2016 Issue 38 Creative Loafing

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JOAN MARCUS

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10

Cabaret performances run through Nov. 13 at Belk Theater.

COVER STORY THIRST TRAP: The men of Thirsty Beaver strip down for a good cause.

BY RYAN PITKIN THIS WEEK’S COVER WAS SHOT BY CHRIS EDWARDS AND DESIGNED BY DANA VINDIGNI.

12

NEWS&VIEWS

16

FOOD

12 TQ IN THE WORK PLACE 13 NEWS OF THE WEIRD 14 STOP THE BLEEDING: ANTI-VIOLENCE ADVOCATE LOOKS BACK ON A MONTH OF WORK IN CHARLOTTE.

BY ALLISON BRADEN 15 BLOTTER

TAKING CHARGE: Rhino Market & Deli does it

right.

BY CHRISSIE NELSON

18 THREE-COURSE SPIEL

22

ARTS&ENT FORGET ALL THAT MONEY STUFF AND BE HAPPY: Review of Theatre Charlotte’s You Can’t

Take It With You.

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM

TALKING TECH WITH IVAN TOTH DEPENA: Remember exhibit uses augmented reality for extra layers.

BY ANITA OVERCASH

24 FILM REVIEW

28

MUSIC

WRITTEN IN THE CARDS: Mount Moriah finds new cosmic direction.

BY ANITA OVERCASH

30 CD REVIEWS 32 SOUNDBOARD

20

ODDS&ENDS 20 TOP 10 THINGS TO DO 34 MARKETPLACE 34 NIGHTLIFE 35 CROSSWORD 36 SAVAGE LOVE 38 HOROSCOPE

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NEWS

FEATURE

THIRST TRAP The men of the Thirsty Beaver strip down for a good cause

BY RYAN PITKIN

J

USTIN BENNETT BEGAN

having doubts about what he had signed up for when he found himself posing for pictures on his motorcycle on the Central Avenue train tracks on a hot July morning. He was hungover from the night before, pouring sweat while remaining bundled up, but showing just enough skin to make things sexy.

Bennett, a bartender at the nearby Thirsty Beaver Saloon, was posing for the January photo on the new “Men of the Thirsty Beaver” 2017 calendar, an endeavor he had agreed to participate in to raise money for Be the Match, a national marrow donor program his bar had worked with in the past.

“It was awful. It was Sunday morning, I had not been to bed on Saturday night and it was like 90 degrees already at 7:30 in the morning,” Bennet recalled. “And since it was for January, they wanted me in a jacket on my motorcycle, to make it look cold, and I’m sweating bullets and as hungover as I can be.

It was just like, ‘Alright, whatever.’”

Bennet then laughed and immediately returned to his humble selg, downplaying the struggle. “All in all, it really didn’t take that long. It was alright.”

The Men of the Thirsty Beaver calendar was the idea of a couple of Beaver regulars, which it often seems is all you’ll find in the neighborhood bar that opened on Central Avenue in 2008. The idea was born of a conversation between regular customer Geneiva McNeale and a bartender named Paula.

“I was sitting there talking about how things are going to shift and things are going to change and it’s sad,” McNeale said, referring to the changing face of Plaza Midwood due to development. “It’s going to shift possibly for the better, but we don’t know. The way it is right now is perfect. We wanted to take a snapshot of it right now as it is, with the people that are coming in and are a regular part of this family.”

As a few drinks turned into more and other customers and employees joined the discussion, the idea of a snapshot turned into a calendar showcasing the imperfect 10 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

CHRIS EDWARDS

Terry Roberts, aka Mr. October. bodies of the Beaver’s male customers and employees.

“At the time it was just kind of this drunken thing,” McNeale said. “We got the idea of making a calendar and having it be like a pin-up calendar but instead of pretty girls we’re going to have the regular boys — a little beer belly action here and there and

having it be more of a tongue-in-cheek kind of fun thing.”

Bar-goers spent the night jokingly writing down names of the men who frequent Thirsty Beaver along with the poses they’d like to put them in and the scenes they’d like to set.

As it just so happened, local photographer

Chris Edwards was sitting next to McNeale at the bar that night. After making clear that he had no intentions of appearing in the calendar, he agreed to shoot the photos for it if the idea ever came to fruition.

That original conversation took place in October 2015. Months went on during which McNeale and others would half-

MEN OF THE THIRSTY BEAVER CALENDAR RELEASE PARTY Nov. 19, 7 p.m. Tipsy Burro, 2711 Monroe Road. facebook.com/ Tipsyburro/.

jokingly discuss the potential calendar. This continued until Shenna Bryant, McNeale’s friend and another Thirsty Beaver regular, decided to take action.

By both McNeale and Bryant’s admission, Bryant is the more of the “doer,” while McNeale is an idea person. Bryant got tired of all the talk and began threatening to take the calendar idea and run with it solo if McNeale didn’t get to work, so the two paired up. They began to work as a team to release “The Men of the Thirsty Beaver” to the world by 2017.

In the summer of 2016, the two approached Bennett with the idea. They knew he was looking for ways to raise money for Be the Match, since the recent sale of all the property surrounding the Beaver’s tiny lot had made it impossible for him to throw his annual May Bash, which had raised funds for the charity.

“I caught wind of it, I knew they were doing it. At the time I didn’t know they wanted to partner with a charity, but then I got cornered on a Sunday,” Bennet said.

“They wanted me to be in it, and I was vehemently opposed to that idea. Then they guilted me into it because they said it was going to benefit my charity, that’s how I found out about it. That was back in the summer at some point. From there on, we kind of just started having some meetings about it, laying out some groundwork.”

“We can be kind of persuasive after a couple beers,” McNeale chimed in from her seat at the bar, where Creative Loafing interviewed much of the calendar crew on a recent Friday night.

IN RECENT MONTHS, the team held

five or six photo shoots with Edwards and a couple of “models” at a time. McNeale and Bryant would do whatever needed to be done behind the scenes, things like aiming leaf blowers from a distance to make a flag flap in the wind.

Brian Wilson, who owns Thirsty Beaver along with his brother Mark Wilson, posed for the August photo, a version of which now graces the cover of the issue you’re holding in your hands now.

Brian, who also owns a vintage thrift shop called The Rat’s Nest in NoDa, used his

CHRIS EDWARDS

The men of the Thirsty Beaver. familiarity with antiques to inspire a theme for his poolside shot.

“Obviously we were wanting to make it as silly as possible. Me having a vintage store and looking at old stuff, I’d looked at the Coppertone ad from years ago [a famous ad in which a puppy is pulling at a girl’s bathing suit bottom] and thought, ‘Oh, that’d be funny to make a little joke about that,’” Brian said. “I thought it was fun. I figured that’s the only way you could do it is just go

all the way and make it as silly as possible. I don’t think anybody was trying to take it too seriously.”

Although it looks as if the taxidermied beaver is doing the pulling, it’s actually an example of McNeale’s unseen participation.

“I’m hiding behind a bush with my finger pulling his underpants,” she said. “I’m pulling them away but I’m trying to hide so it doesn’t look like I’m there. We crawled around in the bushes, got a little scraped up

and learned a lot.”

Next year, McNeale and Bryant plan to do more than just direct their male counterparts. Discussions have already begun on what to call next year’s calendar, which will feature the female regulars.

If they’re looking for advice from the men on how to get comfortable in front of the camera, many relied on liquid courage to get through an experience that for most was surely their first modeling of any kind.

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NEWS

FEATURE

Bob Campbell, a small, 63-year-old man who lives two blocks from the bar, is Mr. July. He posed wearing nothing but a BBQ apron and a smile, as he puts it. By the end of his shoot, which took place at his home, he was running around in nothing but his underwear.

“Jim Beam should have been a sponsor, I’m just saying,” Bryant said.

The cheap whiskey will surely be flowing at the crew’s calendar release party at the Wilson brothers’ other bar, The Tipsy Burro Saloon on Monroe Road, on November 19.

Attendees will have a chance to meet the models (Campbell promised he’ll be fully clothed) and local bands Temperance League and Hank Sinatra will perform. The Tipsy Burro, a larger venue than the Beaver, gives Bennett a chance to throw a charitable party similar to the now-defunct May Bash.

“This will sort of be the culminating event,” he said.

WHILE THE CALENDAR gives Bennett a

new outlet to raise money for Be the Match, it also fulfills McNeale’s vision of capturing a snapshot of the tight-knit family, which means more when one realizes how close they came to losing their hangout spot.

In 2013, John Hatcher was looking to sell a seven-acre plot of land that surrounds the half-acre lot on which Thirsty Beaver sits.

Developers wanted to build condos, and the opportunity to buy the little piece of land smack in the middle of Hatcher’s property would have made it all that much more valuable.

In June of that year, Hatcher put up a gate around the Beaver property, choking off emergency exit points and restricting access to the lot where bar customers would park in hopes that the business would suffer and the landowner, George Salem, would be forced to sell.

The community stood in support of the Beaver, hanging protest bras and signs reading “Free the Beaver” from the fence and continuing to show up despite the limited parking and claustrophobic feel. The city eventually made Hatcher tear part of the gate down near the road and the fire marshal ordered him to place a gate outside the emergency exit.

To this day, Salem has remained steadfast in his refusal to sell.

“If it wasn’t for him doing that, we wouldn’t have a chance. We appreciate all his efforts. His mentality is on par with ours.

We’ve been here for a while and we’re looking to stay here for a while,” said Mark Wilson.

Bennet compares the story of the elderly Salem refusing to sell his tiny lot to developers to the Disney movie Up, although it doesn’t look as though the Wilson brothers will need to tie balloons to the Beaver and float off in 12 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

VIEWS

search of another location anytime soon.

“We’ve had talks with [Salem] and his family and they’ve assured us that they want us here as long as it’s possible. We hope to be here for many years to come and to keep doing things like this for different benefits to give back to the community,” Mark said.

While it was Salem’s stubbornness that saved the Beaver, the Wilson brothers agree that the customers have played just as large a part in preserving what seems to be the last true neighborhood bar in the area.

In a rapidly developing Plaza Midwood — developers did buy Hatchers land and the coming condos will soon cast a large shadow over Beaver’s tiny lot — a good dive bar can go a long way, and everyone who frequents the bar is more than grateful it can remain that way.

From the owners to the bartenders to the regular customers, everyone CL spoke to for this story referred to the crew at Thirsty Beaver as a family.

“With all the stuff going on and all the construction, it obviously causes frustration in the neighborhood and nobody knows quite what to expect when more gentrification takes place,” Brian said. “It has hurt just slightly, but not much. That’s testament to all the people who come in. They’re diehard people and, ya know, it’s truly neighborhood people.

Different types of people from different walks of life, from people that are down at the bank to construction guys, whomever it may be, they’ve just been consistently there all the time and developed a little community among themselves.”

And so, as the condos continue to pop up and new folks continue to move in, the Thirsty Beaver Saloon will continue to take a stand simply by existing.

To hear the language Brian uses when describing the Thirsty Beaver family, it’s not hard to imagine the simple act of hanging out at the bar as akin to locking arms and standing in front of a bulldozer ready to flatten the place.

“I know it’s cliché to say, but it is truly a family bar, people look after each other.

If somebody needs something, somebody’s there; if somebody’s parent or grandparent is sick, everybody wants to know and they’re there for support,” Brian said. “That was the best-case scenario for us when we first opened, to have that kind of thing, and we found it with this group of people in Plaza Midwood who have just latched on to each other.”

A community of folks latched together is something we can always get behind, and if it means everyone taking their clothes off in front of a camera once a year, then we can support that, too.

RPITKIN@CLCLT.COM

TQ IN THE WORKPLACE

In our August 4th issue, we introduced CL contributor Lara Americo’s new Trans and Queer in the Workplace photo series. Check online for our interview with Americo about why she began photographing trans and queer Charlotteans in their work environment, as well as a slideshow of all the photos shared thus far. It was recently announced that the series will be shown in full as part of the Chrysalis exhibit planned to run at C3 Lab in South End between January 6-20, 2016. This week’s photo features Liam Johns, paramedic. Liam uses he/him/his pronouns.

“Charlotte, North Carolina is my home and my family is here. I’m proud to be a part of such a strong community. When our communities’ lives are under attack, we stand up and fight back. Being a paramedic means protecting the lives of my community.”

