TCB Dec. 30, 2015 — The Triad 100

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com Dec. 30 – Jan. 5, 2015

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100 What mattered most in 2015 PAGE 10

Political hall of mirrors PAGE 8

Boxing Day, Brooklyn PAGE 28

My fave year PAGE 35

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015

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A very good year

by Brian Clarey

UP FRONT

COVER

GAMES

3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement

10 The Triad 100

31 Jonesin’ Crossword

CULTURE

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

22 Food: 2015: Vegan dining, meat and Korean cuisine 23 Barstool: Sudsy stories 24 Music: 10 moments that mattered 26 Art: Art in p[ublic

32 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro

OPINION 8 Editorial: Political physics 8 Citizen Green: Hall of mirrors 9 It Just Might Work: Produce in the bus depot 9 Fresh Eyes: Probing our darkness

ALL SHE WROTE 34 My fave year

GOOD SPORT 28 Boxing Day in Brooklyn

QUOTE OF THE WEEK You know, when we launched our campaign, the New York Times promptly opined, ‘Cruz cannot win because the Washington elites despise him.’

I kind of thought that was the whole point of the campaign.

— Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St., Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER Allen Broach

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING INTERN Nicole Zelniker

EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Brian Clarey

jorge@triad-city-beat.com

allen@triad-city-beat.com

brian@triad-city-beat.com

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green jordan@triad-city-beat.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Eric Ginsburg eric@triad-city-beat.com

NEST EDITOR Alex Klein

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EDITORIAL INTERNS Daniel Wirtheim intern@triad-city-beat.com

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING & SALES Dick Gray dick@triad-city-beat.com

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NEST Advertise in NEST, our monthly real estate insert, the final week of every month! nest@triad-city-beat.com

CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Nicole Crews Anthony Harrison Matt Jones Amanda Salter Caleb Smallwood

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2015 Beat Media Inc.

It’s fast, man.

When you get on the weekly grind, the days tick off like sidewalk tiles and next week starts before this week ends.

The old papers are starting to pile up here in the Triad City Beat offices, nearly 100 issues out so far — this one is No. 97, if you must know. I’m amazed at the covers taped to the office wall, each one in its own way a tiny goddamn miracle, and awed by the opportunity to contribute to this body of work.

I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to make it this far. Our operation was too small, we didn’t have enough capital, the market was too saturated. I knew all too well the challenges of launching a business — a newspaper of all things, in 2014!

— and there were plenty of naysayers around to fill me in on some of the ones I hadn’t thought of. And truth be told, if we knew how hard this was gonna be, we might not have done it.

But we had to. Because behind the braying of the haters, genuine support came from all quarters, telling us that we could do it. We should do it. Someone needed to build a better mousetrap. Why not us?

And we knew that if we didn’t, then nobody else would.

So here we are, a full eight quarters in business and a twoyear anniversary just a few weeks out. It’s crazy, I know.

This year differed from the last in that we’ve had some time to find our groove, to further align our processes with workflow and the general atmosphere of the cities we cover.

To watch this symbiosis develop has been a beautiful thing.

I am as proud of the journalism TCB has brought to the Triad in 2015 — and man, my guys killed it this I am as proud of the journalyear — as I am of ism TCB has brought to the the business that we’re growing Triad in 2015 — and man, my around the paper. guys killed it this year — as I I came into this am of the business that we’re after a career of growing around the paper. working for other people, bringing almost no business experience save for a decade or so behind the bar and a lot of hours at the poker table.

I’m just starting to feel around the edges of the concept of owning a business, the weight of it, what it means. It’s heavy stuff, man.

But it looks like we’ve carried it across another milestone, arbitrary as it may be, and some reflection is appropriate.

It’s been challenging. Exhilarating. Terrifying. Maddening.

Some weeks I think I can barely stand it.

But like I said, it goes by fast.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015

CITY LIFE December 30 – January 5 WEDNESDAY Tannenberg Organ Concert @ Old Salem Visitor Center (W-S), noon Henry Tysinger, retired music director of Highland Presbyterian Church, plays Old Salem’s largest Tannenberg organ. The renowned organ maker David Tannenberg built the massive instrument more than 200 years ago for the town of Old Salem and through careful restoration it still plays today. Visit oldsalem.org for more information.

THURSDAY

Kuumba celebration @ Arts Council Theatre (W-S), 1 p.m.

The NC Black Repertory Company’s Teen Theatre and Dance Ensemble performs in celebration of Kuumba, or creativity. It’s the sixth principle of Kwanzaa and to underline its importance attendees are offered a speech by Nigel Alston, the company’s interim director and to take part in the Karamu Feast. Visit intothearts.org for more information.

The Avett Brothers @ Greensboro Coliseum (GSO), 8:30 p.m.

The Avett Brothers, arguably the most popular NC act to be playing the national stage, plays Greensboro’s coliseum on the last night of the year. There’re still a few tickets available, if you’re quick.

Visit greensborocoliseum.com for more information.

Bubbly dinner @ Meridian Restaurant (W-S), 8 p.m.

Nothing says “New Year” like champagne. For this one, Meridian Restaurant serves up a five-course meal with bubbly pairings from around the world. You can view the menu and reserve seats at meridianws.com.

Jonas Sees In Color @ Greene Street Club (GSO), 8 p.m.

Greensboro alt-rock band Jonas Sees In Color finishes its 10th year of music with a New Year’s Eve show. Folk-rock band Old Heavy Hands plays as well. Find more information at greenestreetclub.com.

Smashing New Years Eve @ Geeksboro Coffeehouse Cinema (GSO), 9:30 p.m.

It’s all things Smashing Pumpkins at Geeksboro’s New Years celebration.

Smashing Pumpkins tribute band Siamese Dream plays and at might night a giant pumpkin is smashed to the ground from a 10-foot ladder. Find the event page on Facebook for more information.

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The Genuine @ the Garage (W-S), 9 p.m.

The Genuine is a four-piece folk band with a recent debut record. Behind the folksy-soul power lies a down-to-earth, easy listening experience. Visit the-garage.ws for more information.

by Daniel Wirtheim

Drawing @ Delurk Gallery (W-S), 7 p.m.

The Winston-Salem artist collective goes back to their artistic fundamentals with a series of drawings.

There’s no paint here, just community-submitted works made with graphite, crayon, pastels, or whatever it takes to render these works. Find the Facebook page for more information.

triad-city-beat.com

FRIDAY

First Friday @ Downtown (GSO), 6 p.m.

It just so happens that this month’s First Friday is also the first day of 2016, which makes it kind of special, right? Participating stores open their doors for extra, after hour happenings. Visit downtowngreensboro.net for more information.

Gallery Hop @ Downtown Arts District (W-S), 7 p.m.

The DADA Gallery Hop beckons in the New Year with new gallery openings.

Check out new works, street performances and the New Year’s energy happening downtown. Visit Dadaws.org for more information.

SATURDAY

CARtoons @ New Winston Museum (W-S), 10 a.m.

New Winston Museum continues their transportation-themed series with a collection of cartoons from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. Visit newwinston.org for more information.

Ego Trippin’ @ Urban Grinders (GSO), 6 p.m.

Street artist and owner of Urban Grinders Jeff Beck exhibits a collection of his own works as chilled-out dance-pop musician the Odds plays. Find the event page on Facebook for more information.

The Essence of Art @ Bethel AME Church (GSO), 5 p.m.

A poet, a gospel artist, a comedian and others share their craft to raise funds for fighting Sickle Cell Anemia. There’s a pre-performance red carpet walk, as well. This is one classy engagement. More information provided on site.

SUNDAY Morning basketball @ Morehead Recreation Center (HP), 9:30 a.m.

Community members (18 years and up) meet for a friendly basketball competition in the Morehead Recreation Center. Part of a program that runs through March, morning basketball sessions will be held every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month. Visit highpointnc.gov for more information.

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Chinese Christmas generosity I had the very good fortune to read your excellent article on sharing Chinese food… with others [“Sharing good Fortune, and Chinese food”; by Eric Ginsburg; Dec. 23, 2015]. I’m sure your Catholic grandmother in Ohio is smiling with pride when she reads that one! I’m sure you also picked up a couple of ‘sharing genes’ from your Jewish side!

It’s important that stories like this be told because very fortunate events like these in our lives remind us that we have a soul, and it speaks to us in surprising ways. You got to feed your soul that day, and I’m sure your actions touched the very soul of the unfortunate fellow who happened to luck upon you.

We at the Greensboro Voice love stories like yours. Thanks for touching our souls as well. Every new voice makes a difference to us all. Blessings to you.

Bob, Greensboro Learning to dance I knew your father [“Citizen Green: Christmas and the wheel of life”; by Jordan Green; Dec. 23, 2015]. He had a truly open mind and a genuine joy for life. He inspired dancing to thought and to music. He could find the girl in the room who would never think of dancing in front of anyone and with that great smile, have her dancing with complete abandon and having the time of her life in seconds. I imagine being his child might have had the hard times we all suffer due to our parents’ ways and our lack of maturity. I do know though that you were bequeathed a wonderful, solid base of seeing life in all its different trains of thought. I know you were as lucky as any of us get when it comes to drawing parents. It’s so good to know you see life with your dad as you should, now that you’re the adult. Be assured you are not alone — those who knew him have never really gotten over losing him either. And you have become like the girl who let loose and danced.

Susan Bean, via triad-city-beat.com Knitters united, will never be defeated There’s definitely an overarching sense of community at the Krankies Craft Market and has been for years [“Knitting together a crafting community”; by Daniel Wirtheim; Dec. 23, 2015]. It spans artistic media and age. I’m so glad to be part of this event!

Laura C. Frazier, Winston-Salem Voter suppression 101 Thank you for covering this very important, but little noticed, meeting [“Forsyth County elections board turns down request for voting site at WSSU”; by Jordan Green; Dec. 23, 2015]. Limiting early voting is a subtle but effective means for the Republican Party to disenfranchise voters who vote Democrat. The 2014 elections were proof enough of that.

Kathie Fansler, Winston-Salem

4 personal developments in 2015

by Daniel Wirtheim

1. Getting a car

After years of bicycle commuting, I bought my first car in 2015. It’s a white 2002 Mazda, a quick and sporty hatchback. It was great at first to drive around with The Cranberries Greatest Hits blasting, shifting up and down to get whatever I needed anytime I wanted. But I have to admit that I miss needing my bicycle. There’s something about the frenzied ride to make any appointment that’s more than a few miles away. I miss being sweaty all the time and biking through heavy traffic to Harris Teeter for only a backpack’s worth of groceries. I don’t think that a person can really appreciate a vehicle without a few years of bicycle commuting in a city like Greensboro. It’s a joy to bicycle, to be open to the world. And as I pass a cyclist with their hair blowing in the wind I sometimes think, I’m just being hurled down the street in a giant steel box.

2. Getting a degree

I was in college, getting my degree in media studies at UNCG, for the first five months of 2015. It was the end to what was without a doubt the best four years of my life so far. It went by in distinct layers that in the constant grind of post-college working and interning I haven’t found the time to peel apart and dissect.

3. Interning at TCB

I’ll really miss this gig and I’m not saying that just for the editors. I had my share of incorrect spellings, stories that I didn’t nail down the way I would have liked to, but I definitely grew as a storyteller and citizen of the Triad. I always had a passion for history and I quickly fell in love with the idea that I could record and tell the stories that would be someone else’s history. I also loved the sense of urgency that would carry me from one interview to the next and the joy of finding meaning in a stranger’s story.

4. Not being such a punk

I knew I was becoming less of a punk when I bought my first piece of IKEA furniture in 2015. It wasn’t about the rosy finish that I had chosen for my desk, it was about actually caring for my long neglected living space. And that’s an important development for someone who wants to become a more integral part of the community. My apartment is the only place that I can say is truly my own and if I expect to keep my community clean, I first must keep my own apartment clean. That desk, as personal as it may be, was my first step out a life of a sardonic passivity and into a more community-driven, active self.

HIRING

Triad City Beat is hiring motivated full and part-time sales people for commission based advertising sales.

College degree and prior successful sales experience preferred but not required.

Local travel and light lifting included in sales responsibilities. Occasional evening and weekend work. Must be a team player.

Send resume to brian@triad-city-beat.com.

No Calls accepted.

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58%

Winston-Salem

36%

Greensboro

6%

High Point

All She Wrote

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Shot in the Triad

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Games

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Good Sport

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Culture

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Cover Story

New question: What is your primary goal for 2015?

by Eric Ginsburg By the end of the first few episodes of the new Netflix documentary series “Making a Murderer,” most viewers will already be disheartened by the story of the wrongful imprisonment of Wisconsin man Steven Avery.

But as the 10-episode show builds — tracking an unbelievable series of events including Avery’s exoneration, lawsuit and subsequent murder charge for an unrelated case — his story becomes increasingly infuriating.

