offerings, we’ll get another Oscar-bait title from writer-director-actor George Clooney (whose last picture as a triple…

Matt Brunson

Where to find it: Bananas Foster

It’s dining as theater: Tableside preparation was de rigueur during the 1950s, when European-styled white-tablecloth restaurants were fashionable. Flamed desserts produced exclaims of appreciation. Crêpe Suzettes, Cherries Jubilee and Bananas Foster enjoyed unrivaled popularity. Bananas Fosters were first created in Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans in 1951. At that time, New Orleans was the port…

Tricia Childress

Fall Guide: New restaurant openings, more in Charlotte

Fall is the time to enjoy the sensational heirloom N.C. mountain apples coming into the farmers market around town. Buy these in the morning, as they tend to sell quickly. Apples you should try are Arkansas Black; the highly prized Grimes Golden, a cooking apple; Sheep’s Nose; Yellow Newton Pippin; and Limbertwig. Remember, the best…

Tricia Childress

Manu Chao hits the East Coast for the first time

Multilingual, multicultural and multitalented, Manu Chao is as self-assured, amiable and charming as you would imagine. He’s also a rebel, a vagabond and the driving force behind 20 years of music called Latin Alternative. In fact, he helped create it before it was so named. It’s likely you’ve never seen him perform, as this tour…

Lew Herman

Capsule reviews of films playing the week of Sept. 7

BAD TEACHER It’s no Bad Santa, but Bad Teacher brings just enough naughty behavior to the table to make it a decent watch for viewers tired of PG-13 timidity. In her best role since 2005’s underrated In Her Shoes, Cameron Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a gold-digging middle-school teacher who, having just been dumped by her…

Matt Brunson

Swans never died

Prepare for the sonic assault. When Swans are on the stage, intensity is the modus operandi and music as revelation is, well, pretty much guaranteed. Swans have risen from the dead. They birthed in N.Y.C. in 1982 during the heady years of Avant rock and No Wave. Around 1997 Swans front man Michael Gira announced,…

Samir Shukla

De Palma flicks Scarface, Obsession among new home entertainment titles

THE BREAKING POINT (1950) / DARK OF THE SUN (1968) / AVALANCHE EXPRESS (1979). The latest sampling from the made-to-order Warner Archive Collection (www.warnerarchive.com) includes three macho movies from three different decades. Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not had already been made into an excellent 1944 feature directed by Howard Hawks and offering the…

Matt Brunson

Fall Guide: Upcoming concerts in Charlotte

Cooler weather may ensure that the concert season is completely indoors, but there are still plenty of big shows coming to the Charlotte area this fall. New ones get announced all the time, but here’s some of what we have on our radar at this point in time: Sept. 16-17 — Charlotte Sunset Jazz Festival…

Jeff Hahne

Nightlife profile: Cam-Ranh Chandler

Cam-Ranh Chandler is a flower child born in the wrong era. The 21 year-old singer is in love with love and wants to share that with the Queen City. As she puts it, “It hurts. Love hurts. Love is a very emotional word. It’s a very descriptive word. That’s why I love to use it.”…

Ben Baer

Cheney, Rumsfeld and the dark art of propaganda

“When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it,” wrote Joseph Goebbels, Germany’s Reich minister of propaganda, in 1941. Former Vice President Dick Cheney seems to have taken the famous Nazi’s advice in his new book, “In My Time.” Cheney remains staunch in his convictions on issues from the invasion of Iraq to…

Amy Goodman

Attack the Block: Sci-fi meets social commentary

ATTACK THE BLOCK ***1/2 DIRECTED BY Joe Cornish STARS John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker The new science fiction film Attack the Block opens with a gang of South London thugs mugging a woman (not physically harming her, but stealing her possessions) before having a run-in with a nasty critter from outer space. Those of us empathic…

Matt Brunson

They won: 9/11 and the American fear factor

The tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is coming up, and according to some members of the media, we’re all supposed to be excited about commemorating it. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems an odd thing to do, kind of like if Poland threw a big party on the anniversary of being invaded…

John Grooms

Contagion: Maybe worth catching

An entertaining if unwieldy cross between a PSA and one of those all-star idiocies from the 1970s — those disaster flicks involving hijacked planes, hurtling meteors or towering infernos — Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion tracks the entire cycle of a disease that begins with one person and ends with the deaths of millions of people worldwide.…

Matt Brunson

Undocumented Latinos ‘come out’

Erick Velazquillo wants the American dream. The 22-year-old has lived in the Charlotte area since age 2, when his parents brought him here illegally from Mexico. He graduated from South Mecklenburg High School and Central Piedmont Community College, and he’d like to continue his education so he can become a nutritionist. But Velazquillo is caught…

Rhiannon Fionn

Two ‘Fashion Weeks’ aim to freshen Charlotte’s style

“Look at him, Kim,” a friend tells me, her eyes glued to the guy who has just walked into the restaurant where we were eating breakfast. “I just want to go and shake his hand and be like, ‘Dude, where did you come from?'” Donning an earthy brown sports coat with dark elbow patches, bow…

Kimberly Lawson

Warrior: Win some, lose some

Perhaps because it’s being released less than a year after The Fighter, Warrior has already been relentlessly compared to that drama which likewise focuses on two brothers involved with a pounding sport (boxing there, mixed martial arts here). I had problems with The Fighter (starting with Melissa Leo’s canvas-chewing performance, which inexplicably won her an…

Matt Brunson

Fall Guide: Upcoming festivals, comedy shows, visual arts events and more

COMEDY Arts Council of York County The Second City. Chicago’s legendary comedy troupe. Sat., Sept. 10, 7:30 p.m. $30-$35. 121 E. Main St., Rock Hill. 803-328-2787. www.yorkcountyarts.org. The Comedy Zone Charlotte at N.C. Music Factory Tim Wilson. Tim Wilson puts the life of an ordinary man to music. Some of his most popular songs include…

Anita Overcash

Fall Guide: Fall fashion do’s and don’ts

During my own quest to find the perfect fall look in neighborhood boutiques, one that is essential to every woman’s wardrobe this fall season, I was quickly convinced that white is at the top of the list of must-haves. Believe me, gone are your grandmother’s days when wearing white after Labor Day was a fashion…

T. Strong

Fall Guide: Upcoming performing arts events

Ever see two mature adults engaging in sexual relations without either one being aware of it? You probably can’t even imagine such a situation unless you’ve already seen the Broadway production of In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play. Actor’s Theatre opens Sarah Ruhl’s electrifying comedy for previews this Friday night, and then the…

Perry Tannenbaum

Cigi Guz, creator of Flock Apparel, grows up

Some time in the next month or so, you can find fashion designer Cigi Guz working in a clandestine location near Plaza Midwood. At this point, her 400-square-foot space is still a work in progress — Guz mentions good-humoredly having to paint by the light of a lamp plugged into the wall, as the overhead…

Kimberly Lawson

Cascade at 20: Small, intimate show celebrates big, boisterous idea

The beautiful clanking “Cascade,” which occupies the lobby of the Carillon building, is the last major work completed by famed Swiss artist Jean Tinguely before his death in 1991. Always a provocateur, Tinguely made kinetic, absurd sculptures that are commentaries on our obsession with material goods. In honor of “Cascade”‘s 20th anniversary, the Bechtler Museum…

Barbara Schreiber

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (Sept. 6)

Moving-out sale: A 34-year-old woman filed a police report when she realized someone had put words in her mouth. She told officers that a person she knew placed an ad on Craigslist, stating that the woman would have sex with a man if he helped her move out of her apartment. The woman had no…

Ryan Pitkin

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