TCB Feb. 15, 2018 — Noises Off!

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point February 15 - 21, 2018 triad-city-beat.com

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NOISES OFF Little Theatre in Winston-Salem tackles a play within a play

New House maps PAGE 9

Bye bye Blust PAGE Tk

Glenwood gallery PAGE 17

February 15 - 21, 2018

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

On the college front, more reporting is needed We leave the house a couple hours before dawn and he eases the front seat back to catch a few more hours’ sleep before his

by Brian Clarey final college audition. No pressure on this one: He’s already locked down a spot at his first choice, so this is more of an exercise in due diligence than anything else, a fun little road trip not completely spoiled by the soft and steady rain.

It’s just the two of us, and just like every time we do this, I think back to my own senior year of high school, the series of decisions that began back then and brought me to where I am now.

Considering the lack of effort I put into my own grades and test scores, the halfassery I employed in my college search and the varying levels of ignorance under which I unknowingly operated through the years, it all turned out pretty good.

In Greenville, he breezes through the oral and written exams, then changes

clothes in the car and performs for a panel of professors with fancy degrees: Yale, Julliard. That, he says, went pretty well, too.

And there’s more: The dorms are right near the school of music, and the program he’s interested in has become nationally recognized, and it’s not really all that far away after all, is it?

We eat lunch at the bar at Christie’s Euro Café, and over plates of barbecue hash and a ridiculous sandwich called the “Stoner,” I recognize something in his eyes: This is a decision that bears revisiting.

“You’re having second thoughts?” I ask him.

He nods solemnly, like he always does.

He doesn’t talk much.

It’s rare to catch a teenager at the point of decision like this, and even more rare to be able to exert any influence over it.

But it’s not my place in this kid’s life. Not anymore.

“Sounds to me like more reporting is needed,” I say, something I repeat in the newsroom on a weekly basis, though it’s the first time I’ve used it on him. “Let me know what you find out.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

I’ve pretty much decided you’ve got to go without thanks.

People talk about, ‘This person was a legend.’ The truth is no one will remember you. You can’t even go by what names are on the bill. Nationally, you’ve got Dodd-Frank, the Wagner Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley. A lot of times I’ve found the names on the bill can be deceptive; someone else did the lion’s share of the work. Politics is an area where vanity reins.

-Rep. John Blust, in Q&A, page 7

BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com

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

STAFF WRITER Lauren Barber lauren@triad-city-beat.com

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 ART Cover by photo of (front) Ken ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette Ashford (Selsdon), Linda Shillito robert@triad-city-beat.com (Brooke), Chad Edwards (Garry); SALES (middle) Ashley Winkfield KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price (Poppy), Peggie Kaan Dull gayla@triad-city-beat.com (Dotty); (back) Chad Ramsey (Lloyd), Rob Taylor (Tim), Latimer SALES EXECUTIVE Andrew Lazare Alexander (Frederick), and Sarah andrew@triad-city-beat.com Jenkins (Belinda). Taken by Daniel CONTRIBUTORS Alvarez Carolyn de Berry, Spencer KM Brown, Matt Jones

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NCDOT RE-SCHEDULED PUBLIC MEETING ON FEB. 27 REGARDING THE PROPOSED WIDENING OF ARCHDALE ROAD (S.R. 1577 / S.R. 1004) FROM ROBBINS COUNTRY ROAD (S.R. 1567) TO NORTH MAIN STREET (S.R. 1009) IN RANDOLPH AND GUILFORD COUNTIES STIP PROJECT NO. U-3400

The N.C. Department of Transportation proposes widening Archdale Road (S.R. 1577 / S.R. 1004) from Robbins Country Road (S.R. 1567) to North Main Street (S.R. 1009) from existing three and two lanes to three lanes with a center turn lane in Archdale.

A public meeting will be held at Open Door Baptist Church located at 135 W White Drive on Tuesday, February 27th, 2018 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The purpose of this meeting is to inform the public of the project and gather public input on the proposed design. Maps of the study area, environmental features and proposed typical sections will be available on the project website for public review and comment.

The public may attend at any time during the public meeting hours. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and receive comments. Comments and information received will be taken into consideration as work on the project develops.

Written comments or questions can also be submitted at the meeting or later by March 20, 2018. Please note that there will not be a formal presentation.

Project maps are available online at: http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings/ For additional information contact Jeffrey L. Teague, PE,NCDOT Division 8 Project Manager by phone: (910) 944-2344 or via email at jlteague@ncdot.gov; or by mail: 902 N Sandhills Blvd., Aberdeen, NC 28315.

NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this workshop. Anyone requiring special services should contact Tony Gallagher, Environmental Analysis Unit, at 1598 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1598, by phone (919) 7076069 or by e-mail at magallagher@ncdot.gov as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

Persons who speak Spanish and do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1.800.233.6315 Aquellas personas que hablan español y no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1.800.233.6315

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February 15 - 21, 2018

CITY LIFE Feb. 15-21

by Lauren Barber

THURSDAY Up Front

Anita @ Wake Forest University (W-S), 6 p.m.

Heathers: The Musical @ UNCG (GSO), 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY

Chinese New Year celebration @ Winston-Salem State University, 1 p.m.

Also known as the Spring Festival, the celebration of the Chinese New Year is the country’s most important traditional festival. Enjoy live performances, authentic food, festival decorations and partake in cultural activities in the Donald J. Reaves Student Center Hall. Find the event on Facebook.

During Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Anita Hill testified that she endured sexual harassment during their time working together. A quarter century later, Hill’s bravery reverberates through the #MeToo movement. After the screening, professor Erica Still moderates a discussion of black women’s historical and current contributions to the anti-sexual harassment movement in Pugh Auditorium in Benson Center.

Veronica is a senior fed up with her high school’s social hierarchy but must reckon with what become the lifeand-death consequences of popularity during this musical based on the 1980s cult film. This is a donations-based preview. Learn more at vpa.uncg.edu.

Michael Twitty @ Old Salem Visitor Center (W-S), 6 p.m.

Gurumbé: Afro-Andalusian Memories @ Salem College (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Colleen Raney, Erica Shipman, Hanz Araki and Matt Shipman bring their fusion of musical traditions from Ireland to Appalachia to the Muddy Creek stage. Learn more at fiddleandbow.org.

Brothers Pearl with Whiskey Foxtrot @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), 9 p.m.

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Josephine County @ Muddy Creek Music Hall (W-S), 8 p.m.

Puzzles

Rock out with Brothers Pearl of Winston-Salem and experience the blues and Americana-influenced sound of Whiskey Foxtrot. Learn more at theblindtiger.com.