After Avery’s exoneration, he sued the city, police and district attorney who apparently knowingly put him behind bars for 18 years — it would’ve been longer had he not proved his innocence — for $36 million. As the suit picked up steam, with damning discoveries and a few depositions already filmed, Avery is charged with murder. But the “coincidental” timing is far from the most outrageous thing that happened in his second case, which is the focal point of the Netflix series.

This isn’t a story of incompetent lawyers, save for one crooked counsel for Avery’s nephew. It’s a heartbreaking narrative with aspects so maddeningly unethical and wrong that it’s difficult not to be depressed for the Avery family. And for the people of Manitowoc County, who live under a sheriff’s department that appears to be lying through its teeth at every turn, and allegedly planting several pieces of evidence or at best silently complicit.

Maybe some will watch “Making a Murderer” and come away doubting the claims made by Steven Avery’s counsel in court or in interviews. To do so would require a denial of the most basic common sense and rational thinking, unless the show’s producers excluded major aspects that contradict the Avery-innocence narrative.

But more than just Avery’s case, or the question of one or two cops allegedly willing to break the law to cover their own asses, the poignancy and importance of “Making a Murderer” is its far-reaching implications of how our legal system operates. The filmmakers, and two of Avery’s lawyers in particular, eloquently demonstrate how the legal system inherently favors the state and prosecution, handicapping defendants to such an extreme degree that those with sharp, dedicated lawyers may still hit an insurmountable barrier. Even if, as it appears in Avery’s case, they are innocent. And white.

Opinion

Jordan Green: Winston-Salem, by a nose. The opening of the art park (sorry, I can’t go with Artivity on the Green) and Bailey Park instantly transformed downtown Winston-Salem in magnificent ways. Meanwhile, the inaugural run of the National Folk Festival demonstrated how the urban landscape of downtown Greensboro could be animated. It’s a temporary encampment that will finish out its run in 2017, but it whetted our appetites for LeBauer Park and the Tanger Performing Arts Center.

Readers: Our editors and readers agree on this one — Winston-Salem walked away with 58 percent of the vote.

Most of the remainder went, unsurprisingly, for Greensboro (36 percent) while a few people took pity on High Point (6 percent). Ben Tietje explained why he disagrees with Clarey, Green and Ginsburg: “Greensboro,” he wrote. “A wave of national attention from Tiger Woods’ appearance at the Wyndham, to the highly publicized (and attended) National Folk Festival, to media coverage (Hops Burger Bar accolades, national TV coverage of the Sunset Hills Christmas Lights, etc.) pushes Greensboro ahead in 2015. Did I mention my family and I moved back, too?”

‘Making a Murderer’

News

Brian Clarey: Last year belonged to High Point, which at the time seemed to be making strides in a new direction.

Next year will be Greensboro’s, as some of the downtown construction comes online and other seeds that have been put in place come to fruition. But 2015 was all Winston-Salem, which rode a wave of economic and artistic renaissance into the creation of new urban parks, businesses that emphasize local, a prevailing mood of (relative) optimism and stability.

Even Ben Folds was enticed to come back for a visit, which is no small feat.

Eric Ginsburg: Winston-Salem. Like my colleagues said, 2016 is already squarely in Greensboro’s hands thanks to LeBauer Park, the Charlotte Hornets D-League team’s inaugural season in the Gate City, the return of the National Folk Festival and more. But for the reasons they said and more — including a barcade, statewide conferences dedicated to meat and beer, the formal opening of two distilleries —Winston-Salem was just the most enjoyable city in the Triad this year.

Up Front

The year is over. Well, pretty much. Probably by the time you read this it will be. So we wanted to poll our editors and readers about which Triad city experienced the greatest year.

It turns out, the majority of our readers and all our editors agree.

triad-city-beat.com

Which city improved most in 2015?

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION EDITORIAL

Political physics Unlike everything else trapped on this planet, our political system is not subject to the laws of physics.

What goes up does not always come down. Every action is not necessarily opposed by an equal and opposite reaction. And when an immovable object meets an irresistible force… well, in the case of state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, the immovable object runs for re-election unopposed.

The right-side governance that has been in place since 2010 has wrought much damage — to our environment, our state university system, our tax code, our public schools, our cities and the discourse among our citizens, which due to our wide political spectrum has gotten a mite surly in the last few years. Our state’s poor, elderly and infirm have been pushed to the margins even as their numbers continue to grow.

For those who drove our state into the red, there doesn’t seem to be any further to go, unless the end game for the Republican members of the General Assembly is to privatize every single function of government and force poor people to starve.

But things can always get worse.

With their majority, Republicans have gotten everything they’ve wanted, save for a few initiatives, like voting restrictions and redistricting, that may turn out to be illegal.

They’ve been driving the bus for five years, and in that time things have gotten worse for most North Carolinians — the regular citizens who are trying to buy homes, start businesses or find jobs, educate their children, have affordable healthcare and maybe sock away a few bucks for the uncertain future, and not the ones who want to bring their guns to the park and prevent women from getting birth control.

The GOP policies that have ruled the land have failed to bring prosperity, which by definition is a shared phenomenon. But they’ve squeezed all who would oppose them into inconsequential tracts, stacking the deck for the next election that comes up in the new year.

Just 44 percent of registered NC voters showed up in the 2014 election, the last time voters chose representatives to the General Assembly. But 2016 is at the apex of the election cycle.

We hit 68 percent in the last presidential year of 2012, just a couple clicks below the high-water mark of 70 percent set in 2008, when Barack Obama won the state.

We could easily choose a Democrat for president again in 2016, but that won’t have much effect on the General Assembly, which has insulated itself from the reality of physics.

CITIZEN GREEN

Presidential primary hall of mirrors Up until now, the 2016 presidential campaign has seemed like a reality TV show, which is to say that it has seemed like contrived entertainment that is totally unreal, although with due respect, that unkind observation is directed mainly at the

by Jordan Green Republican primary.

But it’s getting real. And a little scary.

For those who find national politics beneath their dignity, consider that North Carolina voters will be going to the polls to weigh in on the party nomination in only 11 weeks.

The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 1, followed by the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9, with 15 states following suit on Super Tuesday, March 1. This is going to go by fast.

With the campaign of soft-spoken neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson faltering with the bitter November of ISIS’ aggression as he found himself unable to match his rivals’ bellicosity, the field is left to whichever candidate can best position themselves as the anti-establishment crusader.

Despite Donald Trump’s ability to suck all the oxygen out of the room, it’s Sen. Ted Cruz who holds the advantage in Iowa, thanks in no small part to a conservative media machine that reinforces his brand.

Cruz is reviled by the GOP establishment, which is one of his greatest strengths. To mark just how far the party has traveled to the right in the past 20 years, former Sen. Bob Dole, the party’s presidential nominee in 1996, pondered the prospect of seeing Cruz’s name at the top of the ballot in November, and told MSNBC: “I might oversleep that day.”

As the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, Cruz is one of the most disliked men in Washington, for antics like filibustering to shut down the government and accusing the Republican senate leader of lying.

“You know when we launched our campaign, the New York Times promptly opined, ‘Cruz cannot win because the Washington elites despise him,’” he says in a super PAC ad published on Dec. 7, before thundering, “I kind of thought that was the whole point of the campaign.”

Meanwhile, consider the fate of poor Marco Rubio, the conservative darling of 2010, who made the unforgivable mistake of trying to broker a deal on immigration reform in 2013 — the same year Cruz was throwing his body onto the gears of government. Attempting to shore up his conservative bona fides, Rubio is traveling this week in Iowa with Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina lawmaker who presided over the embarrassingly inept Benghazi hearings that were designed as political theater to embarrass Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. That may not be all that impressive to the implacable base voters in Iowa

and other Republican primaries.

Quoting here from Paul Waldman’s piece on the Washington Post’s Plum Line blog on Monday because it’s so astute and funny: “While everyone waits for the voters to finally figure out that they ought to be supporting Rubio, the only candidate who at the moment looks like he might be able to defeat Donald Trump is Ted Cruz. From the perspective of the party’s fortunes in the general election, that would be sort of like being cured of your electoral syphilis by contracting gonorrhea.”

Which raises a curious matter: Why isn’t Trump going on the attack against Cruz, the one GOP candidate at this point that effectively stands between him and the nomination?

Mainline Democratic voters have been salivating with glee over Trump’s pledges to go on the attack against Bill Clinton for his sexism, as Hillary takes the former commander in chief on the road with her in Iowa. There’s a conspiracy theory floating out there that the Clintons created Trump to sew havoc in the Republican Party. Not to say there’s any credence to it, but stranger things have happened.

They were friends before they were enemies. It’s well documented that Trump has made donations to the Clinton foundation and Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign, and that the Clintons attended Trump’s wedding in 2005.

The Washington Post reported in August that Bill Clinton spoke with Trump by phone about the latter’s political prospects in the week before the real-estate mogul announced his presidential bid.

Whatever the status of Trump’s relationship with the Clintons, Jeb Bush, whose campaign is all but dead in the water, is certainly capable of seeing something nefarious afoot. He tweeted in early December: “Maybe Donald negotiated a deal with his buddy Hillary Clinton. Continuing this path will put her in the White House.”

He has a point, if the early numbers in an Elon University poll in September are to be taken serious. The poll found that Clinton would lose to Carson or Bush in a general-election matchup in North Carolina, sacrificing black voters to the former and independents to the latter.

But she would prevail over Trump in this crucial battleground state.

Meanwhile, buoyed by endorsements by the likes of Bob Vander Plaats of the Family Leader and conservative talk-radio host Steve Deace, the evangelical Cruz looks poised to carry Iowa. He could rack up significant wins in the Bible Belt states that comprise the core of the Super Tuesday cluster, and walk away with the nomination.

Who can say what chaotic forces have been unleashed before the first vote has even been cast?

Produce at bus depot

Probing our darkness: Recent violence offers opportunity for self-reflection are people with hearts and minds, with lives that include eating food, loving friends and families, and having deep convictions, all of which those of us who celebrated the recent holidays have recently experienced. But if we shut them out completely, if we see them as an other — if we demonize anything, whether a country or a people or an individual or a public service — we should expect violence of a kind that tears not only them but us asunder.

Whether the heinous acts of terrorists or the everyday transgressions of our neighbors, darkness pushes against our living-room windows, but we must examine our own darkness to have any hope of basking in the sunrise.

Opinion

Kat Bodrie loves red wine, Milan Kundera and the Shins. Her prose and poetry have been published in Slim Volume, Baby Lawn Literature, Pilcrow & Dagger and Coraddi. Her articles have appeared in Winston-Salem Monthly, Forsyth Woman and Forsyth Family.

News Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games

Fresh food & natural ingredients from Margarita’s garden Breakfast Lunch • Dessert • Juice bar

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Shot in the Triad

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All She Wrote

Darkness pressed against the other side of my living room window. I’d been scrolling through Facebook far too long, sneaking glances at the slow transition from daylight to nightfall, but I was riveted, pulled in by the kind of peace that idling on social media after a long workday can offer.

by Kat Bodrie Then I saw the headline, trending on the right-hand side. The phrase “Paris attacks” instantly entered my vernacular. My Facebook friends posted their sorrowful and horrified reactions. How could anyone do something like this? What could we possibly do about it?

I didn’t post anything. Like a dog with a bone, I needed to hide away, gnaw on it. I needed to wait until reporters excavated more information, until I could gain some sort of spiritual or emotional ground on which to view it.

I’ve been keen on self-reflection for as long as I can remember. I’ve been particularly reflective lately since I started a new job in Jamestown. During my first week, the early morning drives from Winston-Salem were opportunities for me to bask in the sunrise, to absorb as much nature as I could before spending long hours under fluorescent lighting, staring at computer screens. By Week 3, I was a monster.

I’m no stranger to Triad traffic, yet I become incensed when someone changes lanes without using their turn signal, especially if they are simultaneously cutting me off. I morph into a miniature Hulk, cursing and gesturing, clenching my teeth and stomach. Who do they think they are? Why are they so intent on causing me pain and suffering? I’ll show them who’s boss!

During Week 4, I noticed myself becoming angry again on the drive to work: the tensed muscles, thoughts intent on revenge. I breathed, I let them go, I saw through my own pathetic pride. Who knows what those people were experiencing or what they intended? They didn’t seem to want to do me wrong; I was jumping to conclusions. Plus, it wasn’t just the people cutting me off or not using their turn signals who were making me angry. It was anyone who wasn’t driving the way I would have driven.

Before we jump to conclusions about people who are similar to those who have committed violent acts against others, or even if we have already — especially if we have already — let’s take a minute to check our own pride, biases and reactions.

If someone looks different from us or lives differently or worships in a different way, they can still be good, ethical and moral. Hell, they are still people, with faults and strengths and idiosyncrasies, which we have, too.

