Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com June 3 – 9, 2015
FREE
The pollinators
Local apiary finds the sweet spot Photo essay by Caleb Smallwood, words by Brian Clarey
PAGE 20
Two-wheeled Winston PAGE 34
Art for Nepal PAGE 30
Release the bees! PAGE 20
June 3 — 9, 2015
Learn to sell value Selling in Competitive Markets
Markets are becoming more and more competitive, and your organization will fall behind if you don’t keep up with your competition. Your sales team needs to stay on top of the trends in your market, and it’s up to you to train your salespeople accordingly. Learn the process and stay competitive. • Learn to sell value and take price out of the conversation • Learn the magic questions to manage the conversation • Learn the secrets to differentiating your product offering • Learn how to sell more profitably, confidently, and professionally
June 9-10
TuiTion: $995 per person, and includes all
materials, meals and campus parking.
Where: The Bryan School of Business inTeresTed? Complete the application at
executiveeducation.uncg.edu Contact:
Pattie J Hollinger
336-334-3088 • pjhollin@uncg.edu Joseph M. Bryan School of Business and Economics University of North Carolina at Greensboro PO Box 26170 Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
New Generations Lion’s Club
Charity Golf Tournament
June 13 Deadline June 7
Single player $60
Fee includes Cart with GPS and Lunch after tournament. For more information please call
(336)937-5504 or email
sergiomaturino@hotmail.com
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Pleasant Ridge Gold Course 1518 Pleasant Ridge Rd • Greensboro
CONTENTS 34
Office: 336-256-9320
Business
Publisher Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com
by Brian Clarey
Editorial
Editor in Chief Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com Senior Editor Jordan Green jordan@triad-city-beat.com Associate Editor Eric Ginsburg eric@triad-city-beat.com Editorial Interns Sayaka Matsuoka intern@triad-city-beat.com Photography Interns Amanda Salter Caleb Smallwood
Art
Art Director Jorge Maturino jorge@triad-city-beat.com
Sales
Sales Executive Dick Gray dick@triad-city-beat.com Sales Executive Cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com
Contributors Carolyn de Berry Nicole Crews Anthony Harrison Matt Jones
UP FRONT
MUSIC
3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 7 Commentariat 7 The List 8 Barometer 8 Unsolicited Endorsement 9 Triad Power Ranking 10 Heard
28 Sinkane flips the script
NEWS
GOOD SPORT
11 Fighting Foxx from the right 12 Clergy and the powderkeg 15 HPJ: ‘Complete streets’ are neat
34 The whole picture
OPINION
35 Jonesin’ Crossword
16 16
Editorial: Neutering McCrory Citizen Green: Gas and lodging on
18 18
IJMW: Investment co-ops Fresh Eyes: A gun in school
credit
COVER Cover photography by Caleb Smallwood
Greensboro beekeeper Bill Mullins uses Italian honeybees in his hives. “They’re more gentle, good honey producers,” he says.
20 The pollinators
FOOD 26 Legacy coffeehouse 27 Barstool: Lucky 32
TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2015 Beat Media Inc.
Billy’s backyard
ART 30 Art for Nepal
STAGE & SCREEN 32 A web of lies
GAMES SHOT IN THE TRIAD 36 West Market Street, Greensboro
ALL SHE WROTE 37 Farewell to a muse
Behind weathered wooden gates, a forest of junk blooms: old furniture and car parts emerging from the earth, with chickens and a cat scrabbling underfoot and a short quarter acre of raised garden beds. By a tired but sturdy backhouse, two 300-gallon tanks connected by salvaged motor parts and PVC gurgle and stew. I’d actually been meaning to get a look at Billy Jones’ backyard for awhile: He’s been crowing about his aquaponics system — a means of crop acceleration involving lots of water and fish — since 2013 at his website, greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com,a spot well loaded and linked with plans to rescue the city of Greensboro from its economic malaise, and open disdain for some elected officials, local businessmen and members of the media. It would be easy to dismiss Backyard Billy as just another nutjob with a high-speed internet connection, but the process he’s championing is 5,000-year-old technology with a premise that’s already in use around the world. Fish live in the water, enriching it with micronutrients from their waste. That water is run through a bed of crops, giving it the benefit of the supercharged water, which filters into another tank, where “cleaner” fish further process it. Eventually it makes its way back into the first tank of fish. It conserves water. It naturally feeds crops. Billy says you can even eat the fish. But replicating the technique turns out to be tougher than Backyard Billy figured. He gestures to the twin tanks choked with duckweed, a repurposed piece of medical equipment circulating the tannic water between them. “It’s pretty crappy,” he says, “and all the fish are dead.” A limp crop of sweet potato, Romaine lettuce, peppers, onion and basil growing from a watery tray, Billy says, is “not doing well.” He’s taken meetings with city council members and business leaders, all of which led to the same conclusion. “We came to the understanding, independent but mutual, that I don’t know enough about it to run it,” he says. Backyard Billy’s no scientist. A lifetime of hard work and idle tinkering brought him to where he’s at, which is the same corner of east Greensboro where he grew up. There’s no way to go but forward. He needs to add a layer or two of filtration, experiment with different fish and plants. He’s got just a few dollars invested in the rig, and he figures $10,000 would be enough to get the thing to spin off maybe $13,000 a year from the effort. But it might as well be a million bucks for Backyard Billy. And no one seems interested in the movement. “They’re used to getting something [in return] right now,” he says, “and that’s the most expensive way to do something.” Bessemer Aquaponics next meets on July 16 at 7 p.m. at the Guilford County Agricultural Extension Office.
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1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Greensboro, NC 27406
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
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June 3 — 9, 2015
CITY LIFE
June 3 – 9
WEEKEND
Greensboro Hackathon @ Collab (GSO) On National Hacking Day and through the weekend, “all of Greensboro’s most passionate developers, designers, data junkies, policy wonks, community organizers and engaged citizens” get together to “identify civic problems, build solutions that use real data to solve those problems, and have an amazing time doing it.” Sounds like a tall order. But it’s a freebie with high-speed internet and coffee. Register at codeforgreensboro.com.
WEDNESDAY Elizabeth Chew @ Reynolda House (W-S) The last of a series of talks, free with admission to the museum, features Chew, director of the curatorial and education division, pontificating on the 1856 sculpture “Bust of a Greek Slave.” It begins at 2:30 p.m. See reynoldahouse.org for details. Barefoot Bijou Summer Film Festival @ the Forge (GSO) The summer series at the Forge begins with a class on screenwriting tonight at 7 p.m., with more workshops and screenings at the Greensboro makerspace throughout the summer. See forgegreensboro.org or the event Facebook page for more.
THURSDAY Juneteenth celebration @ Old Salem (W-S) The Emancipation Proclamation is 150 years old, and its day is celebrated at the historical village with support from Winston-Salem State University with a luncheon at noon. Make a reservation at 800.441.5305. Innovation and Cinema @ Bailey Park (W-S) The new public space in the Innovation Quarter hosts Flywheel co-counder Pete Simpson, who will give an introduction to the 1999 comedy Office Space. It’s a freebie and it begins at 8:30 p.m. NoshUp @ Van Loi II (GSO) The next NoshUp event hits the storied Gate City Boulevard café, known for the whole ducks hanging behind the glass. Everyone’s meeting there at 6 p.m.; ethnosh.org has more.
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Summertime Social @ Reynolda House (W-S) The museum hosts its annual backyard party at 6 p.m., with live music by Judy Barnes.
triad-city-beat.com
FRIDAY
First Friday @ downtown (GSO, W-S) The June First Friday generally features cool evening temperatures for extended strolls down the thoroughfare. Highlights in Greensboro include live music in unusual spaces, a FoodLab/QueerLab dinner at Elsewhere and Caffeine, an evening dance party with breakdancing skaters. Winston-Salem’s got Kat Lamp at Ember Gallery and the opening reception for Sawtooth Selects, the curated exhibition at the Sawtooth that runs through July 13, at 5 p.m.
SATURDAY Music at Big Purple @ Fisher Park (GSO) Here’s a little experiment: Reader Jim Halsch wants to invite all comers to his house concert with Dan Tedesco on Olive Street in Fisher Park. He says the yard can handle a few dozen extra people, and asked us to put his show in our calendar. We told him he was nuts. Prove him wrong at 7:30 p.m.
National Trails Day Festival @ Country Park (GSO) The action begins at 8 a.m. — and is over by 1 p.m. — at this gathering in the green space that is Country Park, kicking off with a long hike and culminating in food trucks, expos and more.
Salute wine festival @ downtown Fourth Street (W-S) The 10th annual Salute NC Wine Festival runs rain or shine with live music, culinary events and examples of the vintner’s art from all over the state. Find out more at salutencwine.com.
SUNDAY Parisian Promenade @ the Bicentennial Garden (GSO) The park off Holden transforms for the day into a taste of Paris, with food, music and art along with local vendors and wandering entertainment. It’s free, and runs from noon to 5 p.m.
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June 3 — 9, 2015
Helping you become responsible for your own health, mind, body and spirit. 0% Americans take at least one prescription medication daily 7 31% take two or more prescriptions 11% take five or more prescriptions 90% Americans over the age of 60 take at least one prescription medication daily Your body has the ability to heal if you are taking in the proper nutrition daily, long term. Jill Clarey, Classical Naturopath is helping you become responsible for your own health, mind, body and spirit since 1990
(336) 456-4743 jillclarey3@gmail.com www.thenaturalpathwithjillclarey.com
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krankiescoffee.com
Downtown • 211 East Third Street WSNC 27101
Art Stage & Screen Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad
7. Being cool is for losers About a decade after I stopped actively calling people posers, I suddenly didn’t care what other people thought about me: at least for stupid things, like friends making fun of my sneakers. Guilty pleasures ceased to exist for me, and many of my peers, around the time we hit 25; we just didn’t give a damn and let our formerly embarrassing music tastes see the light of day. Get a jump on your old classmates and start dancing in public now.
Music All She Wrote
4. Write yourself a letter Yep, it’s cheesy and sounds like the kind of crappy advice you’d find on Tumblr or in the text of a graduation speech from some hump motivational speaker. But seriously, you’re going to want to remember all the fears, aspirations, doubts and emotions you’re
6. You don’t need all the answers The idea of being a professional journalist hadn’t even crossed my mind when I finished school. I went through five-months of unemployment, followed by a prolonged era of underemployment. I couldn’t have predicted any of it, the grand or the terrible, when I graduated. So roll with the punches, be open to opportunity, continually check in with yourself, and don’t expect to have any kind of 5-year plan. That’s for city planners and 30-year-olds.
Food
3. Expect the call Your college — or more accurately, some unlucky work-study kid — is going to call you in like, three months to ask for more money. Try not to laugh. I just memorized the school’s digits and screen the calls.
Cover Story
Unintended consequences This is not a bad idea [“Fresh Eyes: Steering away from downtown problems”; by Michael Picarelli; May 27, 2015] unless you want to use any of the businesses in those particular blocks, and you are say, disabled, like me…. Any blocking of streets will need to come with some accessibility for those who are disabled, as being able to hike several blocks is not an option that all of us have…. J. Evan Wade, via triad-city-beat.com
2. Consider place Recent grads often experience a strong urge to GTFO. And I understand that. But the few weeks I spent between commencement and full-time employment, just relaxing in a recliner in my front yard, reading for pleasure for once, is still a favorite memory. Take a minute to slow down, and consider where you are. If your college town and hometown are one and the same, seriously consider leaving, at least for a little while. And if you’re not a native to the Triad, consider that you probably don’t know these cities at all. It’s a different experience as a full-time resident than as a passing student.
5. LinkedIn is 90 percent useless This one is self-explanatory, but everyone is going to jump on there anyway.
Opinion
It’s the student fees, stupid Jordan, please check your facts about the sources of funding for the UNCG expansion funding [“Citizen Green: The people’s chancellor”; by Jordan Green; May 27, 2015]. Except for the tunnel, which was about $11 million of state DOT funds, all of the rest of the expansion, dorms and rec center, will be paid for with student fees, making UNCG the highest student-debt service fee institution in the state. Other schools will follow along as other institutions will adopt high debt service and student-affairs fees to pay the mortgages and the operating expenses for these non-academic facilities. Laura Tew, via triad-city-beat.com
feeling now. Writing a letter to yourself, to be read in a few years, is a great way to reflect, and if your computer doesn’t crash and you remember it down the road, you’ll be thankful. My junior year I wrote my future self a letter to be opened in five years (it was for a class assignment), and when I opened it on my 26th birthday, I was genuinely surprised by how smart I sounded back then. Where did that version of me go?