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Culinary historian Michael Twitty, who helped curate the collection of African-American seeds at Old Salem, kicks off New Winston Museum’s Foodways to Community salon series as he discusses how West and Central African food traditions influenced colonial and antebellum-era African-American cooks. Taste some recipes from his new book, The Cooking Gene, as prepared by Mise en Place Catering. Learn more at oldsalem.org.

Anthropologist Miguel Ángel Rosales’s documentary investigates how the contributions of Afro-Andalusians to flamenco music and dance, rooted in the history of the slave trade in Spain. Ana León-Távora, who was born and raised in Seville and is the chair of the department of modern languages, will give opening remarks in the Salem Elberson Fine Arts Center. Find the event on Facebook.

triad-city-beat.com

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

“Tough Love” mural unveiling @ 351 Church St. (GSO), 1 p.m.

Up Front

Black Expo @ High Point Public Library, 11 a.m.

The library hosts vendors of African clothing, books and educational material. Children can participate in Culinary Kids, a hands-on cooking program that educates children about nutrition. At noon, Sisters Connected discusses Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters and April Turner leads African dancing and stories at 1 p.m. Learn more at highpointnc.gov.

Teach Us All @ Winston-Salem Urban League, 1 p.m.

TEDxWakeForestU: The Broken Box @ Wake Forest University (W-S), noon News

The Forsyth Promise presents a film screening, small group discussions and panel discussion on educational equity.

Teach Us All gathers the expertise of Civil Rights icons, historians, policymakers, teachers and parents with an emphasis on student perspectives. Panelists include representative from Big Brothers Big Sisters, El Buen Pastor, Love Out Loud and Forsyth County’s public health director. Childcare will be provided. Find the event on Facebook.

Think outside the box in Wait Chapel with a consultant whose clients tackle everything from terrorist activity to driverless vehicles, a technology patent expert and an antihuman trafficking advocate among others, not to mention two Wake Forest professors embarking on a three-year clinical trial to test improvisational dance as dementia therapy. The event will also be livestreamed. Learn more at tedxwakeforestu.com.

Culture

Issues on the Yadkin panel @ SECCA (W-S), 3 p.m.

Advocates and state and local officials discuss cooperation for environmental protection as part of a series of panel events related to Christine Rucker’s Dance for the River exhibit. Learn more at yadkinriverkeeper.org.

Opinion

The Greensboro Mural Project unveils a mural reflecting a collection of “love letters” and poems to the city of Greensboro from residents expressing both fondness and frustration with the city. Find lunch from a food truck, peruse the Boomerang Bookshop book bus and enjoy entertainment from Cakalak Thunder, the BBoy Ballet and several poets. Find the event on Facebook.

This Community Sings @ Carolina Theatre (GSO), 3 p.m.

Shot in the Triad

Singers of all ages and skill levels celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Carolina Theatre. Grimsley High School and NC A&T drum lines perform when doors open at 2 p.m.

Two local choir directors help audience members learn songs like “Carolina in My Mind,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “What a Wonderful World.” Learn more at carolinatheatre.com.

Puzzles

All About that Shag @ Loaded Grape (GSO), 8 p.m.

Shag the night away with DJ Mojo Randy and arrive early for a free wine tasting. Learn more at loadedgrape. com.

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February 15 - 21, 2018 Up Front

Triad NEA recipients

by Brian Clarey 1. Elsewhere (GSO) As President Donald Trump’s new budget calls for the beginning of the end to the National Endowment for the Arts, we point out local institutions that have benefited from the NEA’s largesse, beginning with Elsewhere. The downtown Greensboro thrift store-turned museum is singular in mission and style: It is the artists themselves who rotate through, using the in-house collection to create works for the building and neighborhood. Elsewhere this year received $35,000 in support of its annual work Southern Constellations. Elsewhere has received NEA grants in amounts ranging from $15,000 to $40,000 in 2010 and from 2013 to 2017. Find them online at goelsewhere.org.

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

2. RiverRun International Film Festival (W-S) RiverRun survives through a vast network of donations and small revenue streams that enable it to come to downtown Winston-Salem every spring. They got $10,000 just this year from the NEA to fund Challenge America, a film series at the festival with “corresponding community outreach activities,” according to NEA paperwork. This year’s slate of films is shaping up nicely — check in at riverrunfilm.com.

3. Triad Stage (GSO/W-S) The venerable theater company was not on the NEA’s grant list this year, but last year it was the beneficiary of $20,000 to support a play about the 1960 Woolworth Sit-In. It got another $20,000 in 2013 for Radiunt Abundunt, Creative Director Preston Lane’s collaboration with songwriter Laurelyn Dossett, and diminishing amounts for Providence Gap ($15,000, 2010), Bloody Blackbeard ($10,000, 2008), Tobacco Road ($10,000, 2007) and Brother Wolf ($10,000, 2006). They’re at triadstage.org.

4. ArtsGreensboro (GSO) Arts Greensboro and its predecessor the United Arts Council, charged with bringing some order to the city’s sprawling arts scene, got $20,000 from the NEA last year to help with the Van Dyke Performance Space and $25,000 in 2016 for its own Arts Innovation Grant Program. In 2014, they got $100,000 for the Fabric of Freedom Festival.

And none of this includes the funds for the National Folk Festival, almost $1 million per year, that Arts Greensboro helped administer. They’re at artsgreensboro.org.

5. Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County (W-S) The oldest arts organization of its kind got $200,000 in 2010 for the Creative Corridors project that is just now starting to bear fruit.

6. NC Black Repertory Theatre (W-S) NC Black Rep got $50,000 in 2011, 2015 and 2017 to help support the biannual Black Theatre Festival in downtown Winston-Salem. Find them at intothearts.org.

7. UNC School of the Arts (W-S) The country’s best public conservatory got two $15,000 grants in 2009, for a dance workshop and a chamber-music festival, and another $40,000 in 2006 for a 50th anniversary production of West Side Story. See UNCSA.edu for more about their programs.

8. Reynolda House (W-S) Between 2007 and 2011, Reynolda House got $123,000 to create a digitized database of its collection. Reynolda.org is their home.

Puzzles

9. Action Greensboro (GSO) The young-professionals organization got $100,000 in 2010 to create murals under downtown railroad underpasses and other pieces of public art.

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10. Eastern Music Festival (GSO) Greensboro’s oldest music festival received $10,000 to $15,000 each year from 2009 to 2012 in support of its summer event. Easternmusicfestival.org has their catalog.

11. Others Organizations that have received small grants since 2005 include Piedmont Opera, Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, Wake Forest University, UNCG and the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

What are you most proud of?

A lot of your readers wouldn’t agree, but we did some good things on the tax front that helped the economy.