The same can be said of those who commit the violent acts themselves. I admit, it can be difficult to acknowledge that they

Up Front

Maybe the most obvious solution to the Triad’s food-insecurity problem is to bring a grocery into a food desert, or a low-income neighborhood with

by Daniel Wirtheim limited access to a grocery store. But this solution is often easier said than done and might be better addressed at the center of what reliable transportation our cities have.

Anyone who can walk to a bus stop could make it to the city’s bus depot, and every city in the Triad has one. But none of them sell produce.

Bus depots might be the best way to get families experiencing food insecurity to a reliable source of real food.

Two pop-up produce markets debuted at bus depots in Atlanta and Dayton, Ohio in 2015. The Atlanta market operates once a week and the Dayton market three days a week and both accept SNAP and EBT payments — a pretty crucial element when selling to families in low-income food deserts.

According to a report by Dayton public radio station WYSO, organizers of the Dayton pop-up market were initially worried that only families with a disposition to buy vegetables would use the markets and their appeal would be limited. So the market commissioned cooking and nutritional classes right in the bus depot.

We have all the necessary tools to do something similar here in the Triad. It might take a coalition of local agencies to get a market going. A group like the Mobile Oasis Farmers Market, which offers produce in food deserts in Greensboro and High Point, might team up with the Guilford County Public Health Department to provide some cooking demonstrations along with the groceries. The Mobile Oasis Farmers Market already accepts SNAP and EBT and the bus depot may be where they’ll reach the most people living in food deserts with the time to talk about eating habits.

Because between transfer rides, which connect at the depot, there’s inevitably a period of time that a person spends idling and waiting for their next bus. And with a little reassurance and the prospect of a shopping trip cut short, the bus depot might be their new shopping center.

FRESH EYES

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Patio area available for gatherings & meetings

321 Martin Luther King Jr Dr. • Greensboro

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Cover Story

Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015

The Triad

What mattered most in 2015

We can measure a year in months and minutes, or mark the seasons as they go by.

But to really comprehend the last 365 days in the Triad, we need to look at what happened.

It’s part of our mission to help people understand their time and place, so every year we chronicle the people, places, moments, topics and things that have shaped our lives.

Within these 100 points of light, a picture forms, a portrait of our cities as they are, warts and all.

2015 saw heroes and villains, intrigue and ineptitude, beauty and destruction. And all of it conspired to bring us from the place we were… to the place we are.

in Winston-Salem this December. District Attorney Jim O’Neill has said the release of the video of Page’s death is prohibited by prosecutorial rules enjoining lawyers from making “extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused” and because the video is considered evidence in an ongoing investigation. Meanwhile, mindful of upheaval across the country in response to young, black men dying at the hands of the police, city leaders have called for the release of the video as quickly as possible.

3. Al Heggins While Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan coordinated with the Rev. Nelson Johnson to ease racial tensions, the city of High Point took the opposite tack, sidelining and eventually firing Human Relations Director Al Heggins when she organized community forums to allow citizens to talk about police-community relations. Heggins has filed a complaint against the city with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This saga is definitely not over.

People

1. Rhiannon Giddens Besides her turn at the National Folk Festival in Greensboro, native daughter Rhiannon Giddens had a huge year, releasing her solo debut album, Tomorrow is My Turn, in February, pulling off an impeccable performance on one of the last episodes of “Late Night with David Letterman” and landing on the cover of TCB in April.

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2. Travis Page The death of 31-year-old Travis Page in police custody after being pepper-sprayed prompted immediate calls for transparency and accountability by community leaders

Rhiannon Giddens broke out in 2015 with her first solo album and a key role at the National Folk Festival.

4. Trudy Wade We thought we were done with Trudy Wade when she left her Greensboro City Council District 5 seat to take a spot in the state Senate. But among the legislation she sponsored this year was a move to redistrict Greensboro

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State Sen. Trudy Wade made an unsuccessful attempt to restructure Greensboro city government in 2015.

Justin Outling made history as the first black person elected in majority white district in Greensboro.

Nathan Wilson was cleared through DNA evidence after spending a year in jail on a murder charge.

into eight districts, up from five, eliminating at-large positions and revoking the mayor’s vote. SB 36 eventually passed after being rolled into a House bill, prompting a lawsuit by the city and a judge’s injunction, stalling the deal until the legal air clears. Rumors of new candidates waiting in the wings seemed, come election time, spurious.

co-working space opened in another one of his properties.

Renovation is underway on a nearby corner property he owns, and Greensboro Distilling signed a lease to open next door to Gibb’s Hundred Brewing (both in buildings Zimmerman owns and renovated).

designed to incentivize affordable housing.

5. Mark Walker and Alma Adams For the first time in more than two decades, Greensboro and High Point have not just one but two new representatives in the US House. Republican Mark Walker was elected to replace Howard Coble, who died in 2015 after retiring from Congress. And Democrat Alma Adams won election to the seat vacated by Mel Watt, who accepted an appointment by President Obama to head the Federal Housing Finance Authority. Walker has focused on human trafficking, among other issues, in his first term in office, while Adams has tackled food insecurity and veterans’ issues.

8. Mike Coe Not everyone knows Mike Coe, but he’s an important player as a property owner and developer in Winston-Salem, with holdings in the Downtown Arts District. In 2015, he stepped up to a more prominent position by jumpstarting the renovation of the Pepper Building, a strategically placed property that will tie Restaurant Row on West Fourth Street to the government district. City council approved $1.6 million in low-interest loans to restore the 1927 building with a ground-floor restaurant and retail, along with rental units, in November. The loan would come from the city’s new workforce housing program, which is

9. Paul Foley Paul Foley, a young attorney who moved to Winston-Salem in 2011 to take a job at the Kilpatrick Stockton law firm, rapidly rose through the ranks of the GOP thanks to his campaign work on behalf of Pat McCrory during the 2012 gubernatorial campaign, for which he was awarded a seat on the state Board of Elections. Revelations in the News & Observer that Foley intervened in an elections staff investigation into Chase Burns, an Oklahoma sweepstakes executive who donated to the McCrory campaign and also happened to be a client of Foley’s law firm, led to the young lawyer’s abrupt resignation from the board in July.

10. Justin Outling This is the year that lawyer Justin Outling catapulted

6. Larry Woods Larry Woods, the independent-minded CEO of the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem, has ingratiated himself to Republican members of Congress by warning that many residents have become dependent on public housing. But Democratic Mayor Allen Joines has also forged an alliance with Woods, grafting the agency head’s initiative onto his anti-poverty agenda. With grand opening of the new Camden Station community this year, the housing authority expanded its stock of housing geared towards incentivizing residents to look for work.

7. Andy Zimmerman Before long, developer and sweatpants fan Andy Zimmerman is going to need a trophy room for all the awards and salutatory newspaper articles written about him. This year, Crafted and Preyer opened in one of his renovated buildings, he took aim at new properties in downtown Greensboro’s South End including the former Lotus Lounge and Flying Anvil, and HQ Greensboro

Paul Lowe was selected to replaced Earline Parmon as state senator over Joycelyn Johnson in Winston-Salem.

Frank Gilliam received a warm welcome when he took the job of chancellor of UNCG.

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015

to be determined.

13. Wayne Scott What a year for Wayne Scott. In March, Scott was named chief of the Greensboro Police Department, where he had served as deputy chief. He was selected over Danielle Outlaw, who at the time served as a deputy police chief in Oakland, Calif. Later in 2015, after the publication of an article highlighting the department’s practices in the New York Times (see item No. 57), Scott decided to temporarily suspend vehicle stops due to vehicle equipment infractions, a bold move that some critics say does not go far enough but that the TCB editorial staff applauded as a first step.

Cover Story

Wayne Scott, a former deputy chief, became the new Greensboro police chief this year.

from the chair of the city’s minimum housing commission to the history books after first being appointed and then being elected to represent District 3 on Greensboro City Council. It’s not just notable that Outling, a first-time candidate, won by a considerable margin, or that he did so as a first-time candidate or as a Democrat in a seat that’s historically been held by Republicans (though races are nonpartisan). It’s also that Outling is the first black member of council elected in a district race where the voters are majority white. Since joining council in the summer, Outling has demonstrated that he’s an independent thinker who doesn’t vote based on faction, party line or ideology, a decision-making approach that his campaign focused heavily on.

11. Frank Gilliam The public reception for Frank Gilliam, the newly appointed chancellor at UNCG, in May drew dignitaries like US Rep. Alma Adams and former Greensboro mayor Jim Melvin. Considering the autocratic and opaque leadership style of his predecessor, Linda Brady, Gilliam’s arrival was greeted by faculty as a chance for a new start. Gilliam took the job after serving as dean of the school of public affairs at UCLA. Since his first day on the job in September, Gilliam has focused mostly on familiarizing himself with the university’s bureaucracy and student culture.

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12. Eric Robert The downtown property owner doesn’t just belong on this list because he purchased a building at the corner of Lewis and South Elm streets this year, with costly renovations already underway, but that’s part of it. More notably, Eric Robert is currently suing the city, with a deposition of Mayor Nancy Vaughan happening in secret this November after a contentious deposition in late October.

The outcome of the suit, which revolves around the mill Robert owns a couple blocks from his new property, is yet

14. Bernie Sanders, Dr. Ben Carson and Dr. Jill Stein The contrast between the popular appeal of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who drew an overflow crowd at the Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center in September, and Green Party hopeful Dr. Jill Stein, who attracted about 40 people as part of a panel discussion at Guilford College in November, could hardly be sharper. Republican presidential Candidate Dr. Ben Carson also visited the Triad in 2015, with a stop at Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem in late September.

15. Jack Bonney The Greensboro music scene lost a key player in November when Jack Bonney packed up his belongings and moved to Durham to help run the new Carolina Soul record store. Since arriving from Baltimore 11 years ago, Bonney played a seminal if unheralded role in the Triad music scene, managing the UNCG campus radio station, spending time at WSNC, promoting concerts, DJ-ing parties and selling vinyl.

16. Paul Lowe Winston-Salem got a new state senator in February when the Forsyth County Democrats selected the Rev. Paul Lowe to replace Earline Parmon, who resigned to handle constituent services for US Rep. Alma Adams.

Lowe, who serves as pastor at Shiloh Baptist Church, has a long track record of community leadership, taking a position against the marriage amendment in 2012 and speaking out against the county’s handling of the tax revaluation in 2013, among other highlights.

17. Aldona Wos Dr. Aldona Wos came to prominence by raising funds for various Republican causes and candidates in her Greensboro home, riding her connections to become President George W. Bush’s ambassador to Estonia and later, in 2012, the head of Gov. Pat McCrory’s Department. of Health & Human Services. She resigned in August, about six weeks before the subpoenas came down from a grand jury investigation into hiring practices, compensation and no-bid contracts within the department. No indictments yet, but Thomas Walker, US Attorney for the Eastern District where the investigation began, stepped down last week.

April Parker brought revolutionary fire to Black Lives Matter and other protest actions.

18. Nathan Wilson As evidence that justice is rarely perfect, the Guilford County District Attorney dropped a murder charge and released a 42-year-old High Point black man named Nathan Wilson in February after he was held for more than a year. The police had built their case around statements by two career criminals who cooperated in exchange for leniency and by many accounts weren’t even at the scene of the crime. The district attorney ultimately decided to free Wilson based on DNA evidence that returned from the state lab with inconclusive results. In many ways, the case illustrates how lack of trust between the black community and the police undermines justice: More than 100 people were present at the nightclub where the murder occurred, and not one of them saw fit to give a statement to the police.

19.Ben Folds Winston-Salem native and piano-pop notable Ben Folds performed in Winston-Salem for the first time in more than a decade. The guy who cut his teeth with Evan Olson in Majosha took the stage this time with the Winston-Salem Symphony in December.

20. Tony Wilkins The councilman’s hair went white during the summer months when he was defending Senate Bill 36, likely at the behest of the woman whose campaigns he’s managed. But his adamant position and allusions to “big daddy” didn’t cost him anything in the election. Running unopposed in District 5 gave him the green light to continue as the cantankerous conservative on city council, which apparently suits him just fine. Whispers of a state House run against Rep. John Blust turned out to be just that: wind.

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Marianne DiNapoli-Mylet, a fixture in Winston-Salem’s Downtown Arts District, folded her tent in 2015.

Housing Authority of Winston-Salem CEO Larry Woods continued to burnish his reputation as a reformer.

Zack Matheny resigned from Greensboro City Council and took the helm of Downtown Greensboro Inc.

21. April Parker A primary voice of Greensboro’s Black Lives Matter movement and a principal in the Queer People of Color Collective had a big year, including an appearance on a February cover of TCB. With protest actions against police violence, in support of inclusion among the LGBT community and election work for Thessa Pickett in District 1, she escalated her presence for revolutionary causes. In November, as part of a city work-group convened to facilitate better relations among citizens and police, Parker called for the removal of the city manager and police chief, demonstrating that the next generation of activists is coming out swinging.

