TCB Jan. 24, 2019 — No Pain, no gain

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point January 24-30, 2019 triad-city-beat.com

No

Pain

FREE

No

Gain

Kinky fitness comes to High Point.

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Gone Geeksboro

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Marie Kondo

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Fringe first PAGE 16

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

The television screens have been pulled from the northeast wall, where lengths of coaxial cable now dangle down like a row of

by Brian Clarey dead snakes. The pinball machines are gone. And in the big room, the last group of grown men in hoodies and backpacks gather for the final event — a Super Smash Ultimate tournament that, as far as Joe Scott is concerned, can’t end soon enough.

These are the final hours of Geeksboro, Scott’s geek palace that opened just a few blocks down Lawndale Avenue as a paean to nerd culture: comic books, video games, trivia, old-school board games, Harry Potter, Star Wars, anime, “Dr. Who” and “The Walking Dead.” It was a coffeeshop, sure, but it was always about something more than that.

The vision sustained Scott through seven years and two locations, and now, frankly, it’s kind of bringing him down.

It all happened so fast — a landlord/tenant dispute that escalated over a matter of days — but from the beginning, and despite its noble intentions, Geeksboro has had more problems than Batman has arch enemies. Parking. Cash flow. Occupancy.

Just last week, the location of the former coffeeshop caught fire.

And just this morning, Scott realized it was over. He made the announcement on his Facebook page, opened the doors and settled in for one last shift.

GINA CHAVEZ

January 24-30, 2019

Geeksboro no more “I’m way, way in debt,” Scott says now at the bar. “It’s like if I got a PhD on student loans. In the last seven years I feel like I’ve earned a PhD in hard knocks.

“As a boss,” he continues, “you have to have empathy for people who might not have empathy for you. The higher you are in the company, the lower you are in terms of empathy — you have to understand why they’re trying to do what they do, even when they don’t understand what you’re doing.”

He pauses as the weight of it all settles in.

“All I wanted to do is sell chicken nuggets to nerds,” he says. “Now I’m trying to figure out why the cash register is short.”

It’s cost him nearly everything, not just the money but also his marriage, which ended during the Geeksboro run, and some personal relationships that suffered while he was chasing the dream.

And now there’s nothing left to do but pack up the rest of the TV screens, box up the board games and move on to what’s next.

Rob Hamilton of Greensboro stops by the bar to offer his condolences.

“You want that Tardis?” Scott asks.

“Yeah,” Hamilton says.

Years ago, he gave Scott a Dalek.

“Two, in fact,” Hamilton says. “The gold and then the blue.”

“So I’m giving him a Tardis,” Scott says.

He turns back to Hamilton.

“Just take it,” Scott says. “Get it out of here.”

Raleigh Ringers Feb. 14th, 2019

Show | 7:30pm / Doors |6:30pm NEA Jazz Master, renowned Grammy Award winning saxophonist and Tony Award nominee Branford Marsalis is one of the most revered instrumentalists of his time.

Leader of one of the finest jazz quartets today, and a frequent soloist with classical ensembles, Charles Gans from the Associated Press exclaims, “Saxophonist Marsalis leads one of the most cohesive, intense small N jazz ensembles on the scene today.”

A EDE

BRANFORD PASSPORT To Entertainment

MARSALIS QUARTET

FOR TICKETS, call 336-887-3001 2018 & 2019 or visit HighPointTheatre.com

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THE HIGHPOINT BALLET veters o L et

Presented in part by the generous support of Our State Magazine

LBAR

BAR HAL L

N INDE

THE QUEEN’S Day! In Celebration of Valentine’s Make It An Evening to Remember.

CARTOONISTS

Acts and dates are subject to change. For tickets and updates, go to HighPointTheatre.com or call (336) 887-3001.

RYTHM OF THE DANCE BUSINESS

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

OF SERENDIP

AN EVENING WITH BRANFORD BOSS MARSALIS QUARTET

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

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

Smirn

Yakov THE MANHATTAN TRANSFER The

nts� a new exciting season!

High Point Theatre PreseSAUCE

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 Cover Photo by Todd Turner EDITORIAL INTERN Savi Ettinger calendar@triad-city-beat.com

ART ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette robert@triad-city-beat.com SALES

KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price gayla@triad-city-beat.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sayaka Matsuoka

SALES Johnathan Enoch

STAFF WRITER Lauren Barber

CONTRIBUTORS

sayaka@triad-city-beat.com lauren@triad-city-beat.com

johnathan@triad-city-beat.com

Carolyn de Berry, Matt Jones

TCB IN A FLASH @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2018 Beat Media Inc.

January 24-30, 2019

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January 24-30, 2019

CITY LIFE Jan. 24-30, 2019

by Savi Ettinger

THURSDAY

News

Up Front

What To Wear? 1960s Fashion @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 6 p.m.

Founder of Design Archives, Kit Rodenbough hosts a discussion on fashion history and the clothing of the 1960s. The talk fits with the museum’s exhibit, 1960s: A Survey of the Decade. Learn more at weatherspoon. uncg.edu.

FRIDAY

Grand opening @ Barber Park Event Center (GSO), 4 p.m.

Experience the Barber Park Event Center with a ribbon cutting and exhibition opening. Visit the new space and the Ruth Wicker Tribute to Women, a celebration of women’s history in Greensboro. Learn more at greensboro-nc.gov.

Carnival Time opening reception @ the Enrichment Center (W-S), 5 p.m.

Opinion

Kannapolis: A Moving Portrait @ Wake Forest University (W-S), 7:30 p.m.

Culture

The Gateway Gallery welcomes Carnival Time, an exhibition from the Artists of Gateway Studios featuring guest artist Martina Moore. Enjoy live music and refreshments while looking at original paintings and handmade masks. Find the event on Facebook.

