INDY Week 2.09.2022

Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill February 9, 2022

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"The show fundamentally believes that pleasure is a human right. It’s a part of our existence that we should embrace and talk about," says Anita Rao, p. 16.

VOL. 38 NO. 6

PHOTO BY SANDRA DAVIDSON

CONTENTS NEWS 4

Children of the "Mother of the Eno" are joining the fight against a proposed development near West Point on the Eno, but the project has its supporters, too. BY THOMASI MCDONALD 6 North Carolina's top Democrats signed off on a big payday for UNC's Silent Sam lawyers, but they don't want to talk about it. BY JEREMY BORDEN 8 A popular recycling center in Chapel Hill is slated to close; recycling proponents aren't happy. BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG 9 A Q&A with Kody Kinsley, the state's new chief of health and human services. BY LEIGH TAUSS 10 In North Carolina, therapists use art as a vehicle for recovery and healing.

BY TAYLOR KNOPF

FEATURE 12

Durham's Frisky Business has been around to see all of the changes in our attitudes towards sex over the last two decades. BY JASMINE GALLUP

P U B L I S H E RS

John Hurld

Contributors Madeline Crone, Grant Golden, Spencer Griffith, Lucas Hubbard, Brian Howe, Lewis Kendall, Kyesha Jennings, Glenn McDonald, Gabi Mendick, Anna Mudd, Dan Ruccia, Rachel Simon, Harris Wheless

E D I TO RI A L

C R E AT I V E

Wake County

ARTS & CULTURE

MaryAnn Kearns

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Durhamite Heather Haverlisky's new book marriage, Foreverland, is full of Havrilesky's signature humor and self-deprecation. It's already caused a lot of talk. BY SARAH EDWARDS 16 As the popular WUNC show Embodied celebrates its first birthday, host Anita Rao takes a look back. BY SARAH EDWARDS 18 Helga Davis and Shara Nova plunged a live musical performance into the deep well of their personal connection and drew back up a multiscreen film, Ocean Body. BY BRIAN HOWE 19 Tar Heel guitar hero Sam Moss gets his due with the posthomous release Blues Approved. BY NICK MCGREGOR

THE REGULARS

WE M A DE THIS

3 15 Minutes

Durham/Orange/ Chatham Counties

Editor in Chief Jane Porter Managing Editor Geoff West Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Edwards Senior Writer Leigh Tauss Staff Writers Jasmine Gallup Thomasi McDonald Editorial Assistant Lena Geller

20 Culture Calendar

Copy Editor Iza Wojciechowska Theater+Dance Critic Byron Woods

COVER Photo by Brett Villena / Design by Annie Maynard

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Creative Director

Annie Maynard Graphic Designer

Jon Fuller Staff Photographer

Brett Villena

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BACK TA L K

Last week, North Carolina’s Supreme Court justices reviewed lawsuits challenging Republicandrawn congressional and state legislative district maps and found, in a 4-3 ruling, that the maps were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

We wrote about the court’s ruling for the web, and ran an op-ed in print from state Senator Natalie Murdock, who made a compelling case that Republican math doesn’t add up in terms of the state’s demographics and how that translates to the newly drawn, freshly struck down district maps. Our readers have thoughts.

“So long as a line can be drawn, this will keep happening,” wrote Facebook commenter CHRISTOPHER BOYCE in response to Murdock’s piece. “While this is being fought in NC through the courts, states elsewhere have passed fixes via referenda only to see the party in power ignore it or work its loopholes to keep gerrymandering. How about doing away with districts altogether and replacing them with a proportional system?”

“The drawing of districts should not be drawn by politicians. Period.,” wrote commenter MATT CUSKELLY. “Redistricting is an administrative act, divide the districts so each has the same population,” wrote Facebook commenter ERV PORTMAN, a candidate for North Carolina’s 21st state House district. “Cities and counties do it every decade with no drama or lawsuits, why because they don’t cheat and try to tip the balance of power to favor one side. The statewide solution is either elect leaders who value representative democracy over partisan games or take the power away from the elected and give it to an independent oversight body with performance checks to make sure the final maps reflect the makeup of the voters. Either solves this for good.”

