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Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Comic Afterthoughts The Pull List (2/26/14): Marvel's First Family finds new life
Posted By Andy Smith on Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 7:53 PM
Ready for a new Fantastic Four series?
Well, if not, too bad. It's already off the presses and into your Friendly Neighborhood Comic Shop. The beloved James Robinson has taken the reins for Marvel's First Family, and they're starting things off with the bleakly named arc "The Fall of the Fantastic Four." Something smells old-school with this new series, as Fing Fang Foom has a role to play.
And no, this isn't a continuation of recent storylines. This is starting "anew," as in, red and black costumes. You know, like Kane, the Undertaker's brother? And nobody's dead or dying, as of this moment. You see, Marvel's looking to garner some new fans with this All-New Marvel Now title. Decide for yourself if you want to jump on, because I just don't know how to call this one.
Otherwise, at Image, where new and great books are popping up every day, series like Deadly Class, Five Weapons and Dead Body Road are releasing new issues. And, of course, there are a couple first issues to check out, like Revenge and One Hit Wonder.
News / Opinion Duke and DENR sittin' in a tree... (w/video)
Posted By John Grooms on Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 5:19 PM
When you're already screwing things up, why not go for broke? That could be the thinking behind the latest coal ash-related decision at the N.C. Department of Energy and Natural Resources. Or maybe thinking doesn't have much to do with it. As WRAL in Raleigh reported, DENR officials told a Superior Court judge that they may reinstate, and even expand, the coal-ash "settlement," or consent order, the agency reached with Duke Energy over coal ash spills at two sites. DENR, you may remember, had withdrawn the consent order shortly after the Feb. 2 Dan River coal-ash debacle. The order would have fined Duke a measly $99,000 and allowed the utility to decide when and how to handle its coal-ash ponds; the order was announced just in time to legally bar environmental groups from suing Duke. That weak slap on the wrist is believed to be the impetus for a federal investigation, announced last week, into whether DENR and Duke colluded in order to keep costly lawsuits by environmentalists at bay.
So why would DENR want to reinstate the consent order? Lawyers for DENR say the agency may add new provisions to the order, or may "expand the overall scope of the Consent Order to include additional facilities." One could interpret DENR's explanation to mean it will add more penalties to the order; or it could mean that DENR plans to fold all 14 Duke-owned coal ash ponds into the agreement, which could legally reduce the likelihood of Duke having to pay massive fines for its coal-ash carelessness. There is little doubt in environmentalists' mind which of those possibilities is behind DENR's unexpected reinstatement of the consent order.
D.J. Gerken, senior attorney at Southern Environmental Law Center, told WRAL, "DENR is apparently considering the possibility of shielding more Duke Energy coal ash pits under its do-nothing settlement deal with Duke, which requires no real action to clean up those coal ash lagoons." If Gerken is right, it would be a stunningly brazen decision from DENR which is already on the N.C. public's shit list for going light on a company that has covered 70 miles of riverbed with up to 40,000 tons of toxic coal ash. Perhaps DENR honcho John "Oil is a renewable resource" Skvarla knows the jig is up and he's bucking for a job with Duke Energy after he leaves government. Or maybe DENR and the McCrory administration are freaking out over the federal investigation and they're throwing anything out there to try to save their butts, and hoping something sticks. Either way, DENR's new "strategy" could be the only good coal ash news Duke gets for awhile, coming as it did the day before another report - this one from the Public News Service - revealed that some highly successful companies, including several in North Carolina, are paying little to no federal income tax. Duke Energy, one of the companies in the report, made $9 billion in profit during the past eight years but paid zero federal income tax.
On Tuesday, activists gathered in front of Duke Energy to protest the company's treatment of coal ash. Duke eventually accepted the petition mentioned in the video.
Today's Top Five Today's Top 5: Wednesday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 1:35 PM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, Feb. 26, 2014 as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
* By the Way, Meet Vera Stark at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte
* Kitchapalooza 3: Tournament Edition 2014 at Cosmos, Phoenix and Re:Public
* The Black Cadillacs at Evening Muse
* The Mountaintop at Booth Playhouse
* Frolic: The Social Climb at Sip
Music / Live Reviews Live review: The Naked and Famous, The Fillmore (2/25/2014)
Posted By Jeff Hahne on Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 11:45 AM
The Naked and Famous w/ Ancient Cities
The Fillmore
Feb. 25, 2014
- Photo by Jeff Hahne
- The Naked and Famous
"We are so privileged to be able to play music every night, and we're glad you're here to be a part of it," The Naked and Famous singer/keyboardist Alisa Xayalith told the Fillmore crowd on Tuesday, Feb. 25. Halfway through the New Zealand band's 80-minute, 15-song set, Xayalith was all smiles as she sang and danced her way around the stage.
Opening with a few songs from its latest album, In Rolling Waves, The Naked and Famous offers an electronics-infused brand of music that teeters between indie rock, shoegaze and synthpop. Driving the songs foward are the vocals of Xayalith and singer/guitarist Thom Powers.
Currently on tour opening for Imagine Dragons, it was clear The Naked and Famous appreciates the opportunity of a gig like this to be the center of attention as the headliner. The music's infectious grooves not only got the audience moving, but the group itself had a hard time standing still - even the merch girl was singing and dancing along.