24. Charles Aycock Turns out one of Greensboro’s most prominent citizens [nope, that’s not true] — and for whom a street, a neighborhood, a school and an auditorium at UNCG are named — was very much a bad guy. Charles Aycock was elected governor of the state in a campaign that pushed segregation, white supremacy and the systemic disenfranchisement of black voters. UNCG brought up the idea of changing the name of its auditorium on its own.

27. Brent Christensen The Greensboro Partnership has undergone numerous significant changes as of late, the most recent being the arrival of new CEO Brent Christensen, who arrived from Mississippi in the early summer. He brought David Ramsey, the new vice president of economic development at the partnership, with him from the Mississippi Development Authority. The two men were widely heralded as a breath of fresh air, particularly thanks to Christensen’s experience, candidness and approach to the position.

22. Tiger Woods He didn’t win, but disgraced golfer Tiger Woods made a pretty strong showing during his first-ever appearance at the Wyndham Championship, Greensboro’s PGA event, coming into Day 4 at 13 under par and bringing in record crowds. But after a disastrous fourth round, including a triple bogey on the 11th hole, his season ended at Sedgefield.

23. Skip Alston This guy: The former director of the board that runs the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in downtown Greensboro and ex-chair of the Guilford County Commission didn’t have an office to run for this year, but he kept his hand in the game by backing Wade’s gambit, claiming that the redistricting would increase African-American representation on Greensboro City Council. When the city sued for an injunction, Alston mustered a group to file an intervening motion. He was also part of the museum group that “accidentally” sued the News & Record for libel in December, though that lawsuit was pulled a day later.

25. Roy Carroll If you don’t recognize the name Roy Carroll, you either just moved to town or don’t live in Greensboro. Because Carroll, now the publisher of the Rhino Times conservative opinion-based publication, is one of the city’s largest developers, with a hand in everything from a possible new skyscraper to a recent noise ordinance. Carroll purchased the CityView apartments in Southside and convinced the city to close part of Lindsay Street by the Grasshoppers stadium for a new apartment complex and hotel project of his own. Progress did occur this year on the site, known as the Bellemeade Village or less officially as Carrolltown, but one would have to pay close attention to notice the minimal changes behind the construction fencing.

26. Marianne DiNapoli-Mylet The guard in downtown Winston-Salem’s Arts District is constantly changing. This year painter, muralist and gallery stalwart Marianne DiNapoli-Mylet cut loose after more than 15 years at Studios@625, which she says has become more of a gallery than a studio. “The galleries do well while studio artists suffer,” she told TCB in November. “I think that just happens in cities. I don’t think there’s anything we can do to prevent it.”

28. Zack Matheny In the timeline of Zack Matheny’s life, there may be several years more significant than 2015, but it’d be hard for this one not to rank near the top. For starters, Matheny resigned from his position on Greensboro City Council — commenting at the time that his wife and kids had only ever known him in the role — to run Downtown Greensboro Inc. In many ways, Matheny had led the charge against his predecessor, Jason Cannon, for his handling of several issues. And then, not long after taking the organization’s helm, Matheny received a DWI. He managed to hold onto his post, though his director of operations resigned promptly after the incident.

29. Nancy Vaughan The mayor of Greensboro breezed through her re-election campaign this fall, becoming the first mayor since Keith Holliday to win a second term (Yvonne Johnson, Bill Knight and Robbie Perkins all served just one term as mayor). Vaughan prides herself and this council on avoiding contentiousness while still tackling other issues that previous councils and mayors avoided like contagious diseases, such as any mention of the Greensboro Massacre or police accountability.

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015 Cover Story

Places

30. Bailey Park and Artivity on the Green Downtown Winston-Salem’s public parks took a quantum leap forward in 2015. On any given Friday from May through October, art-crawl revelers could be seen frolicking in the new Artivity on the Green, a reclaimed parking lot surrounded by a 124-foot mural wall, centered on majestic red spires with mist shooting into the air. Drive a couple blocks over to the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter and there was the new Bailey Park, most likely with a band playing on the stage. Stitch Design Shop, incidentally, won awards for both projects from the American Institute of Architects’ Winston-Salem Design Section, which covers 11 counties in northwest North Carolina.

31. Rich Fork Preserve The 117-acre Rich Fork Preserve surfaced as a bright spot on the horizon for High Point in early 2015. A gorgeous natural area surrounding a 19th Century farmstead, the preserve lies in the central-western part of the city. But the preserve quickly became a flashpoint in a controversy over the Guilford County Open Space program, with partisans squabbling over whether mountain biking should be allowed on the property. As the year ends, the Guilford County Commission appears intent on deciding in favor of the mountain bikers.

32. Ziggy’s The announcement in November that Ziggy’s, Win-

ston-Salem’s storied music venue, will be closing came as little surprise to many, but still represents a seismic shift.

Landlords Hank Perkins and Drew Gerstmyer made the decision not to renew the lease after February 2016, but longstanding tensions between the owners of the business had already frayed the venue to the breaking point. Expect partners Charles Womack and Brad McCauley to try to open a new venue in Winston-Salem in the new year, while Jay Stephens pursues a separate venture as a local concert promoter.

33. Business 40 Renovations to the Business 40 expressway through downtown Winston-Salem won’t begin until the fall of 2016, but the project came into sharp focus in 2015 with the unveiling of iconic bridge designs by the non-profit Creative Corridors Coalition, which contracted a trio of renowned architects — Donald McDonald, Larry Kirkland and Walter Hood. And over the summer, the city nailed down federal air-quality funds to pay for a multi-use path running parallel to the expressway that will link Baptist Hospital to the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter.

34. North Elm District For the second year, a handful of High Point companies specializing in one-of-a-kind items marketed themselves as the North Elm District, or NED — part of an effort to distinguish themselves from the gargantuan showrooms owned by industry giant International Market Centers.

The effort has only been partially successful: Some of the owners of Club Cu confessed that they were a little fuzzy on the concept and a pair of NED shoppers at the showroom said they had never heard of it during the fall market in October.

35. Ardmore Terrace Apartments Winston-Salem’s growing challenge of retaining affordable housing took a dramatic turn when Councilman Dan Besse learned that his apartment at Ardmore Terrace near Baptist Hospital would be torn down to make way for high-end housing. Besse announced he would be moving so that he could fight the redevelopment plan without having a conflict of interest. At last check, he hadn’t made much headway in coming to a workable compromise with the owners of the properties. The plan stirred up anger and dismay about the fate of elderly residents who will be hard pressed to find new housing that is as affordable and convenient.

36. Reynolds Building The 22-story Reynolds Building, a model for the Empire State Building in New York City, was purchased by Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group and PMC Property Group in 2014, but many Winston-Salem leaders got their first look inside the art deco monument known for its tobacco leaf-themed metalwork in January 2015. No surprise that the Winston-Salem City Council approved a historic landmark designation for the building this year.

37. Hanes-Lowrance Middle School A newspaper exposé published by the Winston-Salem Journal in January suggesting that Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools had significantly downplayed the presence of toxic chemicals in the groundwater beneath Hanes-Lowrance Middle School set off panic among some parents. In less than three weeks, the school board would vote to close the school as parents pulled their children out. But later other parents expressed dismay about the closure of an urban school, and Lenny Siegel, a nationally renowned expert on vapor intrusion, told Triad City Beat he thought the district had overreacted.

38. First Baptist Church A year after the collapse of the Kilby Hotel on Washington Street, the historic black commercial district of High Point, the city knocked down First Baptist Church, a focal point of civil rights organizing in the 1960s. The loss of the two historic buildings, which were next door to each other, dealt a blow to the street, where local entrepreneurs have focused revitalization efforts for decades.

Meanwhile, talk of a new ballpark at the thoroughfare’s western end has kindled cautious optimism about the district’s future. An art gallery, coffeehouse, clothing store and mature folks nightclub all populate the street, but the most viable business remains soul-food standby Becky’s and Mary’s.

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Plans solidified for the renovation of Business 40, including iconic bridges and a multi-use path, in 2015.

39. High Point library plaza High Point may seem to have returned to stasis since

World of Beer and a few other chains opened in the Midtown neighborhood of Greensboro this year.

the election of Mayor Bill Bencini and a new city council, but on at least one front the city is moving forward. City council voted in early May to create a plaza as a public gathering space in front of High Point Public Library, overcoming resistance from a conservative faction that wanted to save money and retain more parking.

40. Entertainment District Developers Hank Perkins and Drew Gerstmyer significantly expanded on Winston-Salem’s Entertainment District, an actual zoning classification drawn around their real-estate holdings at the north end of Trade Street, with the opening of Camel City BBQ Factory. The partners also made a lateral move and a strategic retreat. The District Rooftop Bar & Grill, located on the developers’ anchor property, closed in late May, and the chain Famous Toastery opened in the space the next month. Meanwhile, the partners announced in November that they would not renew the lease for Ziggy’s. (See item No. 32.)

41. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Nope, not talking about the gritty boulevards with the same namesake in Greensboro and Winston-Salem; the city of High Point finally named one of its streets in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. With a new mayor and new members filling four other seats, city council dispatched an olive branch of reconciliation in January, folding in a decision to change the name of College Drive to University Drive. The new signs went up in December.

Now that High Point has finally caught up to 1990, folks in Winston-Salem are starting to talk about renaming a street in honor of Barack Obama. Now that should be controversial.

42. Andrews High School Rodney Wilds, a popular principal, was reassigned from Andrews High School in High Point to Dudley High School in Greensboro in 2015. The reassignment exacerbated parents and alumni’s existential anxiety as enrollment at the school has dropped over the years and become less diverse, with black students increasing pro-

portionate to their white counterparts. “Mr. Wilds brought stability, but he’s taken out and sent to Dudley,” the Rev. J. Robert Dudley, who announces football and basketball games at the school, told Triad City Beat. “Dudley was in the same position as us. They were worried about their stability at Dudley, so they took our strong leader and gave him to Dudley.”

43. Hops The Greensboro burger joint was named the Best Burger in America in July by Trip Advisor, creating even more stress on the tenuous parking situation on Spring Garden Street. Shortly afterwards, Josephine’s next door reimagined itself as Scrambled, a Southern breakfast place, and Hops announced a second location on Battleground Avenue.

44. Lewis Street Gunplay in August near the Lotus Lounge took the life of a 19-year-old, after which business owner Paul Talley closed the club and owner Eric Robert sold the building to Andy Zimmerman. The spot at the end of the block has yet to be occupied again, but Zimmerman’s other tenants, HQ Greensboro and the Forge, bring entrepreneurial energy to the street. Gibbs Hundred, which won a Silver Medal in the Great American Beer Festival for its Pernicious IPA. Continues apace. And Greensboro Distilling signed a lease to move into the Forge space at the start of 2016.

45. LoFi We’ve taken to calling the recently activated neighborhood at the junction of Eugene, Smith and Battleground Lower Fisher, or LoFi, for its position at the southern edge of Fisher Park. It’s been a big year for the corner where Deep Roots settled, with the addition of Preyer Brewing and Crafted Street, and a leg of the Downtown Greenway supposedly coming through in 2016. Does anyone even remember what used to be there?

triad-city-beat.com

46. Midtown Greensboro developer Marty Kotis secured enough property along the Battleground/Lawndale corridor to create his own district, which he’s dubbed Midtown.

Within its confines are the Marshall Free House (Marty’s), Burger Warfare (Marty’s), Mac’s Speed Shop (not Marty’s), Pig Pounder Brewery (Marty’s), World of Beer (not Marty’s, but he rents to them) and Red Cinema (Marty’s), with a future leg of the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway running right through it. Several other chains, including Chicken Salad Chick and Potbelly Sandwich Shop, took up residence along Westover Terrace.

47. Downtown Greenway Development continued along the Downtown Greenway this year, although the Greensboro project is behind schedule. A short block of Battleground Avenue did close in front of the planned Joymongers brewery — which is rapidly being built — for a pocket park as part of the greenway, though construction of a nearby stretch of the path is lagging behind. A design for the greenway’s northeast corner was approved in October.

48. Revolution Mill The work underway to transform Revolution Mill will likely also transform the surrounding area of northeast Greensboro as millions upon millions of dollars are poured into the former mill’s renovation. With Self Help on board and likely a gigantic Natty Greene’s brewing campus, the site will be increasingly unrecognizable to those who last saw it just a year or two ago.

49. May Way dumplings Finally, a menu dedicated to something the Triad generally lacked until now: dumplings. The compact and affordable Chinese restaurant invited the public inside near the end of the summer and TCB food writer Eric Ginsburg was certainly impressed.

Krankies remodeled and began serving food this year, including this chicken sandwich.