- Liam Johns

NEWS

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

BY CHUCK SHEPHERD

aggressor in alleged stalking incidents.

CAN’T POSSIBLY BE TRUE Kids as young as 6 who live on a cliff top in China’s Atule’er village in Sichuan province will no longer have to use flexible vine-based ladders to climb down and up the 2,600-foot descent from their homes to school. Beijing News disclosed in October, in a report carried by CNN, that a sturdy steel ladder was being built to aid the 400 villagers after breathtaking photographs of them making the treacherous commute surfaced on the internet earlier this year.

NAMES IN FLORIDA NEWS Arrested

THE USUAL SUSPECTS The following youth pastors have faced charges for their predatory behavior in recent months: David Hayman, 36, sentenced to six years in prison for sex with teenage girls (September in Hackensack, New Jersey); former youth pastor Brian Burchfield, sentenced to six months in jail for sending inappropriate texts to teenage boys (August in Shawnee, Oklahoma); youth pastor Wesley Blackburn, 35, charged and awaiting trial for impregnating a 15-year-old girl (October in New Paris, Pennsylvania); former youth pastor Brian Mitchell, 31, sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl (September in North Olmsted, Ohio); youth pastor Ron Cooper, 52, charged and awaiting trial for luring teenagers into prostitution (October in Miami); former youth pastor Christopher Hutchinson, 37, sentenced to 90 days in jail as part of a sex assault case involving a 13-yearold girl (September in Parker, Colorado).

ANT HELL Researchers in Poland reported in August the “survival” of a colony of ants that wandered unsuspectingly into an old nuclear weapon bunker and became trapped.

When researchers first noticed in 2013, they assumed the ants would soon die, either freezing or starving to death, but, returning in 2015 and 2016, they found the population stable. Their only guess: New ants were falling into the bunker, “replacing” the dead ones.

Thus, ants condemned to the bunker slowly starve, freezing, in total darkness, until newly condemned ants arrive and freeze and starve in total darkness — and on and on.

JUDICIAL ACTIVISM Jackson County, Michigan, judge John McBain briefly gained notoriety in October when a Michigan news site released courtroom video of a December 2015 hearing in which McBain felt the need to throw off his robe, leap from the bench and tackle defendant Jacob Larson, who was resisting the one court officer on hand to restrain him. Yelling “Tase his ass right now,” McBain is shown holding on until help arrived — with Larson perhaps undermining his earlier courtroom statements claiming it was his girlfriend, and not he, who was the

in October and charged with kidnapping a 4-year-old girl in Lakeland: a truck driver named Mr. Wild West Hogs. Arrested in West Palm Beach in August and charged with trespassing at a Publix supermarket (and screaming at employees), Mr. Vladimir Putin.

And in August, at the dedication of a new unit at Tampa General Hospital’s pediatric center, longtime satisfied patients attended, including Maria Luva, who told guests her son, now 8 years old, was born there: Ywlyox Luva.

PERSPECTIVE In 1921, researchers for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife stated categorically in a journal that “the one predatory animal” inspiring practically nothing “good” is the mountain lion, but recent research in the journal Conservation Letters credits the animal for saving the lives of many motorists by killing deer, thus tempering the current annual number (20,000) of driverdeer collisions. Even killing deer, mountain lions still trail pussycats as predators, as researchers in Nature Communications in 2013 estimated that “free-ranging (U.S.) domestic cats” kill at least 1.4 billion birds and 6.9 billion small mammals annually.

LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS On the

way to the police station in Youngstown, Ohio, on Oct. 19, after being arrested for, among other things, being a felon in possession of a gun, Raymond Brooks, 25, asked an officer — apparently in all seriousness — whether, after he got booked at the station, he could have his gun back. The police report did not specify the officer’s answer.

SOVEREIGNS The director of the Caribbean Cultural Center at the University of the Virgin Islands, facing foreclosure of her home by Firstbank Puerto Rico, decided she was not really “Chenzira Davis-Kahina” but actually “Royal Daughter Sat Yah” of the “Natural Sovereign Indigenous Nation of ... Smai Tawi Ta-Neter-Awe,” and she and her equally befuddlingly named husband have sued the bank for $190 million in federal court and begun the flood of incomprehensible paperwork. The couple’s law of “Maat” conveniently holds that attempts by federal marshals to seize their property would double the damages to $380 million.

EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMALS

Daniel, age 4, and a duck, accompanied a woman in her 20s in October on a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Asheville, outfitted in a Captain America diaper and red shoes to protect its feet, occasionally — if inadvisedly — giving the woman a peck on

the mouth. Reporting the event was author Mark Essig, who has written favorably about pigs but admitted he’d never before been on a flight with “companion poultry” and mused whether Daniel, gazing out a window, experienced an “ancestral” yearning to fly.

THE ART OF SMUGGLING At press time,

Leston Lawrence, 35, an employee of the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa, was awaiting a court decision on charges that he stole $140,000 worth of thick gold coins (“pucks”) that, over time, were taken from the mint in his rectum. The mint’s “highest security measures” never turned up a puck on or in Lawrence; he was arrested after the mint investigated a tip that he had sold an unusual number of them for someone of his pay grade.

GOVERNMENT IN ACTION Mayor Paul Antonio of Toowoomba, Australia (pop.

100,000), admitted he had picked an uphill fight, but still has recently been handing out cards to men on the street asking them to help the city (in unspecified ways) become completely free of pornography. Though the city has several tax-paying sex businesses, even a strip club and a brothel, Antonio’s message, augmented by public confessions of men burdened by their porn habits, is directed at the internet’s ease of access to images of male “dominance and power” over females.

TINY THRILLS (1) The town of Warley,

England, announced it has applied to the Guinness people for the honor of having the world’s smallest museum. The Warley Community Association’s museum, with photos and mementoes of its past, is housed in an old phone booth. So far, there are no “hours”; visitors just show up and open the door. (2) The recent 100th anniversary of America’s National Park Service drew attention to a park in Guthrie, Oklahoma — 10 feet by 10 feet, behind the post office and dating from the original Land Office on the spot in 1889. According to legend, the city clerk, instead of asking the government for land “100 foot square” — which would equal 100 feet by 100 feet — mistakenly asked for “100 square feet.”)

NOTW CLASSIC (March 2012) Some municipal street signs with specific instructions are hard enough to read, anyway, but according to the signs in front of Lakewood Elementary School in White Lake, Michigan, filmed in February 2012 by Detroit’s WJBK-TV, the speed limit drops to 25 mph on “school days only” — but just from “6:49-7:15 a.m., 7:52-8:22 a.m., 8:37-9:07 a.m., 2:03-2:33 p.m., 3:04-3:34 p.m., 3:594:29 p.m.”

your delicious weekly alternative news source

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NEWS

NEWSMAKER

STOP THE BLEEDING Anti-violence advocate looks back on a month of work in Charlotte

BY ALLISON BRADEN

N

IKOLAI ELNESER HAS a surprisingly sunny disposition for someone who works on violence prevention in the planet’s most violent city.

Elneser is from Caracas, Venezuela, and while accurate data is hard to come by, estimates put the country’s homicide rate at about 119 per 100,000 residents. (By contrast, the U.S. homicide rate is 4 per 100,000.) Elneser’s organization, Caracas Mi Convive, aims to organize communities and break the cycle of gang and street violence in low-income neighborhoods.

Elneser is a fellow with the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative, a new State Department fellowship that connects young social entrepreneurs from Latin America and the Caribbean with local organizations across the United States. For one month, Elneser partnered with Mike Sexton, who works on issues of domestic violence with Mecklenburg County’s Community Support Services.

At the end of his fellowship, Elneser sat down with Creative Loafing to talk about violence and healing in Caracas and the Queen City.

Creative Loafing: You studied city planning and civil engineering. How did you get involved in violence prevention?

Nikolai Elneser: The city has a huge relationship with violence and social issues.

Spaces and the way they’re built have a dear relationship with what happens in them, and I wanted to work a lot in violence prevention through urban design. Another motivation would be that as a Venezuelan, I’m always affected by violence. Even if it doesn’t hit me, my friend or family or someone I know will be hit by that, and the fact that I can do something about it is what motivates me to change the reality we’re living in.

You typically work with gang and street violence in Caracas. What have 14 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

Nikolai Elneser you been able to learn working on domestic violence issues in Charlotte?

Violence is the same, you know, violence is violence. So when you’re a victim of violence, there’s always the same effect on the people.

Victims of domestic violence are the same kind of victims as other types of violence.

Domestic violence can grow to gang violence or street violence any time, so the thing is that here there is a lot of homicide and victim support organizations and projects, and the work they do is pretty awesome because it has helped me to identify how we can do the victim support projects back in Caracas.

On the surface, Charlotte and Caracas seem like two very different cities. What are some similarities that you’ve found?

I can say the difference from Caracas to Charlotte is the same difference that we have to São Paulo, which is pretty similar to us, or maybe to Paris. The thing is that we’re all humans and we all suffer loss. We feel fear. We have a life and we want to be happy.

There are more things that are common for both of us than the things that make us different, so I think that that’s the thing that we have to rely on when we work with violence. People who have lost a daughter here will go through the same pain as someone who lost a daughter in Caracas. Those little things are the ones that I try to focus on so I can bring the work back there.

It sounds like there are similar community-based approaches for breaking the cycle of violence both here in Charlotte and in Caracas. Can you describe that approach?

Well, we first develop a trustful relationship with the community. We invest a

lot of time in getting to know the community and people who live there, so they can trust us and they see us as part of the community.

After that is when we start talking about violence, and we start saying that this is an issue we can face together, and we start organizing. The first thing we do to organize communities is call them to a workshop where we identify on a huge map of the neighborhood the hotspots of violence, and people then develop agendas of intervention to reduce violence there.

For example, if there’s a gang or drug dealers on this corner, we can recover it by putting some lights on, making a mural with the values of the community, and maybe doing a cultural activity there. And we start changing the way the space is being perceived by the community from a violence spot to a community gathering spot and that’s how the process goes. So it’s linear work where we develop trust, identify hotspots, make intervention, and support the leaders so they can be new role models.

I imagine working with violence all the time can be difficult. Is there a moment you can point to that makes you feel like it’s all worth it?

People think violence has no solution.

That they need Superman to save them. And Superman won’t come. They know that, too.

But you show that it’s possible, that some people have done it, that some people have overcome it and some people are working on it.

Victor, for example. Victor is this guy who lost his father and he was offered revenge, but he didn’t take it, so he decided to coach kids for Model United Nations, and they just won a competition as Best International Delegation.

I think those little achievements of people overcoming violence make you think; it’s all worth it, you know, it’s all worth it.

What are some experiences that you’re going to take back to Caracas from Charlotte?

The opportunities that I have with Mike, getting to know all these different projects and initiatives has been awesome. The work that they’ve done, the motivation they have to work for the community is great, and the work is really inspiring, so I think that is one of the biggest things I will take back.

Charlotte wasn’t even on my map before. You know, it’s not the kind of city you hear of when you’re out of the U.S. So now I can say I know Charlotte.

Second of all, a lot of ideas for different people back in Venezuela. All these civil organizations working here are doing an awesome job, and I want to give this

experience and show this knowledge to some people back in Caracas that are working on those too. For them, maybe to network and work together and get ideas from each other will be a good thing.

And the last thing is the kindness of people here. I’ve been loving how people are welcoming, people are open to help. Charlotte is a city that is ready to receive people, to let them grow and have ideas, and I think that’s one of the best experiences I had.

There are projects that I really want to see if we can put together back home, like this essay competition in school related to kids’ experience in violence and how they have overcome it. They can develop their essay abilities and also talk about their violence experiences.

The second is the work with volunteers.

Here they work a lot with volunteers that have been victims, and when you’re going to talk to a victim of violence you usually listen more to someone who has been a victim already that felt the same as you do. That makes you open more to them. And that’s one methodology that I think we have to adopt there.

How would you describe Caracas in one word?

Do I have to say one word? In English, it’s even harder! I would say...how would you say something that amazes you all the time? Like, every time you are there, there is something that will take your breath away? I’m trying to put that in a word. It’s like ... unexpectable?

Unpredictable! With the good and the bad.

Hopefully with the work we’re doing and the work a lot of people are doing, soon it will only be with the good things. But yeah, unpredictable.

What about Charlotte?