We did some good things on the regulatory front that helped the economy. We got spending under control.

WIKI COMMONS

[Republican] Gov. [Pat] McCrory if you had voter ID [as a standalone measure]. We did voter ID in the House, and sent it over to the Senate. The Senate put 80 other provisions in the bill. They sent it back to us on the last night of the session and said, ‘Take it or leave it.’…. If it had only been a voter ID bill it would have been hard for a court to rule against that. Indiana’s voter ID law has been ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court.

When you put it together with all these other provisions, they found that it “surgically targeted African-American voters” [and struck it down]. The process can affect the outcome.

Puzzles

What should we do to restore democracy?

People don’t understand the inner workings of government…. They know something is wrong. Their elected representatives aren’t getting it done. A big part of it would be process and rules. We say we have a government of laws and not men. Legislative bodies need to be of rules, not men. Just like a court case you have rules of civil procedure and rules of criminal procedure, and someone enforces those so every litigant can understand their rights. You couldn’t put all this in the Constitution.

The founders did not see political parties coming on the

Shot in the Triad

What would you tell Republican voters who don’t see a reason why their party shouldn’t go for maximum power?

If the Democrats do take back control, so much of what they’re saying now is going to be gone in an instant.

It can backfire on us. I honestly believe you’d still have

John Blust

Culture

How do you feel about leaving the General Assembly?

Once you’re gone, nobody remembers you. I saw Tony Rand, who used to be the power in the Senate; he was at the reception for UNC; during the long session they have a different reception for us to go every night. I was introducing one of the freshman lawmakers to him, and he turned to me, and said, “Who was that?” It’s smarter to stay away completely and not go back. Members covet these positions and start feeling they are that important.

They really are not that important.

I’ve pretty much decided you’ve got to go without thanks. People talk about, “Oh, this person was a legend.”

Not really. You can’t even go by what names are on the bill. Nationally, you’ve got Dodd-Frank, the Wagner Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley. A lot of times those names can be deceptive. Someone else did the lion’s share of the work.

Politics is an area where vanity reigns.

Opinion

Why did you decide to retire from the NC House?

A Republican could walk on water and not win that district. The public doesn’t understand the districts.

They’re either a very safe Republican district or a very safe Democratic district. The representatives are not reelected because they’re loved. But even the Republican districts in the old maps weren’t all that strong because Guilford’s becoming more blue. I think the Republican districts are more competitive.

I’m not really a power. I’m not on the Republican leadership team. I’ve been advocating for less power in the leaders and more in the members. It doesn’t play well with the leaders. It really has not been fun the last few years for me. I had more fun in the minority. One of the most disappointing things is when I realized we’re going to run things pretty much the same way as the Democrats.

News

scene so quickly. I don’t think they saw these bodies being dominated by one person. [Although George Washington and James Madison were respected], anybody could have gotten up and made proposals and had them considered. That was the model of what a deliberative assembly should look like.

In the last session, 40 percent of the bills we passed were not on the calendar for that day…. None of them were time-sensitive like, “We need to do this today.” They all could have carried over for the next day, if not the next week. Everything we vote on should be on the calendar so if there’s someone in the public who wants to influence their legislator, they can. A couple years ago we had an abortion bill that went over as a motorcycle helmet safety bill in the House. Then the Senate made it into a “faith and family” bill. … I think the public’s entitled to notice so if they have any objection or if they support something they can try to influence something in the respective body. These are some of the fundamental rights, and we’re violating them in the way we do business. Yeah, your representative does get a vote, but what does it matter if everything’s been decided beforehand?

Up Front

John Blust, a maverick Republican state lawmaker from Guilford County, announced his retirement from the General Assembly on Tuesday, after serving 20 years in both the House and Senate. Blust frequently clashed with the leadership of his own party, but he ultimately decided to bow out after a court-imposed redistricting plan made his district more favorable for a Democrat to win.

triad-city-beat.com

NC Rep. John Blust

by Jordan Green

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February 15 - 21, 2018

Last summer, Anthony Milledge, a 52-year-old laborer with the city of Charlotte’s yard-waste division, died of a heart attack after working a 14-hour day when the temperature reached 91 degrees and the heat index reached 96.6 degrees.

Around the same time — early July — Charles Sifford, a water department employee, was driving a truck without working air conditioning and passed out. He was rushed to the hospital and treated for dehydration and heat exhaustion.

In the wake of Milledge’s death and Sifford’s injury, UE Local 150, North Carolina’s public employees’ union, launched a campaign to pressure the largest cities across the state, including Greensboro, to adopt written policies to protect workers from excessive heat.

The Greensboro City Workers Union, led by sanitation worker Charles French, met last fall with Human Resources Director Connie Hammond, who has since retired, and Safety Administrator Matt Schweitzer to discuss the union’s request. Jamiah Waterman, the new interim human-resources director, is leading negotiations for the city now that Hammond has retired.

To date, the city of Greensboro has left it up to department heads to formulate safety policies, but Waterman and Schweitzer have expressed willingness to develop a citywide policy. The draft city policy holds supervisors responsible for encouraging employees to frequently consume water, and advises employees to monitor themselves for heat-related illness. The draft policy also requires supervisors “to the extent practicable” to hold pre-shift meetings to review highheat procedures, encourage employees to drink plenty of water and remind them of their right to “take a cool-down rest when necessary.”

The draft policy requires the city to provide at least one quart of water per employee per hour, and to stock water, ice and electrolyte drinks at the Patton Avenue service center and Water Resources Operation Center.

So far, so good.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Greensboro city workers part of state push for heat-protection rules

Up Front

NEWS

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by Jordan Green The Greensboro City Workers Union is negotiating a heat-stress prevention policy with the city’s human-resources director, and anticipating action on a promised $15-per-hour minimum wage from a more labor-friendly city council.

The man sticking point to date in negotiations with the city has been the union’s request for mandated breaks that are indexed to the heat. For a heat index of 89 degrees or more, a 15-minute break would be mandated for every 45 minutes of work, while a heat index of 104 degrees or more would require a 30-minute break for every 30 minutes of work.

“That’s tough to do,” said Schweitzer, the city’s safety manager. “If you’re experiencing heat exhaustion, that 10-minute break may not do you any good. A mandated break schedule might give you a false sense of security.”

He argued that every employee will respond to heat stress differently, depending on size and fitness, and the city prefers the approach of training employees to recognize the signs of heat-related illness and encouraging them to stay hydrated instead of mandating breaks.

French said the city needs a uniform policy to protect employees. He acknowledged that city workers exposed to heat are free to take breaks whenever they feel the need, but indicated that sometimes employees push themselves too hard because of their workload.