We also got this email from our INDY Daily newsletter reader, and frequent responder on the topic of gerrymandering, SHELDON HAYER: “The political party in majority, will draw the map in their favor. This is true in any state. Get over it, when Democrats are in control the next time, they will be more then happy to have a map promoting the election of Democrats.

Here is the end result of redistricting congressional seats. Members of Congress will continue to line their pockets with perks, and increase their private wealth.

Stop complaining and run for Congress. Fleecing the taxpayers is the only game in town.”

Cynical, but true? We’ll be following what happens with redistricting—and what that means for our upcoming elections—very closely.

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Chapel Hill

e

15 MINUTES Dr. Amir Barzin Director and lead physician of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Carolina Together Testing Program

BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG backtalk@indyweek.com

Since fall of 2020, Barzin has helped lead UNC’s COVID response, managing testing and acting as an adviser on pandemic-related decisions.

So far this semester, how are you feeling about UNC’s response to COVID and the state of the pandemic in the Triangle?

I applaud our students 100 percent for being vigilant, doing their job in trying to help control the spread of the virus, and taking care of one another. I’m super proud of the fact that we have a very high vaccination rate on our campus, and I’m proud to live in an area—even if you take into consideration the Triangle area—where we have an extremely high vaccination rate compared to the rest of the country and North Carolina.

I think it reflects well in the fact that we have some of the lowest hospitalization rates between our counties, and some of the lowest mortality rates across the state. So it’s really reassuring when I look at the community at large and on campus. I’m super proud.

Why has UNC stopped offering walk-in asymptomatic testing?

When we first started doing the asymptomatic testing program, it was a pillar of the prevention strategies that we had out there. Asymptomatic testing right now, when the disease has such a short incubation period, is actually not very helpful; you would have to test the community every single day to make an effective measure in terms of prevention. Also, given how fast Omicron spreads, we didn’t want to have thousands of samples collected in a day that we couldn’t turn around, because our goal is a 24-hour turnaround. We’re actually still doing about

70 percent more testing than we did towards the end of last semester, even though we don’t do walk-ins.

The Omicron variant has led to increased positivity rates but has much milder symptoms. How do you feel about the idea of “herd immunity”?

It’s a really interesting perspective, because if you’re going to have a virus that is widespread, you want it to have two things: one is that if the transmissibility is high, that the severity is low, and then two, you want to capture it at the right moment. I think this is probably as good a moment as any. We’re lucky that we have the footing where we have a highly vaccinated community superimposed on a variant that is less virulent in terms of severity but slightly more contagious. There’s this proposed idea right now of what we’re calling “hybrid immunity”: immunity that is both vaccinated immunity and disease-contracted immunity. So we’re not stressing that we want people to get the virus, but hopefully that helps us in terms of protection down the line.

What do you want people to know about the current state of the virus and how it’s changing?

Know that there’s outpatient treatment options, continue to encourage vaccination and boosting.

Know that our masks are effective; wearing the mask that makes the most sense for you in terms of comfort, if you can wear it reliably, is the most important thing. I’m always the forever optimist, but I think this spring is going to be a really good time for our country. I think that people will largely see that they’ll be able to coexist with low levels of a virus kind of lingering in the background and do it in a safe and responsible manner. I’m really looking forward to where we are in the next couple months. W INDYweek.com

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Durham West Point Mill after 1908, Original from Margaret Nygard’s papers, UNC Southern Historical Collection PHOTO BY HUGH MANGUM

History Repeating Children of the “Mother of the Eno” join the fight to stop a proposed housing development near West Point on the Eno, but the project has its supporters. BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com

L

ast month, the Durham City-County Planning Department approved a site plan for a Triangle developer’s proposal to build a 379 single-family home and townhouse community that would cover nearly 60 acres of land near West Point on the Eno Park and the Eno River.

There is an emerging groundswell of support for the project, notably among a 300-member, predominantly Black church congregation whose sanctuary is about a six-minute walk from the proposed project site.

Groundbreaking, however, remains far from a shoo-in for the proposed development on an area known as Black Meadow Ridge, which sits along the southern boundary of West Point on the Eno, the city’s flagship park.

North Durham opponents of the development—most notably the nearly 60-year-old Eno River Association— are awaiting the outcome of a Board of Adjustment (BOA) public hearing on February 25. That’s when the BOA will consider an appeal that seeks to reverse a 2016 planning department decision that has allowed the project to proceed without input from the city council or the public.