Shot in the Triad

Laser Metallica @ Greensboro Science Center, 7 p.m.

Puzzles

The hits of Metallica set the rhythm for a full laser light show in the OmniSphere Theater. Witness colorful laser displays play out famous metal songs like “Enter Sandman.”

Find the event on Facebook.

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Jenny Scheinman leads a multimedia concert in the Brendle Recital Hall of the Scales Fine Arts Center. The performance features an original set of folk and fiddle, along with film from the 1940s by H. Lee Waters. Find the event on Facebook.

Silent Disco @ the Ramkat (W-S), 8 p.m.

This dance party features DJ SK, Jon Kirby and Bruno DC with music guests can only hear through headphones. Tune in to the trio of DJ sets all on the same headset. Find the event on Facebook.

RiverRun Retro screens Bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr Story alongside a discussion with filmmaker Alexandra Dean.

The film follows the Austrian actress in her personal struggles, her Hollywood career and her engineering skill.

Find the event on Facebook.

Mozart Birthday Concert @ UNCSA (W-S), 3 p.m.

Lunar New Year Celebration @ Greensboro History Museum, 1 p.m.

Head to Watson Hall for a concert featuring chamber music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Faculty artists perform the famed composer’s work for his 263rd birthday. Find the event on Facebook.

White Lightning @ Triad Stage (GSO), 7:30 p.m.

Come out for a preview performance of White Lightning from Triad Stage. The play follows a young veteran in an adventure of moonshine running and early NASCAR racing. Find the event on Facebook.

Culture

The Greensboro History Museum holds a day of activities around the Lunar New Year. Learn about the holiday celebrated by many Asian countries with snacks, performances and demonstrations. Find the event on Facebook.

The Revelers @ Muddy Creek CafĂŠ & Music Hall (WS), 8 p.m.

The Revelers bring their compelling roots music to Muddy Creek, with a display of zydeco and country tunes. The concert boasts Cajun music and swamp-pop for a Louisiana sound. Find the event on Facebook.

Opinion

Our Lady of Perpetual Donuts @ Greensboro Cultural Center, 8 p.m.

This play by Jordan Beswick visits the Stephen D. Hyers Theater as part of the Greensboro Fringe Festival. The show presents the protagonist Edna talking to incarcerated young women about how donuts saved her life. Find more performances and learn more at greensborofringefestival. org.

Christian Howes @ High Point Theatre, 2 p.m.

Christian Howes showcases his skillful performance of the jazz violin.

As a conductor, performer and teacher, Christian Howes views music from all angles. Buy tickets and learn more at highpointtheatre.com.

News

SUNDAY

Up Front

Wise Man Turns 2 @ Wise Man Brewing (W-S), 12 p.m.

Wise Man throws a birthday celebration, complete with multiple beer releases and a lineup of food trucks featuring wings, burgers and barbeque. Pure Fiyah Reggae Band and Souljam fill the day up with live music. Find the event on Facebook.

Bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr Story @ Hanesbrand Theatre (W-S), 7 p.m.

January 24-30, 2019

SATURDAY

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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January 24-30, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Gaslighting for the MAGA Teens

by Brian Clarey I’ve learned the hard way not to sound off before done. getting all the facts. So, I kept my own counsel after the But nothing I’ve read or seen can deter me from my footage of the MAGA Teens bubbled to the surface of initial assessment: They’re punks. So screw these kids, the social-media stream. and anyone who made them think it was okay to act that Oh yeah, I was totally disgusted by these little way. douchebags from Covington Catholic High School in This is a school where students wear blackface.

Kentucky, particularly the one trying Ample footage has surfaced of the to intimidate Native-American activstudents harassing others on the ist and Marine Corps veteran Nathan National Mall during their field trip to I got into a lot of Phillips with a prep-school smirk. But the nation’s capital — which, it’s worth trouble when I was a I waited for context, and sure enough adding, was to participate in a protest teen, but never more footage came down the pipe against a woman’s right to make deciwithin a day or so — just after the sions about her own body. something so horrible smirker’s parents hired a PR firm to It was an anti-abortion field trip, that my parents had to deal with the blowback. for a bunch of Catholic high school hire a PR firm.

I’ll say this: I got into a lot of virgins! What could they possibly add trouble when I was a teenager, but I to the discourse? Besides MAGA, I never did something so horrible that mean. my parents had to hire a PR firm.

So please don’t try to sell me this story about a group So fine. The kids were scared of some black men yellof nice high school boys who got harassed in the big ing at them. And sure, Phillips injected himself between city while trying to do the right thing, and how the the Hebrew Israelites and the MAGA-clad Catholic media is turning them into pariahs. The only people who schoolboys, thinking his drumming and chanting might believe that bit are the ones who desperately need to. chill everybody out — which it actually seems to have

US WE NEED

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Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Marie Kondo might be the most famous Japanese person since Mr. Miyagi. Her 2011 book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has been published in more than 30 countries and she was listed as one of Time’s “100 most influential people” in 2015, a year after the book hit shelves in the US. Now, Kondo finds new fame after her binge-worthy super-hit of a show, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” hit Netflix at the beginning of the year. Since then, her methods of organizing, which she calls the “KonMarie Method,” have blown up on social media and prompted a wave of thrift-store and used-bookstore donations. She’s become a cultural phenomenon.

Growing up in a Japanese household, my sister and I practiced a lot of the things that Kondo teaches.

The idea of only keeping things COURTESY PHOTO Marie Kondo that “spark joy” and making sure everything had a home was taught to us by our mom from a young age. My mom even folds her clothes in that weird, efficient way so that you can see the logos, and they’re easy to pull out of the dresser drawers.