News
I have just finished your outstanding article about food insecurity in the Triad. Not only did you give a detailed account of a serious problem, you went the extra step of publishing proposed solutions to this terrible reality. I cannot agree more that gardens (personal and community), farmers markets, delivery services and some sort of SNAP exchange could be among the many answers to the crisis at hand. As you asked for more ideas and solutions, I would like to share with you a wonderful program I have found and always wondered how to implement in this area. It is called Plant a Row. As my husband are I are writing a North Carolina wine cookbook, we are in the process of creating a culinary garden to have the freshest and most unique ingredients available for this project. It is also an enjoyable and fulfilling activity that has shown us the true value of growing food. While looking through a seed catalogue I discovered Plant a Row and immediately wanted to become involved. Alas, I have not been able to do so due to time constraints, but I sincerely hope this information might be of some use
to you and a viable option of addressing food insecurity across the Triad. Thank you for your beautifully written call to action about an issue that is right before our eyes but so many refuse to see. Shanna Warner, via email
Up Front
Thoughts on food insecurity It is about economic development in our area. [“Hungry for change: Ideas for tackling food insecurity”; by Eric Ginsburg; May 27, 2015] Creating jobs in the food system and outside the food system that pay well so people can support themselves and their family. A well designed transit system would be extremely helpful as people wouldn’t have to spend money on cars and all the costs involved in owning a car besides the environmental costs. A huge expense would be removed from a family budget that could be spent on securing food and other essentials. Jobs and transit! Thank you Eric for writing this article. Beth Kizhnerman, via triad-city-beat.com
by Eric Ginsburg 1. Friendships change I finished college five years ago, and even though I should’ve remembered this one from graduating high school, the most important thing I didn’t realize when I accepted my diploma was the extent to which friendships would change. Sure, I knew people would fall off as they moved away, but I didn’t realize how the nature of making friends would shift. Since my schooling ended, I’ve found myself much more formally asking people to be friends, because relationships take more effort post-college. Prepare to put in the work.
triad-city-beat.com
7 pieces of advice for new graduates
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New question: Should Guilford County allow mountain biking at Rich Fork Preserve?
Eric Ginsburg: Hell no. Blame it on a generation gap or me being a transplant from the Northeast, but anything I’ve known
Stage & Screen
45% 40% 9%
Hell if I know!
What the hell is beach music?
Jordan Green: Some music captured under the beach music umbrella is amazing: Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs’ “Stay,” the Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk” and much of the 5 Royales catalogue are examples. But those are actually R&B and doowop groups whose music has been grafted into the catalogue for the entertainment purposes of white people living out their coastal vacation fantasy. The music that actually originated from the beach-music genre is treacle like General Johnson & the Chairmen of the Board’s “Give Me Just a Little More Time” and “Carolina Girls.” Speaking of which, the Chairmen of the Board has to be the squarest name in pop-music history. The idea that this is regarded as a benchmark for indigenous North Carolina music is a travesty.
Readers: This poll was tied until the final 24 hours, when “Hell no!” pulled ahead slightly with five votes over “Hell yes!” Among the 40 percent who voted favorably was Iris Carter: “Carolina Beach Music has a rich history and brought R&B to the mainstream population when it was classified as ‘race’ music. White kids were not supposed to listen to ‘that’ music…. It doesn’t matter what time of year I hear it, I am immediately transported to a warm, summer day.” JC struck a middle ground (“The music is enjoyable, somewhat because of the Carolina connections mentioned above. The crowd at the concerts is a little too croakie and boat shoes for my taste,”) while other young respondents pushed “Hell no!” to 45 percent. Next came “What the hell is beach music?” with 9 percent, followed with “Hell if I know/no opinion” with 6 percent.
Hell yes!
to be associated with beach music is horribly dull and vanilla. As Jordan pointed out, there’s a distinction between the genre and R&B, and I mostly direct my comments at the crap I’ve heard at different events around Greensboro in the last decade. There should be space for all tastes, but some local event bookers let safe and boring-as-hell beach music crowd out too much else.
Hell no!
June 3 — 9, 2015
Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Food
Brian Clarey: No, I do not like beach music. There’s just so much to hate about it: the co-option of African-American soul music, the sanitized presentation, the Hawaiian shirts. And I suspect beach music is what eventually led to that loathsome cult of the Parrotheads. I digress. I don’t like beach music, but I get it. Like food, music is capable of stirring powerful sense memories. So many people around here associate beach music with carefree, teenage years at the shore that the demand still lingers, I suppose. Same thing happens to me when I hear Billy Joel. As for real beach music, make mine Dick Dale.
Art
Music
Do you actually like beach music?
6%
Historic Aycock neighborhood
All She Wrote
Shot in the Triad
Games
Good Sport
by Sayaka Matsuoka
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This past weekend I participated in my first yard sale. It was a beautiful Saturday, with a sun that beamed down softly, creating streams of light that poked through our trees and onto our laps as we sat in our front yard, anxiously waiting for passersby. The rush came early in the morning just past 8 a.m. as both familiar and new faces approached our sidewalk. “Beautiful day isn’t it?” asked one woman. She bought a bag covered in talking tacos and French fries, smiled and went on her way. Soon the street that is lined with historic houses buzzed with activity from twenty somethings walking their fourlegged friends and parents biking with their kids. It was then that I really felt that I was going to miss my neighborhood. Growing up, my family lived in a subdivision off Horsepen Creek Road and summers were filled with playdates with neighborhood kids. We kicked those Walmart balls against people’s garages, creating incessant noise and chaos down the street. We knew our neighbors’ names and greeted them with smiles and casual
conversation whenever we crossed paths. And during my first year of college I grew to know most of the kids in my dorm by face and often name. We all stayed up too late, avoiding paper deadlines, eating greasy pizza, dancing and congregating in the hallways. I’ve always lived in communities that lend themselves to familiarity with neighbors and meaningful connections. But moving into this house and being on my own after graduating somehow feels different. I didn’t get to know the people because of happenstance or because we lived on the same floor of a dingy dorm. I chose them. I chose this house and this neighborhood. And that’s going to make it that much harder to move away. This neighborhood, called Historic Aycock, is lined with older, colorful homes that are as unique as the people who reside here. They range from young, working professionals to senior citizens who have retired, many spending their time gardening. I’ve come to know them as kind, funny, talkative and special. My boyfriend noticed on one of our recent runs how
every person we passed had something to say. A greeting or a smile that seemed to say, “Hi, how are you?” My 70-year-old neighbor shared her garden’s crops with us, telling us to pick her flowers whenever we wanted. One time when I drove her and her dog to the vet, she gave me a beautiful bouquet. Our neighbors across the street greet us by name every time we meet. One of them even speaks to me in very good Japanese; he lived in the island country, teaching English years ago. It’s nice to connect to complete strangers who make your apartment seem more like a home. And now as my boyfriend and I look for places to move to this summer, seeking a change in scenery and new experiences, nothing seems quite like the neighborhood we live in now. Will the people still greet us with the same kind smiles? With they bring us flowers and gather to watch the steam train pass our backyards? Will it ever be the same? And while it might not be, maybe that’s okay — otherwise Historic Aycock wouldn’t be so special.
triad-city-beat.com
Cranes crossing
Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Food Music Art
JORDAN GREEN
Stage & Screen
A large crane is set up next to Building 60 at Bailey Park. Set between the 525 @ Vine building and Piedmont Leaf Lofts, the historic Building 60 is under renovation by Wexford Science & Technology
Good Sport
3. High Point
2. Winston-Salem
1. Greensboro
Greensboro rightfully claims the most UFO sightings, with the earliest reported from 1961, a silver, cigar-shaped craft that came out of the woods. Greensboro’s most recent UFO activity came in November 2014: “Witnessed three round craft lights around each craft, flight pattern at first slow almost stationary 5 minutes then left quickly.” It was one of three reported that fall.
All She Wrote
The Camel City has recorded 58 UFO sightings from within its city limits, the most recent in December 2013: an erratically moving bright orb with colors that shifted from white to blue-violet. “The blue shift seemed to affect my camera’s focus,” the reporter commented. The earliest Winston-Salem sighting, reported in 2005 with the comment, “I always thought this sighting should be on an official list, now, 60 yrs. [sic] later, it is.”
Shot in the Triad
Since the National UFU Research Center began keeping its database at nuforc.org, thousands of sightings in the state of North Carolina have been logged, more than 100 of them from the cites of the Triad. High Point ranks lowest on the list, with 26 of them originating from there. The Furniture City bears the distinction of having the most recent sighting — just last week, in fact, on May 24: 15 minutes of red lights in the sky. It was the second sighting of the year for High Point, the first, a teardrop of bright lights with red trails, coming on Feb. 15.
Games
The UFO edition
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June 3 — 9, 2015
Up Front News Opinion
HEARD
“If you walk, you are very much made to feel unwelcome. Most streets, if you ride a bike you are made to feel unwelcome. A good example is Westchester Avenue: You’ve got a Food Lion, and then across the street there’s working-class housing. There’s no crosswalk, so if you don’t have a car you can’t get to the shopping center that’s right across the street.” — Steve Hollingsworth, High Point Journal, page 15
“If it has ‘freedom’ in the bill, you can pretty much be guaranteed that it’s taking your freedom away, not upholding it.” — Pattie Curran, Congressional candidate in North Carolina’s 5th District, page 11
“We came to the understanding, independent but mutual, that I don’t know enough about it to run it.”
Cover Story
— Billy Jones, on an aquaponics project he’s trying to scale up, page 3
“Go ahead and get your gas — and then you can pay me. You ain’t out west anymore, boy.”
Art
Music
Food
— Gas station clerk in western North Carolina, Citizen Green, page 16
How does one confront this? Do we change seats? Kids are performing. We don’t want to be those parents. Damn. Could we tap her on the shoulder and ask her about it? Might she have a bad or violent reaction? Damn. We could stand up and yell “Gun!” Mass hysteria, people trampled, chaos... no. We’ll just sit here.
Shot in the Triad
Games
Good Sport
Stage & Screen
— Atiba Berkley, Fresh Eyes, page 18
“They literally work themselves to death. They make honey all day and fan it all night [with their wings]. When it gets to 17 percent moisture, they cap it to store it as food for the winter.” — Beekeeper Bill Mullins, in the cover story, page 20
“It’s respectable cheese, and people like cheese.”
— Elliot Scott, a self-styled Canadian kung fu movie star, in Screen, page 32
“The route was good. That first hill was the main feature, and we caught a lot of headwind on the back section. The roads are a lot of fun; there are good, wide turns.”
All She Wrote
— Cyclist Austin Ulrich, on the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic, page 34
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“I never understood feminists because I was too busy working.” — JoAnn Crews, in All She Wrote, page 38
J U NE 7 - 2 8 , 2 0 1 5 A W ORLD P REMIERE DRAMA
by PRES TON LANE The Triad is already buzzing about Common Enemy a world premiere drama about telling truth to power set against the world of NC college athletics.
BUY YOUR TICKETS EARLY!
CALL FOR TICKETS: 336.272.0160 / Toll-Free 866.579.TIXX LEARN MORE ONLINE: www.triadstage.org STOP BY THE BOX OFFICE: 232 South Elm Street, Greensboro, NC
Kernersville ‘homeschooling mom’ challenges Foxx from right by Jordan Green
News Opinion Cover Story Food Music Art
Pattie Curran, a party activist from Kernersville, criticizes US Rep. Virginia Foxx as being part of a House Republican leadership team that she says is out of touch.
Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
revealing a strategy of making her primary a referendum on House Speaker John Boehner, with whom her opponent is linked through the leadership conference. “No matter how loud we seem to be, our representatives in DC ignore us,” Curran complained. “We were ignored on the Boehner vote. We shut the phone lines down; we made it clear. And we know that 60 percent of Republicans did not want John Boehner as speaker of the House. We were ignored on the $1.1 trillion spending bill that funded Obama’s amnesty, even though we shut the phone lines down.” Curran acknowledged that Foxx’s $2.1 million campaign war chest will make her difficult to beat, adding that her opponent can turn to fellow mem-
Games
healthcare plans. “I am glad that your children live in our country,” a plainly annoyed Hagan says in the exchange, which was recorded by WXII 12 News. “Oh, you know I am blessed,” Curran interrupts, “and I want to pay for it. I don’t want free healthcare. Because I will sell everything I own to pay for my children. Because this is America.” “There are so many people who don’t have the ability,” Hagan says in a level tone. “Right, and it’s not my job to make sure that they have the ability to do it,” Curran says. “It’s not your job to put a gun to my head to pay for them.” But much of Curran’s ire during her presentation to the conservative lunch club was directed at fellow Republicans,
Good Sport
a pop-quiz question, asking, “What do you need to have before you can get that warrant?” “Probable cause,” a handful of people in the audience answered loudly. “And yet we have a leadership that wants to pass the USA Freedom Act,” Curran said. “If it has ‘freedom’ in the bill, you can pretty much be guaranteed that it’s taking your freedom away, not upholding it.” Not progressive by any stretch, Curran is an ardent foe of the Affordable Care Act. Highlighting the plight of two of her children who have a chronic illness, Curran argued in a 2010 exchange with then-US. Sen. Kay Hagan that the Affordable Care Act was hurting her family by causing private businesses to reduce benefits in their employee
JORDAN GREEN
Stage & Screen
Democrats have long dreamed of cracking archconservative US Rep. Virginia Foxx’s hold on North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District, which stretches from Forsyth County — including large swaths of Winston-Salem’s west side — out to Boone, in the state’s northwestern corner. While numerous qualified and motivated Democrats, including Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board member Elisabeth Motsinger, have tried unsuccessfully to unseat Foxx, her greatest vulnerability might turn out to be on her right flank. Thanks to her election as secretary to the House Republican leadership conference, Foxx has found herself embroiled in a rift between her party’s establishment and insurgents. Pattie Curran, a self-described “homeschooling mom” from Kernersville who has declared her intentions to file for the 5th District in the 2016 Republican primary, made it clear she’s going after the incumbent, not just running for the seat. “As you know, my opponent is a member of leadership,” Curran told about 30 Forsyth County Republicans at a weekly conservative luncheon at the Golden Corral at Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem on Monday. “We have a leadership that is out of touch with the American people.” As an example of a piece of legislation on which she differs with the House Republican leadership, Curran assailed the USA Freedom Act, which critics charge will allow the National Security Administration to continue warrantless wiretaps on American citizens. “The majority of Americans do not want to be spied on,” Curran said. “The majority of Americans want the Fourth Amendment upheld. And the Fourth Amendment is clear that if you’re going to search anyone’s property, possessions, you must have a warrant.” She threw in
Up Front
A ‘homeschooling mom’ and Republican activist takes aim at ultra-conservative US Rep. Virginia Foxx’s right flank in a primary challenge.
triad-city-beat.com
NEWS
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June 3 — 9, 2015 Up Front
News Opinion Cover Story Food
“I feel like you would be just as effective swaying other representatives to be more conservative even if you aren’t on a committee.” Curran has found a helpful political ally in Brant Clifton, who operates the Daily Haymaker, a conservative blog dedicated to North Carolina politics. One post, in April, entitled “Virginia Foxx: Hatin’ on Heritage. (Lovin’ some Boehner.),” provided quotes of the congresswoman lecturing activists with the conservative group Heritage Action — with whom Curran is also active — and defending the House speaker. The post concluded, “It’s pretty clear this woman has become a creature of Washington. The folks back home are an annoyance. She’s forgotten where she comes from,” and then provided a link to another article about Curran’s candidacy. Curran, who calls herself a “loudmouth” and “anti-establishment,” said she favors either Sen. Ted Cruz or Sen. Rand Paul as the Republican nominee for president. She said she supports devolving environmental regulations and educational policy back to the states. “Transportation’s another issue,”
Selling lindley Park Over 80 neighbOrhOOd hOmeS SOld
All She Wrote
Shot in the Triad
Games
Good Sport
Stage & Screen
Art
Music
bers in the leadership conference for help if necessary. “Part of the problem is that when you go to DC they sit you down in a room and tell you exactly how much money you have to raise for the [National Republican Congressional Committee],” Curran said. “And you have to be strong enough to say, ‘No, I didn’t come up here to raise money for the Republican Party. I came up here to represent the 5th District.’ And then they’re gonna tell you, ‘Well, you can’t be on any committees.’ And you have to be strong enough to say, ‘So what. Don’t care. Don’t put me on any committees.’… It’s pay-toplay politics.” The charge prompted murmurs from the audience that the same system holds sway in Raleigh. As in Washington, Republicans hold control of both houses of the NC General Assembly. Curran’s presentation clearly resonated with the conservative activists at the Golden Corral, including Scott Arnold, a Republican chief election judge. “You said you might not get on a committee due to your not being an establishment Republican,” Arnold said.
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Curran added. “Give it back to the states. Transportation should be local and state. We shouldn’t have this overreaching federal government. It’s encroaching on our lives daily.” Along with her constituent tangles with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, Curran attracted local attention in 2012 when she complained about an art installation by Millicent Greason-Spivak that was set up as part of the Piedmont Opera’s performance of The Crucible. Curran said she didn’t take issue with the fact that the work, which she described as a 3-D vagina,
being exhibited, but she felt that there should have been some type of parental notification. She said she is opposed to censorship, but as a member of Congress she also wouldn’t support federal funding for the arts. “The federal government is not the proper place for funding the arts,” Curran said. “Where in the Constitution does it say, ‘Fund the arts’?”
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Clergy: ‘There’s fire underground that’s ready to erupt’ by Eric Ginsburg
Clergy with the Greensboro Pulpit Forum urge city leaders not to ignore what they say are persistent police abuses and simmering anger in black communities stemming from a host of racial inequities and marginalization.
Up Front
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The Rev. Cardes Brown (right) drives a point home in a press conference about police abuse of residents last week.
Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
food deserts in Greensboro, spoke to that fear and feeling of powerlessness. “If I can get a million degrees and they can still kill me, what’s the point?” he asked, adding that based on his locked hair and appearance he might be just as likely as a serial criminal to be gunned down. A systematic solution that deals with the root of the problems is needed to truly ameliorate the situation, King said. Another attendee summarized the desire of those gathered: “All we really want is the opportunity to be free in America,” he said. Some people try to paint people organizing for police accountability in Greensboro as anti-police, Headen said, but he argued that their drive for justice would also stave off violence directed at police, thereby keeping officers safer. Dressed in uniform, Deputy Chief Brian James listened intently from one of the round tables in the room. James was one of 39 of black and Latino officers who sued the city for racial discrimination in 2009. Brown acknowledged James’ presence and thanked him for attending, adding that plenty of
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younger black men, audience members picked up Johnson’s thread and communicated what would happen if the clergy’s calls for dialogue and change went unheeded. A few said they didn’t have the same patience or commitment to nonviolence as many in the Civil Rights-era generation who came before them, adding that they were willing to protect themselves and their families from police abuse if need be but would proceed — for now — with deference to the clergy. “This is a war on young black males,” one man said. “I’m willing to die for what I believe in, which is justice.” Later Johnson referred to the comment, saying, “Young people are not the only ones willing to die,” to a murmur of “amen,” but he added that nobody wants to see existing deep tensions boil over in a violent way here. But without meaningful change, many warned, feelings of hopelessness will translate into rebellion and a potentially dangerous situation for police. Matthew King, who received a master’s degree from A&T and helped launch the Mobile Oasis farmers market to address
Art
fixture in local organizing, said. In a prepared statement, clergy and community members said they would seek compensation in the Scales case and invited the broader community to join them in pushing for a shift in policing and the establishment of a mechanism to hold police accountable. Brown and many others present have been part of a push for a citizens review board of the police department with greater powers, criticizing recent changes to the city’s process as inadequate window dressing. The Rev. Nelson Johnson of the Beloved Community Center and Faith Community Church quickly related local problems to eruptions of anger and frustration over policing and a lack of opportunities among other issues in cities like Baltimore, Detroit, and Ferguson, Mo. When police abuse persists unchecked and people feel powerless, packing in their pent-up anger about a society that seems to have no place for them, an explosion starts to become inevitable, he warned. When the clergy opened the floor to a few dozen attendees, several of them
ERIC GINSBURG
Music
What began as a press conference and community meeting to address several instances of alleged police abuse quickly turned into a warning call. The Rev. Greg Headen — one of about a dozen members of the Greensboro Pulpit Forum sitting at a long table at the front of a room at Bethel AME Church near NC A&T University — may have summed up the message most succinctly. “There’s fire underground that’s ready to erupt,” he cautioned. A whole host of issues are fueling that fire, other attendees of the May 28 meeting elaborated, from persistent racial inequities in many facets of life including treatment by local police. Amos Quick, a Guilford County School Board member and associate pastor at New Light Missionary Baptist Church, said it also includes disparities in education, such as which students are criminalized at school. He was one of several speakers to criticize racism within policing and the legal system, including incarceration rates. “It bothers me that there is clearly a line of distinction between poor and minority communities,” Quick said. “The jails are full, yet the problems continue. It’s time for a different solution.” Clergy made initial comments about the case of the Scales brothers — one of whom was arrested while crossing a residential street near his home, the other arrested after filming part of the incident — and drew connections to other incidents of alleged police misconduct such as the handling of a 2014 Bennett College graduation party. City Manager Jim Westmoreland sent a letter apologizing to the Scales for the handling of the incident on behalf of the city, and all charges were dismissed in the case. “What we have in the Scales case is a microcosm, a living tissue of a larger culture within the Greensboro Police Department,” the Rev. Cardes Brown, the senior pastor at New Light and a
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black officers know the issues raised are true but are unable to speak up. James didn’t make any public comment at the meeting. Johnson and the Rev. Alphonso McGlen — the senior pastor at Bethel AME Church where the May 28 meeting occurred — encouraged Greensboro to be proactive in transforming its policing and accountability, leading the nation rather than always bringing up the rear. We don’t need to wait until people are in the street, or the city is burning, or people are dead to get active and work for change, McGlen said. Plus, Johnson said, uprisings like those seen in other cities aren’t aberrations and will continue until the problem is dealt with, adding that it could easily happen here. Clergy, including Johnson, invited residents to join their struggle while vowing to push forward. “Mark this date in your calendars,” Johnson said. “This meeting today represents a re-energized community. Summer is coming. We have young people who are ready to get in the streets and organize.”
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HIGH POINT JOURNAL
High Point formalizes plan for ‘complete streets’ by Jordan Green
City staff and citizens are drawing up a policy to right-size streets, making them more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists in High Point.
Up Front
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Green Door Wheel Works lies along an auto-oriented strip of West English Road. (Also, note the beehives on the roof.)
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Hollingsworth said the fact that the prosperity and livability committee tasked staff with drawing up a complete-streets policy, along with a recent decision by city council to create a public plaza from an underutilized parking lot in front of the library, suggests the city is on the right track. “It’s a huge chunk of pavement that’s being underutilized,” he said. “Now, it’s being re-used for the benefit of the whole community.” Hollingsworth said he sees the city’s current auto-dominated street design as a legacy of a different time rather than the product of active malice. “If you walk, you are very much made to feel unwelcome,” he said. “Most streets, if you ride a bike you are made to feel unwelcome. A good example is Westchester Avenue: You’ve got a Food Lion, and then across the street there’s working-class housing. There’s no crosswalk, so if you don’t have a car you can’t get to the shopping center that’s right across the street. “At one point it made sense to have eight lanes and a turn lane,” Hollingsworth added. “You had semi-tractor trailers and factory workers coming to work. Now you have a shift in demographics. The job of a community advocate is to ask what we need at this point, not what have we always done.”