All I do is talk about Charlotteans, and I would say welcoming and open. It’s a city that’s a good host city. It’s a welcoming city with good, nice people.

How would experience?

you

sum

up

your

There’s so much good going on and sometimes we just need to hear it. We need to feel that we’re not alone. And when you see it in another city far away from your home, you see, yeah, there’s this same concern around the world.

Even in this country that is a developed country, there are problems and there are people facing it. You can have a preconceived perception of reality and you have to go, open yourself and try to learn everything every day.

NEWS

BLOTTER

BY RYAN PITKIN

PROTECTIVE PAPA It’s an old cliché that a man might scowl at the thought of his daughter’s boyfriend pulling up at the house in a motorcycle, but one Charlotte family is going through a battle right now that seems to be built around this stereotype. A 39-yearold man called police and reported that he was driving his motorcycle near Uptown last week when his father-in-law suddenly swerved his vehicle towards him, causing him to have to slam the brakes and swerve out of the way. The victim told officers he would be seeking a warrant, making things a bit awkward for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks.

SPOILED ALERT A thief made off with

$300 worth of food products from behind a grocery store last week, but they’ll be in for a rude awakening if they try to consume any of it. Employees at Caton Grocery on Statesville Road told police that someone stole two carts full of food that had been placed behind the store one afternoon last week. The problem is, the food was only back there because it had all expired and employees were preparing to dispose of it.

THE HOOK UP Management at a Home

Depot in east Charlotte last week fired an employee after making the realization that they had been giving away free things for months while working the register.

According to the report, the employee did not charge certain customers for holiday decorations, yard work tools, electronic items, bags of popcorn, Halloween candy,

candles, powdered donuts and a gate for a fence. All in all, the store took $542 in losses over three months.

SAWED OFF The county will have to pay for repairs after someone thought they would take it upon themselves to make improvements to a slide at a local park. Parks & rec employees reported that at some point during the last week of October, someone cut off an eight-inch section at the bottom of the slide, making for a bigger drop off for kids taking the trip down.

BITE ME A 67-year-old woman living at an assisted living center in east Charlotte believes some thief was after her bottom set of teeth, although there’s a good chance she just may have lost them. The woman told police she had set her dentures on the dresser beside her bed in September and when she woke the next morning the bottom set were gone while the upper set remained.

It’s unclear why she waited two months to report the suspected theft, but the woman told officers that she believes either cleaning staff or nursing staff took the teeth.

BLEEDING FOR ATTENTION Neither

neighbors nor police were buying it when a 27-year-old woman began to cause a scene in the Villa Heights neighborhood last week.

Police arrived to find the woman suffering from a laceration on the inside of her left hand, but “after a thorough investigation” they found that the injury was self-inflicted and she was not assaulted as she had claimed.

Also, a nearby resident told officers the woman had threatened her with a knife, but

she did not take the threat seriously because “she was familiar with the suspect and her drunken outbursts.” Smartly, the police took three knives and some sort of other tool away from the woman before leaving.

they searched the suspect, they found seven bags of crack, but it was soon found that the baggies actually contained soap that was packaged to look like crack and prepared for sale.

SWERVES AND CRASHERS Police pulled over a group of three people in a car on N. Sharon Amity Road last week and discovered a large amount of stolen goods in the car, but a look at the list of recovered items might be a hint at why the car was stopped in the first place. Police originally noticed the car because it was “making unsafe movements” and pulled it over after finding that it was displaying fictitious license plates.

Among the hundreds of dollars worth of power tools and electronics in the car, police also found a drinking game called “Shoots and Ladders,” which might explain all those unsafe movements.

NO WINGS A thief in northeast Charlotte

GHOSTED One woman took her kids trickor-treating around their Tuckaseegee Road neighborhood on Halloween night only to return home and find that she had been tricked. And instead of tricking with her by toilet-papering her trees or some similar pranks, this was no juvenile prankster. The woman said that in the 30 minutes it took for her to walk around the neighborhood with her kids, someone stole her car.

THREATS OF THE WEEK A 60-year-

GETTING CLEAN Officers responded to an

apartment complex in northeast Charlotte and found three men in a vacant apartment looking to trick the local drug addicts. Police opened the door to the apartment and the three men fled, but they caught one. When

found out the hard way last week that Red Bull’s marketing campaign, in which little cartoons claim the drink can make you fly away, is not to be taken literally. The man allegedly walked into a Circle K and began filling a pillowcase with cans of Red Bull. He didn’t plan so well for his getaway, however, and tried to jump in a cab. He was then stopped by an employee, who may have caused the cab to crash, as it’s listed in the report as suffering $2,00 in damage. The suspect then tried to flee on foot, but was apprehended by officers who had just sowed up on the scene. old woman was alarmed to wake up to an early morning text from a stranger with a certain set of skills last week. The woman filed a report saying that someone texted her twice at 3 a.m. with the warning, “I am a contract killer if you pay me I will not kill you I will wait on your answer.” In an unrelated incident, a 36-year-old woman was asked a question by a suspect who then answered the question herself. The victim told police she received a text saying, “Bitch, why ain’t you gonna accept my friend request? Me and my friends are gonna beat your ass again!”

Blotter items are chosen from the files of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

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FOOD

FEATURE

TAKING CHARGE Rhino Market and Deli stays on point

BY CHRISSIE NELSON

I

MAGINE YOUR IDEAL

neighborhood bar also doubling as a bodega, serving excellent sandwiches and playing sweet jams. A place that you’d love to sit at in a booth for hours and get some work done or meet some friends for coffee or a local brew.

If this description sounds enticing to you, then Rhino Market and Deli is the spot for you.

I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t make it to Rhino until almost a year after it opened. I went there on the suggestion of a coworker who lives in Wesley Heights. A group of us met up after work for a relaxed, late spring happy hour on Rhino’s patio.

Waiting that long to check out Rhino was a big mistake. I really didn’t know what I was missing out on; a cool, casual spot perfect for gathering with friends and neighbors, with a side of good beer choices and really good sandwiches. The kind of place that is right up my alley.

The few hours I spent at Rhino changed my life forever — it sounds a little dramatic, but beer and sandwiches can do that. Rhino went from not even on my radar to a place that I recommend for everything.

Want to get a few hours of work done?

There’s plenty of tables and free Wi-fi at Rhino. Need a spot for a small group meeting? Brainstorm while you sip on some beer (and again, free wifi). Meeting a friend to strategize your fantasy football picks?

Rhino is the perfect spot for lunch while you talk linebackers (yes, this happened in real life). Looking for a delicious, quick bite to eat? Rhino’s sandwiches will satiate you.

Speaking of sandwiches, the deli in Rhino Market & Deli sells some of the best in Charlotte. Their sandwich offerings will please vegetarians with choices like classic grilled cheese, the Tofu You (with BBQ tofu and pickled veggies) and Healthy Hummus, and also impress carnivores with classics like the Reuben, hot roast beef and chicken torta.

Their interpretation of a classic Italian, called the Sicilian, is great whether served hot or cold, and is piled high with meats, cheese and some veggies. But my favorite is 16 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

CHRISSIE NELSON

the Big Wheel: hot pastrami, Swiss, Creole mustard and sliced pickles served between slices of pumpernickel. It’s a real beauty.

Besides sandwiches, Rhino has a little bit of everything. Neighbors can come in and pick up loaves of locally made Duke’s

Bread and cartons of eggs. If you’re looking for a quick and easy dinner, Rhino has a few coolers dedicated to Pasta and Provisions’

CHRISSIE NELSON

RHINO MARKET & DELI 1500 W. Moreland St., Suite E. 704-348-1428. rhinomarket.com.

premade pastas and sauces. If you want to skip a sandwich and prefer snacks, you can get your fix with some Queen Charlotte’s Pimento Cheese Royale, Cardias Gourmet, goodies from The Naked Tart and sweet treats from QC Cheesecakes.

Add to this a smattering of weekly events like trivia, beer and wine tastings, live music, DJs and an open mic night — and don’t forget a pint of your favorite North Carolina brew, a glass of wine or a bottle or six pack to bring home. And if I haven’t sold you already, Rhino serves breakfast until 11 a.m. on weekdays and noon on weekends, and I hear the breakfast burrito is not only affordable at $4.49 but also delicious.

Chrissie Nelson is a public defender by day and a food blogger by night. Read about her foodventures, restaurant reviews and other Charlotte musings at offtheeatenpathblog.com.

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AMBITION RUNS HIGH FOR THE POLAR PIG COOK-OFF

BY ANITA OVERCASH

JILL GOODSON

SATURDAY

THREE-COURSE SPIEL

Barbecue competion draws folks out to nearby rural town

FRIDAY NIGHT 11/18

Thirsty Thursday $4 Wines and Margaritas

FOOD

FOR CHARLOTTE-AREA residents Steve Dyer and Josh Lambert, cooking barbecue comes natural. They do it in their backyards on a regular basis, filling the bellies of family and friends who are more than happy to serve as guinea pigs. But for the upcoming Polar Pig Cook-Off, held in downtown Mt. Pleasant, NC, Nov. 1112, they are skipping the amateur backyard division and going straight in to competing with the barbecue big dogs in the grand masters professional division.

Since the small town approximately 40 minutes northeast of Charlotte is joining up with the Kansas City Barbecue Society to host the competition, there will be folks from all over the region coming to compete for bragging rights in specific categories and for overall points. Dyer and Lambert will be cooking chicken, pork ribs, pulled pork and brisket. Lambert, who builds smokers via his biz JL Custom Smokers, and Dyer, a land surveyor by day who grills regularly in his free time, will be critiqued for taste and presentation by a panel of judges.

Although attendees won’t be able to sample competition offerings, they can go Friday to taste chicken wings, which will be cooked up by teams participating in Saturday’s competition. For $10, folks can try 10 wings and vote on their favorite. On Saturday, there will be barbecue provided by local fire departments and other food available for purchase. Money raised from the event will go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Toys For Tots and Mt. Pleasant Food Ministry.

Creative Loafing: What are you hoping to accomplish through the competition?

Steve Dyer: Josh [Lambert] is striving to get into the barbecue business and wants to keep building the smokers and get more into catering. I’ve dabbled in it a little bit and realized I don’t want to do that, my catering days are behind me, so I’ll just keep cooking for anybody that comes over. I just don’t have a passion to do it for a living, but I want to compete in everything I do. I like to cook and everybody likes to eat and I guess it’s the competitive nature of my being.

The first thing I want to do is try to win a prize. Once I win a prize, it’s all over and I’ll move on to something else. I always

Steve Dyer and Josh Lambert

ANITA OVERCASH

think that my food is good, so it’s good to have somebody judge it that’s not just your friends. You always wonder if your friends are really telling the truth or if they just want you to keep cooking instead of them, so they always tell you it’s good.

Is there a specific thing you’ll be cooking that’s been more popular with friends?

Everybody seems to really like the chicken that we’ve come up with, but cooking for your friends is very different than cooking for the competition. The judges are going to take one bite of your food and judge it, so you want to make that bite really pop. It’s a little bit spicier with some different layers of flavor.

What kind of barbecue do you like and where’s your favorite place to eat it?

I tend to like things really flavorful and moist. I like the competition style barbecue.

That’s my flavor profile. If you tend to go around here to a local barbecue joint, it’s more about cooking pork and then putting sauce on it and I’m not a big sauce guy. I like a really good bark, which is what smoke puts on it to make that dark outside and I like it to be really flavorful and kind of spicy.

I used to really like Jimmy’s in Lexington, but it closed down. Mac’s Speed Shop in Charlotte is really good, too. But when you cook so much of it, you tend to not pick that as a meal.

CLCLT.COM | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | 19

THURSDAY

10

THURSDAY

10

What: In its 13th year, this CPCC event draws computer and science nerds and savvy techies out to the Matthews campus for a day of learning and educating. Think of this day-long event as a field trip of sorts that will get you caught up with a year’s worth of technology advancements.

When: Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 11, 8 p.m.; Nov. 12, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; Nov. 13, 1:30 p.m. & 7 p.m.

Where: Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon St. More: 704-372-1000. blumenthalarts.org.

When: 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Where: Central Piedmont Community College Levine Campus, 2800 Campus Ridge Road More: Free admission. thegeekfest. com.