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The appeal was filed on behalf of the project’s opponents in March 2020 by Chapel Hill attorney T.C. Morphis Jr. Morphis states in the appeal that a proposed 1972 housing development known as Foxmoor was contingent upon the existence of Eno Drive. Foxmoor, which called for 412 units and the construction of Eno Drive, was “ultimately scrapped,” owing to “its likely devastating impact on this most environmentally sensitive area of Durham.”

Meanwhile, Durham attorneys William J. Brian and Jeffrey Roether with the Morningstar Law Group on behalf of the developer last year countered the homeowners’ appeal by filing a motion with the BOA to “exclude the appeal narrative” that focused on the development’s environmental impact.

The Durham attorneys did not respond last week to an email or phone call from the INDY. As previously reported, Christy Benson, an Elon law professor, says the fight to save the Eno from overdevelopment dates back to the early 1970s with the proposal to construct Eno Drive. Benson says the project never gained traction thanks in large part to Marga-

ret Nygard, the legendary activist who is know as the “Mother of the Eno.” “She came out fighting mad,” Benson says, “and slowly beat back the proposed Eno Drive. There was a massive public outcry.”

Benson says the developers of the new proposed community are riding the coattails of the obsolete Foxmoor development.

Opponents of the project in recent months have garnered the support from the children of Holger and Magaret Nygard. Holger Nygard was a distinguished Duke University professor of medieval literature, ballads, and folklore. The couple’s life-defining work in the Bull City was spearheading a movement more than 50 years ago to save the Eno River from becoming a city reservoir.

The Nygards and others in 1965 formed the Eno Historical Society, which was later renamed and now called the Eno River Association, according to the UNC-Chapel Hill Southern Historical Collection.

“We’re never distanced from the Eno River Association,” Kerstin Nygard, one of the couple’s daughters, told the INDY. “It’s in our blood with what’s going on with the Eno.” Kerstin Nygard, a retired physician’s assistant who lives in Orange County, called the proposed development a tragedy for residents in the surrounding communities, for the city of Durham, for West Point on the Eno, and for the city’s water supply.

Kerstin’s sister Jennifer Nygard says she became involved in the fight to save Black Meadow Ridge after reading the INDY’s September story about the issue.

“I have felt galvanized to do something to try to protect the Eno at West Point as I regard it to be the worst problem for the Eno that has happened since my mother’s death,” Jennifer Nygard stated in an email to the INDY. Jennifer Nygard is a visual artist whose work with the Eno River Association dates back to her early teens. Her art on the covers of the association’s brochures, calendars, and newsletters feature aquatic species that are unique to the Eno, including the Neuse River waterdog, the extremely rare Virginia pebblesnail, the redback salamander, the yellow lampmussel, and the Roanoke bass, a game fish that’s described as the world’s rarest bass.

“These creatures are important bio-indicators of the [Eno River’s] water quality,” Jennifer Nygard told the INDY. Jennifer Nygard’s concerns were amplified more than three decades ago with an inventory of Durham County’s natural areas, plants, and wildlife prepared by the NC Natural Heritage Program.

“Water quality within the Eno is particularly threatened by the proliferation of impervious surfaces, lawns, and other non-point surfaces of pollution,” inventory editors Elizabeth Pullman and Alice C. Wilson stated. “The eroding effects of stormwater runoff also threaten natural communities, particularly where tributary ravines cross through the park’s boundaries in areas where development approaches the edge of the steep bluffs above the Eno.”

Opponents of the development say they’re fighting to block what they envision as tightly packed houses replacing a 10-minute walk through the woods and tree-lined walking trails to the city park and Eno River—but not before enduring Black Meadow Ridge’s hardwood trees being clear-cut and the sloping land’s granite foundations blasted away and then graded smooth.

More pointedly, they say the community is on the cusp of an environmental nightmare and note that a December 2018 city report titled Eno River Watershed Implement Plan states the top threat to the river’s water quality and watershed health is stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces.

While awaiting the February hearing with the BOA, the opponents are fighting approval for the development’s water quality permit from the NC Division of Water Resources, which has regulatory oversight of the city’s water supply.