Before I moved back to Greensboro last summer, instead of packing everything we had into boxes, I insisted that my partner and I sort through every single thing we owned to see if it “sparked joy,” or was something we actually needed, before taking them with us on our move.

But even with the allure of tidiness, the essence of the show isn’t really about being tidy; it’s about what your belongings — and your relationship to them — show you about the kind of person you are, and who you want to be. It uncovers the nuances and dynamics of relationships and reveals our value systems. We are what we have.

In the show, Kondo leaves the families with tidier homes, but along the way, they all confront something about themselves through the process of sorting, keeping and discarding.

My grandma passed away about a month ago, and when my mom went back to Japan, she was tasked with decluttering and sorting through my grandma’s many possessions. It took her the entire two weeks she was there, and my aunt is still cleaning up after her. In the process, she found pictures of my grandparents and remembered my grandmother through her belongings. She brought back a ring and a scarf regularly for me to keep.

The allure of Kondo’s method isn’t necessarily about getting rid of stuff. Instead, it’s about realizing how much value we prescribe to the objects we have. It makes us actively think about how our things are a reflection on who we are as people, and what that ultimately means.

In the past week, I’ve binged a half-dozen episodes of Kondo’s show, and I’ve taken several trips to the dollar store and Target for all kinds of bins and boxes.

Maybe it’s because it’s the new year but you might find that tidying your home gives you a new perspective on life.

Plus, it’s pretty fun.

EVENTS

January 24-30, 2019

Marie Kondo

by Sayaka Matsuoka

YOU NEED

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January 24-30, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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NEWS

King Day speaker at WSSU: ‘Do you hear the train coming?’

by Jordan Green Political commentator and strategist Angela Rye challenges white people to show “true allyship” to reach “common ground” in King Day speech.

Angela Rye began with a citation of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s 1960 text The Burning Truth in the South and ended with the Black Panther salute: “All power to the people.”

The political strategist and commentator for CNN and NPR was the keynote speaker for the 19th annual King Day celebration on Monday co-hosted

by Winston-Salem State University and Wake Forest University. The event celebrated the partnership between the predominantly white institution and historically black university when Wake Forest students joined their peers at Winston-Salem State to sit in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Winston-Salem on Feb. 23, 1960.

Rye admitted that she struggled with the theme.

“I was in my room today preparing for this speech and a train came by,” she said. “I was so frustrated because it was loud, y’all. It was so loud: The notification bell that the train was coming. The even louder horn that it’s close and it’s coming, and if you are anywhere near this train, you might get got. The train was saying very clearly: ‘You in danger, girl.’

“But then I was really grateful in that moment for what the train signified,” Rye continued. “My message is supposed to be rooted in ‘On Common Ground: Embracing Our Voices.’ How can we embrace voices that are silent, that are never used, particularly in moments when they’re needed most, like right now? How can we be on common ground when we aren’t even on the same page?”

Rye said she felt some her of audience at KR Williams Auditorium on the campus of Winston-Salem State go cold when she cited statistics showing stark racial disparities in imprisonment, home ownership, education and other factors.

“How can we be on common ground when we are looking around and [asking ourselves]: ‘What unity? What solidarity?”

To reach common ground, Rye said, white people need to show “true allyship” and stand with African Americans to ensure “meaningful participation.”

Angela Rye was the keynote speaker for the 19th annual King Day celebration on Monday at Winston-Salem State University.

As an example, she mentioned a campaign her father, an activist in Seattle, has launched.

“Every year, my dad, Eddie Rye Jr., the perpetual protester and activist that he is, is an active member of the Martin Luther King Host Committee. He was there today at the rally. He also sets the agenda [of] what the asks and demands will be every year for this march. And this year my dad has taken on as his thing that 10 percent of the NFL’s more than $13 billion should be going to black banks. 10 percent. We’re talking about an entity where 70 percent of the players are black, 9 percent of the managers are, and there are no majority-black owners.

We’re talking about 10 percent to help fortify and ensure that our institutions are long lasting.”

Rye said she finds herself struggling with how modest the goal is, while also confronting how much resistance it’s likely to engender.

“I can hear some of the uncomfortability with that — maybe not in this room — ‘Well, what did you do to deserve that?’” she said. “I mean, we’re talking about financial institutions holding cash. ‘How do we know the black bank isn’t going to close?’ Sometimes

that kind of language comes from us, directly. It’s a shame, but it’s real. We are often challenged by the smallest things, because people see that once we get the smallest amount of power, they’re concerned that we’re going to abuse power in the same way it was abused on us.”

Rye also challenged white and black people alike to stand in solidarity with Latinx migrants who are seeking humane treatment at the southern border.

“We are right now turning a collective blind eye as children are separated from their families, as human beings come to this country seeking asylum, as is their legal right to do,” she said.

“We’re turning a blind eye…. I’ve been getting dragged in my Instagram DMs and on my Twitter for defending immigrants. And I will do it over and over and over again. Martin Luther King Jr. said this, and I believe it and will live by it. He said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I’ve never seen people who are so oppressed, still trying to find their power, trying to justify why we can’t be a voice for Latino people…. Why would we not use our voice to stand up against what we know is wrong, regardless of their race and their background?... With the little bit of

COURTESY PHOTO

power you have, you’re going to turn a blind eye. You’re abusing the little bit of power you have. Imagine how powerful you could be if you stood with other oppressed people.”

To come together genuinely, Rye said, people need to be willing to face unpleasant truths.

“We need to get on the train because it’s moving,” she said. “We are headed for the collective purpose together. We are headed to that change together. We are headed in the same direction and trying to reach the same destination, at least our view of it. If we want to be on common ground and embrace our voices, this is what has to be our truth.”