20 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

THURSDAY

10

What: Set in Berlin’s renowned Kit Kat Klub, this Roundabout Theatre Company show captures the glitz and glam as well as the hardships of being a cabaret performer in pre-WWII Germany. Songs like “Cabaret,” “Willkommen” and “Maybe This Time” will ring a bell for most casual theater fans, and they’ve made this production a Tony Award-winnning show.

— ANITA OVERCASH

Evanescence TUESDAY

THURSDAY

GEEK FEST

CABARET

THINGS TO DO

TOP TEN — OVERCASH

FRIDAY

10

BRIAN TWITTY PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT What: Brian Twitty, a CLcontributing photographer, recently picked up the readers’ pick for “Best Photographer” during our Best Of Charlotte awards and we get why. He’s shot disc golf and concert photos for us this year, and this exhibit will feature an assortment of scenic rural and cityscapes. Come out to see his work. There’s music from Justin Aswell, too.

When: 8 p.m.-1 a.m.

Where: Heist Brewery, 2909 N. Davidson St. More: Free admission. 704-3758260. heistbrewery.com.

— OVERCASH

11

THE ART OF DR. SEUSS

CHARLOTTE STORYTELLERS

What: Folks who value the timeless children’s books created by Theodor Geisel aka Dr. Seuss will want to mark this four-day gallery exhibition on their calendars.

Expect to see the classics, but also look for a special section dubbed “The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss,” which features works from his own personal collection.

What: If you haven’t been to a Charlotte Storytellers event yet, what are you waiting for? This is the sixth showcase of stories from the group that’s ever-growing in popularity. The theme this time around will be “Solo,” and the stories will be about doing things alone, for better or worse. The box office is at Goodyear Arts, the show at Google Fiber, with an audio experience for the walk between.

When: Nov. 10, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Nov. 11, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Nov. 12, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Nov. 13, 12 p.m.-5 p.m.

Where: Charlotte Fine Art Gallery, 7510 Pineville-Matthews Road, Suite 12A. More: Free admission. 704-5410741. charlottefineart.com.

— OVERCASH

When: Nov. 11., 7 p.m.; Nov. 12, 7 p.m.

Where: Google Fiber, 301 E. 7th St. More: $5 early bird, $10 night-of. charlottestorytellers.com — RYAN PITKIN

JOAN MARCUS

Cabaret THURSDAY

™ & © 2016 DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES, L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Skinny Lister SATURDAY

NEWS ARTS FOOD MUSIC ODDS

The Art of Dr. Seuss THURSDAY

SATURDAY

SATURDAY

12

12

DAVID EDWARDS

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

16

15

WEDNESDAY

16

HOME FOR OUR HEROES 5K

SKINNY LISTER

EVANESCENCE

LOCAL H

EL MALPAIS

What: A great chance to burn fat and give back at the same time. This 5K is for a good cause: supporting veterans experiencing homelessness. All proceeds will go to Statesville Veterans Transitional Home, a new center providing veterans with food, shelter and other support. It’s something easy you can do for folks who have fought for our country.

What: Having played energetic shows at bigger venues, one can imagine that English folk-rockers Skinny Lister will blow the roof off the Evening Muse. Oh, and if the jug of whiskey gets passed around, take a swig. Earlier in the night, that roof will be loosened by the one-man-band Lincoln Durham, who can play everything from a one-string guitar to a suitcase. Yes, his suitcase playing conjures up more emotion than you’d expect.

What: After going through some band troubles of various kinds over the years ­— lineup changes, label lawsuits — Evanescence called for a hiatus in 2012 and no one expected much after that. Last year, the band’s latest lineup reunited for a few shows and now there’s a box set coming out in December. There might be limited new material, but a sold out show is proof fans will be happy with the hits.

What: This early ‘90s band made its claim to fame with “Bound for the Floor,” featured on the 1996 album As Good As Dead. But the band has been going strong ever since. Members have come and gone, but frontman Scott Lucas remains a stronghold joined by drummer Ryan Harding since 2013.

This being the 20th year since AGAD was released calls for a dedication to the album, which is what this show promises to be.

When: 8:30 p.m.

Where: The Evening Muse, 3227 N. Davidson St..

More: Sold out. 704-376-3737. eveningmuse.com.

When: 8 p.m.

Where: The Fillmore, 1000 N.C. Music Factory Blvd.

More: Sold out. fillmorecharlottenc. com.

When: 8 p.m.

Where: Visulite Theatre, 1615 Elizabeth Ave. More: $22.50-$26. 704-358-9200. visulite.com.

What: I’m not going to start a long list of couples who make good musical partners. Instead, I’ll just say that El Malpais was forged by the couple combo of multiinstrumentalists Buck Boswell and Jude Salinas and united with drummer Robert Childers to form this superb trio. This show is the mid-way point of the band’s November residency, and this night is highlighted by a reunion of Boswell’s former band, The Hectagons.

When: registration, 7:30 a.m.-8:45 a.m., race starts at 9 a.m.

Where: 134 Talbert Pointe Drive, Mooresville.

More: $20-$30 (includes T-shirt). runsignup.com/Race/NC/ Mooresville/HomeforOurHeros5k.

— OVERCASH

— JEFF HAHNE

— HAHNE

— OVERCASH

When: 10 p.m.

Where: Snug Harbor, 1228 Gordon St. More: Free. snugrock.com.

— HAHNE

CLCLT.COM | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | 21

ARTS

THEATER

FORGET ALL THAT MONEY STUFF AND BE HAPPY Review of Theatre Charlotte’s You Can’t Take It With You

BY PERRY TANNENBAUM

W

HEN IT FIRST came to Broadway, just after the 1936 election, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s You Can’t Take It With You was steeped in the Great Depression — and a deep suspicion of the efficacy of government.

Twenty elections later, as the audience favorite returns to Theatre Charlotte yet again in a truly sharp production directed

by Mitzi Corrigan, the anti-government sentiments of the Sycamores and family patriarch Martin Vanderhof may strike some longtime subscribers as more virulently right wing than they remember.

Previous revivals of the show that I’ve seen tended to portray the whole extended family — except for Alice, who has ambitions and craves normality — as lovably eccentric, even borderline daffy. With the pandemonium that cuts loose at the end of the first two acts, that’s certainly a major part of the impression that Kaufman & Hart sought to convey.

But the wonderfully avuncular Dennis Delamar as Grampa Vanderhof has a bit of an edge to him when an IRS agent comes calling about those income taxes he has never paid. There’s a “government of the people” tinge to his reaction as he demands to know how his money will be spent, but there’s also a saintly element of renunciation — for he has willfully abandoned the hustleand-bustle of capitalism outside his home and devoted himself completely to doing as he pleases in and about his own roost.

Although there’s plenty of hustle-andbustle inside the home, all except Alice fit the same mold: busy and industrious though they are, none of them has a job.

How pleasant and agreeable such a bunch must have seemed to Depression Era Americans! Not only aren’t they competing with anybody in the jungle of a desperately shrunken job market, they’re genially and energetically coaxing us to toss aside all our 22 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

CHRIS TIMMONS

The cast of Theatre Charlotte’s You Can’t Take It With You. L-R: Amy Wada (Rheba), Dennis Delamar (Martin Vanderhof), Stephen Peterson (Paul Sycamore), Johnny Hohestein (Mr. De Pinna), Cora Breakfield (Alice), Jill Bloede (Penelope Sycamore), Dan Grogan (Ed), Della Knowles (Essie Carmichael) and Jonathan Ewart (Donald). anxieties about getting and spending. Forget all that stuff and be happy.

Corrigan softens the usual daffiness just enough for us to see the eccentricities of the Sycamore household winking at us as the sunny side of American individualism rather than principled silliness. This puts Alice in a somewhat different light, more akin to the disagreeable hetero son in La Cage aux Folles than we usually see. Cora Breakfield takes nicely to these fresh shadings of her role, subtly aided by costume designer Chelsea Retalic. The dresses she changes into for dates with her beau Tony Kirby are darkly elegant, but the clothes she wears coming home from work are less flattering.

Set design by Chris Timmons is uncommonly handsome, further discouraging our impulse to view the household as a clown car. Della Knowles is less outré as Essie, Alice’s hopelessly bad ballet dancing sister, and Stephen Peterson is mellower than most versions of their father Paul, the fireworks enthusiast. Johnny Hohenstein mostly lurks contentedly in the background as Paul’s lab assistant, Mr. De Pinna, briefly taking the spotlight when he models for Penny Sycamore’s long-unfinished painting

of a Greek athlete.

These finely judged touchups allow Alice’s mom, Penny, and Russian dance teacher Boris Kolenkhov to emerge more emphatically from the general hullaballoo.

When Tony’s parents unexpectedly arrive to meet their prospective daughter-in-law’s family, these emphases pay off. It’s Penny, after all, who scandalizes Mrs. Kirby by declaring spiritualism an obvious fake, shortly before Boris shocks Mr. Kirby by wrestling him to the ground.

Jill Bloede makes Penny a blithe short-attention-span spirit, while Frank Dominguez turns Boris into a spectacularly bellicose poseur – with some brash assistance from costumer Retalic. The Kirbys are nicely matched to absorb these indignities, John Price as the orchid-cultivating plutocrat and Corlis Hayes as the delicate Mrs. Kirby.

Price especially traces a graceful character curve, ultimately receptive to Vanderhof’s soft sermon – and itching for a rematch with Boris! Armie Hicks cuts a fine figure as Tony, well mannered yet susceptible to the charms of both Alice and her family.

Standing out among the unwelcome intruders, Mike Carroll brings a starchy

YOU CAN’S TAKE IT WITH YOU $27. Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 11-12, 8 p.m.; Nov. 13, 2:30 p.m. Theatre Charlotte, 501 Queens Road. 704376-3777. theatrecharlotte.org.

persistence to the IRS agent, while Rick Taylor layers on a New York vulgarity to the Head G-Man. The aging waifs that the Sycamores embrace during this farce are closer to caricature and more delectable.

Zendyn Duellman has a regal tipsiness to her as the soused actress who wanders into the scene, and Suzanne Newsom is superbly compromised as the Russian royal, Olga Katarina, exiled to waiting tables at a Child’s restaurant.

I waited and bussed tables at multiple Child’s locations around Times Square during one memorable summer break. There were 45s by the Four Tops playing on the jukebox and no aristocrats sitting down for dinner. So I can personally vouch for Olga’s humiliation.

ARTS

VISUAL

TALKING TECH WITH IVAN TOTH DEPENA

“He was trying to control his outward appearance and look normal to anyone around him.”

2016, archival print digitally rendered from incendiary processes.

Remember exhibit uses augmented reality for extra layers

BY ANITA OVERCASH

F

OR CHARLOTTEBASED Ivan Toth Depeña

technology has added a new platform to his work as an artist. A graduate from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where he received a masters degree in architecture, his art incorporates aspects of design, architecture, and ... wait for it ... technology.

As an artist-in-residence at McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Depeña has been busy creating Remember, an exhibition that explores memory. It’s all comes together through mixed media — drawing, painting, sculpture, audio, video, and an augmented reality mobile application. Of the latter, he adds extra layers that can be used to better explore the passage of time. Creative Loafing asked Depeña some questions to get a better impression of his current exhibition, which opens with a reception on Friday, Nov. 11 at McColl.

Creative Loafing: How has this exhibit at McColl differed from some of your past projects?

Ivan Toth Depeña: In the process of working on this exhibition, I have allowed myself freedoms in certain details and thought processes that I do not regularly have. I am a lot less obsessive than I usually am.

Can you tell me about why you decided to hone in on McColl’s history for some of the drawings in the exhibit?

The exhibition is a bit more about my history there and my memory of what I worked on and experienced while there. It also happens that McColl’s building has an interesting past... The history of the building burning down and rebuilt, has a direct relationship to my work process. Taking things apart and reassembling, allowing chance to take over and reconstructing with specific intention. The sculptural fragments that are being exhibited are repurposed pieces used in an installation I did earlier this year.

For this exhibit you’ve also incorporated an augmented reality mobile application. Why was this

REMEMBER EXHIBITION. OPENING RECEPTION/ARTIST + CURATOR TALK Free admission. Nov. 11, 6 p.m.-9 p.m.

McColl Center for Art + Innovation, 721 N. Tryon St. 704-332-5535. mccollcenter.org.

addition important to you and how can visitors interact with this component?

I think the augmented reality technology is developing into a really amazing platform to allow us to see layers of reality that don’t actually exist. It is very similar to a dream or even more particularly memories.