50. Krankies Not only did this coffeeshop and cultural staple undergo dramatic renovations this year, but Krankies began serving food in 2015. And good food, too. The Winston-Salem hub managed to host shows for Phuzz Phest through it all, and the new space looks pretty incredible.

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015

51. Sutler’s Spirit The Triad’s first legal distillery in generations technically opened in 2014, but it didn’t have any product on North Carolina ABC store shelves until this year. The arrival of the black ceramic gin bottles proved to be a watershed moment — stores immediately and repeatedly ran out of stock, and Sutler’s Spirit can hardly keep up with demand — for the company and the industry locally. Since then Broad Branch Distilling has opening in Winston-Salem as well, to be followed shortly by Greensboro Distilling in 2016 if all goes as planned.

Cover Story

52 .Natty Greene’s Greensboro’s longstanding and oldest brewery is outgrowing its production facility across from the Greensboro Coliseum, and in its quest for a new campus akin to what Stone Brewing had in mind for its East Coast facility (which almost landed in Greensboro), Natty Greene’s owners said early this year that they would need to consider all options, including those outside the city. But as 2016 approached, it appeared that only the minutia remained in working out a deal for the brewing company to relocate and expand at the Revolution Mill property in northeast Greensboro.

53. Greensboro skatepark It’s an honor to be able to include the city’s skatepark under “places” this year, though to be fair the long-desired facility is still not a reality. But in 2015, the process finally gained traction thanks to city council, and a location near Greenhill Cemetery and Latham Park was selected.

54. Silo Deli After Michael Touby’s allegations of unpaid debts by Silo’s then owner in February, Will Kingery bought the Reynolda Village restaurant and bar. Kingery, who also owns Willow’s Bistro and King’s Crab Shack, made another big change in Winston-Salem’s culinary world, bringing in chef Travis Myers from River Birch Lodge to Willow’s.

Moments

55. Voting rights trial North Carolina became the flashpoint for the national struggle over voting rights when the state’s election law — considered the most restrictive voting law in the country — went on trial in federal court in Winston-Salem. The Republican-controlled General Assembly pushed through the controversial legislation shortly after the US Supreme Court struck down significant portions of the Voting Rights Act requiring North Carolina and other states to get preclearance before undertaking electoral changes.

Judge Thomas Schroeder has yet to decide the case, but the Advancement Project, one of the plaintiffs, predicts that: “his ruling will have sweeping consequences for the state of voting rights nationwide.”

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56. Crafted/Preyer opens The opening of Crafted: the Art of Street Food and Preyer Brewing, two adjacent businesses sharing a building, represented a significant shift not just for the LoFi

People waited for hours to get into Maya Angelou’s estate sale.

neighborhood but also for downtown Greensboro more broadly. A mini parking battle with neighbors ensued after the venues opened, underscoring the changing nature of the area and the expansion of downtown off of Elm Street.

57. New York Times exposé When a front-page Sunday New York Times investigative piece highlighted the disparate treatment of black motorists in Greensboro in late October, the city sprang into action. TCB Associate Editor Eric Ginsburg contributed research to the article, and a follow up in the New York Times quoted work by TCB Senior Editor Jordan Green. For some, the article dramatically changed the way they looked at the city’s police department and allegations of racial disparities.

58. Greensboro Massacre marker In May, more than 35 years after the incident, a historical marker for the Nov. 3, 1979 Greensboro Massacre was unveiled not far from downtown. More than 100 people gathered to commemorate the victims of a Klan/Nazi attack on an anti-racist, communist and labor rally in the former Morningside Homes complex, including survivors of the massacre.

59. Central Carolina Worker Justice Center In September, the Central Carolina Worker Justice Center opened on the fringes of downtown Greensboro in a building operated by the Interactive Resource Center. The worker justice center has since hosted movie screenings, meetings and other labor-oriented events in a space proponents heralded as a new organizing hub. It’s a joint project of numerous local organizations including NC Raise Up, the North Carolina AFL-CIO, Black Lives Matter, the Greensboro YWCA and more.

60. Hornets D-League The Charlotte Hornets announced in October that it had selected Greensboro as the home for its forthcoming

development league. The minor-league team will play its games, beginning with next year’s season, in the Pavilion at the Greensboro Coliseum complex. It’s a big win for the city, which won out over others in both Carolinas to land the yet-to-be-named team, and for Triad basketball fans especially.

61. Greensboro College sexual harassment The 2015-2016 school year started off a little rocky at Greensboro College as one or more first-year students allegedly sexually harassed and heckled fellow students during a performance of a play about sexual assault.

The school promptly swung into action, promising a full investigation and saying it would take the matter seriously.

But with the semester now over, no public announcement about the end of the school’s investigation ever came, despite a comment from the school’s spokesperson in mid-September saying a statement would arrive “fairly quick.”

62. Maya Angelou estate sale Though the legendary writer and former Wake Forest University professor Maya Angelou passed away in 2014, her estate sale was held this August. It drew massive crowds for the multi-day event at her home not far from campus, as people traipsed through, looking for pieces of Angelou’s legacy.

63. International Market Centers aborted IPO International Market Centers is the undisputed heavyweight in the world of furniture showroom leases, controlling 42.6 percent of real estate in High Point’s central business district, according to a 2014 analysis by TCB. So plans by the Las Vegas-based company, which is owned in part by Bain Capital, to go public were closely watched.

But the company pulled back from the gambit in May, despite attracting considerable interest from investors.

Company spokesperson Eden Bloss said the company’s decision was influenced by volatility in Standard & Poor’s

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Ex Hex, who played at Bailey Park, was one of the standout acts at Phuzz Phest in Winston-Salem.

financial ratings and a 6 percent drop in the RMZ real estate index. The company took on significant debt in August 2014 in preparation for the initial public offering.

A prospectus put out by International Market Centers hints at some of the company’s challenges: “Our ability to achieve profitability is dependent on a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control.”

64. Coltrane festival The smooth jazz and R&B that typifies the lineup at the John Coltrane International Jazz & Blues Festival is the musical equivalent of cheap, Chinese imports in the furniture industry — it’s what the current market demands. Still, there were moments at this year’s festival in High Point when artists referenced the iconoclastic legacy of the city’s native son — Poncho Sanchez’s sincere tribute with “Giant Steps,” bassist Marcus Miller’s spiritual depth in his composition “Gorée,” Snarky Puppy’s heady experimentation and the NC Coltrane All Stars’ celebratory rendition of “Body and Soul.”

65. RiverRun/Phuzz Phest The two festivals have been running concurrently in the month of April in Winston-Salem for five years now.

While Phuzz celebrates the local sound in the clubs around town, RiverRun lends weight to the city’s reputation for the arts in the more highbrow theaters and gathering spaces. The weekend when they converge is the most exciting in the city.

66. US Figure Skating Nationals For eight days in January, the best American skaters

Mavis Staples brought the soul and was the soul of the National Folk Festival in Greensboro.

convened in Greensboro. Winners included Jason Brown, men’s singles, and Ashley Wagner, women’s singles.

67. National Black Theatre Festival The National Black Theatre Festival comes to Winston-Salem every two years, with dozens of performances and artists ranging from seasoned pros to experimental scenes. In August, the city gave off the vibe of the Harlem Renaissance.

68. USA Olympics Gymnastics Championships Over six days in June, elite US athletes, many of them bound for the Olympics next year, competed at the Greensboro Coliseum.

69. National Folk Festival For a glorious weekend in September, the north end of downtown Greensboro played host to the International Folk Festival, the first in a three-year booking. Behind headliner Mavis Staples, scores of acts graced a half-dozen stages with highlight performances from Rhiannon Giddens (See No. TK????******), New Orleans piano professor Henry Butler, bluesman Marquise Knox and more.

Topics

70. Trans rights The high profile enjoyed by “Orange Is the New Black” actress Laverne Cox — who visited Wake Forest University in October — and Caitlyn Jenner’s public transition lifted trans rights to new prominence across the country

Laverne Cox, from “Orange Is the New Black,” visited Winston-Salem, helping raise the profile of trans rights.

in 2015. NC Trans Pride held its second annual statewide trans gathering at Caldcleugh Multicultural Arts Center in Greensboro in September. And in November, members of the trans community and supporters protested Greene Street Club in Greensboro after Jonathan Green, a young, gender-nonconforming person, was ejected from the club after attempting to use the women’s bathroom.

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Cover Story

Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015

who have been victimized by educating law-enforcement officers and advocating for legislative reform. She told her story to TCB intern Sayaka Matsuoka in June. Rachel Parker, the anti-sex-trafficking program manager at World Relief High Point, said that large events like the High Point Furniture Market and the ACC men’s basketball tournament tend to drive spikes in sex trafficking because of a temporary boom in the population.

Greensboro drew attention from around the state for bucking the national hysteria surrounding Syrian refugees, with residents welcoming newcomers through a Thanksgiving dinner.

71. Participatory budgeting The city of Greensboro implemented participatory budgeting in 2015, following a split vote by city council the previous October to adopt the program. Some of the ideas put forward during public-input meetings to determine how to spend $100,000 in each of the city’s five city council districts include embedding light reflectors along bike lanes and installing stone chess tables in neighborhood parks. Residents will get to vote on how to spend the money in May 2016, around the same time city council finalizes the budget.

pandering to his conservative base, Gov. Pat McCrory came to Greensboro to sign the bill into law.

74. Sex trafficking Anna Malika, a young woman in Greensboro who survived sex trafficking, has become an advocate for women

75. Heroin/opiates TCB got a handle on the epidemic of opiate addiction, centered on the supply point of High Point but affecting people across the Triad, in 2015. The epidemic has accelerated through the over-prescription of pain pills and subsequent crackdown, leading many addicts to switch to heroin. We published a story in January about four women who struggled with heroin addiction, and followed up in September with a story about Jen McCormack, a friend of Senior Editor Jordan Green, who died after undergoing a heart attack in the Forsyth County jail while awaiting trial on prescription drug fraud charges. While the circumstances of McCormack’s death remain unclear, the story brought to light that many local jails across North Carolina do not guarantee medication-assisted therapy, which is considered the standard of care and particularly critical to the health of pregnant women.

76. Busking Winston-Salem City Council approved a new ordinance regulating busking in April, but the issue was largely driven by two amateur musicians working the late-night bar crowds on West Fourth Street while pushing well-to-do

72. Winston-Salem bond projects In 2015, Winston-Salem residents began to see the results of $139.2 million bond that was approved in November 2014. In late August, City Manager Lee Garrity announced an aggressive schedule to begin spending funds on police district stations, a sprayground, lazy river and observation deck at local parks, and sidewalk and greenway construction in outlying areas of the city, complementing the city’s impressive downtown renaissance.

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73. Immigrant ID Greensboro stood out as progressive beacon in a state that has taken a hard turn to the right in the past five years in two respects (see Item No. 86). In September, faith leaders joined Greensboro and Burlington police officials in a press conference called by FaithAction International to support the use of immigrant IDs. Rep. Debra Conrad, a Winston-Salem Republican, was among the cosponsors of a bill with the Orwellian title the Protect North Carolina Act that made it illegal for municipalities to recognize the IDs. The following month, in what must either be considered a monumental act of vindictiveness or naked

Mass shootings proliferated across the country, but as Liz Seymour’s cover story in Triad City Beat in October documented, guns also played a significant role in suicide.

triad-city-beat.com

residents of the Nissen Building to the brink of madness.

Since the ordinance was passed, the city hasn’t seen much busking, but outdoor music is alive and well, thanks to outdoor stages at Artivity on the Green and Bailey Park, and street parties hosted by Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership.

77. Liquor house parties High Point police put a handful of liquor-house operators in the impoverished east-central core of the city on notice in 2015 that they would be watching, responding to escalating complaints from neighbors about gunfire, loud music and cars impeding passage of emergency vehicles.

The police arrested various guests traveling to and from the parties, but had difficulty finding anything to charge the operators with, and to date the city has yet to take legal action to shut the parties down.

78. The barcade We’ve been lobbying in the pages of TCB for a barcade — an arcade for grownups with video games, pinball and table sports — almost since the beginning, but in 2015 one opened in downtown Winston-Salem in the form of a barbecue joint. Camel City BBQ Factory came online in the spring, and devoted its top floor to the enterprise.

79. Aggie football The NC A&T University Aggies finished out the season at 9-2, and beat Alcorn State in the Georgia Dome to win the HBCU National Championship at the Celebration Bowl in December. As always, they drew a crowd during the school’s massive homecoming weekend in October.

80. Guns It would be hard for any community to avoid talk of guns in 2015, a year that saw dozens of mass shootings in this country, some of which made the news. A TCB cover story in October explored suicide by gun. The General Assembly passed new gun legislation in June, an omnibus bill that legalized silencers, took the database of gun owners and concealed-carry permit holders off the public record and allowed people to bring their guns to funerals, parks and places that sell alcohol. Feel safer?