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and encourages people to slow down, and it makes for a shorter crossing distance for pedestrians. It also reduces our costs to take a foot off the street, and it reduces the amount of right-of-way we have to purchase.” McDonald added that the city reduced the number of lanes on three streets from what had been originally planned. “Lindsay Street, Oakview Road and Old Winston Road were all intended to be larger streets than what we ended up building,” he said. “It made a better environment, did not adversely affect traffic and saved a lot of money. Also, when we had West Green Drive resurfaced we also restriped it. Instead of four lanes we striped it as three lanes and added a bike lane. It was our first experiment with bike lanes, and we’re looking at doing more of that.” The complete-streets committee has met only once. McDonald said all the members are busy, and he’ll feel lucky if the committee is able to meet once a month. With that in mind, he anticipates a long process and it’s way too early to predict when they will be ready to recommend a policy for approval by city council. Ultimately, he said, the complete-streets policy will likely result in some changes to the city ordinance and new guidelines for staff to follow.
JORDAN GREEN
Cover Story
Green Door Wheel Works, the bike shop owned by Steve Hollingsworth, sets on West English Road, a four-lane thoroughfare that cuts a path through High Point’s historically industrial core in the southwestern part of the city. The street still hosts its share of manufacturing facilities, along with machine shops and car lots, but Hollingsworth’s business is a rare retail outpost in the corridor’s mix. As demand on streets like English Road — by trucks moving goods and materials and workers commuting to factory jobs — has diminished over the years, motorists’ speeds have increased accordingly. “The biggest complaint I get is parking,” Hollingsworth said. “If I paved some area, all I would get is six spaces at most, and at a substantial cost. If more small businesses open on West English Road, maybe we could go to the city and say, ‘Hey, why don’t we take this down to two lanes and make on-street parking?’ Right now, it looks like blight. It wasn’t built for retail. “Looking at our assets, High Point has a lot of pavement,” he continued. “Why don’t we paint bike lanes and parking spaces? It’s a superhighway that moves people through High Point, but it should be a net that captures all that’s best about humanity.” A community advocate and entrepreneur, Hollingsworth received an invitation from Wendy Fuscoe, the core city administrator, to serve on a committee to draw up a “complete streets” policy for the city. The city’s prosperity and livability committee, chaired by Councilman Jason Ewing, had asked staff to create a committee to design a policy for consideration by city council. Transportation Director Mark McDonald said the committee includes a cross-section of city staff including planners and engineers, with a complement of stakeholders, including a transportation engineer who designs streets for developers, a representative of the Triad Real Estate
& Building Industries Coalition and community leader Dorothy Darr, along with Hollingsworth. The “complete streets” concept is not radical or particularly new. In 2009, the state Transportation Department adopted a complete streets policy, which replaces an auto-dominant paradigm of transportation planning with a multimodal model. As a result the state is required to consider and incorporate different modes of transportation when building new projects and making improvements to existing streets. In addition to making travel easier, the policy is geared towards encouraging the use of alternative transportation, promoting sustainability, increasing connectivity and improving safety. A website dedicated to the complete-streets concept maintained by the state Department of Transportation identifies Charlotte as a leader in the movement. The Queen City has been applying the concept to street development since 2005 and adopted a set of guidelines consistent with the complete-streets philosophy in 2007. The state website also recognizes Winston-Salem, along with Asheville, Cary, and Hickory, for using narrow lanes, raised medians, landscaping and onstreet parking as “traffic-calming measures” to make streets safer for people using non-motorized transportation. Similarly, McDonald said the city of High Point has been trying to apply multimodal principles to street design for several years without a formal policy. The complete-streets policy, when adopted, will provide his department with consistency and better direction, he said. “All the projects that we have completed with our 2004 bond referendum, including Hartley Drive, Barrow Road, Old Winston Road, Deep River Road and Lindsay Street — all those streets incorporated complete-streets concepts like sidewalks, pedestrian signals at all intersections and narrower lanes. We used 11-foot lanes instead of 12-foot lanes. It might not seem like much, but it makes a big difference: It creates more friction for traffic traveling on the street
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OPINION EDITORIAL
Neutering McCrory for fun and profit What are we to make of Gov. Pat McCrory’s veto pen, used most recently, and most ineffectively, to curb the NC Senate’s overreach into the workplace? The first swipe of this mighty writing instrument struck down SB 2 after it passed the House on May 28, a bill that would protect city and county magistrates to “opt out” of performing same-sex wedding ceremonies under the pretense of religious freedom. The Senate overturned this veto on Monday night, with the benefit of “aye” votes from Sen. Trudy Wade of Guilford County and Sen. Joyce Kraweic of Forsyth. Now it moves to the House for more of the same. The first time around, Reps. Debra Conrad and Julia Howard of Forsyth County voted for this bill, as did Reps. John Blust and John Faircloth of Guilford. But even those guys must understand that a bill like this cannot be allowed to pass into law. Think of what the lawyers — like, incidentally, Blust — could do with a precedent-setting law like that. Magistrates could “opt out” of performing interracial marriages. It’s arguable that cops could “opt out” of interfering with same-sex domestic disputes — or, for that matter, enforcing any law they don’t happen to agree with, like busting people with weed. Still, the House looks poised to neuter McCrory’s effort. Let’s not forget that the country-club governor has an election coming up; he’s not going to win it without some of the moderate urban vote; and he’s not going to get it if he’s in lockstep with the Republicans in the General Assembly. The veto allows him to save a little face while the GOP-controlled machine marches on. McCrory’s second veto came just a day later, nullifying HB 405 which had passed the Senate on May 18 with votes from Wade and Kraweic. The bill, titled, “An act to protect property owners from damages resulting from individuals acting in excess of the scope of permissible access and conduct granted to them,” sounds like a joke. It literally enshrines attacking the messenger into state law, giving giant corporations a pathway to sue employees who expose their illegal actions. It sounds like it could have been written by Dick Cheney. But it was, in fact, inspired by the American Legislative Exchange Council’s ag-gag model, designed to protect corporations from what it deems as a form of terrorism from environmental activists and media groups. The council, or ALEC, is the think tank that brought us “stand your ground” laws, voter ID bills and the kind of thinking that made sea-rise illegal in our state. And because it seems as if the ALEC playbook is being enacted, note for note, throughout the state, it’s curious that McCrory, a solid corporate citizen through and through, would make this stand. Is this a man showing some spine against his party and corporate overlords? Or is it fodder for a political hack, desperate for survival, who will employ any trick in the book to make sure he still has a seat when the music stops?
CITIZEN GREEN
Gas and lodging on credit
The 1988 Honda Accord maxed out at 50 mph because the fifth gear had gone out at the beginning of my trip somewhere near Clines Corner, NM, an eastward by Jordan Green journey to North Carolina across Interstate 40. It was dusk but there was still plenty of light when I stopped at a gas station just over the Tennessee state line in western North Carolina. I went inside the store, and asked the clerk to hold my debit card so I could fill up my tank. The clerk, who must have spotted my New Mexico license plate, laughed and said, “Go ahead and get your gas — and then you can pay me. You ain’t out west anymore, boy.” It was a matter of trust. This was the civilized East, not the wild West, and a certain amount of credit might be extended to a stranger. I began to think that maybe there was something to what the conservative Catholic priest at San Juan Pueblo had told me: In northern New Mexico the frontier ethos still held sway. In the vast desert, the law didn’t reach very far. Men were far from home and the moral anchor of their families. The usual constraints on behavior did not apply, and it was hard to trust anyone. I was like a whipped dog, limping over the eastern Continental Divide in a hobbled car, wary of the next person who might take advantage of me. When I finally settled in Greensboro after a two-month stay in Durham, I found an apartment to rent in Westerwood, just around the corner from the anarchist house where I had taken temporary shelter in the garage. The landlord showed me the place: a first-floor flat on the edge of an ivy-covered slope down to a railroad spur, just beyond the western boundary of downtown. Based on its proximity to downtown and Tate Street, its solid build and affordable price of $450 per month, I quickly decided to take it. At some point during the tour, the landlord shared that the apartment had suddenly come open because the previous tenant had removed the washer and dryer, sold them to get money to buy cocaine and disappeared. The landlord looked me directly in the eyes, and asked me if I used drugs. “No,” I said, “Absolutely not.”
We signed a contract on the spot, although the landlord said he didn’t need a month’s rent in advance as a deposit. That was a first for me in my extensive career as a tenant in Durham, San Francisco, Brooklyn, New Mexico and a few other places. Especially considering his recent experience, my landlord’s extension of trust struck me as utterly astonishing. Ironically, both of us had recently experienced run-ins with cokeheads in our previous real estate rental relationships. My former landlord in New Mexico would periodically wind up in rehab in a clockwork-like cycle of relapse and recovery. Generally, I would deliver my rent check to his sister, who handled his finances. One time I was visiting my next-door neighbor, who showed his hospitality by presenting me with a hardbound book with a line of powder (I later learned from a screaming argument that night that his girlfriend had procured the drugs for the two of them to share). I had politely turned down the narcotic token of friendship when our mutual landlord burst through the door unannounced. Not wanting to see something so precious go to waste, our landlord zestfully snorted up the line. When I moved out of the place in New Mexico, I sold off many of my belongings, put others in storage and packed a couple bags to fly to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. I cleaned the place meticulously, scrubbing, dusting, sweeping and mopping practically every surface after all my belongings had been removed. In a few weeks I would fly back, retrieve my stuff from storage and pack the Accord for the 1,800-mile journey east. The return to New Mexico would also provide an opportunity to pick up my rental deposit — $425, which was much needed to offset moving costs and patch in a gap in working income. I had been anticipating a friendly meeting with my landlord, but found it difficult to track him down. When I finally reached him by phone, his voice was cold. I mentioned the deposit, and he said, “No, man, you left the place a mess. My sister and I had to spend two days cleaning it out. The drip pans were totally ruined. The deposit didn’t even cover the cost of repairs.” Yeah, right. It’s been 10 years since I signed a contract for the apartment in Greensboro. Since then, I met and married my wife, and she joined the household as a full partner. Almost two years ago, we brought a child into the world, and her Pack ’n
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Play, bottles, books, blocks, Legos and other diversions had jammed up practically every square inch of our one-bedroom apartment. We’ve now moved into the house that we own, and Sunday was our deadline to be out of the old apartment. We could have just walked away, considering that there was no financial incentive to haul off the unwanted dregs of our accumulated belongings or to give the place a thorough cleaning. But of course we didn’t. Granted, if there had been a deposit to reclaim, we might not have received it: The weight of our coats had snapped at least two of the hooks on a coatrack, cracks had appeared in windowpanes and once we removed our wall hangings we noticed fault lines snaking over the Sheetrock. There has certainly been plenty of normal wear and tear over the course of a decade. I don’t know how the windowpanes developed cracks, whether a door was slammed or a gale-force wind flung a small object into the glass. I can’t imagine that we did anything to cause the fissures in the Sheetrock. We replaced the drip pans and the toilet seat. We removed everything that was ours. We scrubbed, dusted, swept and mopped practically every surface. My wife wiped a tear away as she handed me her key. I sloshed a final bucket of soapy water on the front porch, locked the door and said goodbye. I hope our credit is good.
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IT JUST MIGHT WORK
Investment co-ops
Strength lays in numbers. If there’s an idea for change fermenting in the mind of one person, it will often take the support of others in order to make it a reality, whether that support comes socially or by Anthony Harrison financially. And oftentimes, lack of funds spells the end of a dream. “It’s expensive to be poor; if you don’t have capital, not much is possible,” Caroline Woolard, a Brooklyn-based artist, told Crain’s New York Business. Faced with the closure of her art studio, Woolard and her attorney friend Paula Segal started the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative. Soon, about 200 other New Yorkers from all walks of life banded together in Woolard and Segal’s venture. Some hurdles stand in the co-op’s way, including the price and scarcity of land in New York City. However, it’s a bright idea, and one that could possibly work in the Triad. While land and property down here isn’t necessarily dirt-cheap, it’s surely more manageable to purchase than lots in New York. If, as in Woolard and Segal’s case, some 200 Triad citizens joined forces and raised some initial support and capital, surely they could easily buy some of the vacant commercial properties around any of the three cities of the Triad. Woolard and Segal based their co-op on the example of Northeast Investment Cooperative from Minneapolis, Minn. Each member of that co-op — similarly numbered at approximately 200 — purchased a $1,000 share and have helped open a brewery, bakery and a bike shop. That kind of capital brought together down here could do wonders. And that’s maybe shooting a little high for the area. But the dividends could be tremendous. This kind of innovative idea helps everyone involved. On a somewhat modest investment, members of such a co-op could make a solid return. The co-op would also help prop up small businesses in the area. And, with more small businesses, areas of town become more attractive. Communities could prosper of their own accord and from the fruits of their own labor, not at the whims of the already powerful and and the ultra-rich. Also, the growth could be organic, using pre-existing infrastructure and buildings instead of needlessly razing and replacing viable space. If it can work in the big cities, where commercial property values escalate into the stratosphere, investment co-ops could probably work down here, too.