There also seem to be a lot of 3D geometric shapes and patterns in some of the works. How do these fit into the over all meaning of the project at large?

In this instance, I wanted to react to the space itself. The church building is a really substantial piece of architecture. Also, there is a 3D element to a lot of my work. Whether it be painting, drawing or sculpture... I explore space, depth and scale in pretty much every aspect of my work.

In what ways does having an audio/ visual component to the overall exhibit shape the way the art is consumed?

I want it to be immersive, sensorial and encompassing. I feel that activating various senses is a means to achieve these results.

What do you hope that folks who come to see the exhibit take away?

This installation is a concentrated glimpse into my process. I am really shooting from the hip here. Calling Charlotte my home now, I wanted there to be a certain honesty explored about who I am as a person and artist. I am thinking of it as a peek into a visual journal of sorts.

IVAN TOTH DEPEÑA

CLCLT.COM | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | 23

ARTS

FILM

MARVEL

Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange.

CLOAK AND STAGGER Superhero saga alternates between laughs and lethargy

BY MATT BRUNSON

I

T’S THE R2-D2 of the MCU. It’s Wilson the volleyball in fabric form. It’s the rampaging refrigerator from Requiem for a Dream, if the 24 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

fridge had only been cuddly and cute instead of monstrous and menacing. It’s the Cloak of Levitation, and without uttering a single word, growl or beep, it’s a veritable scenestealer in Doctor Strange (**1/2 out of four),

a fairly entertaining but largely unexceptional addition to the cinematic superhero canon.

This cape crusader doesn’t appear until a significant portion of the picture has passed.

Before that, there’s plenty of expository

material to relate, beginning with a look at the unmitigated arrogance of Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), a brilliant neurosurgeon who knows he’s brilliant and wants everyone else to know it as well.

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An automobile accident (his fault, because he’s arrogant) destroys Strange’s hands but only enhances his unbecoming personality, as he cruelly shuts out his girlfriend, fellow doctor Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), and takes up residence in the sanctum of selfpity. But upon hearing of a healer in the Far East who might be able to cure him, he cashes in his frequent flyer miles and soon finds himself taking instruction from The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who trains him in the mystical arts.

She’s assisted by her prized pupil Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the gruff librarian Wong (Benedict Wong, sharing scene-swiping duties with that cape) and various other underlings, all required to remain alert against Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a former student who opted to move over to the Dark Side of the Force — excuse me, the Dark Dimension.

With Marvel’s decision to absolutely glut our theaters with all things excelsior, it’s a given that some efforts will be less, uh, marvelous than others — that’s certainly the case with Doctor Strange, which feels more like a conveyor-belt product with the expected rinse-lather-repeat beats.

The picture has three credited screenwriters (including director Scott Derrickson), but it truly feels like an endeavor

in which a committee oversaw every aspect of its genesis. Even Ant-Man, generally not ranked in the upper echelons of the MCU flicks, offers more freewheeling fun than this by-the-numbers assignment, which fails to breathe much life into the origin story (this one feeling similar to the one from Batman Begins) and relying too heavily on visual effects rather than character dynamics (usually, the mix is more balanced in these pictures).

The decision-making is most infuriating with the character of The Ancient One. It doesn’t bother me that this male figure has been turned into a female one, and others have already been protesting the fact that an Asian wasn’t given the role (George Takei has some choice words on this subject). No, what’s heinous is the complete Orwellian removal of Tibet as both the character’s nationality and the film’s setting (it’s been swapped out for Nepal). This change was made simply because China is the world’s largest market for American films, and Disney-Marvel suits (and apparently their lawyers) didn’t want to even acknowledge the existence of Tibet lest it upset the Chinese overlords who approve the country’s film slate (co-scripter C. Robert Cargill even stated this before taking back his comments, presumably on Marvel’s

command).

It’s an awful if predictably capitalist reason, and it makes one wonder if, had Marvel Studios existed at the time and had Germany not disallowed the import of American films, the studio would have excised any Jewish characters from its movies during the late 1930s for fear that the German market would have frowned down upon them.

Rote storytelling and pesky politics aside, the film does offer its rewards, particularly in Cumberbatch’s fine performance, some twisty visuals (many cribbed from Inception), and the occasional dabs of gentle humor.

As for the Cape of Levitation, it makes its presence known during one of Strange’s many skirmishes with Kaecilius and his minions.

Like Harry Potter’s broom, it chooses Strange rather than the other way around, and it remains busy saving his life, dragging him toward useful weapons, and even taking it upon itself to beat up a lackey.

These scenes are among the movie’s most enjoyable ones, and they help disguise the more mundane stretches that otherwise would leave the faithful feeling hoodwinked.

DISHING FRESH FOOD AND BEVERAGE NEWS WEEKLY.

BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | 25

ARTS

HAPPENINGS

COMEDY Bonkerz Blayr Nias. Nov. 11-12. 5624 Westpark Drive. bonkerzcomedyproductions.com.

The Comedy Zone J Anthony Brown. Nov. 11-12.

Fight Night Comedy Competition. Nov. 15. 900 N.C. Music Factory Blvd., Suite B3. 980-3214702. cltcomedyzone.com.

The Evening Muse Steve Hofstetter. Nov. 13.

3227 N. Davidson St. eveningmuse.com.

Spectrum Center The Comedy Get Down Tour: Cedric The Entertainer, Eddie Griffin, D.L. Hughley, George Lopez & Charlie Murphy. Nov. 12. 333 E. Trade St. spectrumcenterarena.com.

THEATER/DANCE/ PERFORMANCE ART Cabaret The Roundabout Theatre Company celebrates its 50th anniversary with this Broadway masterpiece that tells the tale of Berlin nightlife in pre-WWII Germany. Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 11, 8 p.m.; Nov. 12, 2 and 8 p.m.; Nov. 13, 1:30 and 7 p.m. Belk Theater 130 N. Tryon St. 704-372-1000. blumenthalarts.org.

Stepz Under the direction of Savion Glover, Savion Glover’s STePz is yet another exuberant celebration of tap dance to sound and sound to dance. $20. Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m. Knight Theater, 430 S. Tryon St. 704-372-1000. blumenthalarts. org.

Shrek, The Musical Jr. Based on the DreamWorks animation motion picture and the book by William Steig. Nov. 11, 7 p.m.; Nov. 12, 1 and 4 p.m.; Nov. 13, 1 p.m. Armour Street Theatre, 307 Armour St., Davidson. 704-8927953. davidsoncommunityplayers.org.

Warehouse Performing Arts Center, 9216 Westmoreland Road, Suite A, Cornelius. 704859-5930. warehousepac.com.

The Toxic Avenger Melvin is dumped into a vat of radioactive toxic waste, only to reemerge as The Toxic Avenger, New Jersey’s first superhero. $28-$50. Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 11-12, 8 p.m.

Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, 2219 Freedom Drive. 704-342-2251. actorstheatrecharlotte.org.

You Can’t Take It With You Theatre Charlotte’s take on You Can’t Take It With You, is an insight on what happens when two very different families (wealth and job wise) collide in this award-winning omedy. $27. Through Nov. 13. Theatre Charlotte, 501 Queens Road. theatrecharlotte.org.

Grand Concourse Three Bone Theatre presents this show by Heidi Schreck, directed by Robin Tynes. Having dedicated her life to religious service, Shelley is pushed to her breaking point when she meets Emma — an idealistic but confused college dropout — who arrives to volunteer. $22-$28. Nov. 10-12, 8 p.m., Nov. 1719, 8 p.m. Duke Energy Theater, 345 N. College St. threebonetheatre.com.

Winthrop Dance Theatre Concert This full evening of works choreographed by faculty and guest artists is a highlight of Winthrop’s Homecoming and Reunion Weekend. $5 with Winthrop ID/$10 general public. Nov. 10-12, 8 p.m., Nov. 13, 2 p.m. Winthrop University’s Johnson Theatre, 115 Johnson Hall. winthrop. edu/arts/default.aspx?id=35934.

MORE EVENTS

As You Like It Queens Theatre presents a performance of one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies. $11 for the general public, $5.50 for students. Nov. 10-12, 8 p.m., Nov. 13, 2 p.m. Hadley Theatre at Queens University of Charlotte, 1900 Selwyn Avenye. queens.edu.

Rural Hill Sheepdog Trials and Dog Festival The National Border Collie Sheepherding Championships will be held over the two-day event. Everyone is welcome to bring their family, friends and their furry pals. Carolina beer and wine will be available along with hayrides, food vendors and other fun events. $7.50-$11. Nov. 12-13. Historic Rural Hill Farm, 4431 Neck Road, Huntersville. 704-875-3113. ruralhill.net.

To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday Widower David still mourns the death of his wife Gillian and lives out the rest of their romance with walks on the beach accompanied by her ghost. Their daughter needs her father to snap out of living in the past to address the family problems popping up in the present. Through Nov. 19.

Southern Christmas Show An Olde Town filled with charming shops, festive music, crafts, food, holiday decor, local wines, and Santa. Over 400 holiday merchants with gifts for all ages. $12 at the door. Nov. 9, 5:30-9:30 p.m., Nov. 10-13, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Nov. 13-15, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Nov. 16-19, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. and

26 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

Nov. 20-19, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. The Park Expo & Conference Center (formerly The Charlotte Merchandise Mart), 2500 Independence Blvd. southernshows.com/scs.

Modernism + Film: Away From All Suns Away From All Suns, a film by Isa Willinger, is a featured documentary examining the ruins of 1920s contructivist architecture in Moscow, Russia. The film focuses on gender, social upheavals and human rights. Tickets are $10 for the public, $8 for museum members and $5 for students. Nov. 10, 6-8 p.m. Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, 420 S. Tryon St. bechtler.org.

Wine @ The Market For the fourth year Wine @ the Market will raise critical funds for the FCS agency programming supporting women and children. Attendees will enjoy food and drink, while shopping the silent auction. Silent auction items will include art, jewelry, specialty items and gift certificates. $35 in advance, $40 at the door. Nov. 10, 6-8:30 p.m. Atherton Market at Atherton Mill, 2104 South Blvd.

Digging Up Jerusalem: UNC Charlotte at Mount Zion Shimon Gibson, visiting professor of archaeology in UNC Charlotte’s department of history and a Senior Fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, will present a lecture on UNC Charlotte’s Mount Zion Archaeological Project.

Gibson is co-director of the excavation along with James Tabor, Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies Free. Nov. 10, 7 p.m.

UNC Charlotte Center City, 320 East 9th St. http://exchange.uncc.edu/event/digging-upjerusalem-unc-charlotte-at-mount-zion/.

Potions & Pixels Featuring fun and unique video games and board games in a lively atmosphere. There’s a wide variety of multiplayer games from all eras and for all skill levels. $5. Second Thursday of every month, 7 p.m.-12 a.m. Continues through Dec. 31. Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave. PotionsAndPixels. com.

speaker system, live music is broadcast and picked up by specially designed wireless headphones worn by the audience. Those without headphones hear no music, giving the effect of a room full of people dancing to silence. People watching is half the fun. 21 and up. Nov. 11, 9 p.m. Rooftop 210, 210 E. Trade St., Suite 230B. Funky Food Truck Fridaze Featuring a wide variety of dishes from Charlotte’s favorite food trucks. There’s also crafts and live entertainment. Nov. 11, 7-11 p.m., Nov. 18, 7-11 p.m. and Nov. 25, 7-11 p.m. Charlotte Open Air Market, 5471 Central Ave. creativityforms.com.

If This Dog Could Talk Dr. Jamie Laity of Harbor Point Animal Hospital, is hosting a free community “If This Dog Could Talk” event in partnership with Merck Animal Health. She, along with renowned photographer Elias Weiss Friedman, creator of the photo-documentary series The Dogist, will be on hand to raise awareness of the dog flu and emphasize the importance of speaking with your veterinarian about your dog’s lifestyle-associated risk factors. Free. Nov. 12, 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Frazier Park, 1200 W. 4th St. doginfluenza.com/ ifthisdogcouldtalk.asp.

Mecklenburg County Bar’s Ask-A-Lawyer Day The Mecklenburg County Bar Young Lawyers Division will host a free walk-in legal clinic. Free. Nov. 12, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (Main), 310 N. Tryon St. meckbar.org.