81. Denim Greensboro’s signature fabric had something of a comeback year, as a pop-up museum documenting the city’s history with blue jeans and overalls went on display at the Depot during the National Folk Festival and a commitment by Wrangler to market the city as Jeansboro.

Boutiques like Hudson Hill in Greensboro and Centennial Trading in Winston-Salem also sated the public’s appetite for apparel made from small-batch materials.

82. School vouchers In July, the state Supreme Court upheld a law allowing children to use public dollars to attend private schools.

This school year, High Point schools took in 167 vouchers up to $4,200 while Winston-Salem issued 190. Greensboro private schools benefited the most, with 217 students

Denim — specifically local denim — made a comeback in 2015.

attending school on vouchers, 123 of them at the Greensboro Islamic Academy, second in the state behind Trinity Christian School in Fayetteville.

83. Rural-urban divide At some point, the old political saying goes, you gotta dance with the people who brung ya. And because the Republican majority in the General Assembly came into power largely on votes from outside our cities, which are fairly uniformly blue, payback came in the form of a plan to redistribute sales-tax revenue from the places it was collected — cities — to rural counties with little business infrastructure. This left urban Republicans like Rep. John Blust in a quandary over a party line that adversely affected their districts.

84. Food insecurity This is the year that the Greensboro/High Point metro area earned the infamous distinction as the region with the highest rate of food insecurity in the nation, a designation only slightly worse than where the two cities previously sat. In some regards, the title served as a wakeup call to elected officials and civically minded residents, who jumped into motion. The cities are in the process of implementing new programs, carrying out studies and brainstorming new tactics to address the deep-seated problem.

85. Stolen wine Remember that super expensive wine stolen from renowned California restaurant the French Laundry that was somehow recovered in Greensboro at the start of the year despite no arrests in the case? Well almost 12 months later, the public still has no clue how the wine ended up in the Triad, and there’s nothing new to report. Will this go down as a permanently unsolved mystery in the city’s history?

86. Syrian refugees Nobody seemed upset that Syrian refugees were arriving in the Triad in the early part of this year — on the contrary, people openly welcomed them. But after an illogical pandemonium about the vetting process for refugees after terrorist attacks in Paris, despite no real link to refugees except that they are fleeing the same form of terror, a backlash built. Church World Services in Greensboro received a threat and local Congressman Mark Walker backed a pause on admitting Syrian refugees.

Hundreds of people in Greensboro pushed back late this fall at a community Thanksgiving event aimed at celebrating immigrants and refugees. Winston-Salem journalist and Wake Forest professor Phoebe Zerwick documented the welcoming attitude in a piece for the Nation, and Zerwick previously profiled a local Syrian refugee family for National Geographic.

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015 Cover Story

Artivity on the Green, the new art park in Winston-Salem, is surrounded by panels of murals.

87. Murals Artistically, 2015 appears to be the year of the mural. From the long wall at Artivity on the Green and Laura Lashley’s work at Bailey Park in Winston-Salem to pieces by the Art of Chase, Kendall Doub and Elsewherians in Greensboro, this has been a big year for murals in the Triad. And that’s not including action on Washington Street in High Point, the controversial Duck Head paint-over at Eric Robert’s mill, and progress by the East Winston Art-Up. 88. Greensboro’s brand The Gate City can’t quite put its finger on the best way to market itself. A summer ad campaign by the city, Action Greensboro and the convention and visitors bureau produced intangible results at best and a failed website to boot. But efforts at earned media coverage by RLF Communications, funded by Action Greensboro, landed the city on the “Today” show in December. It also includes a marketing effort that highlights millennials.

89. Fast-food workers Low-wage foodservice workers continued organizing in the Triad this year, namely in Greensboro, where they held a protest action inside a Wendy’s after a fast-food workers’ union leader was allegedly fired for her activity. Workers also went on strike again, as they have a few times in recent years, fighting for a $15 minimum wage and union recognition alongside groups like NC Raise Up.

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Workers and allies protested at a Greensboro Wendy’s this year, part of a broader fast-food organizing effort.

A large mural by the Art of Chase went up in downtown Greensboro towards the end of 2015.

triad-city-beat.com

90. Council structure In September, the Greensboro City Council adopted a committee structure that mimics that of Winston-Salem, with four council sub-committees designed to improve the efficiency of city council’s decision-making process.

Thus far it appears to be working as planned.

91. Election referendum In the hubbub about a potentially massive shift in the election and structure of Greensboro City Council, many people forgot that the council opted to put a referendum item on the November ballot. Voters approved a measure doubling the length of city council terms from two years to four (also bringing it in line with Winston-Salem) beginning in 2017.

Things

92. Amplifier From its launch in 2013, Amplifier magazine planted a flag for the Greensboro music scene while also highlighting worthy local businesses and displaying an elegant sense of style. The ambitious ’zine made a semi-successful expansion as a statewide publication. But the monetary losses and endless hours of work became a little too much for publisher Jen Hasty. The ’zine hosted a rousing concert finale at New York Pizza in December for the last print issue, although Amplifier will continue as a digital-only entity.

93. Raving Knaves Middle-aged modern rockers the Raving Knaves played their last gig this year after a solid run of Triad gigs. “I’ve decided that the only way you can honestly judge any such off-the-grid band is by the satisfaction of its members,” frontman Dave McLean wrote for TCB in October.

“And Adrian Foltz, Danny Bayer and I played wild, tight, original music for seven years together, contributing equally through a creative friendship and respect. Rehearsals were just as fun as public gigs and when even one person was moved to dance wildly, it felt like an offering to the universe.”

94. High Point University basketball After a solid season, the HPU Panthers men’s squad entered the Big South tournament with a conference record of 13-5 and a No. 2 seed, though they got knocked out in their first game against Gardner-Webb. But the women, a 3-seed with a 14-6 conference record, rode the tournament all the way to the finals, where they lost to Liberty University 74-64.

95. Say Yes to Education Half of the money to fund the endowment — $70 million — had already been raised by the time Say Yes Guilford launched in September. The organization challenges qualifying communities to pay last-dollar expenses for every public high school graduate in the district who wants to go to college. The money should start flowing for the Class of 2016.

A new police chief, a national exposé in the New York Times, a secret emergency unit and a suspension of charges for vehicle-equipment violations were among the developments at the Greensboro Police Department in 2015.

96. Notre Dame wins the ACC It wasn’t supposed to end like this, not at the last ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament in Greensboro for the foreseeable future. But the Fighting Irish swept in and topped UNC, embittering even a few Duke fans on the process. The tournament is leaving the state where it was born next year, when it will be held at the Verizon Center in Washington, DC before moving to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn through 2018. It comes back to Greensboro in 2020.

97. Elsewhere Greensboro’s downtown arts collective turned its eye outward this year, with a series of projects that redefined the South Elm neighborhood around it. A mile-long hopscotch grid, a secret garden, wall murals and a public outdoor lunch spot were elements of the South Elm Projects, which proposed new urbanism with artistic flair.

100. International Civil Rights Center & Museum The civil rights museum primarily preserving the history of the Greensboro sit-ins and the national civil-rights struggle is fighting it out behind closed doors with the Greensboro News & Record over the daily newspaper’s coverage of the institution. The contentions led to a lawsuit briefly being filed and then voluntarily dismissed, though it may return, the museum’s lawyer said. The museum also received the final $250,000 installment of a loan from the city. The subject became a campaign issue in this year’s city council election, though everyone on council sailed to re-election.

98. Greensboro Police Department A new police chief. A national spotlight. A reformed review process. A temporary order. A secretive emergency unit and a pricey crowd-control device. This year has been full of developments for the Greensboro Police Department, earning it leagues more ink than any other city department, in this publication and others.

99. Carolina Panthers How about those Panthers? Some credit quarterback Cam Newton with introducing the American public to “the dab” this year, but Newton’s bigger contribution is his unprecedented season with the Carolina Panthers. After Sunday’s loss against the Atlanta Falcons, the Panthers still finished 2015 with the best record in the NFL.

Elsewhere went outside its four walls in 2015, sprucing up the backyard and painting a hopscotch grid.

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE 2015: A vegan dining guide, a meat conference and Korean cuisine

by Eric Ginsburg

hat does it say when a publication’s second most popular food article of the year wasn’t penned by the food writer? I’d like to think it means we’re versatile and loaded with talent, that we’re more than a one-trick pony.

I made an effort this year to veer away from the straight-up restaurant review, to diversify what qualifies as food writing within Triad City Beat and to challenge ourselves to provide the content that would resonate with readers.

That’s how, I think, that none of our Top 5 food articles of 2015 appeared in the food section.

Yep, you read that correctly, and it’s the Top 6 to be exact.

A list I wrote of the seven best sandwiches in the Triad that “you’ve never tried, but must” blew up on our website, and until last week, it was the most popular thing I’d ever come up with for TCB. The list ranges from hot Jewish pastrami to Haitian barbecue chicken, and also covered the newly opened Melt Kitchen & Bar in Greensboro.

The announcement about Camel City BBQ Factory’s opening — a barcade of sorts with tasty pulled pork on the north side of downtown Winston-Salem — ranked second. It appeared in our news section, and Senior Editor Jordan Green broke the news. Green also helped us get the word out when Crafted: the Art of Street Food formally announced the restaurant’s theme, tweaking a pre-written post I’d saved on our website when I texted him details from the invite-only opening event.

That web post is the third most popular food story we ran in 2015.

Next up, the scoop that Tim Thompson planned to open a restaurant called Essen on the former Mexico restaurant site on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, just blocks from the new Crafted. A cover story I wrote midway through the year, Eats of Eden, ranked fifth, covering the most bizarre brunch options offered at the Triad’s eateries. It’s one of my favorite food pieces I’ve written.

A web post declaring that Hops Burger Bar in Greensboro intends to open a second location right by Geeksboro came next. Then the list finally opens up to more traditional restaurant reviews — the newborn May Way Dumplings and longstanding Sampan Chinese in Winston-Salem and Empanadas Borinquen, a Puerto Rican food truck in Greensboro, in that order.

And then right back to breaking food news, including the opening of Freeman’s Grub & Pub in Greensboro.

Some of my favorite food experiences from 2015 didn’t make it into the Top 10 list. Maybe people already knew about the Korean trio running El Nuevo Mexican Grill and serving incredible bulgogi burritos in downtown Greensboro, or it could be that the timing of an article about a Winston-Salem farming couple’s bone broth around Thanksgiving stifled readership. But the two were both personal highlights of the year, as

W

were the launches of May Way, Empanadas Borinquen and Freeman’s.

Winston-Salem and Greensboro are pretty equally represented on the list of popular stories (sorry High Point) even further down the list, as are old favorites and new delights.

This year proved that, breaking news aside, there is no one formula for what our readers are looking for when it comes to food other than deliciousness and experimentation.

In my efforts to shake up our food coverage, I interviewed the author of a Persian cookbook, profiled a former brewer who now runs the farm at Guilford FILE PHOTO The Korean steamed buns at Da Sa Rang rank highly on my College, offered a vegan personal list of 2015 food adventures. dining guide, explored every authentic barbecue not reading this paper regularly enough or you aren’t a pit in the three cities and pursued ideas for fixing food very adventurous eater. insecurity.

As far as my personal experience is concerned, 2015 I truly loved hanging out at the Carolina Meat Conhas been the year of Korean food, though none of ference at the Millennium Center in Winston-Salem, the three Greensboro restaurants I fell in love with checking out the old truck Brandon Swiderski is rehabare new. I start to lose control when I think about the bing for Framework Coffee in Greensboro and witnessbibimbap and ramen at Don Japanese on Tate Street, I ing Elsewhere’s chocolate printing-press at SECCA. pine for the bulgogi burrito at El Nuevo downtown and I look back fondly on my food exploits of 2015, I practically explode when I look at the above picture from a multi-course dessert dinner at Black Mountain of Korean steamed rolls with pork and chives at Da Sa Chocolate to hanging on the corner with Donnie Suggs Rang. as he made turkey barbecue. I’d never tried Dominican Here’s to hoping that you possess similar food memfood until stopping by Mangu Bar & Gill, never been ories from 2015 that elicit such a strong reaction, and to a Competition Dining Series until this summer, and to hoping I can help you create such experiences in the never ordered “choripollo” until trying the chicken/ year to come. chorizo mix in a burrito at Blue Agave.

Excellent new restaurants opened in 2015 — I’m thinking of Noma and LaRue in particular (both in Greensboro). And I first experienced the glory of Uncle Desi’s Jamaican food, the Asian/Southern American fusion at the Honey Pot and the Screaming Radish food truck (all in Winston-Salem) this year.

Remember that time our interns did battle at an allyou-can-eat sushi meal at Mizumi and Sayaka throttled Anthony? Did you miss the moment when I finally shared the secret of Crazy Ribman, or when Anthony spurred a meme after freaking out when I introduced him to the Mediterranean food at Nazareth Bread? Did you have a chance to try the cuisine at 98 Asian Bistro in High Point, which I wrote about nearly a year ago, or the pho restaurant inside Super G Mart in Greensboro?