FRESH EYES
A gun in the elementary school auditorium As parents we face many milestones with our kids: first steps, first words, first day of school. Then time comes when the school has performances for your children. We study the lines they have to memorize. We make sure they by Atiba Berkley have on the correct attire. Make sure they are standing properly. We tell ourselves: “My kid won’t be the one who messes up!” We were right. Thursday, May 8, there was excitement in the air as all of us proudly attended what was, for us and many other parents, our first student performance at Irving Park Elementary School. We meet other kindergarten parents. We see how our kids behave among their classmates. At 6 p.m. with cell-phone cameras poised and ready we watch our children perform with heads held high, share their talents, pride in their school and pride in themselves. Quite a powerful moment. In that moment we have a 2-year-old wiggling towards her brother on stage. She bounces between daddy’s lap and the floor. She yells, “You see Matthew?! Hey brother!” Happily bouncing to and fro, dancing and pointing, she lunges forward. I attempt to restrict her, lovingly of course, and am confronted with this image. I freeze. My daughter’s brown hair is in the bottom right corner of the image. And that is a gun within her reach just over the side of the folding chair in front of us. A gun is in the auditorium of Irving Park Elementary. In a tenth of a second my mind switches from Parenting in School Assemblies 101 to a Confronting Deadly Weapons Master Class. No choice. This mountain came to Mohamed. I scoop her up in my arms and quietly alert my wife. She clutches our 10-week-old son closer. At that moment, I could tell she would crack her chest open and hide him inside it if she could. This is fear. How does one confront this? Do we change seats? Kids are performing. We don’t want to be those parents. Damn. Could we tap her on the shoulder and ask her about it? Might she have a bad or violent reaction? Damn. We could stand up and yell “Gun!” Mass hysteria, people trampled, chaos... no. We’ll just sit here. We attempt to smile and let the singing of our student distract us. We keep our 2-year-old away from the weapon. We smile and congratulate the young performers and their parents who have no idea of the shock and awe we are suffering. We even let the kids play on the playground with them before we leave. We hug his teacher... all normal. We leave the school and have a bit of conversation about “the incident” but don’t want to discuss it in front of the kids. We’re also exhausted. The next day I get home late and I slump into the couch. With time to think,
it rises up again. The fear and the frustration. I take to Facebook. I post the picture of the gun. I wait. Perspectives and opinions pour out onto the screen. A lively, passionate, and eye-opening discussion ensues. My community is scared and wants answers. People feel strongly about our rights, our responsibilities, our school policies. Outrage, contempt, fear, questions and suggestions take over my evening. A friend in Texas tells me a principal from Guilford County reposted my photo. My inbox dings. A friend has emailed the principal of Irving Park Elementary, Cynthia McKee. My heart skips a beat. Was I was potentially responsible for people blindsiding a public school with an issue they had no knowledge of? I now email Principal McKee. It is part urgent notification and part apology. I also update my Facebook post to that effect, encouraging people not to lash out until the school and I have the chance to address it properly and report back. As of this writing, there are 138 comments in that post and that doesn’t include the comment replies Facebook recently enabled. The school’s response was swift.
Can you tell that this is a Greensboro police officer from behind?
ATIBA BERKLEY
We are left with all these feelings and questions. Was the weapon secured properly? Should the officer have been seated among families and children? Was the officer in a strategic position to assist in case of a violent incident? Why couldn’t we tell it was an officer from behind? I feel official dress-down uniforms for every police department should be identifiable from behind. I know one thing. I now will attend school events and look for guns. In addition to “How are you doing?” and “Excuse
me,” I guess now I have to turn to my fellow parents and ask, “You packing heat?” Atiba Berkley is a husband, father and professional audio engineer with a background in business management. His interests include conversation, live and recorded performance, event production, photography, cuisine and community.
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PHOTOS BY CALEB SMALLWOOD
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Principal McKee was understanding, encouraging and informative. It was a police officer with a relative performing in the show. The officer checked in with school and was dressed in the appropriate Greensboro Police Department dress-down uniform, which consists of a GPD logo polo shirt and a separate badge prominently displayed in plain view. School staff are advised not to call attention to officers as a matter of policy. Whew! That was a close one, but not really.
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A rider takes a smooth handoff to recharge after the inaugural lap of the men’s professional race downtown Winston-Salem during the cycling classic Sunday afternoon.
A cyclist prepares for the hill section of the third annual Winston-Salem Cycling Classic.
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Beekeeper Bill Mullins of Quaker Acres Apiary in Greensboro says his city beehives are perfectly legal, as long as they’re 50 feet away from the property line and no one complains.. “The or
Greensboro apiary finds the sweet spot Photo essay by Caleb Smallwood, words by Brian Clarey
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rdinance affects honeybees and chickens,” he says. “My neighbors all appreciate the bees because we have gardens.”
Bill Mullins plies his trades — all of them — from his backyard in a corner of Greensboro near Guilford College. In his time he’s been a soldier, a radio operator, a newspaper publisher, a political operative and an insurance salesman. Throughout it all there have been the bees. He blames his first wife, to whom he mentioned in the 1940s as they were flying to a Florida honeymoon that he had always wanted to be a beekeeper. “Well then, why aren’t you?” she asked. For their first wedding anniversary she enrolled him in a beekeeping course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The bees, but not the wife, have been with him ever since. The bees, Mullins says, are the perfect employees. “They literally work themselves to death,” he says. “They make honey all day and fan it all night [with their wings]. When it gets to 17 percent moisture, they cap it to store it as food for the winter.” Mullins says he gathers more honey from his Greensboro hives, stocked with Italian honeybees and whatever others he can lure onto his property, than he does from the ones on his country property in the Blue Ridge Mountains, pointing to the gardens and fruit trees that buttress his backyard. “Honey is just nectar from flower blossoms that the bees have processed,” Mullins says. “People think it goes through their digestive system, but that’s not true. They have a honey tank; the nectar mixes with 31 enzymes that the bees produce.” It’s good for all kinds of things: a natural antibacterial and antifungal agent, a homeopathic against allergies and source of energy and micronutrients. Mullins turns the wax into candles, makes vinegar from the filtrate and suggests that stings from the bees help fight arthritis. “I don’t know a single beekeeper with arthritis,” he says, “and I know ’em from 5 to 95.” Quaker Acres Apiary products, and Bill Mullins himself, can be found at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.
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The pollinators
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June 3 — 9, 2015
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“It takes three pounds of honey to make one pound of comb,” Mullins says. “In effect I provide them with a furnished apartment. It saves them work.”
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“Never make any vibrations around the hives,” Mullins says. “They can’t hear but they can feel vibrations. [It sounds like] wasps [that] will attack and kill and eat their young. You don’t drink around bees. They do everything by pheremones. Alcohol, peanut butter and bananas all have an odor that can set them off.”
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June 3 — 9, 2015
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Scout bees bring samples of pollen to the hive, where all the bees decide which blooms to pursue. “They do a lot like a Quaker meeting,” Mullins says.
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Mullins keeps an insurance office, a ham radio setup, a woodworking shop, a library and a hobby room in the buildings on his Greensboro property, as well as the honey room.
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June 3 — 9, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story
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Banquet
FOOD
by Anthony Harrison
Maakouda batata, what a wonderful phrase A Taste of Morocco @ Undercurrent Restaurant (GSO), Friday Make your reservations by noon on Thursday to enjoy some Maghreb flavors at Undercurrent. The four courses include preserved lemon-poached trout with tabouli, duck confit pastilla pastry, kofta with maakouda batata potato cakes and a lamb and beef tagine stew. Each course comes with a complementary wine pairing, including a Trimbach riesling, Byron pinot noir, Conway red blend and Romain Duvernay Crozes-Hermitage. Dinner is served at 6:30 p.m. Eat your heart out, Paula Deen An Evening of Southern Food with Virginia Willis @ Milton Rhodes Arts Center (W-S), Friday Georgia-born chef and author Virginia Willis takes her training in French cuisine to give some haute touches to traditional Southern recipes and throws in a dash of Dixie when approaching French food. She’ll be at the Milton Rhodes Arts Center to show off her talent alongside Jared Kiper from the Tavern at Old Salem and Vivian Joiner and Stephanie Tyson from Sweet Potatoes. The audience can ask questions step by step, and if you get lucky, you might be able to snag a taste. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. Attention! Present arms! Drink wine! Salute! NC Wine Celebration Festival @ Fourth Street (W-S), Saturday Salute! NC will be holding events all weekend, but the real meat of the weekend is on Saturday afternoon when wine, food and music all come together in downtown Winston-Salem for Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership flagship festival event. More than 30 wineries and breweries from across the state will attend the festival, including Duplin Vineyards, Raffaldini Vineyards and Winery, Childress Vineyards, Biltmore Vineyards and Winston-Salem’s own Foothills Brewery and Small Batch Brewing Co. The tasting starts at noon.
Coffee bags line the ceiling of DeBeen Espresso, giving it a soft, pillowy look.
ERIC GINSBURG
High Point’s enduring coffee shop by Eric Ginsburg
not every day that a friend in Greensboro or Winston-Salem recommends something in High Point — in fact, it’s so rare that I always take it seriously. DeBeen Espresso is one of the oldest coffee shops in the Triad, operating since 1997 even though it shares an unremarkable intersection with a Sheetz. And that’s just one of the striking things about the small coffee shop. Coffee bags from places like Colombia, Indonesia and Panama cover the entire ceiling, billowing out like sails catching a breeze. A large fountain — fully operational, with three levels and surrounded by a circular, brick basin — acts as the centerpiece of the seating area. The trickling sounds emanating from the fountain are audible over soft indie music from 10 years ago and the
It’s
percent about the atmosphere, a factor sound of steaming milk. this institution has down. Before we get any further, let me make an important disclaimer: I hate I have tried DeBeen’s coffee, in a way. I first interacted with the company coffee, and not for lack of trying. I at a party for XII Tribes Brewing, the worked at the campus coffee shop forthcoming High Point brewery, when I during college, led a campaign for fairtried the espresso stout beer made with trade coffee at my high school and have been on coffee DeBeen’s product. It’s the best plantations in four coffee-influenced countries. When Visit DeBeen Espresso at 709 thing I’ve ever you’re staying in W. Lexington Ave. (HP) or at tasted, ice cream a coffee-growing debeenespresso.com. included. family’s home and But there are they serve you their crop, you try plenty of other drinks here, including frozen green your damnedest to like it. No such luck. tea, frozen chai tea, and smoothies DeBeen must be doing something including a memorable blackberry one. right to keep its doors open this long And DeBeen sells a number of baked while being this far from High Point goods, made in-house, many of them University and this close to Sheetz. vegan and gluten free: a peanut-butter And with coffee shops, it’s at least 50
the venue. A large window makes up most of the front wall, but it’s out of reach to patrons unless they’re sitting in front, because the window is behind the counter. It’s easy to see why DeBeen Espresso shatters stereotypes about a lack of culture in High Point, and why an outof-towner would find it cool enough to want to return for an afternoon. It can hold its own with Camino and Krankies in Winston-Salem, and is similar to what Common Grounds or Vida Pour Tea offer in Greensboro. In other words, it fits right in.
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Lucky 32
Music Art
George’s Blackberry Bramble comes with blackberry jam, Topo Distillery gin, lemon, syrup and soda.
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Visit Lucky 32 at 1421 Westover Terrace (GSO) or at lucky32.com.