“Where are you?” she asked. “Do you even hear the train coming? Do you even see the train coming, or are your hearts hardened? Are your ears closed?

And are you blind to the facts? These kinds of dangerous times are upon us.

So, I dare you to take your blindfold off, and lean in so that you’re standing on common ground. We can embrace collective voices, as Dr. King would have us to do it.

Rye concluded, “Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Keep the faith. All power to the people.”

January 24-30, 2019 Up Front

NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING ON FEBRUARY 5 REGARDING THE PROPOSAL TO WIDEN RANDLEMAN ROAD (S.R. 1007) FROM GLENDALE DRIVE TO WEST ELMSLEY DRIVE IN GUILFORD COUNTY STIP PROJECT NO. U-5850 The N.C. Department of Transportation proposes to widen Randleman Road (S.R. 1007) between Glendale Drive and West Elmsley Drive in Guilford County.

Opinion

The purpose of this meeting is to inform the public of the project and gather input on the proposed design. As information becomes available, it may be viewed online at the NCDOT public meeting webpage: https://www.ncdot.gov/news/public-meetings.

News

A public meeting will be held from 4-7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 5 at New Goshen United Methodist Church located at 3300 Randleman Road in Greensboro.

The public may attend at any time during the public meeting hours, as no formal presentation will be made. NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and receive comments. The comments and information received will be taken into consideration as work on the project develops.

Culture

The opportunity to submit written comments will be provided at the meeting or can be done via phone, email, or mail by Feb. 19, 2019.

For additional information, please contact Brian Ketner, NCDOT Division 7 Project Engineer at P.O. Box 14996, Greensboro, NC 27415-4996, (336) 487-0075 or, bkketner@ncdot.gov.

Aquellas personas 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 1-800-481-6494.

Puzzles

Persons who 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 1-800-481-6494.

Shot in the Triad

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 276991598, at (919) 707-6069 or magallagher@ncdot.gov as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

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January 24-30, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Confederate monument protestors advocate for additional changes

by Sayaka Matsuoka It was standing room only during the Winston-Salem city council room on Tuesday evening.

About a dozen community members — many associated with the “Get Hate Out of Winston-Salem” movement which supports the removal of the downtown Confederate statue — urged council members to take additional steps to promote equity in the city.

The monument has been ordered by both the city and the owner, to be removed by the Daughters of the Confederacy by Jan. 31.

Aidan McCarthy, a student from Reagan High School, spoke about the importance of the statue’s removal, but said there are other issues that the city needs to address.

“When the statue is no longer standing, who will stand for the residents of this town?” McCarthy asked. “To me and most people in this town, the statue is just the tip of the iceberg.”

McCarthy and others referenced the increasing number of high-rent apartments being built downtown and the number of ways in which black and brown residents continue to struggle in society. One speaker half-jokingly suggested breaking apart the statue and letting black artists use the remains to create their own art.

Tina Trutanich, a local organizer, urged members to focus their efforts on problems like food insecurity, poverty and providing better transportation.

“You work for us,” Trutanich said.

“We need to make sure we get what we are paying our taxes for.”

Trutanich said she waited in freezing temperatures for a bus that morning.

“Routes have been cut; the buses are not reliable,” Trutanich said. “Transportation has not assisted the lives of lower income people.”

Alexx Andersen, a graduate student at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity who prefers gender-neutral pronouns, outlined their personal experiences of growing up as a black person in the South.

They described how white supremacists burned crosses on their family’s front lawn when they were a child in rural South Carolina. When that didn’t drive their family away, they said the tormentors lynched their dad.

“We were living in an area where there weren’t a lot of people that looked like me,” Andersen said.

In 2015, after moving to Charleston,

Protestors with “Hate Out of Winston” showed up at the Winston-Salem city council meeting Tuesday night to advocate for additional changes for residents.

Andersen said they experienced hate and racism again. They had plans to go to Bible study one evening at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church when they got a call.

“I found out that the church I loved so much,” Andersen said as they struggled to get the words out. “People were killed.”

They said the Confederate statue reminds them of the massacre in which a white gunman killed nine black parishioners at their church.

“I’m reminded that I’m a black person and my life doesn’t matter,” they said.

While 11 of the 13 speakers advocated for the removal, destruction or relocation of the Confederate monument, two speakers at the end of the meeting supported keeping the statue where it is.

Howard Snow, who wore a gray Confederate soldier cap, said he didn’t think the statue was racist.

“It’s for the soldiers that gave their lives for what they believed in,” Snow said. “It’s my family; it’s my heritage.”

Snow also helped organize an “Heirs to the Confederacy Prayer Service” at the base of Silent Sam in Chapel Hill on Dec. 16.

Wendy Hayslett, who said she was with the Virginia Task Force III%, a conservative, Confederate-monumentsupporting group, said she had come from Hampton, Va., to advocate for the statue.

“I don’t celebrate slavery and hate,” said Hayslett, who wore a gray shirt with the image of Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate general, on the back. “I’m not a

SAYAKA MATSUOKA

Nazi; I’m a Southern American and I’m proud of that.”

None of the city council members nor the mayor commented on the status of the statue during the meeting.

The city of Winston-Salem has given the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which commissioned the statue in 1905, a deadline of Jan. 31 to remove it or face legal action. Mayor Allen Joines proposed to relocate the monument to Salem Cemetery. The United Daughters responded in a Jan. 3 press release expressing “dismay” and pledging to “do everything in our power to see that it continues to remain.”

January 24-30, 2019 Up Front

STIP PROJECT NO. U-6019

The N.C. Department of Transportation is proposing to make improvements to the intersection of Air Harbor Road and Lake Brandt Road in Greensboro.