“Employees want to get through their day so they can get out of the heat,” French said. “Because of the expansion of the city, there are days when it’s hard to get all the work done. Yes, we are adults, and when we feel ill we should take a break. Sometimes there are people who might be on medication; it creeps up on them so suddenly they had no notice. They don’t recognize I need to take a break. A city that cared about its employees would mandate breaks.”

The policy proposed by the union also calls for workers exposed to a heat index of more than 98 degrees to be sent home early with a full day’s pay. Any employees required to continue working in such conditions would receive hazard pay at 150 percent of their regular earnings.

Waterman indicated the city isn’t likely to grant that request.

“That’s not in our program,” he said.

French said the union wants to have a heat-stress prevention policy in place before summer. “If we cannot get any type of resolution from human resources,” he said, “then we will stand before city council and ask them for assistance.”

Along with protection from heatrelated illness, the Greensboro City

Charles French, president of the Greensboro City Workers Union, speaks with veteran labor activists Richard Koritz (left) and Bill Lucy.

Workers Union is also working to keep pressure on the city to pay all public employees a minimum of $15 an hour.

The city has committed to meeting the goal by 2020. Under the budget passed last summer, city council approved a 3 percent average merit increase for employees represented by the Greensboro City Workers Union, while approving 7.5 percent raises for sworn police and fire employees, who are represented by separate unions.

“When the city first passed [the $15 per hour by 2020] policy, they sat a year and a half and did not make any wage improvements,” French told an audience at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum during a Feb. 4 commemoration of the Memphis sanitation strike.

“We had to speak out and challenge them publicly so that those working in recreation centers and elsewhere making $8 an hour got a raise. They’re now making $11.50, which is still not enough.

“We continue to fight until they bring [up] more roster workers, part-time employees and coliseum employees to $15 an hour,” he continued. “We have skilled water-resources employees that repair broken water mains in unsafe conditions that still don’t make $15 an

JORDAN GREEN

hour with hazard pay or on-call pay. We want and deserve $15 an hour [now] — not 2020.”

French said in an interview that the Greensboro City Workers Union is working alongside the Professional Fire Fighters of Greensboro to pressure the city into meeting the $15-per-hour target and implementing a step plan that ensures that employee pay rises according to years of service. While firefighters are already on a step plan, not all of them earn $15 per hour, so the alliance benefits them as well, French said.

French is optimistic that city council will support workers’ demand for pay improvements. Michelle Kennedy wore a Greensboro City Workers Union shirt as she celebrated her victory on election night last November. Kennedy replaced Mike Barber, a conservative Democrat who promoted the raise for police and firefighters, while Tammi Thurm ousted Tony Wilkins, the only Republican on the council.

“We believe that with the new city council that has been elected they will be a force to reach that $15 an hour this year — before the 2020 deadline,” French said.

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

North Carolina’s new, court-ordered state legislative maps give Democrats an opportunity to make electoral gains in the state House, with at least one seat virtually guaranteed to flip in Guilford County.

The current Republican-drawn map, run for re-election. which was declared a racial gerrymander Hypothetically, Blust by the federal courts, effectively allocates could have relothree seats to Democrats and three seats cated into the new to Republicans in Democratic-leaning districts 62 or 59 and Guilford County. The new map drawn contested one of his

by Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford Univerfellow Republican sity professor appointed to by the federal incumbents in the courts, effectively pulled the chair out primary instead of from one of Guilford County’s three standing down or Republican representatives. facing an equally Ashton Clemmons, a Thomasville difficult general elecCity Schools assistant superintendent tion against Clemand political newcomer, fired the first mons in November. volley in the political shakeup by filing “It was an indias a Democrat on Monday for the new vidual decision that House District 57, which runs across the each of us makes,” northern section of Greensboro. John Faircloth said. “I Blust, one of the three Republican inmade my decision cumbents, experienced the misfortune of after seeing what the being drawn into the new Democraticfinal map looks like. leaning district. Blust announced from I’m very comfortable the House floor on Tuesday that he will with the numbers of retire from the chamber at the end of his the population in the term. district. I chose to It’s no surprise that education is a go ahead and file.” strong theme of Clemmons’ campaign.

Democrat Martha “As an educator, mother and lifelong Shafer of SumNorth Carolinian, I believe that our state merfield plans to owes every child a chance at success, and challenge Faircloth strong public schools are the foundation for the seat. of that promise,” she said. “The North Republican Jon Carolina I grew up in led the South in Hardister, who serves keeping that promise, and I see the progas majority whip, ress slipping away. filed for the redrawn “District 57 residents need a repreDistrict 59, which sentative who will fight to bring new like its predecessor, economic opportunities to local families, covers a large, rural increase funding for our public schools, section of eastern and expand access to healthcare for all Guilford. residents,” Clemmons added.

North Carolina Democrats need to pick up four seats Democrats, who COURTESY PHOTO Ashton Clemmons, an assistant to break the Republican supermajorhave raised $2.4 superintendent, is running in District 57. ity, which currently allows the GOP to million through a new District 61, which covers a central override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Roy partnership with swath of Greensboro.

Cooper.

Gov. Cooper called Break the MajorRepublican John Faircloth of High The five remaining incumbents all ity, had previously touted Steve BucPoint filed in filed for re-election cini, a Grimsley High School graduate the redrawn in the reconstituted who studied at UC-Berkeley, as one in District 62, districts on Monday a “slate of top-tier candidates” to take The new map effectively pulls which covers and will likely face little on Hardister. But under the final map, northwestdifficulty keeping their Buccini’s address was shifted into District the chair out from under one ern Guilford seats.

61, where he would have to run against Republican representative, County and Democrats Amos fellow Democrat Harrison. and John Blust took the hit. reaches into Quick and Cecil Brocknorth High man filed in the redrawn Point. Fairdistricts 58 and 60, cloth told Triad City Beat he and his fellow which respectively cover the southern Republican lawmakers in the Guilford portion of Greensboro and High Point. delegation didn’t discuss who would Democrat Pricey Harrison filed in the

triad-city-beat.com

New map gives tips Guilford House seat to Dems

by Jordan Green

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February 15 - 21, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Winston-Salem faces $1.7 million gap for 2018-19 budget

by Jordan Green A sneak peak at the city of Winston-Salem’s 2018-2019 budget reveals a $1.7 million gap.

Meanwhile, the finance committee forwards a recommendation for $147,834 in incentives to a banking payments company Based on an early forecast, the city of Winston-Salem’s annual budget will grow by $8.4 million, to $208.4 million for fiscal year 2018-2019.