If you’re bored dining out in the Triad, you’re either

Pick of the Week The right kind of toast Bubbly dinner @ Meridian Restaurant (W-S), New Years Eve, 8 p.m.

Five courses including champagne beurre with local greens, Texas antelope with crab béarnaise and a caramel made with champagne are each paired with a glass of bubbly from around the world. Some subjects on this exciting menu will send amateur foodies on a Google search but that’s New Years — a time for new things. Embrace the flavor and raise your Gloria Ferrer Va De Vi to 2016. Visit meridianws. com for the full menu and more details.

triad-city-beat.com

by Eric Ginsburg

Sudsy stories dominate headlines for 2015

Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

Jim Jones and Mike Rollinson announced they’d be partnering to open Joymongers Brewing in the coming year.

Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

to drinking in your twenties and wrote about people like Melt Kitchen & Bar’s beerman Charles Jones.

I found new favorite bars in each city: the Black Lodge in Winston-Salem (runner up Luna Lounge), LaRue in Greensboro (especially the shrub drinks, followed by the Library room at Gia), and Lulu & Blu in High Point.

Last year at this time I suggested 2015 would hold a biker joint, honey wine and a hotel bar in this column. I didn’t deliver any, though all are still on my list, because too many things both old (like Swaim’s dive bar in Winston-Salem) and new (like NC Beer Month or Salute Wine Festival) stole my attention. I hope you’re okay with that, and that I’ve been able to bring you a sense of wonder and newness to your backyard.

Rather than guessing at what I’ll write about or tipping my hand, let’s just say it will be more of the same but, you know, different.

Good Sport

broke the story that the Greensboro column isn’t popular; pieces about the City Council would offer Natty Greene’s Black Lodge, Quanto Basta, the Whisky a sizable economic incentive grant to Box and Sutler’s Spirit distillery official move into Revolution Mill. The deal is opening — all of them in Winston-Sastill being finalized. lem, I might add — all did incredibly well Numbers 5-7 on the list don’t deviate online. And so did the news we broke from beer, either. In order: We broke about Greensboro Distilling signing a the story about the new lease to open planned Joymondowntown next Have suggestions for overgers Brewing (a fadoor to Gibb’s looked spots, underexposed cility that is flying Hundred Brewing up from the dirt), beginning in early talent, unexplored angles or took readers on the 2016. tips about planned venues first visual tour of This column in 2016? Email me at eric@ Preyer Brewing and touched on other triad-city-beat.com. were the first to aspects of booze as tell you about the well, ranging from planned Mansfield a Fourth of July Brewing. All three beer companies are cocktail recipe to interviewing the local in Greensboro, and Preyer opened in the host of a beer podcast. I researched and spring. explained sake, slipped inside of the A significant number of these stories mysterious West Market Street Yacht were not first printed in our Barstool Club, and interviewed members of the column, but as part of our larger comSociety of Bacchus, a longstanding but mitment to covering such culturally sigsecretive men-only wine club. I offered nificant news. That’s not to say that the drinking tips for college kids, a guide

ERIC GINSBURG

Culture

What a year for beer.

This calendar year began strong as Triad City Beat broke the news in January that an outfit called Brown Truck Brewing planned to open in High Point during the summer, which would mean eclipsing the slow-moving XII Tribes to become the Third City’s second brewery. That story, actually written by our Senior Editor Jordan Green, remained as the most popular booze-related article we published in 2015.

But even though this Barstool column does incorporate a wide variety of subjects — folding in a sommelier as well as dive bars this year — beer news dominated the charts.

In second place, we broke the news that Wise Man Brewing would actually be opening in downtown Winston-Salem rather than in Greensboro as initially planned. Construction is underway for the facility on the north end of Trade Street next to Ziggy’s. (We also broke the news this year that the longstanding music venue would be closing in early 2016 — hat tip again to Jordan Green.)

And ranked third in page views for booze articles on our website, we broke the news of a planned beer garden in downtown Greensboro, run by developer and Pig Pounder Brewing owner Marty Kotis.

I’m pretty happy to see all of the Triad’s three cities represented in the Top 3, especially in the reverse order of population size. That should tell you something about people’s thirst for sudsy stories.

Also interesting is the fact that Brown Truck has yet to open, Wise Man is still coalescing, and though Kotis said the beer garden could open as early as summer 2015, it’s looking more like no sooner than summer 2016.

In other words, the three most popular booze articles we ran are about anticipation and intentions. And that continued with the fourth most read piece (unless you count a pretty interesting news story that Green wrote this year about illegal liquor houses in High Point, which is a fascinating story) about the possibility that Greensboro’s first brewery might skip town. Late in the year, and farther down the list, we

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Dec. 30 — Jan. 5, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

CULTURE 10 moments that mattered in Triad music in 2015

by Jordan Green

Beth McKee

Beth McKee may not be local — she lives in central Florida and her music is rooted in New Orleans — but she spectacularly laid claim to Winston-Salem in late August with a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts. To mark the occasion, McKee drafted friends Jeffrey Dean Foster and Tommy Malone to stage a soul-stopping jam session. The songwriter, pianist and accordion player’s new album, Sugarcane Revival is a personal travelogue that mixes traditional New Orleans funk with pop flair. She found able partners in Foster, who contributed an acoustic rendition of his song “Life Is Sweet” and a minor-key reworking of “When the Saints Go Marching In” to the party, and in Malone, who paid homage to Ry Cooder on “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?”

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Games

Good Sport

Culture

9th Wonder and Jamla Records

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The inaugural Dash Pop Festival, created by an entrepreneurship class at Wake Forest University, hit a masterstroke when they brought in native son 9th Wonder, the erstwhile DJ in Little Brother and producer FILE PHOTO Beth McKee (left) celebrated at SECCA with old friends Jeffrey Dean Foster and Tommy Malone to mark the 10th who’s worked with hip-hop greats anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. th Jay Z, Ludacris and Common. 9 delivered with a spectacular showlocal eminence of the National Folk Festival, particdu jour, wearing a sleeveless Grateful Dead “skull and case of artists from his Jamla Records roster, including ipating in a night of protest music and co-hosting lightning” T-shirt and leading the band through a jam fellow Winston-Salem native Big Remo and rising star sets showcasing the black fiddle tradition and gospel of the Dead’s “Going Down the Road (Feeling Bad).”

Rapsody, an emcee from Snow Hill. Rapsody had a big music. This was a breakout year for Giddens, who moment this year with her duet with Kendrick Lamar stepped out with her first solo album, Tomorrow Is My Grateful Dead on “Complexion (A Zulu Love)” on his To Pimp a ButterTurn, following a decade of dues-paying with the AfriSpeaking of the Dead, the band’s 50-year anniverfly album. can-American string-band group the Carolina Chocsary farewell concerts at Soldier Field in Chicago left olate Drops. While attracting adulating fans in her National Folk Festival hometown, Giddens also finds herself at the vanguard Mavis Staples owned the National Folk Festival, if Pick of the Week of the national folk scene, with long overdue recognianyone did, synthesizing the legacy of the civil rights tion from publications like Rolling Stone and the New Just like family movement with a gospel-soul lineage tracing from York Times this year.

The Avett Brothers @ Greensboro Coliseum (GSO), freedom songs to classic soul and her excellent conNew Years Eve, 8:30 p.m. temporary work. But really the inaugural outing in SepSinkane The Avett Brothers have to be the biggest music tember proved that the festival is about the tapestry Ahmed Gallab, a London-born musician of Sudanese event this New Years. The family-bound, North Carof multiplicity in American folk culture, whether it was heritage, is known for his electronic dance music, but olina-bred folk stars spend the evening in the Gate the joyous dance music of Garifuna guitarist Aurelio during a late May appearance at the monthly Dance City, although they could potentially play most Martinez, the bristling honky tonk of Dale Watson or From Above party at the Crown in Greensboro, he anywhere they’d like. As of print time, there are still the irrepressible go-go party of DC’s Trouble Funk. defied expectations by playing a live set of simmering tickets available. Visit greensborocoliseum.com for Afro-beat-inspired psychedelic rock. The shape-shiftmore information.

Rhiannon Giddens ing musical polymath made no secret of his inspiration Guilford County native Rhiannon Giddens was the

southern-insPired

destination for

dining, hosPitality &

sPecial events

Opinion 450 North Spring Street, Winston-Salem | (336) 293-4797 | info @ Spring House NC . com | www. Spring House NC . com

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Culture

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Just as technological advances in acoustics have allowed the Avett Brothers to fill arenas with banjo music,

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Jadon Success

Jadon Success created an internet sensation with his “Welcome to High Point” YouTube videos, released in 2013 and 2014, which bolstered Third City pride by juxtaposing public housing communities like Carson Stout and Juanita Hills with landmark institutions like the furniture market and the city’s namesake university. In July he spoke to the NAACP Youth Conference, and the next month he told Triad City Beat about his efforts to set a positive example and promote unity during a tour of the city. In 2015, Jadon Success continued a prolific run with “Ms. Carolina,” a collaboration with Ricco Barrino, and “What a Feeling,” a song that celebrates less wholesome pursuits.

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Follow the Music, the 2014 album produced by Hiss Golden Messenger’s Mike Taylor, represents a kind of credo for Alice Gerrard, a legendary folksong collector and singer, who is now 81 years old. She was nominated for a Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2015, but fell short to Old Crow Medicine Show. Her stature was reinforced during a performance with Laurelyn Dossett, Scott Manring and others at UNCG in January that bloomed with performances of the title track from her recent album and “Mining Camp Blues,” a song originally recorded by Trixie Smith & Her Downhome Syncopaters in 1925.

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Mipso is proof that the Triad incubates talent even if we don’t have the infrastructure to properly nurture it.

Three out of four members of Mipso, the traditionals-plus acoustic string band, grew up in Greensboro and High Point, but they met and learned their craft as students at UNC-Chapel Hill.

They packed the Garage in Winston-Salem in August, typical in a strenuous touring schedule helping the group build a national following. Their new album, Old Time Reverie, reaches into a deeper spiritual core than its more glossy predecessor Dark Holler Pop. The band’s roadwork was capped with a spot performing during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

Alice Gerrard

a

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Mipso

so too can Kevin Sylvester and Wilner Baptiste seamlessly merge classical music and hip hop on violin and viola respectively. Playing before a capacity crowd at High Point Theatre in January, they closed a loop, reclaiming the violin as an instrument of American popular music in the tradition of Stuff Smith, Michael White and Papa John Creach.

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a distinct impression on the Triad, with venues like the Blind Tiger in Greensboro and Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem simulcasting the three concerts over the Fourth of July weekend. The concerts provided a fascinating overview of the band’s rich history, with Phish’s Trey Anastasio filling in for the late Jerry Garcia with crystalline lead guitar playing and note-perfect vocals. But the venture was not quite ready to be laid to rest.

The Dead (minus original bass player Phil Lesh) went back on the road, with a new lineup that included John Mayer and Oteil Burbridge, making a stop at the Greensboro Coliseum in November.

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CULTURE Static images, moving scenes and public art mark 2015

by Brian Clarey

t’s tough to winnow down a year of film, theater, fine art and literature in one small space, especially considering most of the heavy lifting this year was done by our interns Anthony Harrison, Sayaka Matsuoka, Chris Nafekh and Daniel Wirtheim. But I did manage to trot my notebook out to a few fantastic arts events in 2015 of the sort that define the culture of the Triad.

In April I embedded with a troupe from the UNC School of the Arts for their production of Guys & Dolls, an authentic staging of the classic Broadway hit based on the work of Damon Runyon. From costumes and set design to the music and movement on stage, every inch of the performance came from the students of our conservatory, and it was one of the best pieces of theater I saw this year.

Triad Stage’s Common Enemy also thrilled me: an original morality play by Creative Director Preston Lane set against the backdrop of college basketball that I probably have had 20 conversations about since it debuted in June.

I was able to do some writing about the South Elm Projects, a multifaceted, practical art installation that Elsewhere installed in its South Elm neighborhood.

The hopscotch grid, a meandering path that loosely defined downtown Greensboro, had already gone up

by July, when I interviewed Patrick McDonnell, the city planner who had taken residence with a crew of urban artists in the reclaimed thrift store. The projects themselves — which included a landscaped garden in Elsewhere’s backyard, the Black Lunch Tables at Gate City Boulevard, murals and activated green spaces — are almost as impressive as the notion behind them.

It was a subversive way to sneak some art into downtown Greensboro.

The biggest art story in downtown Winston-Salem came in the form of a small patch of land given over to sculpture, murals and mist, which emanates at regular intervals from the tall, red towers of the Artivity on the Green. Great concept. Terrible name.