An open-house public meeting will be held at Covenant Grace Church located at 1414 Lake Brandt Road in Greensboro from 4-6:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 7, 2019. The purpose of this meeting is to provide interested citizens the opportunity to review maps of the project, ask questions and provide feedback.

Culture

A map of the proposal is available online at http://www.ncdot.gov/news/public-meetings/.

Opinion

Interested citizens may attend at any time between 4 and 6 p.m. Please note that there will not be a formal presentation. Maps of the proposed improvements will be displayed at the meeting and staff of NCDOT will be on hand to provide information and answer questions.

News

For additional information please contact NCDOT Project Engineer, Jennifer Evans, PE, (336) 487-0075 or jenniferevans@ncdot.gov. Comments will be accepted at the meeting, by mail or email, and should be submitted by March 1, 2019.

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 Lauren Putnam, (919) 707-6072 or Lnputnam@ncdot.gov as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

Aquellas personas 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 1-800-481-6494.

Puzzles

Persons who 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 1-800-481-6494.

Shot in the Triad

TRUTH IS POWER Hard news at no cost to you, and no matter the cost to us.

NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FEB 7 REGARDING THE PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS TO THE INTERSECTION OF AIR HARBOR ROAD AT LAKE BRANDT ROAD IN GREENSBORO, GUILFORD COUNTY

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January 24-30, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CITIZEN GREEN

OPINION

Classic cars, candy and black pride at MLK parade

After parking on Bragg Street and making a final swipe at my 5-year-old’s runny nose with a length of TP, we make our way up to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and surveyed the scene near the culmination of the anticipated parade.

by Jordan Green We gravitate to the Wilbur Mapp bust of King, displaced from a burgeoning strip of South Elm Street by a 9-11 memorial and relocated to section of the Downtown Greenway in Ole Asheboro among monuments to local heroes like Nettie Coad and Dorothy Brown. My daughter and a classmate from Lindley Elementary exclaim, “Martin Luther King!” and I wonder exactly what the name meant to them.

I struggle with the way King’s message is often distorted when it’s repackaged for children — celebrating a “dream” that sometimes might as well be one person winning a scholarship or a gold medal in track, a commitment to nonviolence that verges on capitulation to oppression, or color-blindness as a blanket refusal to take responsibility for racism. If anything, I want her to take away the importance of black pride and the necessity of struggle.

When she reads the “Black lives matter” flag hanging at the entrance of our church, she examines the words in the manner one might name dinosaurs or planets.

The sense of abstraction in her engagement with the slogan breaks my heart. Despite the fact that her mother, her grandmother and her favorite cousin are all JORDAN GREEN The Lovely Ladiez & Gr8t Guyz at the MLK Day parade in Greensboro black, I have to remind her that she also is black. And white. But no less black. She seems dubious. And yet, color is hardly neutral. She seems to sense that black is We exchange greetings with the parade participants. We may not know each person, but not considered desirable. we’re part of this community, flaws and all.

From the White House and our city to our household, white supremacy and internalized If all this sounds Pollyannaish and amorphous, it’s because my sober grownup analysis black inferiority reigns, no matter how mightily we struggle against it. is chafing against the responsibility of instilling hope in children. Even Sharon Hightower, As we wait for the parade, I applaud the young man carrying the African liberation flag the District 1 representative on Greensboro City Council, reflects in a Facebook update: who chides those complaining about the biting cold, noting that people “This is MLK Jr. Holiday weekend. How can we even celebrate it when the went up against snarling dogs and water-hoses to win freedom. But I also Dream keeps getting crushed? Still much work to do.” can’t argue with my daughter, who is telling me it isn’t fun for me to hold I struggle with There’s a lesson from King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that will her hand when she wants to play instead of standing by my side. have to wait. I hope that like King my girls, including the one who is barely the way King’s But the parade delivers. It’s a spectacle that reinforces better than any a month old, will beg God to forgive them for being “patient with anything speech could that we’re “tied together in the single garment of destiny.” less than brotherhood [and sisterhood].” message is often The shower of candy is the main event for my 5-year-old, but she’s also imAs King told the “white moderate” clergy who expressed reservations distorted when it’s about pressed by the woman who calmly walks up to her and hands her a pencil. his campaign of nonviolent direct action in Birmingham, “When you She doesn’t pay any attention to the politicians waving from the stately mo- repackaged for are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, torcade, but we both delight in the classic cars — the late ’40s Studebaker living constantly at tiptoe stance, never knowing what to expect next, and pickup, the magnificent ’57 Chevy Bel Air, and the super-cool ’70s low-rider children. plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fightthat looks like a radiant sled. ing a degenerating sense of ‘nobodyness’ — then you will understand why There are high school marching bands; we caught Western Guilford and we find it so hard to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance Smith, before the cold finally got the best of us, and a contingent of Bennett Belles. And, runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where of course, step teams; the Lovely Ladiez & Gr8t Guyz’ “black power” routine is a highlight. they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our They make us proud, and exalt education and creativity. They make us want to belong to a legitimate and unavoidable impatience.” team, and aspire to excellence.

The police officers blocking the parade route with their cruisers also have a place in the panorama, as estranged as the relationship between the police and the community might be.

Stealing an election… twice

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Harris and his band of cronies show their open disdain for government, the electoral process and the people Harris is trying so desperately to represent.

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three-judge panel dissolved the current board, leaving nothing and no one to sort out the 9th District.

A new board — formed by the Republican majority over Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto — is slated to take office on Jan. 31, when they will resume investigation into the election.

But Harris couldn’t wait for that. On Tuesday, while he was home sick in Charlotte, Harris sent his lawyers to Raleigh asking a Wake County judge to compel the state to go ahead and certify the election anyway, investigation be damned.

After two hours of argument, Judge Paul Ridgeway denied the request.