3nd Annual Gift of Adoption Cornhole Tournament The GOA Young Professionals Board of the Carolinas will be raising funds in order to provide grants to qualified parents in North and South Carolina to partially offset the significant cost of adoption. Enjoy live music, games, food, beer, raffle items and a silent auction.Nov. 12, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Noda Brewery, 2921 North Tryon St. http://giftofadoption.org/ cornhole/.

Open Mic Night Open to performers and spectators of all ages. Instrumentalists, singers, dancers, storytellers, poets, jugglers, magicians and others are all welcome. Audience seating is on a first-come-first-served basis. Free. Nov. 11, 7:30-9:30 p.m. McGlohon Theater at Spirit Square, 345 N College St. blumenthalarts.org.

Bilingual Stories & Music Fun and interactive bilingual (Spanish/English) mornings that incorporate music, games, and stories geared to families interested in raising bilingual and globally-minded children. $5 per family / Free for Mint Members. Nov. 12, 11-11:45 a.m. Mint Museum Randolph, 2730 Randolph Road. mintmuseum.org.

Silent Disco Rather than using a traditional

Charlotte Kids Expo A fun-filled day of

ACTIVIST JOBS

*TO HELP STOP LGBT BULLYING* learning, playing and shopping. The Kids Expo is a celebration of the best products, services, and entertainment for children and families featuring local businesses and resources focusing on education, health & wellness, safety, special needs, child care, entertainment, and other important topics. Free activities include bounce houses, face painting, stage shows, character meet & greets, interactive activity zones, and more. Nov. 12, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Free. Carole Hoefener Center, 610 E. 7th St. Kinetic Heights Grand Opening Celebration Join Kinetic Heights for its grand opening celebration. Kinetic Heights is an indoor, obstacle-based challenge and fitness center with high and low ropes courses, tandem zip lines, a warrior obstacle course, giant swing, bouldering wall and obstacle training. Get a sneak peek of the adventure and enjoy Fresh Med food truck, Viva Raw juices, kids activities, giveaways and a DJ. Membership and day passes will be available for purchase, and guests are invited to sign-up for activities following the conclusion of the event. Free.

Nov. 12, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Kinetic Heights, 5564 International Drive.

Queen City Shootout & Casino Night At the conclusion of round one of the tournament there’s a buffet dinner along with entertainment, and raffle giveaways. After dinner, round two of the Poker Tournament begins, and the casino night gets underway. $100 and up. Nov. 12, 4-11 p.m. The Big Chill, 911 E. Morehead St. coloncancersupportnetwork. org/events/1st-annual-queen-city-shootoutcasino-night/.

Charlotte Pride Band’s “Quiet City” The program features a selection of music composed by LGBT composers such as Peter Tchaikovsky, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Aaron Copland, and Samuel Barber. The band commissioned and will premiere a work written to honor the 49 people that died in the Pulse Nightclub shootings in Orlando. Tickets are $15 and are available from band members, online atcharlotteprideband.org, or at the door. $15.

Nov. 12, 5-7 p.m. Myers Park Baptist Church’s Heaton Hall, 1900 Queens Road.

Eat Better, Feel Better Learn what chronic inflammation can do to your body, what foods can cause inflammation, and changes you can make in your life to reduce your toxic overload. cmlibrary.org/calendar. Nov. 14, 6-6:45 p.m.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library Plaza

Midwood Branch, 1623 Central Ave. Hand Carved Rubber Stamp Workshop Join Modern Craft Collective at Craft Tasting Room to learn how to create unique hand carved rubber stamps, great for personalizing greeting cards, notepads, wrapping paper & more. Each participant will design & carve up to six 2-3 inch stamps, working at their own pace. $45.

Nov. 14, 7-9 p.m. moderncraftcollective.com CRAFT Tasting Room and Growler Shop, 1320 S. Church St. Belly Dancing 101 In this class you will be learning the basic fundamental moves of the ‘Ancient Art of Bellydance.’ After a nice warm-up and stretch, and a quick lesson on “bellydance posture,” your dance teacher will thoroughly breakdown several fundamental moves before moving to the next ones. Class is BYOB(wine). $25. Nov. 15, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Industry Charlotte, 1000 North Carolina Music Factory Blvd. sipandskill.com.

GivingTuesdayCLT Kickoff Event A showcase of local goods. From custom beers brewed by breweries to goods from local and nonprofit vendors, this will be a night of fun in support of 173 local nonprofits participating. Try food samples from local vendors and there’s a raffle giveaway for great prizes, including a special Charlotte Checkers Experience. Free. Nov. 15, 7-10 p.m. Unknown Brewing Co., 1327 S. Mint St. http://bit.ly/GTCLT16.

Documentary: The Student Body As the world health organization declares obesity a global epidemic, countries like the United States are taking drastic measures to solve the crisis, especially with the youth. Government mandated BMI tests of school children are a perfect example of this, sparking a heated national debate among parents, schools, students, lawmakers and physicians. Join for this complimentary screening of The Student Body, a documentary striking a chord with a nation filled with concern, confusion, division and questions. Free. Nov. 16, 6:30-8 p.m. Sardis Presbyterian Church, 6100 Sardis Road.

Art + Aperitif Meet local artists at a pop up gallery event the first and third Wednesday of every month. Two-four artists each time. $7 beer and wine specials Live music by Scott Smith. Free. Nov. 16, 5:30-8:30 p.m. and Dec. 7, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Le Méridien Charlotte, 555 McDowell St.

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Treat Yourself Our Location 6157 E. Independence Blvd. Charlotte NC 28212 704/567-9531 CLCLT.COM | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | 27

MUSIC

FEATURE

Mount Moriah performs at The Evening Muse on Nov. 10.

LISSA GOTWALS

WRITTEN IN THE CARDS Mount Moriah finds new cosmic direction

BY ANITA OVERCASH

S

HIRTLESS CHILDREN PLAYING with toy swords and

coating plaster on the bare skin of one another in a sort of casual casting play date.

That’s what you’ll see in the video for Mount Moriah’s “How to Dance.” The song is 28 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

a single from the band’s third studio album of the same title. It was written by singer Heather McEntire, who came up with the idea for the track through channeling a transgender child’s view. The band, based in the Triangle area and comprised of McEntire, guitarist Jenks Miller, and bassist Casey Toll, hired

Alexis Bravo to shoot the playful, innocent scenes that featured her own children.

In a press release about the video, Bravo describes the direction for the vid, which was shot on 16-millimeter film using a Bolex camera: “Knowing that the song is intended to be from the perspective of a transgender

child, I wanted the video to somehow address those particular vulnerable feelings without being pedantic. I also wanted to celebrate the joy and freedom that comes from play in a space that the children control completely.”

Though these visuals add extra depth to the subject matter, the lyrical content

MOUNT MORIAH W/ SLADE BAIRD (OF AMIGO) $12. Nov. 10, 8 p.m. The Evening Muse, 3227 N Davidson St. 704-3763737. eveningmuse.com

magnifies the song’s relatability. Folks from the transgender community who are continuously facing the prejudices that forced HB2 into existence, along with other marginalized groups, will understand the heart of this song. Asking questions related to dancing, dreaming, hearing and feeling, it takes an intimate, universal approach to being what some would call different or wrong.

Jenks Miller reflects on Langston Hughes’ “Harlem (What happens to a dream deferred),” a poem that was powerful to him as a child. It didn’t influence the track but he can’t help but be reminded of it when lyrics echo, “Baby, do you like to dream? Do you write them all across your sleeves? I got a lot of people telling me, how to dream.”

McEntire, who is bisexual and grew up in the Bible Belt, has always challenged stereotypes related to sexuality, identity and faith, but there’s less hostility and vindication to being marginalized on this album.

Miracle Temple, the band’s sophomore album, took a heavier, more personal approach to finding acceptance in oneself rather than by outsiders’ views and social norms. But there’s a different, somewhat peaceful change that’s gone into How to Dance. Tempos are faster, songs are grittier and more upbeat.

“Thematically, the perspective was more cosmic than a personal narrative,” says Miller, who continues to explain that it was a conscious decision on McEntire’s part. Along the way there’s a naturalist and sensate approach to spirituality. You’ll find plenty of specific roadside references.

“A lot of Heather’s lyrics reference very specific places we’ve been to and I think part of that comes from a folk tradition of being on the road and seeing different landmarks in the country,” Miller says.

Miller’s personal favorite: White Sands, New Mexico. “It’s strange and alien and it leaves an impression.”

He emphasizes the direct correlation between how places can embody feelings and experiences. “Including them in songs allows them to locate feelings on the map. It’s not just a place, it’s a feeling or what does this place actually represent.”

You’ll also find mythical creatures like the Chiron, a half-human half-horse creature from Greek mythology. It’s referred to on

Mount Moriah tracks like “Chiron (God in the Brier)” and “Cardinal Cross.”

“It’s all fitting with the album’s cosmic perspective,” says Miller. “I think in that case Heather was reaching to find ways to express similar lyrical ideas about finding a place in the South, but doing so using a language like mythology that’s so fundamental. And finding ways to express those ideas using more universal symbols from mythology.”

The group looked for places where a sense of spirituality connected for them. “We were finding elements that we can make our own and that we can relate to.”

Some of this came indirectly from reading books on tarot, of particular interest to Miller.

They read books and studied tarot with a focus on its intricate set of symbolism and metaphors.

“I’m sure there is some relationship, but I don’t think it’s direct,” says Miller. “I think

LISSA GOTWALS

that talking a lot about tarot and its set of symbols and metaphors has played into the songwriting. Tarot provides a different frame and gets you out of the typical way you think about your life and gives you a different angle to approach things from. That’s really helpful from a songwriting perspective too because it can expand the tool you have to work with there.”

Miller admits to doing tarot card readings for his bandmates while on the road. The group even made a quick tarot/palm reading pit stop while they were in New Orleans.

“Experiencing a tarot reading might be powerful for anyone because it’s allowing their life experience to be reflected back onto them in a new way. That same thing can influence a song and give you a new perspective into a character or a new perspective to a theme that you’re struggling with conveying in a song.”

CLCLT.COM | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | 29

MUSIC

REVIEW

MUSIC

REVIEW

BLESS THESE SOUNDS UNDER THE CITY

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

ON THE BRINK OF LIFE

ATO; RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

AMERICAN BAND

INDEPENDENT; RELEASE DATE: NOV. 1, 2016

Bless These Sounds Under the City ­— a duo comprised of Albert Strawn and Derrick Hines ­— released its debut, self-titled album in 2014. That 13-track effort offered a showcase of the band’s minimalist style while showing enough diversity in sounds and presentation to shed light on the breadth of each member’s talents.

Now, two years later, the band has released the 12-track On the Brink of Life which builds off of the debut showing maturity in songwriting, instrumentation and presentation. From the start, the duo shows the talents that weren’t always evident, but always present, on the debut.

From the Radiohead-esque opening track, “The Sleeping 8,” to the Gorillaz cadence of “A Clever Disguise”; from the folk-inspired “Salt in the Waves” featuring Charlie Wofford on cello to the percussion-driven, poetic “Warming the Frozen Star,” Bless These Sounds continues down the path of its debut and makes strides by leaps and bounds here. It’s worth noting that the band also gets help from bassist Andy LaMaster and El Malpais flutist Jude Salinas.

The frantic hip-hop of “Suspended in Hypnosis” might seem out of place — ­ unless you’re familiar with Strawn’s solo work. A frequent performer at the Find Your Muse open mic night at the Evening Muse, Strawn often experimented with electronics and sonic landscapes.

Where Bless These Sounds’ debut album offered glimpses of talent and the promise of a bright pathway, On the Brink of Life is the fruition of those talents and the album one only hoped would come out of the group. Where the band was formerly “one to watch” or keep an eye on within the Charlotte landscape, the new album takes it a step further and says, “This is the band you need to pay attention to intently.” Pencil this one in for one of the top local albums of the year.

— JEFF HAHNE

Country music is rendered eclectic on American Band, the fantastic new album by the Drive-By Truckers. On it, the Athens, Georgia alt-country troop push the limits of their genre with arena rock riffs, Memphis soul melodies, bluesy piano playing and more.

Case in point: “Kinky Hypocrite,” not only a solid tune but boasting the year’s best song title. It sounds like a long lost CCR classic, thanks to its deeply soulful grooves juxtaposed by bluesy, upbeat riffs.