Probably the second biggest story is the return of Patrick Harris, the Camel City artist who left for Charleston last year and came back with a few sophisticated tweaks to his pop-art style.

Of the local art I’ve taken in this year, much of it has been on public walls. Murals in all of our cities bloomed on formerly blank canvases, and one piece of public art at the Mill in downtown Greensboro got switched out for the Duck Head corporate logo. It raised some ire among the bohemian crowd, but if the big duck hadn’t been painted over an existing mural by the Miami artist Art of Chase, people would have loved it.

In the galleries, I caught an interesting installation at the Greenhill by artist Jonathan Brilliant with one piece that took up most of the room. At the center of The Greensboro Piece, built on the concept of the

I

UNCSA students revived Guys & Dolls for one of the finest stage performabces of 2015.

coffee shop as a nurturing environment, was a massive sculpture made from 70,000 coffee stirrers held together by tension. In August, the artist allowed a throng of children to tear down the piece and take bits of it home as souvenirs.

At the Weatherspoon Art Museum, I took in Full Stop, a piece by Tom Burckhardt that recreated his New York studio using only corrugated cardboard, black ink and hot glue. The details — books on the shelves, ducts on the wall, tubes of paint and a turntable that looks as if it could actually work — inspired a couple return visits.

Pop art made a home in Winston-Salem at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art with Point and Counterpoint, an installation by North Carolina artists from Asheville to Ocracoke — all fellows of the NC Arts Council. That one is still up. And will be until Jan. 17.

Also still available for viewing is the public art

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display in Greensboro’s Lindley Park, a yarn bomb that exploded onto the rails of the bridge over Wendover Avenue, which, incidentally, is visible from Jordan Green’s house.

Pick of the Week The other artist, where’d ego?

Ego Trippin’ @ Urban Grinders (GSO), Saturday, 6 p.m.

When an artist canceled on an upcoming show, Jeff Beck stepped up to the plate. But Beck owns the coffee shop/street-art space where the exhibit is held so this could be a totally egotistical move, right? That’s the moral conflict behind Ego Trippin’, Beck’s new collection of street-inspired work.

Chilled-out dance-pop musician the Odds performs as well. Find the event page on Facebook for more information.

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GOOD SPORT Boxing Day in Brooklyn efore crossing over the East River, accessing a lovely vista of the Brooklyn Bridge and One World Trade Center, the N Train stopped at 14th Street at Union Square. There, a young mother and her son

by Anthony Harrison — I guessed he was about 7 years old — stepped onto the subway and slumped across from me.

We were both going to the same place: Barclays Center on Atlantic Avenue in downtown. I could tell from the Brooklyn Nets hats they both wore.

It was the day after Christmas. Boxing Day, in a weird way, I like more than Christmas Day itself. There isn’t the stress of the high holiday; you can just chill out with your family and enjoy your gifts.

I was alone, but the Nets game was part of my Christmas. Mom and my sister Hannah shopped at Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue while I enjoyed the matchup against the Washington Wizards.

This mother and child on the train were celebrating together.

But they were both tired. Light wrinkles ringed the coffee-colored eyes of the woman, who might have been in her mid-thirties, and they were cast downward, half-empty, toward the speckled floor of the subway car. The boy was plumb tuckered. Before we reached Prince Street in lower Manhattan, his oversized cap slipped down on his brow as he took a little cat nap.

Almost on cue, a squeal of the car’s brakes woke up the tyke as we rolled into the Barclays station.

“What time is it?” he asked his mother, rubbing his weary eyes.

“Almost game time,” she said back.

And despite everything, I could tell they both got a little excited.

But they were surely disappointed by the game’s outcome. Led by point guard John Wall, the Washington Wizards cast a spell on the Barclays, strolling away with a commanding 111-96 victory.

B

But, as is often the case, there’s more to the story than the final score. At times, the game was a real back-and-forth contest.

In the first half, the Wizards steadily tacked on points, leading by as much as 12 points as the Nets starters failed to connect on momentous baskets. No matter what, though, Brooklyn would always rally and bring the game within a possession before letting the Wizards slide back into a seemingly comfortable lead.

The crowd sat relatively still and quiet in the very beginning; the only thing you could hear was the squeak and shuffle of high-dollar sneakers on the Barclays Center’s unique, herringbone maple court. It was like the beginnings of a boxing match, with the audience holding its breath and waiting to see who would get the first big hits and jabs.

Among the Nets, I spied a familiar face: shooting guard Wayne “The Rain” Ellington, who others may recall played for UNC Chapel Hill, leading the Tar Heels to their latest National Championship back in 2009.

Ellington subbed in late in the first quarter as the Nets’ starters struggled to produce. It was refreshing to see he still played with the same frantic intensity that won him the honor of the ’09 NCAA Most Outstanding Player Award — he was all over his defensive matchups and shot 3-8 from the field.

He and other bench players began the rally which roused the home crowd’s hopes. At the half, the score was 52-50. The differential remained the same at the end of the third quarter.

But nothing could halt the seemingly inevitable: After playing the Wizards even, nine Nets turnovers helped the Wizards steadily slip away with the game.

If the past tells us anything, that’s how it always seems with Brooklyn teams.

Brooklyn fans might be among the most loyal — therefore, hopeful — in the history of American sports.

All you need to point to as a proof of concept is the legacy of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Known by a slew of different brands, but fondly remembered as “Dem Bums,” the team finally known as the Dodgers played some of the most heroically awful baseball in the National League for much of the first

half of the 20th Century. They’d win the pennant a few times here and there, but typically get stomped in the World Series, most often by their crosstown nemesis, the Yankees.

Brooklyn didn’t care. They loved Dem Bums.

So when the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in the 1955 World Series, after so much loss and the noble triumph of ignoring the color line, the smell of success must have been sweeter than rose petals.

That’s the pedigree from which Brooklyn fans arise: a long, storied history of losing, losing, losing, but never giving up on your team and instilling that hope in your progeny. Because eventually, you’ll get the right blend of talent and spirit and make the improbable happen.

The mother and child I saw on the train won’t read this. But I hope they keep going to games and keep believing in their hometown team. For the Nets are no longer the New Jersey Nets, and they aren’t the New York Nets. They are Brooklyn’s team.

So, to the weary mom: Keep dragging your son to those games. And kid: Keep the faith. You never know when your team might win it all.

Pick of the Week Part of that world MerMania @ Greensboro Aquatic Center (GSO), Friday and Saturday I always thought Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” was really depressing. The prince rejects the mermaid, marries the princess, and after the mermaid decides she can’t kill the prince, she basically commits suicide by throwing herself off a ship and turns into sea foam. Disney sure does plumb from crazy sources. Anyway, MerMania features mermaid performers from around the nation and world, as well as swim opportunities for kids and adults alike. Festivities start at 11 a.m. both days.

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GAMES

‘Middle C’ no need for piano lessons here.

by Matt Jones Across

56 “Darby ___ and the Little People” (1959 Disney film) 57 Give the recent harvest report in a few words?

64 Bad sign 65 Difficult trial 66 “Falcon Crest” actress ___ Alicia 67 The “sun” in “sunny side up” 68 Beat the heck out of 69 Utter

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1 Served like some green tomatoes 2 Leave alone 3 Lhasa ___ (Tibetan dogs) 4 Blackjack decision 5 “Mogambo” actress Gardner 6 Comedian Riggle 7 551, in film credits (if films had been around then) 8 Affleck film that earned a 2003 Razzie 9 “Jurassic Park” predator, for short 10 Sound that deserves a scare, maybe 11 Clean Air Act org.

12 Blanc who voiced the Tasmanian Devil 14 Gertrude Stein’s “The Autobiography of Alice B. ___” 17 Old Domino’s Pizza spokescreature 18 Traitor Vader 22 180

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23 “___ Wedding” (1994 sleeper hit starring Toni Collette) 24 World Heritage Site org.

25 Talk and talk and talk 26 “I Love It” duo ___ Pop 27 Ross of flag fame 29 Resells at a jacked-up price 31 Dark deli loaf 32 Carpentry joint component 33 Become a parent, perhaps 34 Nascence 36 Salon extension 38 “Spare me the details” 42 Be a brat 43 Install new machinery 47 “Rich & Meaty” brand 50 “I’m amazed!”

52 Ling and Loeb, for two 53 Actress Massey of “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” 54 Forever, in poetry 55 Like a medieval dungeon 57 ___ G. Biv 58 Genre for Fall Out Boy 59 “Pinocchio” keepsake 60 Buckingham Palace letters 61 Commotion 62 President pro ___ 63 Puppy sound

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1 Clearwater’s st.

4 The beginning of greatness?

9 Those other guys 13 Account exec 14 Copenhagen amusement park 15 Fully grown 16 Why I have to drive close to see what’s on your rear window?

19 Script on a tablet?

20 Hardly hard 21 “I Love Lucy” production company 23 “Our National Parks” author John 25 Cookout cut 28 Nissan, way back when 30 Fight stopper 32 Caps Lock neighbor 35 Indifferent travel slogan for a Bolivian capital?

37 Fix errata 39 Pay increase 40 Eternities 41 Guy with a self-referential Renault 5?

44 Discouraging word 45 Pertaining to the eye 46 Short-billed shorebird 48 “Ultimate” degree 49 Kick out of a club 51 And others, in Latin 55 “Even *I* knew that!”

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Answers from previous publication.

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ALL SHE WROTE My favorite year

e: Mother, are you afraid of dying?

Mother: No, I’m afraid you’re going to forget to bring me that ice cream.

Me: Mom, I’m serious. And you don’t need to be eating that much ice cream.

Mother: Nicole, I’m counting days — not calories.

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No one likes to talk about the fact that death, like sleep and/or the right mix of substances, contains within itself a certain amount of freedom. Facing it head-on gives people the abandon to say what they think, do what they like and feel whatever they want to feel. None of these inhibitions were of very much use to my mother long before her death sentence — but once she put her eyeball to the barrel, there was no blinking. Here are a few of her last words and remembrances in 2015 — in short, All She Wrote.

On rap music: Me: Why does it surprise me every time a rapper goes to prison and comes out with better lyrics?

Mother: It’s survival of the Fiddyest.

Mother (yelling from her room down the hall from the guest room): Wake up and come here!

Me: Omg what’s the matter!? Is it your heart?

A stroke?

Mother: Wu Tang is on “Saturday Night Live.”

date a military man?

Mother: Your West Point boyfriend.

Me: Oh right. And I guess you are counting the gay Navajo guy I used to garden with.

Mother: Why are you home so early from your date?

Me: None of your business.

Mother: Nicole, your love life is not a business, it’s a conundrum.

On fashion: Mother: What are you wearing to the Christmas party?

Me: A loincloth and a crown of thorns. What’s more Christmasy than Christ?

Mother: Sigh. Why do you always have to make such a statement?

Me: Because somebody has to.

‘You never know a man until you see him in a boat, on a mountain or in the cut.’

– Nicole’s mom

On real estate: Me (Stamping my foot Marisa Tomei-style in My Cousin Vinny): Why, why, why are you selling the New York apartment?

I’m just getting old enough to use it.

Mother: You just answered your own question Socrates.

Mother: Your house seems like a lot of trouble.

Me: Well it would be no trouble like yours if I had a maid, gardener, handyman and a mortgage banker beating on my door.

Mother: The difference between us is that you dated those occupations. I hired them.

On love: Mother: You never know a man until you see him on a boat, on a mountain or in the cut.

Me: How about in his cups.

Mother: Well, that’s a given.

Mother: So I guess that now that you’ve dated a construction guy, you’ve essentially dated the Village People.

Me: I’ve never dated a cop.

Mother: Really, what do you have against cops?

Me: Nothing, but like the Bukowski character in Barfly, I just seem to feel better when they’re not around… wait, when did I

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(Scene: Driving from the lake on Mother’s Day in a bikini with a bucket of chicken and emerging from the car to greet mother.)

Mother: Jesus Nicole do you even own any pants?

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Mother: Well, we didn’t have air conditioning.

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On the South: Mother: When I moved to North Carolina from New York in the 1960s I was told, ‘Ladies in the South don’t wear eyeliner.’

Me: What did you do with all of those little black dresses that were verboten?

Mother: Ugh, don’t get me started. John Christian Bernhardt’s wife took me to Montaldo’s and bought me a pink shift with a pink and green scarf.

Me: It sounds kind of pretty.

Mother: You would think so, you’re a half breed.

Me: Do you regret raising a daughter in the South.

Mother: No, I put you on skis and ice skates when you were 2 and taught you to sail on the Great Lakes. I think you’ve got what it takes to survive in this world.

Me: That’s all it takes, huh? Minnesota sporting life. Pity you didn’t instill ice fishing so I could eat.

Mother: Teach a man to fish and he’s got dinner. Teach a man to sail and he’s got transportation.

Me: Touche.

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