But in asking a judge to subvert the electorate and supersede the authority of a federal court, Harris and his band of cronies show their open disdain for government, the electoral process and the people Harris is trying so desperately to represent.

More so, it reveals the frightening conclusion of the NC GOP power grab that began in 2010 when they took power and has resulted in a General Assembly that is unable to perform the basic functions of government.

Up Front

Even the most avid newshounds can be forgiven for losing focus on North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District between Mark Harris and Dan McCready.

This is the one that Harris won by 905 votes — in final, unofficial results — before it was revealed that many of his votes came from shady absentee ballots in Bladen and Robeson counties, corralled by the even shadier political operative McCrae Dowless.

The State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement refused to certify these election results — not once, but twice. Congressional Democrats have said they won’t seat Harris until questions about the election have been answered. So, when the new Congress was sworn in on Jan. 3, there was, and remains, no representative from the 9th Congressional District.

Further complicating matters, the board itself — a new entity devised by the Republican majority in Raleigh — had been declared unconstitutional by a three-judge panel in October, part of a lawsuit against GOP policies that dates back to 2016.

And while the rest of us were returning our Christmas presents on Dec. 28, the

January 24-30, 2019

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by Clay Jones

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January 24-30, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CULTURE No pain no gain: Kinky fitness comes to High Point

by Sayaka Matsuoka

O

ctavia Harris pumped her legs up and down into the squats, trying to move to the beat of the music. The blindfold around her eyes challenged her balance while a bright red rope snaked around her torso, binding her chest, shoulders and waist and all the way down between her legs.

Nearby, a woman, whose hands were also bound, maintained her balance in a forearm plank while a man practiced kettlebell swings a few feet away. All of them had shown up for the first meeting of Felyne Fetish Fitness, a kink and BDSM-infused workout class, in High Point.

Dressed in a bright red leotard, leather vest, lacy black tights and shiny high-heeled black Pretty Woman-esque boots, fitness instructor Candace Liger, also known as Coach Felyne, sauntered around the room, carrying a black riding crop. She marched up to Illyria Trebek, who held the plank, and began tapping her back and stomach with the crop, urging her to keep her form.

A few seconds later, Liger blew her whistle and the participants moved on to their next stations. In the corner of the room, brightly colored yoga mats and hand weights laid next to piles of rope, a variety of floggers and a tan chest harness.

The class displayed the crucial balance of power often practiced in kink communities. Liger, who whipped and gently slapped her students with props, acted as the dominant to her submissive students. But in the end, those taking the class were the ones with the real authority. They set the rules by clearly stating what things were okay for Liger to use on them and what weren’t at the beginning of the class. In turn, Liger made sure to ask them throughout the workout, how they were doing. A system of red, yellow and green signals was established to create clear boundaries.

“There’s a consent element,” Liger says. “You’re consenting to fitness, consenting to [your] body going through this experience.”

For Harris, who remained bound and blindfolded for the remainder of the workout, a lot of the class was a first.

She says she usually works out by lifting weights or doing cardio like running.

Eight years ago, Harris weighed 300 pounds and says she didn’t feel comfortable in her body. Now, she’s working to maintain her healthy new weight and

have fun while doing it.

Still, the jump from regular fitness classes to a kink-infused one was big for her. She says she signed up for the class after taking a BDSM 101 workshop with Liger in the past. The workshop helped her and her wife of four years become better partners she says.

“The focus was on consent,” Harris said about the workshop. “We’re both victims of sexual violence. We want to regain control.”

Harris says a family member assaulted her when she was 10 years old.

“I used to live in fear,” Harris says. “It caused me to define myself, but I don’t give it anymore power. This allows me to be in unfamiliar territory and still be safe, to not be a victim.”

She says that both the BDSM workshop and the kink class help her to feel comfortable in her body.

During one portion of the class where she was using weights on a bench, Harris remembers becoming overcome with emotion. She says having a dominant-submissive dynamic as part of the class taught her, a black woman who typically tries to uphold the “strong black woman” image, how to let go.

TODD TURNER Fitness instructor Candace Liger taught her first fetish-infused exercise class in “I realized that I’ve High Point. been carrying a lot of for themselves. Fitness and kink are both part of the self-care unnecessary weight,” category.”

Harris says. “I forget I need to put it down sometimes. I forgot A recent transplant from Oklahoma, Liger started out in I don’t have to take care of everything and do everything for the kink world after she took a vow of celibacy. She had gone everybody.” through a number of unsatisfying relationships and decided to For Liger, these ideas of consent, power dynamics and take sex out of the equation. bodily autonomy is why kink and fitness go well together. She “We learn to communicate through sex and show emotion believes they have similar goals: to seek pain and pleasure by through sex but that was not holistic enough for me,” Liger manipulating the body in different ways. says. “I had to find new ways to interact with folks. When I “A lot of fitness clients are out of touch with their bodtook away sex, a relationship that I had before could be an ies,” says Liger who has been a fitness instructor and pererotic one; it could be more spiritual.” sonal trainer for years. “They have no understanding of how From there, she began doing her own research and became pleasure operated in their body or how to conjure pleasure

January 24-30, 2019 Up Front News

An array of kinky equipment from Liger’s arsenal covers a table during the workout.

TODD TURNER

Opinion Culture

TODD TURNER

Liger encourages her particpants by lightly whipping them with a flogger.

TODD TURNER

VISIT TRIAD-CITY-BEAT.COM TO SEE FULL PHOTO GALLERY

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more active in the community. She taught erotic dance classes and tried her hand at exactly what she had been looking for.

Japanese-style rope bondage. She held art shows and wrote erotic poetry. Now that “Because the kink community is very close knit,” Trebek explains. “It makes sense she’s in North Carolina, Liger says she wants to pracfor us to do things together.” tice restorative work.