In a letter to state water quality officials, members of Save Black Meadow Ridge Group argued the development will harm the city’s long-term water supply plans, which include a new water intake at Nello Teer Quarry to provide drinking water to city residents. The Teer Quarry, less than a mile from the proposed development, has already been used since 2007 as an emergency water supply for Durham and Orange Counties, and now with plans for use a a long-term solution, the development’s opponents told state officials that the proposed high-density housing “will generate significant amounts of runoff and cause downstream water pollution.”

“The current plan is for the Teer Quarry intake to fill only during times of high baseflow from the Eno River and Lake Michie, which corresponds to the times of the high runoff,” Black Meadow Ridge group members state in the letter. “This would mean higher levels of pollution entering the intake from the development, in particular from the Black Meadow Creek tributary within one mile of that intake.”

The activists’ letter to state water quality officials also pointed to public safety issues with stormwater runoff contamination into Warren and Black Meadow Creeks, particularly in the mouths of the two tributaries that “are some of the highest used places on the West Point on the Eno City Park for swimming, fishing and recreation.”

“In particular, the pools at the end of Black Meadow Creek are used for fishing and playing in—especially by younger children with their families,” the group stated in the letter. “Warren Creek on the other hand flows near Sennett’s Hole which is used by hundreds of people every summer weekend for swimming, fishing and recreation.”

The parcel of land is targeted for development by Chapel Hill developer Keith T. Brown, who has a reputation for building opulent, modernist homes. But last week, Timothy Hill, a coffee importer who lives in the Argonne Hills subdivision, told the INDY that Brown has outsourced the project to D.R. Horton (formerly Terramor Homes), a national company that refers to itself as “America’s Builder.”

In September, officials with Terramor Homes’ offices in North Raleigh applied for a permit from the NC Division of Water Resources to “permanently impact” more than 4,000 square feet of wetlands and 149 square feet of streams to construct the residential development.

In an email to the INDY, Ben Lunnen, president of D.R. Horton’s Central Carolina Division, said the company is currently under contract to purchase the project from “a

Margaret Nygard, Mother of the Eno PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NYGARD FAMILY

local developer; however, we do not yet own the referenced property.”

“We are extremely excited about the opportunity to provide much needed housing at affordable price points in this area of Durham,” Lunnen added. “Our proposed project will allow residents to live closely to and enjoy the West Point on the Eno Park.”

Lunnen said D.R. Horton’s plans include “a greenway connection through the property which would not only allow future residents to have walking access to the park but would also allow neighboring communities to access it as a public greenway trail.

“We are hopeful that this project may serve as a catalyst of development in the area, something that many of the neighbors of the project have expressed interest in.”

Timothy Hill and Jennifer Nygard both say that about 1,200 people submitted letters expressing their disapproval of the development to state water quality officials prior to a January 20 public hearing.

But there is support for the project among residents who point to an acute affordable housing crisis exacerbated by a limited housing inventory.

Robert Northam Jr. is the pastor of the Faith Community Church, an 8,000 square-foot structure that sits on just over 10 acres of land a stone’s throw away from the proposed project.

“We’re the gateway to the Eno,” Northam says.

Northam says the nearly 24-year-old church has been at its current location since 2008. Although the majority of its members are African American, the church members include Hispanic and white worshippers. The majority of the church members live in North Durham. The average age is 38, and about 60 percent own their homes.

Northam told the INDY this week that he, along with the overwhelming majority of the church members, supports the project.

“I have talked with our members individually and collectively. The church is excited to support the project,” he says. “I’m in the people’s business. I believe having 300plus homes near the church gives us the opportunity to help people.”

The church’s stance on the proposed development, the pastor added, is about “seeing North Durham progress and move forward.”

Northam says the church has a team that has researched proposed developments in the area, and he’s confident that city leaders will hold the developers accountable to protect the Eno’s legacy, which includes providing the region with safe drinking water.

Northam also notes that he has seen a diminished interest in the park over the past 20 years, and that future homeowners near West Point on the Eno will use the area for “walking, running, jogging, and walking their dogs.”

“It’s literally going to bring opportunities to what [the development opponents] are fighting against,” Northam said. “I believe it’s going to resurrect interest.”

Scott Carpenter, a lifelong Durham resident who supports the project, thinks opposition to the development smacks of elitism.