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and with a straw, it’s a slow sort of afternoon beverage, with the bits of berry from the jam only arriving in the final sip. All of the cocktails are $8-10, and the service is several notches above what you generally find in Greensboro, too. I’m missing several things about my city right now — the comfort of my own bed as compared to an air mattress that I’ll nap on for a few hours before my flight included — but that patio and a few of Lucky 32’s cocktails are among them. One would really take the edge off right now.
Good Sport
it a worthwhile experience regardless of palate. Someone with inclinations like mine may go for the first item mentioned: the Carolina Nail, with Defiant whiskey and Krupnikas liqueur — two excellent products, both made in North Carolina — and lemon on the rocks. But on my last visit, I opted to try Lucky 32’s most unique and quite popular item: George’s Blackberry Bramble. It takes longer than any of the others to make, namely because of stirring in the Jammin’ George’s blackberry jam with the Topo gin, lemon, syrup and soda. But the cocktail, which tastes sort of like pink lemonade but with a kick and a veiled yet discernible gin taste, was exactly the sort of drink I wanted to savor. Served in a glass mason jar of sorts with a handle
ERIC GINSBURG
Stage & Screen
32 is its outdoor space, behind a curtain of natural greenery and under a line of fans that keeps the area cool even on muggy summer days. It would be easy to come to the restaurant repeatedly without ever realizing the side patio existed, or to miss the bar itself on the opposite side of the building. The elevated bar at the back right of Lucky 32 is intimate — and not in the euphemism-for-small kind of way, but in the romantic sense of the word. But when weather permits, sit outside. That’s what two groups of women were doing around 5 p.m. on a Thursday when I stopped by, one table with red and white wine in front of them. The other friends chatted about the cocktail list before ordering, as one asked for a peach martini, another ordered wine and a third said she was considering an order of the catfish along with a vodka drink, depending on the selection. There are several standout cocktails on Lucky 32’s menu, including the appropriately named Summer Breeze with vodka from Chapel Hill’s Topo Distillery. Grapefruit, fresh basil and prosecco fill out the new addition to the menu, making it a natural choice as June sets in. And the same vodka makes an appearance in one of my favorite drinks on the list — the Southern Moscow Mule, with Blenheim hot ginger ale and lime. Lucky 32 offers a number of consistent cocktails and a few recent arrivals, choices that span across varied tastes, making
Food
There really isn’t anywhere quite like home. For almost a decade I’ve nested in Greensboro, arriving for college and intentionally sticking around afterwards. And as I write this in the final hours of May, reclining in a chair in my dad’s home office in Boston, the Gate City is exactly where I want to be. I spent this past weekend in Massachusetts — the state I called home until I hit 18 — most of it down on Cape Cod with two best friends as well as my parents. There’s more than enough to say about the Bay State beer I tried; we drank Mystic Brewery’s saison and Clown Shoes’ clementine witbier on the beach, and rode bikes to the brand-new Devil’s Purse Brewing where we tried a fantastic ESB and Kolsch, among others. But it’s Sunday night and I’m supposed to be halfway back to Greensboro, and thanks to a bad storm and sub-par airline customer service, I’m spending the next few hours in Boston before I return to the airport for a 5:15 a.m. flight Monday morning. Under the circumstances, all I can think about are the comforts of home. On that list is the patio of Lucky 32, a restaurant that’s been going steady with Greensboro for quite some time. Before boarding a northbound plane last week, I spent part of my last hour in the Gate City relaxing on that shaded veranda I grow fonder of on each visit. Half of the reason to come to Lucky
Cover Story
by Eric Ginsburg
were newcomers. Most were there for coffee, a few for company and some grabbing beverages to go. The vibe was relaxed and easygoing, a far cry from the hectic and busybody feel of any Starbucks and several local joints. Most of the seating is set up to accommodate groups, including large chairs with varying upholstery and a few tables with chairs for three or more. Boxlike cubbies flank one wall, packed with merchandise including coffee bags, tea, shirts and DeBeen cups, taking up the wall space unused by abstract and realistic art hanging around the rest of
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chocolate espresso-bean muffin, s’mores muffin mounds, a banana-walnut muffin, a gluten-free and vegan Amish bar and a great gluten-free and vegan granola brick. Oh, and there’s gelato. Several flavors, actually. A piano greets patrons in the front passageway of the shop, though there’s no chair positioned in front of it. It shares a space with a yoga studio next door, and a parking lot with a Laundromat and State Farm. About half of the patrons on a recent Thursday night, after college let out,
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Setlist
MUSIC
by Jordan Green
War and peace War @ Carolina Theatre (GSO), Thursday A multiracial rock-funk amalgamation with sociopolitical overtones, War was a product of the percolating scene in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. Ex-Animals vocalist Eric Burdon’s pairing with the band in its first few years is only part of its story. Songs like “Low Rider” and “Why Can’t We Be Friends” — both released in 1975 — have made an indelible impression, the latter as a laconic summer anthem and the former as a proto-disco manifesto. Hard to say how many original members will be on hand, but that’s the deal on the nostalgia circuit. Music and dance Batuque de Terreiro with Dance Gabriella @ High Point Train Depot, Friday This week’s musical intervention courtesy of the Ignite High Point Whistlestop Concert Series brings Afro-Brazilian music and dance to the Triad’s most promising, least realized city. The group’s percussion and guitar-based music reminds me of the 1980s Boston ska band Bim Skala Bim, somehow. Show starts at 7 p.m. Post-Beloved Josh Moore and Skylar Gudasz @ the Garage (GSO), Saturday Beloved, a combo of friends from East Forsyth High School, arose like so many promising North Carolina bands circa 2000 — with noisy guitars, an energetic disposition and soul-baring vocals. The post-hardcore sound, with references to emo and pop, hasn’t aged all that well. After a couple years of national tours and recording, they called it quits with a farewell show in Winston-Salem in January 2005. Josh Moore, Beloved’s lead singer, has continued to make music, albeit with a gentler, more acoustic cast. He shares the stage with Durham’s Skylar Gudasz, with whom he duets on “Car Song.” Show starts at 9 p.m. Love courts Echo Courts etc. @ Empire Books (GSO), June 7 Kelly Fahey, our former intern, joins forces with Jacob Darden of Ameriglow in Echo Courts, a reverb-heavy psychedelic pop band that is determined to conquer North Carolina through a combination of talent and raw will. Show starts at 8 p.m.
Ahmed Gallab, who fronts Sinkane, took his band on an excursion into early ’70s psychedelia.
CALEB SMALLWOOD
Sinkane flips the script with African psychedelia by Jordan Green
Hill producer Grey_Area was manufacturing a Chapel soundscape of casual bliss in the Crown, the third-floor sanctuary of the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro. His sonic palette of chopped dub beats, disembodied vocals and bass detonations meshed nicely with visuals produced by Adam Gratz, aka thefacesblur — a series of geometric line patterns, floating static TV screens and colored fractals. It was only 9:30 p.m., still early for the monthly Dance From Above party, which went down on May 28, and most of the audience was clustered in knots along the walls. An intrepid solitary dancer, a young bearded dude, swiveled with slow, deliberate movements and struck stork poses on the dance floor. At any given time, there seemed to be
more photographers lining up shots than dancers. Dance From Above, a syndicate of party organizers and artists that celebrates its first anniversary next month, provided an aural and visual feast in its most recent installment last Thursday. Visitors were greeted by a colored light display and DJ sets as they entered the courtyard that leads to the side entrance of the Carolina Theatre, providing a baptism of sorts into the omnivorous experience that awaited upstairs. Adding to the spectacle, as the evening progressed, an electro-metallurgical artist named Robert Beck would manipulate columns of white lightning from brass pedestals in a part of the courtyard sectioned off by a long plastic table. With simultaneous action in the Crown upstairs and in the courtyard,
each with its own light show, at least five local DJs and two national acts, the five-hour event provided multiple angles of interest and fascination. Dance music inherently elevates the sensory experience of the audience above the status of the performer. The music is only doing its job if it moves bodies. Is the DJ creating something authentic on the spot or presenting music from other sources? Is it organic or programmed? What is the provenance of the music and what does it signify? None of these questions really matter as long as the music, ideally augmented by a visual display, produces an immediate sensation. The line between DJ-ing and live-band music is becoming increasingly blurred. Reading the bio of headliner Photay on the event Facebook page, with refer-
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Gallab’s easygoing and unpretentious rapport with the audience was refreshing. His confidence in his own considerable ability was evident by his obvious relish at spotlighting Lam, his fellow guitarist, who is also a dazzling talent. At one point, Gallab concluded his own solo and demonstrably threw his index finger in Lam’s direction, while dancing about and urging Thammel and Montgomery on. Even “Mean Love,” one of the most pop oriented and recognizable of Sinkane’s songs — and the title track of his most recent album — took on a new dimension, with Thammel slightly dragging the beat to create a kind of country-shuffle rhythm and Lam playing exquisite, soaring pedal steel. Sinkane — the bandleader and the band — is experiencing a breathtaking rise, with Greensboro a fortunate add-on between shows in Atlanta and Pittsburgh. The group was added to the bill only eight days before Dance From Above after being dropped from the lineup at the Railyard. They embark on a European tour at the end of June, and join the Atomic Bomb! Band — a supergroup organized by David Byrne that performs material by the legendary Nigerian funk musician William Onyeabor — for Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee and WOMAD Festival in the United Kingdom this summer. Soon after Photay, aka Evan Shornstein, took the stage at the Crown after midnight, the audience was transported. Leaning forward and feverishly working the boards, his music was insistently syncopated, but with concentric reverberations of sound in modulating time signatures. One movement seamlessly transitioned into the next with constant dynamic tension but without any discernible song form. Dancers made freeze frames with their bodies. Their freedom from inhibition was abetted by Photay’s complete commitment to his music. The DJ maintained such a trance state that he seemed unaware of a fan who was leaning over his turntable trying to yell something at him. And when one of the event organizers handed him a beer, he accepted it with only the scarcest acknowledgement, took a swig and went back to work.
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ences to “turntablism,” “field recordings,” “sampling” and “polyrhythmic percussion,” you might question exactly where on the spectrum of programmed technology to live performance the experience might fall. Similarly, Sinkane’s billing clearly referenced a band, but a sampling of music on the internet by the artist — London-born Ahmed Gallab — heaved up an assortment of mixes and odd juxtapositions with stray sampled voices and sonic manipulations. The reported breadth of Sinkane’s stylistic references — reggae, electronic, Sudanese pop — also defies expectation. Would it be music made by the hands of humans or machines? Dressed in a sleeveless Grateful Dead skull-and-lightning shirt and a nondescript cap, Gallab could have been mistaken for a workaday club musician in the Dominican Republic. No limelight or star mystique. His band, a quartet, launched into a fierce and visceral strand of African psychedelic music with sinewy, interlocking melodies. Gallab played stabbing, warbled leads on an electric guitar, with Jonny Lam on a second electric guitar playing wah-wah rhythm. The music was glued together by Jason Thammel’s syncopated drumming and Ish Montgomery’s in-the-pocket bass groove. On another song, Gallab and Lam played lead at the same time, wailing psychedelia matched by crying pathos. Sinkane’s performance was utterly live, less processed than the average indie-rock concert, albeit with heavy reverb on Gallab’s meditative vocals. At times the band’s simmering funk suggested Bob Marley & the Wailers’ “Burnin’ and Lootin’” from their legendary 1975 Live album, at others a hot, desert wind. Blink and you might suddenly imagine yourself listening to the Dead or the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore East in 1971, except in an African context. And lo and behold, an extended jam suddenly and without warning resolved into “Going Down the Road (Feeling Bad),” the Dead’s arrangement of the Woody Guthrie folk song. The band’s instrumental virtuosity and interpersonal chemistry produced a visceral experience that immediately connected with the audience, whatever their expectations might have been. They shook ass or bathed in the groove — a multiracial tribe, old and young, gay and straight, freaks and service workers — as uninhibited as any audience in the thrall of a DJ.