Music Moogfest 2014 mixtape unveiled
Posted By Jeff Hahne on Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 11:00 AM
With Moogfest 2014 just around the corner - the music festival paying tribute to synthesizer inventor Robert Moog on April 23-27 in Asheville, N.C. - we're happy to present a 30-minute streamed mixtape of acts playing the festival.
Created by Heads on Sticks, the mixtape is as follows:
Kraftwerk- Ruckzuck
Flying Lotus- MmmHmm ft. Thundercat
Moderat- A New Error
Body Games- LORDS
Bernie Worrell Orchestra- Spread The Woo To The World
Factory Floor- Fall Back
Giorgio Moroder- Faster Than The Speed of Love
Daedelus- Perpetually
Holly Herndon- Movement
Heads On Sticks- I Can Get Back
No Regular Play- Nameless
Com Truise- '84 Dreaming
Tin Foil Hat- Whatever
Chic- Sao Paulo
As part of the festival's programming, the Hopscotch Music Festival, which is curating a showcase at Moogfest, will be giving away a pair of festival passes at the Heads on Sticks concert at King's Barcade in Raleigh on Feb. 28 with Octopus Jones and Brave Baby.
News First Drip (2/26/14): Book banning continues, Californians strike gold, life after Guantanamo, more
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 9:37 AM
The book-banning saga in North Carolina continues. The ACLU, community leaders and the state's poet laureate will gather before a Wautuga County Board of Education meeting, where officials will hear the last "appeal seeking to remove Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and other literature from the county high school curriculum," according to the ACLU.
North Carolina is prohibiting Duke Energy from continuing to operate the coal-ash pond in the center of a spill that tainted Danville, Va.'s, drinking water.
It's a story that seemingly belongs in another era: A California couple unearthed gold worth a fortune.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Arts Theater review: The Mountaintop
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:40 PM
When Martin Luther King Jr. returned to the Lorraine Motel, after delivering what would turn out to be his prophetic valedictory oration, he descended from the pinnacle of envisioning his people's Promised Land to the mundane reality of everyday life. The steepness of that descent was very much on playwright Katori Hall's mind when she wrote The Mountaintop, still running in a handsome production through March 2 at Booth Playhouse after opening on Feb. 4.
The voice and the vision may have been everlasting, but the man was mortal. Over the course of an intermission-less 86 minutes, we see King smoking, drinking, cussing, and flirting with the housemaid. We find that he's worried about the effect of the next speech he's writing, paranoid about his room being bugged, afflicted with smelly feet, and fearful about the unrelenting threats on his life. Marvelous to relate, King even exits to pee.
Does Hall go too far in humanizing King? Sure, but what's more troubling about Hall's impulse to humanize King is the absence of anything else on her agenda that might be truly substantial - such as linking the civil rights champion's mundane attributes to his inspirational greatness. Hall has other things to say, some of them light-hearted and fanciful, but none of these contribute to our belief that the protagonist before us is the true synthesis of human strengths and frailties that was King.
Music New video, music from David Childers
Posted By Jeff Hahne on Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 10:56 AM
Local singer David Childers (Overmountain Men, the Modern Don Juans) and his new band the Serpents of the Reformation have released a video for the song, "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well." It's a step away from the singer-songwriter's familiar Americana style into an area that's far more rhythmic and gospel.
The video, which features another area musician, Andy the Doorbum, has definitely peaked our interest into what Childers has planned next.
I hope Childers will talk more about it when he is on WFAE next week with his son, Robert. I'll be joining them, too, on Charlotte Talks with Mike Collins on March 4.
News / Opinion Venezuelans in Charlotte join countrymen around the world in peaceful protest
Posted By Ailen Arreaza on Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:39 AM
The first time I went to Venezuela to meet and visit with my soon-to-be husband's family, I purchased a refrigerator magnet in the Caracas airport of the Cuban and Venezuelan flags joined together. I knew that the reason the magnet existed is because of Cuba and Venezuela's political ties, ties that would lead the wealthy South American oil producing nation down the same path of totalitarianism, scarcity and human right violations as the paradisiacal Caribbean island from which I hail, but I bought the magnet anyway. Today, eight years later, it's still on our fridge and holds a picture of the beautiful American family Tony and I have made out of his Venezuelan and my Cuban roots. In our home, that magnet is a cutesy representation of our union, but in broader political terms, it signifies a toxic partnership between two of the most ruthless and divisive dictators on this side of the planet.
It's possible that you might not have heard about what's been happening in Venezuela over the past couple of weeks - American media seems much more preoccupied with the crisis in Ukraine - but the situation in the South American country is critical, and it's only getting worse.
News First Drip (2/25/14): I-277 to get a noise wall, medical marijuana in N.C., oldest piece of Earth, more
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 9:37 AM
I-277 will soon feature a noise wall - but just one.
Activists will gather outside Duke Energy to protest coal ash.
The push to legalize some strains of medical marijuana in North Carolina gains momentum.
Following a law that essentially bans homosexuality in Uganda, a local tabloid published the identities of what it calls the country's "top homos."
The oldest piece of Earth was discovered on a sheep ranch in Australia.
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Atlantic City's boardwalk suffers fate similar to Charlotte's 2
A storm destroyed the Queen City's own boardwalk almost 80 years ago
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Question the Queen City: A Murder in Myers Park 3
The home Virginia Anderson was murdered in still stands, in the heart of the neighborhood.
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5 Reasons To Buy Home Insurance Policy