The forecast presented by Budget Director Patrice Toney to members of Winston-Salem City Council on Monday indicated that almost half of the $8.4 million growth will be driven by $4 million in increased spending on employee compensation. Other new expenses include spending on new facilities, including the Union Station transportation center, personnel for the newly acquired Long Creek swimming pool; a local match for a federal grant to train firefighters; and replacement of sanitation bins.

The city also anticipates an increase in revenue, including an additional $2.4 million in property taxes that assumes 1.3 percent growth in the city’s tax base.

With a $2 million fund balance appropriation, the city faces a $1.7 million gap — less than 1 percent of the total budget.

“I haven’t gotten much pushback on the bonds because people see that they’re going towards built projects,” said Councilman Jeff MacIntosh, who represents the Northwest Ward. “I get a lot of pushback from constituents year to year on how much we’re spending on operations. What are the areas where we

can substitute technology?... To me, this budget needs a lot of work, or else we’re gonna go up in property taxes and fees, and get a lot of heat from the citizens.”

MacIntosh said after the meeting that it’s city council members responsibility to push staff to find more efficiency in the budget.

“Our tax rate is growing faster than our population,” he said.

“Without someone saying, ‘You’ve got to squeeze more JORDAN GREEN Budget Director Patrice Toney unveiled the budget preview for fiscal year 2018-2019 to Winston-Salem City Council on Monday. blood out of the rock,’ that’s not equity and external competitiveness committee unanimously approved a recgoing to happen,” [factors],” Toney said.

“They’re also ommendation to provide up to $147,834 The $4 million increase in employee looking at a framework for achieving a in economic incentives assistance to the compensation includes a 2 percent averminimum pay of $15 per hour by the Clearing House, a banking association age merit increase for eligible employees, year 2021, and they are updating the job described on its website as “a quasia 2 percent public safety supplement and descriptions for all the positions.”

Toney central bank long before the Federal a raise in the minimum wage for city said the study is primarily looking at Reserve was formed” that facilitates workers to $12.50 per hour. “administrative department head type of payments between banks. The company Two factors create uncertainty for the positions” and police positions. currently employs about 175 people at budget.

“There’s not a number in the budget its Winston-Salem facility. The outThe city’s human resources departright now for this estimate,” City Manlay of public funds is premised on the ment is currently undertaking a comager Lee Garrity company’s compensation study. The results are expected cautioned, “but it mitment to invest soon, and could drive additional costs. will be significant.” about $25 million The annual budget for the “They will look at some internal Toney also said in facility improvecity of Winston-Salem is the city anticipates ments, equipment projected to grow by $8.4 receiving new proand software, and jections for propto create 50 new million. erty tax revenue jobs with average from the Forsyth salaries of $98,361 County Tax Department, which could plus benefits. The amount of the incenchange budget projections. tives is 50 percent of anticipated net new Toney resented a cash-flow projection property tax generated by the project for the city’s stormwater management over its first five years. fund, which indicates that without a The request goes before the full counrate increase, additional borrowing or a cil for consideration on March 5. combination of the two, the fund will be “I know this isn’t a done deal,” Madepleted by 2023. cIntosh said at the meeting, “but I just Assistant City Manager Greg Turner want to say thanks for giving us a shot at said the projection is based on a couple the deal. This seems like exactly the type looming projects that will incur sigof business we want to have grow here: nificant expenses, including replacing a clean business, good wages, intelligence storm sewer along Seventh Street. workers, a diverse workforce. We really The next meeting on the budget is appreciate having a shot at it, and we’re scheduled for April 2 at City Hall. excited that you’re going to do your In other news on Monday, the finance expansion here.”

Opinion

At the meeting, a map of the proposed alternative will be presented. Project team members, including right-of-way agents, will be available to discuss the project, answer questions, and provide feedback. Written comments or questions may be submitted at the meeting or via mail/email by March 9, 2018. Please note no formal presentation will be made.

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The public meeting will be held Thursday, February 22, 2018 between 4 and 7 p.m. at Kernersville Wesleyan Church located at 930 N. Main Street in Kernersville.

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TIP NO. U-6003 The N. C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting in February regarding the proposed Kernersville Loop Road, a two-lane divided roadway with bicycle and pedestrian accommodations between Piney Grove Road and N.C. 150 (N. Main Street) in Kernersville.

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NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FEBRUARY 22 FOR THE KERNERSVILLE LOOP ROAD BETWEEN PINEY GROVE ROAD AND N.C. 150 (NORTH MAIN STREET) KERNERSVILLE, FORSYTH COUNTY

Project maps are available online at: http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings/

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NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting. Anyone requiring special services should contact Diane Wilson, Environmental Analysis Unit via email at pdwilson1@ncdot.gov or by phone 919.707.6073 as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

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Persons with additional questions may contact Al Blanton, NCDOT Division 9 Project Development Team Lead by email at wablanton@ncdot.gov or NCDOT Consultant Project Manager Mark Reep, PE by phone by calling 919.900.1635 or by email mark.reep@hdrinc.com.

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February 15 - 21, 2018

EDITORIAL

Anti-panhandling ordinances are unconstitutional

A federal judge invalidated the city of Slidell’s requirement that panhandlers get permits.

A nuanced take on school districts There was a time when all school districts were local JORDAN GREEN

News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

that affect them based on their own priorities. What’s the saying? If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

Through his work with Denver Homeless Out Loud, Hyde found that two primary concerns emerged for people experiencing homelessness: Housing and the criminalization of homelessness.

In some ways it’s not surprising that campaigns to discourage people from giving money to panhandlers are gaining traction; efforts by cities to limit panhandling through regulation are increasingly running into trouble with the courts.

As Hyde wrote recently to members of Greensboro City Council, the city’s ordinances on panhandling — which among other things involve a licensing requirement, along with prohibitions against begging from traffic medians and asking for money within a certain distance of ATMs — risk running afoul of the Constitution’s free speech protections.

In 2015, the US Supreme Court invalidated an earlier ruling upholding an anti-panhandling ordinance in Worcester, Mass., and a federal judge found that the city’s entire ordinance, including prohibitions on begging in traffic medians and near ATMs, was unconstitutional.

And in June 2017, a federal judge ruled that it’s unconstitutional for the city of Slidell, La. to require panhandlers to obtain a permit before begging for money.

In 2012, Greensboro City Council amended its ordinances to ban begging from traffic medians out of a professed concern for the safety of panhandlers and motorists. Three years later, a woman died because her right to ask for help was criminalized. Ellin Schott was arrested and hauled to jail by a Greensboro police officer for multiple occurrences of panhandling without a license while standing in a traffic median. She died a couple days later after being denied access to her anti-seizure medication.