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Palette
ART
by Anthony Harrison
Pennants and comics and paints, oh my! Summer exhibit reception @ Theatre Art Galleries (HP), Thursday Theatre Art Galleries hosts three very different but very intriguing exhibitions through the summer. The main gallery will hold Stitched, Stuttered and Screened: Recent Works by Woodie Anderson. Anderson became fascinated with medieval banners and pennants and screen-printed images of historical women onto well-worn household fabrics. The other two exhibits include the recent work of cartoonist Ben Towle, featuring original pages from his three graphic novels, and Carol Meetze Moates’ watercolors. The reception begins at 5:30 p.m.; the exhibits will show until Aug. 21. A decade drought lifted Hello, Magic City!: Paintings by Kat Lamp @ Ember Gallery (W-S), Friday It’s been 10 years since Kat Lamp had a solo show in Winston-Salem, but she’ll be back at Ember Gallery and better than ever. Lamp’s paintings are full of warm pastel colors and fun stuff like anthropomorphic cats high-fiving and unicorns dancing and acting a fool. The reception opens at 6 p.m. Promising artist in the spotlight Billy Hawkins @ Interpolations Studio (GSO), Friday UNCG Art Merit Award winner Billy Hawkins began showing his latest work at Interpolations on June 1, but an opening reception will be held on Friday. Hawkins experiments with paintings, drawings and video, but a Free Style Dance Cypher will occur from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. I honestly have no idea what that is.
The small painting depicted sheets of orange and red fabric draped over a lone clothesline.
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Art for Nepal by Sayaka Matsuoka For artist Dana Holliday, the disaster in Nepal feels personal. Crisp photographs and colorful, abstract paintings covered the walls of a small back room in High Point’s 512 Collective last Friday as Holliday’s art show opened to the public. Fittingly titled Nepal: Journey of the Spirit, Holliday’s show exhibits images taken in and inspired by the South Asian country, after her trip there for three weeks late last November. She and her close friend Lisa made the decision to travel there on a spiritual journey but discovered much more when they became close to locals, like their tour guide Bhim Chand and his family during their stay in Chand’s home for a week. Now, Holliday is selling her works and using all of the proceeds to support families like Chand’s, fragmented by the April earthquakes that killed more than
The
8,800 people and injured more than and joyful. While many of them lean 23,000. towards abstraction, converging Her photographs depict the local splotches of red, blue, orange and people of Nepalese villages, with a green in the same canvas, others — like strong focus on women and children. the one Joyce Traver snatched up — They wear bright scarves and gold represent life in Nepal. jewelry and eyeliner can be seen on Lined up next to the photograph that the faces of many of the young girls. it drew inspiration from, the painting Photos of women balancing coiled rope portrays a lone clothesline hanging in bowls on their front of a wall heads walking with chipping down dirt roads paint and Nepal: Journey of the Spirit will be resemble ones overgrown vines. on display at the 512 Collective in magazines Large sheets of (HP) through the end of June. like National orange and red Geographic but fabric drape over, this time an adding a pop of ominous feeling is associated with each color to a bland background. of the subjects depicted. “When I heard that all the proceeds Inevitable questions of the women’s go to the families I had to buy it,” said survival and their existence now loom Traver, one of Holliday’s friends. around the photographs, evoking Now she just has to decide where to somber thoughts. display it. Her paintings, conversely, are vibrant “I can put it next to the kitchen
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Pictures of women and children photographed by Holliday during her trip to Nepal decorated the walls of 512 Collective.
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table,” Traver thought aloud. “I’m excited.” A table in the center of the room displayed plastic bracelets, hand-woven tops and cards that said things in scribbly handwriting like “We can help” and “Nepal” on them. A mannequin with a lime-green sequined dress and a necklace rested in the corner of the room. As more people filed into the tiny space in the back of the 512 Collective, Holliday made her way around, greeting friends and telling her story. She reminisced about the time she bought the dress in Nepal and how she wore it again last Christmas. She explains how she and Lisa connected with Chand, who works for Earth Paradise tours, and about Ramesh Soltee, a 22-year old who was living in the Kathmandu Valley area of Nepal. She stays connected with Soltee through Facebook and found out that due to random luck, neither his nor Chand’s homes were destroyed. She continued verbally painting a picture of her trip there, mentioning the poor water system and her trips to orphanages in the area. “We are so blessed and privileged in the United States,” she said. She explains that Chand has been mobilizing neighbors and helping surrounding communities affected by the quakes by distributing supplies and building shelter out of tarps with Earth Paradise’s logo on them. That was when Holliday decided that she had to do something to help, too. “I was planning on having a show anyways but I felt the urge to do it now,” Holliday said. And instead of sending money through an organization, she’s sending funds directly to Chand and Soltee. “I just felt their souls,” she said. “They are good people.”
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Episodes
STAGE & SCREEN
by Anthony Harrison
Barefoot in the Forge Barefoot Bijou Film Festival @ the Forge (GSO), beginning Wednesday Greensboro’s summer film festival kicks off this week. On Wednesday night, a screenwriting workshop led by Les Butchart will be held at the Forge starting at 7 p.m. The next day marks the first run of screenings. A meet-and-greet with the filmmakers at Gibb’s Hundred Brewing Co. starts the night, and the reels begin rolling at the Forge a little after sunset; films by Michael Frierson, Brett Ingram, Skyler Wahl, Lucas Butchart, Shea Sizemore and others will be shown. Barefoot Bijou runs through June 27; for more information, find them on Facebook. Pull up a chair 2015 Lawnchair Drive-In @ Geeksboro Coffeehouse Cinema (GSO), Saturday This summer, Geeksboro Coffeehouse Cinema will once again host a starlit, drive-in film screening every Saturday until Aug. 8. The first selection of the summer is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Quite fitting, too — the cult classic, celebrating its 25th anniversary, was shot in North Carolina. More highlights further down the road include Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Sandlot, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Princess Bride and Batman. Find the event page on Facebook for showtimes and more information. Reefer madness Bringing It Home @ Gibb’s Hundred Brewing Co. (GSO), June 7 There’s a lot going on at Gibb’s this Sunday, but this film seems too interesting to miss. They’re hosting a bunch of hempbased events including a hemp fashion show, hemp dessert and hemp-leaf tea tastings from Wallflour Bakery and Vida Pour Tea and hemp product samples and snacks. The centerpiece is the documentary Bringing It Home, detailing a man’s search to find the best building material for a house (Spolier alert:: It’s hemp) as well as the history of hemp in the United States. The party starts at 7 p.m.
Elliot “White Lightning” Scott holds no candles to Bruce Lee, but he was once driven to become Canada’s first great action hero — at least, until he went completely bonkers and disappeared.
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A web of lies by Anthony Harrison
aim to present truth. But what happens when Documentaries the subject of your documentary presents themselves as a complete fiction? One might not think such a question of form and cinematic intent would arise while discussing a film named Kung Fu Elliot, but the documentary directed by Matthew Bauckman and Jaret Belliveau deals with its material so effectively, the viewer leaves surprised, entertained and utterly confounded. The film follows Elliot Scott, a seemingly ordinary Canadian man, in his quest to produce his third film, Blood Fight. Inspired by Jean Claude
are. They’re shot on digital cameras and Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan feature wooden actors delivering inane and Sonny Chiba, he styles himself as a dialogue alongside horribly executed martial artist who makes movies, writing, acting, directing and performing his effects and fight scenes. Yet he commands a following. His own stunts in titles like They Killed My long-suffering girlfriend, Linda Lum, Cat and Stalker and the Hero. shoots and helps “My end goal is direct the films to make CanaGeeksboro Coffeehouse Cinedians go, ‘Wow, in the parks and ma in Greensboro shows Kung lakesides of New we can have an Brunswick. His action hero,’” Fu Elliot through June 4. Visit best Scott says. geeksboro.com for showtimes. bumbling friend, Blake However, Scott Zwicker, takes makes Ed Wood major roles. seem as capable a filmmaker as Orson Welles or Alfred Hitchcock. He doesn’t No matter how bad the movies are, they’re driven by a nearly childlike make B-movies; even calling Scott’s sincerity. Scott has ambitious ideas, but films Z-movies compliments them. he’s crippled by a lack of money — and There exists no letter beyond Z to accutalent. rately describe how bad Scott’s movies
Now Playing
by Anthony Harrison
The brother, the sister, the actress and her lover Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike @ Arts Council Theatre (W-S), Thursday Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, the 2013 Tony winner for Best Play, combines themes from Anton Chekov and the quirkiness of secluded siblings paired with their eccentric movie-star sister and her young boy toy. Visit twincitystage.org for tickets and showtimes.
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Got a show coming up? Send your theater info to brian@triad-city-beat.com.
Music
Scott (left, kneeling) stands over his best friend Blake Zwicker, playing his nemesis. Linda Lum photographs COURTESY PHOTO the action — or lack thereof — on a digital camera.
Preston Lane drama premieres Common Enemy @ Triad Stage (GSO), June 7 A new, original drama written by Preston Lane debuts this coming week. Common Enemy looks at March Madness, its pitfalls and resilience. Visit triadstage.org for showtimes and tickets.
Food
Stage on screen Man and Superman screening @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S), June 7 Hanesbrands teams up with National Theatre Live to present George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, starring Academy Award-nominee Ralph Fiennes. The screening begins at 2 p.m.
Cover Story
Gotta dance! Gotta dance! Artistic Motion Preparatory Academy dance auditions @ Artistic Motion Downtown Studio (GSO), June 7 If you missed the first run of auditions, you’re in luck. Artistic Motion holds two more auditions for its pre-professional ballet program for dancers aged nine and over; the first is this Sunday beginning at noon. For registration details and more information, visit artisticmotiondance.com.
Opinion
Winnie the Pooh and Déjà vu Winnie the Pooh Kids @ Starr Theatre (GSO), Friday Community Theatre of Greensboro nips at the Drama Center’s heels with its own production based on AA Milne’s renowned stories and characters. Visit ctgso.org for tickets and showtimes.
News
Tie or no tie? Jacket or no jacket? Pants or no pants? Don’t Dress for Dinner @ Barn Dinner Theatre (GSO), Friday Do you like that “pants or no pants” joke? I made it because this is supposedly a sexy farce of a play. It’s originally French; what do you expect? Naturally, it’s rated PG-13. For showtimes and tickets, visit barndinner.com.
Up Front
along the line. His first wife was struck and killed by a drunk driver — the tattoo on his inner forearm, reading “Lost Love,” serves as a constant reminder. “I’m being a superhero for everyone who can’t be a superhero in the movies,” Scott says. Yet it’s all a ruse, all a tangled web of half-truths or flat-out fiction in a long con from someone who’s deluded himself so profoundly that he becomes a pathological liar. In its appreciation of a fabrication of a person, Kung Fu Elliot practically straddles the line between documentary and narrative cinema. In a way, Bauckman and Belliveau shoot Blood Fight for Scott; since they’re actually adept filmmakers, the framing of shots vastly improves upon Scott’s work. A soundtrack featuring Vivaldi and Mozart heightens the dramatic intensity of the film and directs the viewer’s emotions as much as anything scored by John Williams. Funnily enough, what must have started out as a fun project for two filmmakers seeking an interesting profile of an eccentric joke of a man turns out to be one of the most enigmatic documentaries of the year. “Cinema started with smoke and mirrors, the grand illusion,” Scott says. And how. For someone so bloody incompetent, Scott pinned that maxim to the mat.
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“It’s respectable cheese, and people like cheese,” Scott says of his work. Scott claims to have sold more than 10,000 copies of his first two films. The mind recoils a bit at this figure. It doesn’t make sense. That may represent the first time the viewer suspects something is rotten in New Brunswick. Things really start falling apart after Scott goes to China with his acupuncture class. Scott visits a jewelry shop, ostensibly to find a jade ring for Lum, but fumbles, apparently having trouble finding a size 6. He visits the Shaolin Temple, even taking a moment to spar with a monk. But, despite his alleged years of training, Scott demonstrates himself to be as incompetent at martial arts as he is at filmmaking. He tells strangers he’s filming a movie with Jackie Chan and flirts with seemingly every woman he sees. “You just trying to meeting all the girls,” Dr. Diana Li, his acupuncture teacher, complains to him. Throughout the film, we had learned more and more about Scott. He sustained brain trauma in 1987 as a 6-yearold after a felled tree hit him in the head, and he went into two comas. He allegedly has Japanese ancestry somewhere
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On Deck
GOOD SPORT
by Anthony Harrison
Feel the rush Caffeine Dance Party @ Green Bean (GSO), Friday There’s seemingly something for everybody in this event, if you happen to skew slightly eccentric. Caffeine is clearly a dance party, but alongside the DJ showcase, Jeff Beck’s blacklight painting and beer and wine specials, guests are encouraged to bring their hoops, poi, staves, yoga mats or what have you and participate in some fitness flow arts. Also — and this is the cool part — there will be a breakdance skate performance by ISKATE from Raleigh. The party starts at 9 p.m.