“Ever South,” is another standout due to a bass line thick and sticky as southern molasses. Singer Patterson Hood’s reedy rasp encapsulates the plight of America’s early Irish immigrants who made their way across Appalachia despite being unwelcome. The historic injustices of that song are compellingly juxtaposed by “What It Means,” a modern Americana anthem featuring bare bones acoustic strums and faint but distinctive stomping percussion as Hood sings: “Barack Obama won and you can choose where to eat/ And you don’t see too many white kids lying bleeding in the street.”

Fascinating as the contrast between those songs are, even greater sparks have flown between the opposing styles of Hood and his fellow Truckers frontman Mike Cooley, the latter being as enthralling and cryptic a lyricist as the former is eloquently pointed. Cooley showcases his deftly distinct lyricism on “Once They Banned Imagine,” which features the fantastic line: “He had his heartstrings down, ripe for the yanking.” From such imagery rife lyrics, to the powerfully political one liners, to the genre defying breadth of its music, American Band’s every facet is enthralling and heart wrenching as the storied history and uncertain present of the nation referenced in its title. The only better moniker for a release of this caliber would have been: American masterpiece.

Drive-By Truckers perform at The Fillmore on Nov. 12. Tickets are $18.75-$25. To purchase tickets to the show, visit fillmorecharlottenc.com.

— KYLE MULLIN

30 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

CLCLT.COM | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | 31

MUSIC

SOUNDBOARD

NOV. 10

NOV. 12

COUNTRY/FOLK

BLUES/ROOTS/INTERNATIONAL

The Black Hounds Reunion w/ Greg Lilley & Co. (Double Door Inn) Daniel Johnson (Tin Roof) The Travelin’ McCourys (Neighborhood Theatre)

Roomful of Blues (Double Door Inn)

POP/ROCK Matt & Grant (Comet Grill) *Mount Moriah w/ Slade Baird (of Amigo) (The Evening Muse) *Shiprocked (Snug Harbor) *Stevie Nicks & The Pretenders (Spectrum Center)

NOV. 11 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH *Charlotte Symphony: Patriotic Pops (Knight Theater)

COUNTRY/FOLK

WED 11/9

ALL GET OUT

+ GATES & MICROWAVE FRI 11/11

FREEWAY REVIVAL & LOVELY BUDZ SAT 11/12 SUN 11/13

HENHOUSE PROWLERS + JOSH DANIEL & MARK SCHIMICK WED 11/16

THU 11/17 FRI 11/18

THE SHACK BAND & THE GET RIGHT BAND SAT 11/19

32 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

NOW HIRING INTERNS. THE BRIGHTER, THE BETTER. EMAIL BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

Benefit for The Relatives Youth Crisis Center w/ Underground Detour Band (Double Door Inn) Jordan Middleton (Tin Roof) Kris Hitchcock (Tin Roof) The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill) Marty Haggard (Don Gibson Theatre, Shelby) Michael Ray (Coyote Joe’s)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Charlotte Music Festival, featuring Keith Sweat, Mint Condition, K-Ci & JoJo and Avant (Bojangles’ Coliseum)

POP/ROCK Anderson East (The Underground) Astrea Corp w/ Shadowgraphs, Tin Foil Hat, Favelas (Snug Harbor) Dinner Rabbits w/ Sam the Lion, Bless These Sounds Under The City and Katya Harrell (Petra’s) Dollhands, The Mineral Girls, Melt (Milestone) *Ingrid Michaelson: A Concert for Equality (The Fillmore Charlotte) Jem Crossland (Puckett’s Farm Equipment) The Keller Williams Kwahtro w/ Zach Deputy (Neighborhood Theatre) Nick Howard w/ Ariel Petrie (early show) (The Evening Muse) The Sweet Spot Charlotte: Red Light Special Edition (Amos’ Southend) *Swim in the Wild w/ Freeway Revival, Lovely Budz, Lisa De Novo (Visulite Theatre)

CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH *Charlotte Symphony: Patriotic Pops (Knight Theater) Charlotte Symphony: Green Eggs and Ham (Knight Theater)

COUNTRY/FOLK 2 Door Chicken Coupe (Puckett’s Farm Equipment) Glow Co. (Tin Roof) *The Steeldrivers w/ Bonnie Bishop (Neighborhood Theatre)

DJ/ELECTRONIC *Digital Noir featuring Michael Price and DJ Spider (Milestone)

POP/ROCK *American Aquarium (Visulite Theatre) Badfish (a tribute to Sublime) w/ Minnesota License Plate (Amos’ Southend) *Drive-By Truckers w/ Kyle Craft (The Fillmore Charlotte) George Banda w/ Illiterate Light and Normal Dennis (Petra’s) Hungry Girl w/ It’s Snakes, StarBenders, The Poor Decisions (Snug Harbor) *Skinny Lister w/ Lincoln Durham, Trapper Schoepp (The Evening Muse) Vita Di Amata (Comet Grill)

NOV. 13 COUNTRY/FOLK Henhouse Prowlers w/ Josh Daniel & Mark Schimick (Visulite Theatre)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B PartyNextDoor & Jeremih: Summer’s Over Tour (The Fillmore Charlotte)

POP/ROCK Omari & The Hellraisers (Comet Grill) Self Destruct, Reality Check, Joy, Caged In, Violent Life Violent Death, Black Fleet (Milestone) Wind River Cancer Wellness Retreats Benefit & Holiday Party w/ Toleman Randall, Leadville Social Club, The Bloodworth Project, Rick Spreitzer & The Antique Babies (Double Door Inn)

THIS FRIDAY

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NOV. 14 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Jazz Workshop and Improv w/ John Shaughness (Petra’s)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B Knocturnal (Snug Harbor)

POP/ROCK Find Your Muse Open Mic featuring Jim Sharkey (The Evening Muse) *The Monday Night Allstars (Double Door Inn)

NOV. 15 CLASSICAL/JAZZ/SMOOTH Bill Hanna Jazz Jam (Double Door Inn)

COUNTRY/FOLK Pluto for Planet (Tin Roof) Red Rockin’ Chair (Comet Grill) Tuesday Night Jam w/ The Smokin’ Js (Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Charlotte)

DJ/ELECTRONIC Bring Your Own Vinyl w/ DJ Aswell (Petra’s)

POP/ROCK Bill Hanna Jazz Jam (Double Door Inn) *Evanescence (The Fillmore Charlotte) NIHIL w/ Violent Gods and Kairos (Milestone) Open Mic with Jeff & Al (Puckett’s Farm Equipment)

NOV. 16 COUNTRY/FOLK Kat Country Jam - A Benefit for St. Jude w/ Thompson Square, Chase Bryant, Lauren Alaina, Brett Young (The Fillmore Charlotte) Open Mic (Comet Grill)

HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B *Russ (The Underground)

POP/ROCK *El Malpais w/ Hectagons!, Blossoms, Family Friend (Snug Harbor) *Helmet w/ Local H (Visulite Theatre) Modern Heritage Weekly Mix Tape (Snug Harbor) MYZICA (The Evening Muse) Open Mic Open Jam (Comet Grill) Songwriter Open Mic (Petra’s)

COMING SOON

Sloan (Nov. 17, Visulite Theatre) The Bellamy Brothers (Nov. 17, Don Gibson Theatre, Shelby) Yellowcard: The Final World Tour (Nov. 17, The Fillmore) Steve Vai (Nov. 18, Neighborhood Theatre) Good Charlotte (Nov. 18, The Fillmore) Night Riots w/ The Hunna and Knox Hamilton (Nov. 19, The Underground) Samantha Fish w/ Lightnin’ Malcolm (Nov. 19, Neighborhood Theatre) A$AP Ferg and Playboi Carti (Nov. 21, The Underground) Maxwell, Mary J. Blige and Ro James (Nov. 22, Spectrum Center) Mannheim Steamroller (Nov. 25, Belk Theater) An Evening with David Crosby and Friends (Nov. 29, McGlohon Theater) The Black Lillies (Dec. 1, Visulite Theatre) Josh Ritter (Dec. 2, McGlohon Theater) I Love The 90s w/ Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Color Me Badd, Coolio, Tone Loc, Rob Base (Dec. 4, Spectrum Center) The Hot Sardines: Holiday Stomp (Dec. 5, McGlohon Theater) Jazz Room Holiday Edition: A Preservation Hall All-Stars Christmas (Dec. 6, Booth Playhouse) Mark O’Connor: An Appalachian Christmas (Dec. 7, McGlohon Theater) Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Dec. 8, Spectrum Center) Southern Culture on the Skids (Dec. 9, Visulite Theatre) Jack Ingram (Dec. 9, Neighborhood Theatre) Tosco Music Holiday Party (Dec. 10, McGlohon Theater) An Evening with George Winston (Dec. 11, McGlohon Theater) Chatham County Line (Dec. 16, Neighborhood Theatre Serfs (Dec. 12, Snug Harbor) California Guitar Trio (Nov. 18, Neighborhood Theatre) Benji Hughes (Dec. 24, Snug Harbor) The Avett Brothers (Dec. 31, Bojangles’ Coliseum) Steep Canyon Rangers (Jan. 7, Knight Theater) * - CL Recommends

NEED DIRECTIONS? Check out our website at clclt.

com. CL online provides addresses, maps and directions from your location. Send us your concert listings: E-mail us at aovercash@clclt. com or fax it to 704-522-8088. We need the date, venue, band name and contact name and number. The deadline is each Wednesday, one week before publication.

NOVEMBER 19

RUSSELL DICKERSON TICKETS $10 AT DOOR 1-2-3 NIGHT

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TYLER FARR SPECIAL GUEST BEN GALLAHER LIMITED ADVANCE TICKETS $22 ALL OTHERS $25

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I DIDN’T GET LUCKY, BUT IT WAS STILL WORTH IT From Eritrean cuisine in Elizabeth to slot machines in South Carolina

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34 | NOV. 10 - NOV. 16, 2016 | CLCLT.COM

RECYCLE ME, PLEASE (Only after you’re done reading me)

up stopping in Little River, South Carolina I HAVE A new secret spot and it’s only for a night before checking in at an Airbnb three minutes away from my condo. on Oak Island the following day.

When I first moved to Elizabeth, my During my stay, I ventured to a couple mom was dead set on finding a place to get my curtains washed. She ended up going to a waterfront bars, The Pilot House and Key laundromat down the street with a sign that West Crazy Waterfront Restaurant & Bar. read: “Laundry Lavanderia.” Specific enough?

While there, I’d noticed signs for The Big I think so. Next door, was another straight“M” Casino, a ship featuring Las Vegas-style to-the-point sign over a storefront that read: gaming. So I knew exactly what some old East African Cuisine. I immediately became co-workers were talking about once they curious. Would I love East African food as suggested boarding a cruise called The Big much as I loved West African cuisine? In her “M” outside of Myrtle Beach and I was down usual conservative, play-it-safe fashion, my for the cause! mom warned against trying new food and We left the Queen City around 12 p.m. my anxiety took over. on Saturday and, even though I was running A few months later, one of my Q.C. on two hours of sleep, the excitement of besties started working at a bar in the spontaneity carried me through the area called Oya Lounge — name first two and half hours of the subject to change in the coming ride. Coincidentally, one of my months. “You know where the old co-workers reserved the Bojangles’ is by your house?” same hotel I’d stayed in the she asked. I did, but I still last time I was in Little couldn’t figure out where River. We pre-gamed this lounge may be. One at the Key West Crazy night, I was bored and (KWC), which was right decided to meet her next to the dock where there and grab a couple ships I and II (smoking and drinks. To my surprise, non-smoking) were docked the lounge was connected — talk about convenience. to East African Cuisine, the AERIN SPRUILL restaurant I’d been eyeballing.