The harbinger of doom for panhandling ordinances in Greensboro and other cities may well turn out to the be the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Reed v. Town of Gilbert. While Reed addressed the right of a fledgling church to advertise its services in various rented facilities, the ruling could have profound implications for contentbased restrictions on speech. As Judge Lance M. Africk wrote in Blitch v. City of Slidell, Reed “worked a sea change in First Amendment law.”

“Under strict scrutiny, the panhandling permitting requirement ‘can stand only’ if Slidell can prove the scheme ‘furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest,’” Africk wrote.

Unfortunately for Slidell, cracking down on panhandlers didn’t further a compelling interest, and the ordinance didn’t stand.

— cities and towns took care of their own, with public facilities ranging from one-room schoolhouses to more modern structures. Newcomers to North Carolina, and locals of a certain age, can be confounded by the size of our county-wide school districts and the choices they offer.

And when looking at cost and outcomes, it’s easy to argue that our current public education system has gotten too big.

That’s the sentiment behind the last act of the NC General Assembly before adjourning until May: a joint committee formed to explore breaking up some of the state’s largest school systems — Wake County in particular — and issue a report on May 1.

And as usual, it’s applying a solution from last century to a situation firmly entrenched in this one.

Guilford and Forsyth counties have good school systems — ranked 22 and 15 respectively on niche. com’s 2018 ranking of the state’s 100 school districts.

Wake County, the core subject of this legislation, came in at No. 5.

Forsyth County has an The one-size-fitsentire department to deal all neighborhood with students with disabilities, as much to serve school district is the students as to meet just not equipped to federal requirements for deal with the modern the Individuals with DisAmerican plurality. abilities Education Act. Guilford County students speak almost a hundred different languages, with more than 5,000 students learning to speak English this year.

We have special-needs students on the low and high ends of the spectrum, charter schools pulling dollars away from budgets, early colleges and specialized high schools. How on earth is all of that supposed to be unbundled, and then repackaged in a way that will meet everybody’s needs in accordance with the state Constitution, which guarantees “a general and uniform system of free public schools… wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.”

The one-size-fits-all neighborhood school district is just not equipped to deal with the modern American plurality — unless it’s in a wealthy neighborhood, which is sort of the point.

We are forced to remember, too, our shameful history of segregation in North Carolina and acknowledge that a county-wide school administration is the mechanism that is able to enforce integration in schools unwilling to participate.

The answer to the problems in our schools is not in the rear-view mirror. It’s in the students that, by law, must be served in a fair and equal manner. That won’t be accomplished by sorting them into smaller piles.

Up Front

When the “Chicken Lady” speaks, her word on the matter of panhandlers inevitably carries forth and instigates a small ripple of media stories, op-eds and Facebook debates.

Amy Murphy’s commitment to helping people experiencing

by Jordan Green homelessness is unassailable. She earned the nickname “Chicken Lady,” after all, from her weekly practice of serving left-over fried chicken donated by local restaurants to hungry people at Greensboro’s Center City Park. Which makes her the perfect spokesperson for downtown gentrification: Given her record of personal hospitality, Murphy’s advocacy for policies that are hostile to the poor gives cover to people whose only concern is making downtown more comfortable for the wealthy and protecting investments in housing, restaurants and entertainment that cater to the super-rich.

First, it was Murphy’s proposal last September that homeless services be moved out of downtown. Then, on Feb. 5, Murphy posted on Facebook that Greensboro should emulate a program in Charlotte that encourages people to turn down requests for money from panhandlers.

Personally, I don’t often give money to panhandlers for a variety of reasons, and everyone is certainly within their rights to refrain from giving. But the idea of a marketing campaign to urge public stinginess strikes me as paternalistic. I wouldn’t presume to possess the omniscience to determine whether someone’s donation is going to help another person get on their feet or enable their bad decisions. And if it’s the latter, well, I could use a good, strong drink myself once in a while.

To Marcus Hyde, the debate about whether people should give money to panhandlers is just another way to shift the conversation from the structural causes of homelessness — lack of affordable housing, not enough livingwage jobs, poor healthcare — onto homeless people and their individual choices. As if all it took for homelessness to go away was for homeless people to shape up.

“Homeless people are just people,” Hyde told me. “They make good decisions and bad decisions. The difference is I can do whatever I want behind closed doors. That’s just code word for certain types of people make me uncomfortable. To me, it sounds like the same crap as certain people choose to be homeless.”

Hyde, who moved to Greensboro from Denver last summer so his wife could attend grad school at UNCG, was formerly homeless himself. He shared his story with some reservations because he doesn’t want people to extrapolate that his personal circumstances explain the entirety of why people become homeless.

“My dad hit me and at some point I said, ‘F*** you,’ and walked out the door,” Hyde recalled. “Eventually, I got a job and became a carpenter. I met some old ladies who were offering hospitality, and I carried some boxes for them. I found that most people who provide services are afraid to do advocacy. So, I started an organization with other people who experienced homelessness to work on issues

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CITIZEN GREEN

OPINION

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February 15 - 21, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

14

CULTURE A tea room persists in Winston-Salem

by Lauren Barber

T

he Stratford Place Plaza is quiet — too quiet.

Just beyond the five-point intersection on the west side of WinstonSalem, the restaurant and shopping center is known for high prices, but there’s at least one exception: Angelina’s Teas, next to Nawab Indian Cuisine in the far back left corner. In 2005, owner Wade Dibbert committed himself to offering high-quality teas from around the world to Twin City tea lovers at affordable prices and hasn’t looked back.

The idea came after hosting home tea parties to sell porcelain turned towards conversation about the tea.

“At the tea parties, I might sell one or two pieces of china, but everybody wanted to buy the tea I was using,” Dibbert said. “I sold one cup and saucer over the course of a weekend-long farmer’s market and a thousand dollars of tea. China wasn’t the right idea, so I opened up a tea shop.”

He named the business after his daughter, 4 years old at the time, and added a living room nook with a television (usually turned off these days).

“She would have playdates here,” Dibbert said.

“Her and her friends would be playing hide-and-seek LAUREN BARBER Wade Dibbert, at his shop Angelina’s Teas in Winston-Salem, named for his daughter, started off selling teapots, but everybody under the tables. She wanted to buy the tea. learned to ride her bike in here and to use a Pogo Dibbert works with five suppliers from Metropolitan Teas ter-of-fact, too — it’s just that he’s Nebraskan; for customers stick.” out of Toronto, the largest tea supplier in North America, to looking to experiment, he’s eager to offer guidance.