She says an inclusive space like the one Liger has creTo find out more about Felyne Fitness, includ“How can we make ourselves feel good on a daily ated is a hallmark of the kink community. ing when the next Fetish Fitness class is, visit basis?” Liger asks. “How can we practice proactive self “There’s no judgement,” says Trebek, who works out candaceliger.com or follow her on Facebook. care?” regularly. “There’s body positivity and a mix of sexualiTrebek has been in the kink lifestyle for the past five ties and gender preferences and you won’t find that years. The High Point resident hosts kink trivia every level of support and inclusivity in a public form. You week and is part of a submissive-dominant relationship with her partner. She even get to be you. Anytime people in our community can let our freak flag fly, I’m gonna taught a kink-inspired yoga class at a retreat for those in the culture a few years back. have a blast.”

When she found out about Liger’s kinkercise, as she likes to call it, she felt like it was

Shot in the Triad

Liger lightly chokes a participant during the workout.

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January 24-30, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CULTURE At FringeFest, Starbright casts trauma against the cosmos

by Lauren Barber

C

old is the best way to look at the sky,” Grace says to her concerned husband, her gaze lost in the glittering distance. “Everything is clear in the dead of winter.”

Cassandra Weston, as Grace, stands behind the 5-foot macramé telescope fixed to a wooden tripod mere feet from the audience at the outset of the Drama Center’s presentation of Starbright, winner of the 2019 New Play Project, in the Stephen D. Hyers Studio Theatre on Jan. 17. Sean David Robinson’s first full-length script premiered off Broadway last summer before kicking off the 16th annual Greensboro Fringe Festival, which spotlights new theater and dance through Feb. 4. The Winston-Salemborn playwright collaborated on the 5-year project, about a brilliant astronomer struggling in the aftermath of her daughter’s death, with his wife Courtney as dramaturg. Fringe Fest founder Todd Fisher directed the production.

“The actors came to some really interesting interpretations that I found informative on a granular level and considering I’m still in the revision process it was good to see,” he says. “Ultimately, theater is a communal art, and those long, lonely hours spent in front of the keyboard mean nothing without the people willing to believe in my script as though it were their own.”

Nearly a year after Grace loses her job at a research university following a “nervous breakdown,” she discovers her daughter Abigail’s music box singing from a neatly-made twin bed. And then the smell of lavender hits — Abby used to spray lavender in her hair, often pulled tight into a ponytail. Her daughter appears to her, the first of many hallucinations.

Throughout the production, lullabies fill the intimate box theater during scene transitions until a giant paper lantern globe illuminates Grace and Calvin’s quiet home again.

Calvin, played by Pete Turner, chooses to swallow his despair and to coat his white-knuckled coping strategy with comic relief as he struggles to keep them financially afloat. But they haven’t paid the mortgage in three months and are confronting the task of selling the house with ever-dwindling “imprints of her”: drawings on the fridge, smudges on the wall, her little shoes in the hallway.

Now there’s nothing, no reminders but the place-setting Grace refuses to stop

Left to right: Regan Deal (Claire), Yamur Samli (Abigail), Cassandra Weston (Grace), Pete Turner (Calvin)

SAM MCCLENAGHAN

laying out, and his humor isn’t doing anything more than the “There is a star out there, a brand-new star that shouldn’t diazepam she’s cast aside. As time wears on, Calvin is less exist, an impossible star, and you want me to walk away? You capable — or less interested — in laboring to maintain a lighter want me to go sit in a padded room and take pills and drool emotional landscape and grows frustrated with Grace’s sister on the carpet… until you can get our lives sorted out for us?

Claire, a talk therapist who’s providing Grace’s treatment.

Maybe that’s best for you; you love putting things into neat “I think you’re doing a really good job of staying strong for little boxes: our house, Abby’s things, why not your wife, too?”

Grace and I think that’s a mistake,” Claire, played by Regan Grace sights the impossible star, flushed with the warmth Deal, says. “It’s easy to feel like you’re of vindication in the cold night, as an going through this alone and you are, ambulance alarm wails nearer. He’s really, because while you’re busy staying committing her, involuntarily.

Learn more at strong Grace is suffering very outwardly “What worries me the most is you greensborofringefestival.org. and, in the meantime, you’re not conmight not want to fix this, like you want necting anywhere in the middle…. You’re to dive deeper,” Claire had said, earlier no good to her if you let this break you…. that evening. “You have the same look in Grace’s [grief] has turned into voices and your eyes when you talk about Abby as visions — what’s yours gonna to turn into?” you do when you talk about black holes and dark matter. She’s Rage, it turns out. He talks about “real” treatment; he not real, Grace…. She’s a figment.” wants her “fixed.”

But her sister does dive, though skyward, up through the But Abigail, played by Yamur Samli, continues to regale her telescope’s tunnel to the floor of an in-patient facility where mother with fantastical tales of disembodied space travel and she sits cross-legged in striped pajamas and rubber-bottomed, forewarns her of the birth of a new star that would shift “the Big Bird-yellow hospital socks, where her daughter reveals, at accepted paradigm of solar genesis.” Gleeful, Grace plunges last, the inside of a black hole. “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” into hurried calculations at the kitchen table, hopeful that if begins as mother and daughter fold into the infinitesimal, she predicts the event she’ll be reinstated at the university, unwavering and weightless light. that food might not taste like cardboard much longer.

January 24-30, 2019

CULTURE The Same Leaving moves through SECCA

by Savi Ettinger

I

Up Front News Opinion Culture

Five sheets of paper cannot capture the entire tree in “Soupçon,” part of “After Winter, Before Spring.” The pencil project contributes to the overall theme of leaving.