We’d already purchased our I walked through the boarding passes ($25 each, but restaurant door and followed my you can snag a voucher when you book bestie into the lounge area. A full bar, private your stay at a local hotel) so after a couple booths, a raised DJ booth, hookah, multiple RBVs, we walked right out of KWC and onto TVs and a spacious back patio. The best the boat. We pestered one of the employees part? You can order food from the restaurant on how the process worked as far as getting pretty much all night long! With my friend a player’s card, starting to play and what to behind the bar and temporarily filling the play, then we were good to go. role of DJ, the night couldn’t have gone My eyes lit up with dollar signs the better. And on top of that, I’ve managed moment we started exploring two full floors to make friends with some pretty hilarious of slot machines, blackjack, poker and craps characters during my visits. tables. We had to cruise for about 45 minutes Did I mention I tried the food? Since my before we could legally gamble, so we decided first visit just a couple weeks ago, I’ve eaten to hit the third deck bar. Drinks were super vegetarian dumplings (samosas), honeycheap and just as strong, a dangerous combo Sriracha chicken wings and a traditional for a gambler — especially a gambler who Eritrean dish featuring beef and injera — tends to get motion sickness. a soft, stretchy, spongy sourdough-risen The run down? We had a blast! No one flatbread. And let me tell you, everything threw up. I managed to lose only $100 on I’ve tried has been amazing. slot machines and one of my old co-workers After spending Thursday and Friday won $250. If you’re searching for a good time night at Oya Lounge, a couple of my old and trying to get “lucky” somewhere other co-workers decided it was time to get out than Dandelion Market, The Big “M” Casino of Charlotte for a minute. Spontaneous is only a three-hour drive and a night’s stay trips are my jam! The last time I stepped outside of the Q.C. for a quick drive to away. anywhere other than my hometown, I ended BACKTALK@CLCLT.COM

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CHAIN LINKS ACROSS

1 Neaten (up) 7 Lab compounds 16 Terrific, slangily 20 Talented talker 21 Thinks up something 22 Witchy sorts 23 Furniture chain, literally 25 Prime draft classification 26 Many times, in verse 27 “What -- I tell you?”

28 Bygone rival of Delta 29 Using an Rx, say 31 Restaurant chain, literally 37 Synchronize 40 One in sales, briefly 41 Big letters in fashion 42 Strong coat fabric 43 TV pioneer Jack 44 “-- For” (1995 Nicole Kidman film) 46 Wildly 49 It carries a small charge 50 Dog chain, literally 56 Swivel about an axis 57 Tan shade 58 Baseball great Casey 61 Cry a river 64 “It’s my turn to go” 66 Kipling’s Rikki-tikki- -68 “-- pity” (“Alas”) 69 Mountain chain, literally 76 Jewish month 77 Arouse 78 Skin opening 79 Beer belly, e.g.

80 It’s not a pretty sight 84 Casts forth 87 Give a summons to 89 Food chain, literally 95 Native Coloradan 97 Pop’s Stefani 98 Jeans giant 99 Nastase of tennis 100 -- -Croatian (language) 102 “BTW” part 105 Gigi’s refusal 106 NFL lineman 108 Island chain, literally 113 Pedal pusher 114 Badger 115 “It’s so cold!”

116 OS computer 119 Stephen King’s rabid dog

120 Watch chain, literally 126 Time period 127 Asbestos, e.g.

128 Sean Penn film 129 “Woe --!”

130 Celebrities of daytime dramas 131 Clear record holder

DOWN

1 Merely OK 2 U. lecturer 3 Finn’s craft 4 Thespian Hagen 5 Police line 6 Otter relative 7 Tai -8 Bit of a laugh 9 Legal rider?

10 Damon and Dillon 11 Somewhat 12 Cubans, e.g.

13 Sweetened drink 14 “Bad” Brown 15 Camille Saint- -16 Lisa’s role on “Friends” 17 Excessive display of distress 18 Way in the past 19 Org. with bag screeners 24 Curious 30 Large pike, for short 31 Copies a happy cat 32 Slangy ending for switch 33 Copy over, as a soundtrack 34 Offer a view 35 “Kapow!”

36 Deep desire 37 Android extra 38 T on a frat tee 39 Recess game 44 It’s led by a Sec’y-General 45 Think piece 47 Postgrad degs.

48 Hitter Mel 51 Double- -- (tourney type) 52 Arizona tribe 53 “I got -- in Kalamazoo” 54 Impose, as a tax 55 Opposed to 59 Jacob’s wombmate 60 Cafe au -61 -- -Ball

62 Unctuous 63 Certain fruity spread 65 Sleeping garb 67 Wee demon 70 Rick’s love in a classic film 71 Kong’s kin 72 -- roast 73 Hocus- -74 Author Leon 75 Actor Rogen 81 Like many hockey shots 82 Unvarnished 83 Dir. from L.A. to K.C. 85 Rocker Reznor 86 Revel in 88 Writer Jong 90 Echidna food 91 Lollobrigida of Hollywood 92 Type 93 .001 inch 94 Split second?

95 Kind of port for a PC 96 Servers in saucers 101 Flagship U.K. TV network 103 Ended a phone talk 104 In-box fillers 106 Like the Tatar language 107 To another continent 109 Hero shops 110 University of Maine’s city 111 Strain at -- (fuss pettily) 112 Hitting stat 116 Flat-topped hill 117 “What --!” (“Such fun!”)

118 Attended 119 Hit CBS drama 121 Secret govt. group 122 Flight deck guess, briefly 123 University sisters’ org.

124 Triage sites, for short 125 Ovid’s 2,100

SOLUTION FOUND ON P. 38.

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I AM A bi man in my late 20s in a poly relationship. My primary partner’s name is Erin. One of the rules she mandated is that I cannot date anyone else named Aaron or Erin. She thinks it would be confusing and awkward. Since those are fairly common names, I have had to reject other Aarons/Erins several times over the last couple of years.

My name is very uncommon, so she doesn’t have to worry about this on her side. Overall, it seems like a superficial reason to have to reject someone. Is there any sort of compromise here? We haven’t been able to think of any workarounds.

Not Allowed Multiple Erins

don’t make you unique. Erin isn’t special in NAME’s eyes because of her name. But sometimes putting words on a fear is the first step toward eliminating it.

To recap: Your primary partner needs to get over it (Dan’s advice), your primary partner might be mollified if you swore to use only pet names for other Aarons/ Erins (Dossie’s advice), keep talking and maybe your primary partner will get over it (Franklin’s advice). All in all, our expert panel doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for your primary partner’s position. So in the interest of fairness, I’m going to offer a defense of Erin’s position.

It’s not uncommon for people in open relationships to insist on a rule that seems I can’t count the number of gay couples arbitrary, even capricious, to their partners.

I’ve met over the years where both I call these rules “Brown M&Ms,” men or both women had the same a reference to 1980s hair rock first name. Okay, okay, it’s not band Van Halen. The band’s a parallel circumstance, I touring contract stipulated realize. But having a hardthat bowls of M&Ms be set and-fast/deal-breaky rule out backstage with all the about names — “I can’t brown M&Ms removed. date someone named To see if their contract Dan, you can’t date had been followed to the someone named Erin, letter — a contract that my ideal has always been included a lot of technical to love someone of the DAN SAVAGE requirements for their name of Ernest” — strikes elaborate and potentially me as silly and reductive.

We are not our names, and our dangerous stage shows — all the names are not ours. (I am not the band had to do was glance at those only Dan Savage out there, nor am I the bowls of M&Ms. If a local promoter couldn’t only Dan Savage capable of giving decent be trusted to get something simple and sex advice, as my substitute Dan Savages seemingly arbitrary right, they couldn’t be ably demonstrated this summer.) So here’s trusted to get the bigger stuff right. And my suggested work-around, NAME: Your if the promoter didn’t get the big stuff primary partner stops being a ridiculous right, it wasn’t safe for the band to perform. control queen.

Arbitrary rules in open relationships are like But just in case you want a second Van Halen’s brown M&Ms: a quick way to opinion… check if you’re safe. If your partner can’t be “This poor woman wants to make sure trusted to not sleep with someone else in that when her lover cries out her name, your bed, not take someone else to a favorite he really means her,” said Dossie Easton, restaurant, not use your favorite/special/ coauthor of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other beloved sex toys with someone else, etc., Adventures. perhaps they can’t be trusted to get the big “It sounds like Erin has that most things right — like ensuring your physical common of polyamorous fears: the fear of and emotional safety and/or primacy. So, being lost in the crowd,” said Franklin Veaux, NAME, if obeying a rule that seems silly coauthor of More Than Two: A Practical Guide and arbitrary makes your partner feel safe to Ethical Polyamory. “Some folks deal with to “perform,” i.e., secure enough to be in this by passing rules against taking a date an open/poly relationship with you, then to a favorite restaurant or forbidding certain obeying their seemingly silly rule is the price pet names. It sounds like Erin is dealing of admission. with her fear by saying, ‘Don’t date any Contact Dan Savage at mail@savagelove. more Erins.’ The problem is that names net.

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FOR ALL SIGNS: Watch the evening sky for a stellar show. Mercury becomes visible on the 13th. Venus, Mars, and Saturn comprise the rest of the planetary grouping until the 23rd. Note the brightness of the planets which will help you identify which is which. Venus is close to Saturn, but she is brighter. Then Mercury and Saturn are fairly close together, but Mercury is brighter. Mars is about 60 degrees east of this pair. You can recognize it because of its pinkish color (the “red planet”). Pre sunrise, morning people can also see Jupiter in the East.

ARIES: Your attention naturally shifts

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toward plans for the future and finding ways to meet your goals. The probability is high that you will be leading or joining activities that call for cooperation from one or more groups of people for the next few weeks. Stay focused and don’t let obstacles get in the way of your ability to make a difference.

TAURUS: For the next 3.5 weeks your

attention is focused in the areas of travel, education, publishing, teaching, the law and the Internet. Venus, your ruling planet, will generally smile upon you when you work within these areas. People will want to support you here, or you may be helping them. Either way, remember to work in a way that shows your commitment, integrity and ethics.

GEMINI: Your mind has been truly busy in recent weeks. If you have not yet resolved an issue, set it aside while you take a break.

Even a short time away can help your mental nerve endings synapse more easily. Clear the cobwebs from old, non-working solutions so that a fresh perspective can emerge. It’s ok to make lists and eliminate the negative ways that aren’t helping.

CANCER: The Full Moon in Taurus occurs

on Nov. 14th. These days that approach it are probably very busy and social. Don’t forget to chant three times and dance three circles, while holding pockets, purse or wallet open.

“Moon, Moon, Beautiful Moon, Fill it up, Fill it up, Fill it up soon.” Watch your spending and you’ll also begin to see the bank account flourishing.

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LEO: This week is about finding healing on either the physical or emotional levels. You may be the healer or the healee. It is possible that alternative medicine may play a role. If a friendship or a more significant relationship needs mending, now is the time to do so. The willingness to open your heart and mind to give and to receive is yours at this time.

VIRGO: Your focus shifts to matters of home, hearth, and family. Events of the past may float up in your mind for reflection. If this occurs, ask yourself what you learned from the former experience. It probably

would help you now. Family concerns may occupy your attention. It is a good time to open important discussions with those most important to you. Be as honest as you can, but also show sympathy to those that may be in need or not able to see clearly at this time.

LIBRA: You have favorable aspects related

to home, property and family matters. You may have a desire to improve the appearance of the environment around you, whether at home or at work. You may be attracted to activities that allow you to play or work with your favorite colors.

SCORPIO: Your focus shifts at this time

to matters of home, property, and family.

Through the next six weeks you may be handling heavy work around your home, and/or making repairs to your property.

Sometimes this transit interferes with your reflexes, so take care with ladders, kitchen knives, and the car.

SAGITTARIUS: Mercury moves very

quickly through your sign over the next three weeks. During this period there likely will be greater emphasis on communications, errands, and other short distance travels.

Your mind will be quick and your attitude persuasive. New projects begun at the end of this month will probably not be finished before mid-January.

CAPRICORN: You are caught in a Mars/

Saturn trap for the present. Saturn keeps you in the background and unable to climb out of your hole. It is like the brakes of a car. Mars, which is the personification of the accelerator is straining to pull you out. At present Saturn is too heavy to drag into the light of day. Time will be of great help. Later you can arise from the hole.

AQUARIUS: It is a real challenge to make

any moves forward at this time. Unless you are sharpening your skills, you might as well let it go for a few weeks. It is possible that machinery may break down, illustrating the “stop” signal. Just wait for a while. Try not to let it get to you, as this will just slow you down even more as negative feelings creep in and overwelm you.

PISCES: You may be tending to your own

or another’s healing on either the physical or emotional level. The emotional wound is old and is tied to a previous sense of abandonment that once occurred in your life.

Somehow that old ache is being soothed at this time and you feel less alone in the world.

Are you interested in a personal horoscope? Vivian Carol may be reached at 704-366-3777 for private psychotherapy or astrology appointments. Website: www.horoscopesbyvivian.com.

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