Twelve years later, Angelina is a junior a direct source of pu-erh tea, his favorite, from a High Point “People drink what they know, so the two best-selling teas in high school and the store looks a little native who relocated to China a few years ago. are English Breakfast and Earl Grey,” Dibbert said. “You put different. The living room area remains, “I’m not gonna sell you stuff you don’t need and I don’t those two together they equal almost all the other teas combut it’s surrounded by books and art for make false claims on teas,” Dibbert said. “Unless there’s real bined in sales.” sale. Affordable to higher-end porcelain scientific proof a tea does something, Angelina’s boasts a selection of tea wares, including a standalone shelf I won’t say well, ‘You drink this tea more than 500, mostly loose-leaf dedicated to local potter and Sawtooth for that,’ unless I know it will do that teas with descriptions that include Learn more at angelinasteas.com.

School of the Arts teacher Jackie Ooi, fill for everyone.” ingredients, so consumers can check the middle of the large space. Visitors Dibbert tends to stay near the for allergens. Dibbert will help create will also find gifts, cards, comic books, counter space where patrons hang individualized mixtures of teas and quilts and a number of tea-related out on bar-style seats, sipping on their brew of choice, rather while offering an education. He keeps a few hot and iced tea gadgets. than rush new customers when they enter. He’s mighty matspecials ready to serve for customers in a hurry, too.

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“I’m not gonna sell you stuff you don’t need and I don’t make false claims on teas,” Dibbert said.

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trying to be one, either. Clientele skews toward an older crowd, but with ample seating and free wifi it’s not a bad option for students who need library-level quiet but want to get away from campus. And it’s telling that Dibbert has maintained regulars for more than a decade, including a drawing group that comes every Saturday morning.

“My customers have become family,” Dibbert said.

Twelve years later, Dibbert is still experimenting with the space and (most importantly) the teas he sources, and he wants to help us experiment, too.

News

“I’m from the Midwest, so iced tea isn’t supposed to have sugar in it,” Dibbert said. “My iced teas are sweetened but they’re not Southern-sweet. In the summer, one of the four options is always unsweetened.”

No matter your order, about a dozen types of honey on the bar are at your disposal: sunflower, blossom, spiced, local, Italian — you name it; if it’s not on the bar top, it’s among the even wider variety of raw honey stocked on the shelves. He offers white sugars and agave as an alternative, too.

To be clear, Angelina’s not a hip hangout and isn’t

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February 15 - 21, 2018 Up Front News Opinion

CULTURE Little Theatre of Winston-Salem brings the Noise

by Spencer KM Brown

F

or the writer, comedy is perhaps the hardest thing to create. The variables of timing, dialogue and atmosphere are as fluid as a river, ever changing, ever moving. When a joke doesn’t land, everyone knows it; when a joke works, the atmosphere expands.

And for the Little Theatre’s production of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, the theatrical universe has absolutely expanded.

As Peggie Kaan Dull, playing the role of Dotty Otley, took the stage in the opening act, the tightrope of comedy began; the crowd awaiting theater’s transportation to a different time, a different place, and suddenly, a voice bellowed from among the auditorium seats.

“Sardines!”

At first, for those who had never seen the production, the voice came as a shock. Who was speaking? What rude audience member was heckling already?

But as Dull continued her lines, speaking to the unknown actor among the sea of ticketholders, the room was pulled into a different time, a different place.

Noises Off is a critically acclaimed play about the production of a comedy.

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Noises Off, a play within a play, comes to life under the production of the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem.

From left: Ken Ashford, Peggie Kaan Dull, Chad Ramsey, Chad Edwards and Sarah Jenkins.

DANIEL ALVAREZ

Complete with actors calling for lines, questioning the playThough there were subtle sputters of opening night nerves, wright’s vision and bumbling rehearsal flaws, the audience the construction and direction of Noises Off at the Little Theis immediately drawn into a rarely seen side of theater. Chad atre proved an equal production to that of any other company Ramsey, playing the role of the play-within-the-play’s director since its premiere 35 years ago. With a two-room set, both Lloyd Dallas, continued with stage directions from the crowd, front and back stage built on a rotating concourse, the attenwalking the aisles from his seat in the auditorium to the stage, tion to detail easily swept viewers into the fictional world. A frustrated in a most compelling manner that all play directors standout performance was given by Chad Edwards, a teacher must occasionally feel. at Mount Tabor High School, playing Garry Lejeune, whose The difficulty of a play like Noises Off comes in comedic delivery reached into the depths of drama and further into timing and the actors’ ability to sell their lines. Though the comedic theater, and, suffice to say, brought perfection to the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem might be a small producrole which was mirrored in his fellow players. tion company, director Lane Fields Though the night was filled with and her cast raised this play to the laughter, sadness struck when eyes utmost level of professionality. With read the program which announced Noises Off runs Thursday through the heartbeat of community theater that the Little Theatre’s home of 61 Sunday. For tickets and perforand volunteer support thrumming years has been bought, forcing the through the organization, one might company into an uncertain limbo of mance schedules, visit thelittlebuy a ticket expecting second-rate having to find a new location. The detheatreofws.org. theater, merely a jest and nod to cision by the Arts Council of Winstonwhat drama can be. Instead, the great Salem & Forsyth County to sell the satisfaction of highest-quality actors, theater on Coliseum Drive was made intricate set design and prime choice in early January. The move is part of of productions, the Little Theatre raises the bar of community a restructuring initiative that aims to reduce expenses and theatre, proving corners need not be cut to produce a fantasconsolidate offerings into fewer and more appropriate spaces. tic show on a tight budget.

With hopeful plans to temporarily relocate the theater closer The laughter began almost instantly on Feb. 9, opening to downtown, no final decision has yet been established. Even night for the Noises Off, and didn’t cease until the standing with the news of the theater closing and the Little Theatre’s ovation echoed through the auditorium. The greatest feafuture uncertain, the season carries on, making the best of the ture of the night came in the actors’ timing. Each scene was unfortunate situation. done in fluid, flawless strokes. One bumbling mistake that is With the classic resounding refrain of sardines and doors, the play’s essence flowed into the next, keeping the crowd’s Noises Off shows the company’s fearless plow forward laughter rolling almost continuously. While Frayn’s lines act as through uncertainty, providing an uproarious production of the first line of comedy and theater, it was the actors’ intricate comedy and theater at its very best, showing just what a little and immaculate delivery of such lines that brought the writing theater can do. to its acme of quality and comedy.

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CULTURE From ink on skin to paint on canvas in Glenwood

by Lauren Barber

A

Micah James and Kaley Farmer pivoted away from tattooing to open a grassroots gallery, Code, in Glenwood.

LAUREN BARBER

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Beyond a front room where a miscellany of antiques, crafts ing of — this, through a form simultaneously universal and and artwork are for sale, visitors pass a recording studio individual. (where a previous landlord used to sleep) on the way to the Though Heidt moved to Greensboro just over two years ago, main gallery space.