The whole picture
by Anthony Harrison
A whistle blew. Cowbells ding-alinged. A few dozen cyclists stormed up Fifth Street towards Patterson Avenue in downtown
Winston-Salem. The Men’s Category 1 and 2 amateur criterium of the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic had begun. The clump of cyclists flashed by. In the matter of only a minute, they dashed by again. And again. And again. Repeat for 75 minutes. I realized quickly that simply watching the race from the corner of Fifth and Patterson was no way to cover cycling. Also, I realized quickly there is no easy way to cover cycling. Cycling flashes by Relaxation on the lake so quickly and so impressionistically, Veterans’ Paddle @ Lake Brandt Marina and you can never see the whole picture (GSO), June 7 and know what’s going on. If you happen to be a veteran, what’s a So I walked the criterium route most better way to relax after a weekend full of of the race. breakdancing skaters and benevolent hackThe course ran in a shaky quadrilating than to have a leisurely kayak session eral around a few downtown blocks. on Lake Brandt? Veterans and civilians alike But the rolling hills of Winston-Salem are invited to join vet Neil Thompson on seemed reminiscent of a Piedmont San a guided paddle around Lake Brandt’s 816 Francisco — perfect for a bike race. acres. Kayak rentals are available; just bring The starting line sat about some sunscreen, shades and clothes you three-quarters of the way up the slight wouldn’t mind getting wet. To register, call rise on Fifth Street leading to Patterson the Lake Brandt Marina at 336.373.3741. Avenue. Pop tunes like Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” and high-energy techno pumped out of an enormous speaker system set up on the corner. The leg up Patterson was a steady uphill alongside Wake Forest Biotech Place leading to Seventh Street. Turning right onto Seventh led ANTHONY Cyclists climb up the steady rise of Fifth Street to a flat straightCivic hack attack Hackathon 2015 @ Co//ab (GSO), Saturday June 6 isn’t just about D-Day anymore. It’s also the National Day of Civic Hacking — totally endorsed by the White House and everything. Greensboro will host its first civic hackathon, pulling together its brightest developers, designers, data junkies, policy wonks, community organizers and engaged citizens for a day of constructive fun. You can enjoy snacks, camaraderie and gigabit-speed internet access directly from North State Communications. The hackathon starts at 10 a.m.
near Patterson Avenue in Winston-Salem.
HARRISON
away where cyclists could attack and gain leads, if they had the gumption and energy. At the corner of Seventh and Research Parkway stood a murder of police officers in their raven-black uniforms. About 20 minutes into the race, a blue late-’90s Honda Accord breezed by them onto Seventh, directly onto the race route. “Oh, that could be a problem,” one officer exclaimed. Thankfully, the heat had just blown by, so the driver could get resituated before causing any damage or disruption. The Research Parkway leg rolled downhill, accentuated by little humps in the road, before the final right back onto Fifth Street. From this corner, you could just hear the sounds from Bailey Park as the Wailers checked levels for their concert later in the evening — the kick drum pounding in lockstep; the snare rattling a martial beat; the lead guitar chirping intermittently; rhythm guitar chunkily playing dirty chords; Aston “Family Man” Barrett, the father of reggae bass, grooving deep and smooth. Fifth Street started out level, but a quarter of the way up the road started rising uphill. The whole route constituted only seven-tenths of a mile. As with many races, the leads shifted dynamically. At times, especially early on, one rider would dominate ahead of the heat, often by dozens of lengths. But leads slip. About midway through, two or three cyclists vied for the lead, far ahead of the main heat. Sometimes, the whole body of racers remained in close contention. From the ground, it was impossible to get the whole picture. Only the pace motorcycle could know what was happening up front at all times. Stephen Johnson, who lives in Charlotte, rode that motorcycle stoically the whole way through, decked out in a maroon jacket and a blue vest with “COMMISSAIRE” emblazoned on the back.
“My job is to look for rule infractions and safety issues, establish the front of the race and help judges know where people are,” Johnson said following the criterium’s conclusion. He’s been a commissaire for 15 years. He came into it through racing itself. “I started riding, then became a fan and worked my way up to this,” Johnson said. “Still, officials and fans see more of the race.” A little over halfway through the race, two riders surged ahead of the pack. Austin Ulich of Athens, Ga., and Greg Wittwer consistently vied for a strong, 10-second lead with about 10 laps to go. Both were decked in blue, but Ulich distinguished himself with a mane of dirty blonde hair flowing underneath his helmet. Both fought not just for medals and reputation, but $400 — not a bad return for a $35 investment for registration. With two laps to go, though, Ulich surged ahead of the other cyclist, ferociously capitalizing on his lead and spreading another 10 seconds between himself and Wittwer. He pumped the pedals with furious determination leading into the final stretch, raising his hand in victory as he glided over the doubled white finish line. Ulich was one of three teammates representing 706 Project. Ulich and his teammates were impressed by the criterium. “The route was good,” Ulich said after the race. “That first hill was the main feature, and we caught a lot of headwind on the back section. The roads are a lot of fun; there are good, wide turns.” The concept of teamwork surprised me, given the context. “The idea was for me or Fletcher [Lydick, a teammate] to attack halfway,” Ulich said. “I was near the front, so I took my opportunity. “It’s more of a team sport than meets the eye,” Ulich added. I didn’t see it happen. But as I learned, in cycling, you can’t always get the whole picture.
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GAMES ‘They’re All Here’ so let’s all jump in. by Matt Jones
Across
Down
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©2015 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)
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Gate City Vineyard is a modern, Christian church that exists to serve the community around us. Our desire is to help people of all ages and backgrounds grow in their understanding of God.
Answers from last issue.
Art
1 FIFA president Blatter 2 Do perfectly 3 “___ it’s duck season ...”: Daffy Duck 4 Boggy land 5 Embellished, as prose 6 B.B. King played them 7 Infomercial inventor Popeil 8 Store with multilingual product tags 9 Dessert topped with a powder 10 G.I. mail center 11 When college transfers often begin 12 Agreements from the pews 13 Many a reggae player 18 Word after standardized or stress 23 Ventilate 25 Blog with the tagline “Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women. Without Airbrushing” 27 “Cats ask for it by name” brand 28 Preakness postings 29 Do some pirating 30 Neighbor of South Africa 31 Pretend to have 32 Worked up 34 “Star Wars” figure 36 Lois of the Daily Planet 37 Street wear? 39 They may be unwillingly shared on airplanes 43 That’s what YOU think 45 Cartoon dog surnamed Hoek 46 Hit flies 47 Hot topic of the 1992 presidential campaign 48 The painting in Roger Sterling’s office on “Mad Men”, for example 49 “___ how I roll” 52 Honey of a boo-boo 54 Mare’s child 55 Bird feeder block 56 “Just doin’ my job ...” 58 Hill worker, for short 60 Peyton Manning’s brother 61 ___ Maria (coffee liqueur)
Up Front
1 Get a whiff of 6 Londoner, e.g., informally 10 Open a crack 14 Portraitist’s prop 15 Norse trickster of myth 16 Adidas rival 17 Wire worker 19 Tip jar bills 20 TP layer 21 Like some hours 22 Electric toothbrush battery size, maybe 24 Bankbook amt. 25 Zooey’s “New Girl” role 26 Drink in the morning 28 Former Israeli P.M. Ehud 31 Less partisan 33 Big one 34 1984 hit for ZZ Top 35 Popeye’s Olive and family 38 Catch a few z’s 39 Gang of characters seen in the four longest answers 40 Watery, like tea 41 Attain peas? 42 “Mystery!” host Diana 43 Arabian Peninsula native 44 Belter on Broadway 46 Cathedral toppers 47 More majestic 49 Candy bar served in twos 50 Hive-minded prefix? 51 Keanu’s role in “The Matrix” 53 “Star Wars” figure 54 “___: Cyber” 57 “Read before posting anything” pages 59 Live through a hot day with no A.C., say 62 Make even 63 Pinball disaster 64 Alberta NHLer 65 “... with ___-foot pole!” 66 Dos + dos + dos 67 Smartly dressed
At the Vineyard you can come as you are and be yourself.
Sunday services @ 10:30 am • 204 S. Westgate Drive, Greensboro
(336)323-1288 // gatecityvineyard.com
All She Wrote
Whatever your thoughts about church, whatever your beliefs about God … you are welcome here.
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June 3 — 9, 2015
SHOT IN THE TRIAD
West Market Street, Greensboro
Beach umbrellas not included. PHOTO BY CAROLYN DE BERRY
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June 3 — 9, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Food Music Art Stage & Screen
Farewell to a muse JoAnn Crews, of 201 Salem Street, Thomasville, NC, died at home on Thursday, May 28, 2015. Born JoAnn Pappas, she by Nicole Crews was the youngest of five children born to a Greek immigrant shopkeeper and Canadian seamstress in Duluth, Minn. in 1931. A “driven woman” — as females were then referred to when they eschewed early marriage — JoAnn graduated from the University of Minnesota with an art degree and set out for New York. She taught art to support herself and enrolled at what is now Parsons the New School for Design to study furniture and interior design. Her cousin, Margie Leftcourt, worked in fashion and got her a gig as a fit model for designer Pauline Trigere. “When I moved to New York I had three blouses and two skirts and rotated them endlessly,” said JoAnn, “I ate and dressed like a French woman before anybody wrote about it.” A fortuitous meeting at Parsons with Kay Lambeth of Erwin Lambeth Furniture brought JoAnn south in the late 1950s where she entered the field of furniture design and interior design as a rare female. (“I never understood feminists because I was too busy working,” is a favorite quote.)
“When I went to work for Bernhardt I remember John Christian Bernhardt’s wife telling me that ‘ladies in the South did not wear black, nor wear eyeliner’ — and she took me to Montaldo’s and bought me a pink A-line dress with a green-and-white block-print scarf. I felt like an ice-cream cone,” said JoAnn. Through the years she designed highend upholstery and showrooms for Bernhardt, Tomlinson, Century, Dansen Contemporary, Lane and many more. She created fabrics for several houses and worked as a consultant well into her seventies. She was an active member of the American Society of Furniture Designers (ASFD) and the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). Her work has been included on the cover of Architectural Digest, in Southern Living, 1001 Home Decorating Ideas, Metropolitan Home and Good Housekeeping, among others. Her own home, an antebellum farmhouse belonging to her husband’s family for several generations, has been featured in numerous publications and on home tours. JoAnn was preceded in death by her husband, William Joseph Crews — a dashing pilot, craftsman and philosopher. The two were married for 23 years before his early death, and courted by Joe flying JoAnn to the Outer Banks for beach landings and picnics. They took their belated working honeymoon to St. Croix with their only child, Nicole, who was 3 years old at the time. Joe was de-
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Selling Unique Architecturally Interesting Homes
livering an airplane to a buyer in the islands and JoAnn was bidding on a hotel project. The dashing couple — now a trio — traveled extensively for work and play from Aspen to Athens, New York to Naples, Mexico City to Marseille. JoAnn is survived by her sister Helen Kensel of Duluth, Minn.; her brother Gordon Pappas of Pleasanton, Calif.; and her daughter Nicole Crews of Greensboro. She was preceded in death by her sister Muriel Salen of Chicago and her brother Walter Pappas of Medford, Ore. Special thanks to her longtime caretaker Tracy Whitley of Thomasville. In true JoAnn fashion, a cocktail party will take place on June 12 at 5 p.m. at JoAnn Crews, mother and muse to the columnist, is gone but her inspiration the Thomasville home lives on. for friends and family. JoAnn’s ashes will be scattered by at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations to Hospice of Davidson County, Hospice and Palliative Care of Greensboro and your local public library are encouraged.
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