COURTESY IMAGE

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amount of detail Kirouac could capture with graphite, and the page, the two sheets connected at a corner. Kirouac transvisceral practice of drawing. forms the common sight of a naked tree into a lanky figure “Drawing historically is, I think, the closest connection sprawling out across two pages. The skinny trunk curves like a between what an artist is thinking and feeling, and the paper,” hunched-over spine, with branches hanging low towards the Kirouac says. “It’s one of the most ground. Without leaves, the knots on immediate responses an artist can each limb lay uncovered. The shine of have to any given inspiration.” her pencil ricochets off a thick wall The Same Leaving is at SECCA, 750 The distinct environments of of kudzu spread across a blanket of Marguerite Drive, Winston-Salem North Carolina and Winnipeg paper, a section of which sports a influence the works. Though she streak of pink among the dark slate through March 3. For more inforphysically had left both areas, she gray. mation call 336.725.1904 or visit mentally stepped between the two, The framing of many ordinary imsecca.org. finding subject matter in the natural ages makes Kirouac’s process seem habitats of both. She would hold like a dissection. The only other color onto the images found in moments in the graphite drawings belongs to alone during walks through neighborhoods and forests, and a set of flowers blooming on an otherwise bare tree. Despite recreate them with pencil on paper, no matter how brutal the stretching across five sheets, parts of the tree’s trunk and scene. The sight of kudzu slowly constricting another strucbranches remain unshown. ture. Bodies of birds partially devoured by other wildlife, only “Maybe each tree is me,” Kirouac said. “They’re probably the wings left behind. self-portraits.”

Kirouac sees a crow and draws its body catatonic, wings flush against its body. The feet of the bird move to another

Shot in the Triad

use the whole spectrum of the pencils,” Christine Kirouac says.

“And I know how to wield them.”

The artist scoured every inch of her home for any form of graphite. The search took her back to sets of mechanical and gold wooden pencils from high school, through the full range of hard and soft leads in artist-grade tools.

The finished work, The Same Leaving: Three Projects by Christine Kirouac, opened at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem on Jan. 17.

The exhibit fills the Potter Gallery with an audio/video installation and two series of graphite pieces. Titled “Les Feuilles Mortel” or “Deadly Leaves,” “State Lines” and “After Winter, Before Spring,” they explore the feelings surrounding different types of departure.

Kirouac understands the titular theme of leaving as an emotional and physical process. Though the experience of leaving is universal, Kirouac focuses on her personal life. The artist names North Carolina, Winnipeg, Montreal and San Francisco as her “quasi-homes.”

She travels further back in the timeline, speaking of her adoption as “the initial leaving” — a moment that follows her.

“I always think with adoption it’s this double-sided coin,” she says. “You were left, but you were chosen at the same time by others; but they’re always intrinsically connected.”

Graduate school in Montreal inspired Kirouac to create “State Lines,” her earliest project in the exhibit. The audio and video installation made in 2005 displays a pair of looping films depicting pipes in the city’s subway tunnels. The pipes seem ghostly instead of solid metal, blurred from the motion of the camera.

The everlasting lines projected onto the walls turn the gallery into a liminal space of transit.

“I’m much more interested in the grayscale,” says Kirouac about her process.

The mindset reflects the nature of the artist’s graphite work, with a spectrum of grays depicting the complexities of otherwise familiar images of the outdoors. The skeletons of trees or the dense brush of kudzu contrast starkly against the light paint on the gallery wall.

The two pencil projects, “Les Feuilles Mortel” and “After Winter, Before Spring,” found their medium from the

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Across 1 Video game series where you follow the moves of onscreen characters 10 Food service giant based in Houston 15 Very soon 16 Knightley of “Atonement” 17 La Paz currency 18 Archipelago feature 19 Took the offer 20 Mystical foresight 21 Employer of Africa correspondent Ofeibia Quist-Arcton 23 Idris of “The Wire” 25 Play ___ (cause mischief) 27 Sooner than soon 28 Distributed cards 30 Ballet practice ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 32 Two before Thu. 33 Journal opening 35 Abbr. before a founding date 36 Musical genre for 1990s punk band Bikini Kill 38 “’Scuse me” 41 Western movie hangout 44 “Chandelier” singer 45 Muscle-to-bone connector 46 Makes the scene 48 Leave behind 50 Stereotypical librarian admonition 52 Shiraz, for one 53 “Tell me ...”

Answers from last issue 55 Velvet finish?

14 Cereal grain item 57 Aptly titled ‘80s film about BMX racing 22 In ___ (“on paper”) 58 RR station posting 24 Smartphone setting 59 It’s on a continuum 26 Long-eared dogs 62 Fulcrum for an oar 29 Quindec- divided by five 63 Character whose headwear had a tag reading 31 Some stone finds at archaeological digs “10/6” 34 Peanut butter-based Girl Scout Cookie 64 Ravi Shankar’s instrument 35 Macaroni shape 65 Completely broke 37 2020 political event in Charlotte, for short 38 John Stockton has the most in NBA history Down 39 Sony competitor 1 Shied away, slangily 40 Eavesdropping range 2 Still squeaking 42 “True, no?”

3 Meme nickname of Turkish meat-seasoning 43 Titles differently chef Nusret Gokce 45 “Watchmen” director Zack 4 “Enough already!”

47 “Why is this night different ...?” feasts 5 Peace proponent 49 Cub Scout pack leader 6 They shun most technology 51 Anne of “Donnie Brasco” 7 Three-part flavor 54 Sch. at West Point 8 Tapper’s home 56 “Swell!”

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10 Steers clear of 61 Inits. for supplementary costs at a car 11 Simple question type dealership 12 Early movies 13 Soldier’s hairstyle

January 24-30, 2019

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