James, a Glenwood resident of six years, called him a “propel“I think it’s amazing how he’s transformed the space and ler of art in the community” and he is well known in the city’s manifested his vision,” Heidt said. “I’m really honored to be music scene for his experimental, avant-garde style. To anyone the first show here.” familiar with him, Heidt couldn’t have been a more suitable Heidt’s Skull Form series is comprised of five poems in the choice for the Code Gallery’s inaugural exhibit, but it’s clear shape of a human skull, impressed with black ink onto 14” x that Farmer and James aim to create an environment welcom17” pieces of paper. ing to everyone.

“The form is based on an image of a “It’s really important that skull and I abstract it down to a certain we’re rooted in the communumber of cells,” Heidt said. “Each cell nity,” James said. “I’ve been Find the Code Gallery on Facebook that has part of the image in it has to selling my woodcarvings, and visit at 1202 Grove Street (GSO). have a letter, so the form determines paintings and some plants at the language in a specific way, but you the Grove Street Market since still have choice within that form.” it started back up and I try to His poems lay within 23-by-29 letter have stuff that’s affordable so grids, the single-word titles at the summit of the crown and everyone in the neighborhood can buy it. We’re always going the body of the text descending into the shadowy caverns of to put more in [the gallery] than we’re taking. We want to be eye sockets toward the closed mandible, following whatever self-sufficient, but we want to help the community, too.” path the beholder’s eyes take. The experience is a bit like a Farmer is offering her first community art workshop on the choose-your-own-adventure story.

Feb. 24 and promises more mixed-media, painting and drawing classes for all ages in the future. Other than hosting two“It’s a visual poetic rather than a sound-based poetic,” Heidt month long exhibitions, the duo is looking for art and craft said. “In most of poetry, like the sonnet, it’s based on the vendors for the front room and musicians interested in improv sound of the syllables and this is based purely on the letters of music and open mic nights. the words.”

Most of all, Farmer and James want community input and The remarkable precision of finer-lined letters is juxtaposed participation to guide their nascent, low-budget venture. with bold, somewhat frenzied lettering where shadows fall.

Because the Code Gallery is for all of us, and we’re welcome to What is striking about Heidt’s skull-based series is this tencome as we are. sion between systems and anarchy; he devises a scrupulously ordered chaos the viewer instinctively seeks to make mean-

Culture

The Code Gallery doesn’t have a board of directors, high ceilings or nonprofit funding; when James ran out of removal chemicals and couldn’t afford more, he used Windex. Now, the floors are painted black and the walls are neutral beiges and sage, a sharp turn from a (reportedly) ungodly combination of salmon, yellow and dark mauve.

Opinion

COURTESY IMAGE

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A selection from Gary Heidt’s Skull Form.

Up Front

few doors down from Glenwood Community Bookshop, before crossing Glenwood Avenue to the Grove Street Market parking lot, a matte black door that led to heaps of rubble less than a year ago now opens into the Code Gallery. The name is painted in white and red Gothic script, fitting for the two tattoo artists-turnedgallery curators: Kaley Farmer and Micah James.

The duo, artists themselves, opened the Code Gallery on Feb. 9 with local artist and musician Gary Heidt’s new exhibit, Skull Form, on display through the second week of April. Farmer and James met through a tattooing shop in Archdale more than seven years ago but, upon reconnecting, Famer began an ongoing apprenticeship with James at Blue Luna Tattoo in Asheboro. They discovered a mutual interest other than tattooing: Both dreamed of owning an art gallery. Ever since securing the property six months ago, they dedicated their time outside of Blue Luna to renovating the space, including more than three months of scraping carpet, with a little help from their friends.

“It’s been a zero-budget kind of thing,” James said. “I’ve been in here for six months just plugging away. Every chance we get, we just scraped and scraped.”

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February 15 - 21, 2018

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CROSSWORD “En Vacation”--they all come up short.

52 European peak 53 Tiny mythical creatures on patrol?

59 2004 Jude Law drama 61 “Music for Airports” composer 62 “Come ___, we’re expecting you ...” (“The Love Boat” theme lyrics) 63 Confident finish?

64 Armitage who plays “Young Sheldon” 65 Frosty maker 66 ___ ThÈrËse, Quebec 67 Gambler’s numbers

Up Front

Answers from previous publication.

38 Viciousness 39 Sunup to sundown 42 Back muscle, for short 44 Actor Banderas 46 Shepherd’s pie bit 47 “Black Beauty” novelist Sewell 48 Colorful parrot 49 “___ right back!”

50 Many residents of Erbil in Iraq 51 Limber 54 Some baseball stats 55 “Gosh darn it!”

56 Name in spiral notebooks 57 Noddy creator Blyton 58 Mumford & ___ 60 Melancholy

Opinion

Down 1 Part that’s egg-centric?

2 Jai ___ (fast-moving sport) 3 Landlord’s check 4 Competition for toys?

5 Comic strip character known for ©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) saying “Ack!” 25 Neither companion 6 Tons 26 Built to ___ 7 “Girls” creator Dunham 27 “Sesame Street” character voiced by Ryan Dillon since 2013 8 Balancing device 28 Is totally up for nestling in bed?

9 Mention a connection, perhaps 29 Golf prop 10 “First of all...”

30 Get bigger 11 Body of water that’s surrounded?

33 “Science Friday” airer 12 Humongous movies 34 Cocoa container 13 “Dirty ___ Done Dirt Cheap” (AC/DC song) 35 Really dislike 18 Read a QR code 36 Equipment used at the Winter Olympics 21 Underwire’s locale, maybe

News

Across 1 1/1760th of a mile 5 Baseball Hall of Famer Ripken 8 Came down softly?

14 Margarine, colloquially 15 Brewhouse brew 16 Party appetizer 17 Poet/dramatist Hughes 19 Quirky French title role of 2001 20 Furniture to display cheesy stuff?

22 ___ Soundsystem 23 Baled stuff 24 Symptom that might require eye drops 26 Attach, as a button 29 Pre-flight org.

31 Stewart who sang “Maggie May” 32 Till the soil 33 Hot off the presses 34 Changes gradually, graphically 37 Kiwi’s much larger cousin 38 Go faster 40 Sturdy tree 41 Dress shirt component 43 Connectivity issue 44 U.S. : counter(clockwise) :: U.K. : ___(clockwise) 45 “Captain Underpants” creator Pilkey 46 Two-___ toilet paper 47 Incas’ mountains 48 Goof 51 Teensy carpenter

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by Matt Jones

SODUKO Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Answers from previous publication.

©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

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