“The problem of NIMBYism is what is at issue here,” Carpenter, who has purchased two homes in North Durham since 1992, wrote in his letter of support to state water quality officials.

“There are too many transplants that buy their slice of the residential pie and then decide no one else should get access to ‘their’ area of the environment,” Carpenter wrote. “Where do they think the next generation of adults is supposed to live? Where do they think the next group of future Durham residents are supposed to go? They focus purely on the future increase in their own property values, while piously claiming they want to protect the environment over and over again.

Funny, I never hear these environment-protecting naysayers volunteer to tear down their own homes and replace them with reforestation projects. It’s always, ‘No, don’t build anything new (now that I’ve gotten my piece of the pie).’”

The cost and availability of housing is becoming a major problem in the area, Carpenter added.

“This new home building project is needed in north Durham.”

The Nygard siblings disagree.

“Sure, there’s a need for good, affordable housing, but this is not the spot,” Kerstin Nygard says. “This is a natural environment that should not be disturbed by bulldozers. It’s not just my parents’ legacy, it’s the legacy of thousands of people in the community. It’s part of what makes Durham so special.”

“Green spaces and affordable housing are not mutually exclusive of each other,” Jennifer Nygard says. “My mother predicted that we would have to defend what we had saved, and she saw this as never-ending.” W INDYweek.com

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Chapel Hill Silent Sam, before the statue was toppled PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE

of the successful push to have the SCV deal scrapped, says the money the state authorized to spend raises questions.

“Those are public dollars going to pay a private firm for legal expenses,” she says. “What did Mr. Rand spend his time on? What did he bill for?”

Rand has not responded to emailed questions posed about his firm’s work. Stein’s office also could have gotten directly involved in the case if it had chosen to do so, including while attorneys sought to unwind the settlement, Haddix says.

Haddix says her organization tried to engage Stein at several points in seeking to get the settlement overturned as they formally filed court motions to intervene in the case.

“We were extremely disappointed about how Attorney General Stein responded to this,” Haddix says. “Given that the public money issue had already been a major issue in the case, the lack of transparency, the obvious collaboration between the [Board of Governors] and the SCV, Ripley Rand’s personal relationship with Judge Baddour, and the improper back-channel communications that happened all around the case and before the consent order was entered was a real concern.”

Uproar on UNC’s campus

Raw Deal North Carolina’s top Democrats signed off on a $250,000 payday for UNC’s Silent Sam lawyers, raising new questions that few in the state’s political establishment—Republicans and Democrats alike— appear to be willing to answer. BY JEREMY BORDEN backtalk@indyweek.com

T

wo years ago, UNC-Chapel Hill was embroiled in tumult over its controversial decision to hand over funds, along with its “Silent Sam” statue, to a neo-Confederate group. Now, new documents obtained under a public records request to the state attorney general show that the offices of North Carolina governor Roy Cooper and attorney general Josh Stein signed off on a major increase in the amount an outside lawyer was allowed to bill on the issue, to the tune of $250,000.

The state’s two top Democrats authorized that payday in January 2020 to the outside law firm of Womble Bond Dickinson LLP and attorney Ripley Rand. The move raises more questions around state leaders’ conduct that nearly paved the way for $2.5 million and the infamous metal statue to be given to the Sons of Confederate Veterans 6

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(SCV). In February 2020, following weeks of protests and scrutiny from civil rights groups and attorneys, judge Allen Baddour, the same judge who had originally approved the deal between UNC and the SCV, ultimately threw out the legal settlement.

The future of Silent Sam had vexed campus and state leaders since protesters toppled the statue from its perch in 2018. But the original settlement between the SCV and the university—that, details would later reveal, had all the markings of a sordid back-room deal—was enough money to legitimize and permanently endow an organization avowed to spreading and celebrating the white supremacist mythology of the Lost Cause.

Elizabeth Haddix, the managing attorney for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which was part

After the university announced the SCV deal the day before Thanksgiving in 2019, an uproar quickly ensued and spiraled: a major donor pulled funding from the university; UNC’s student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, sued the Board of Governors (BOG) for an alleged violation of the state’s open-meetings law, and national civil rights groups pushed to overturn the entire SCV agreement amid protests on campus decrying #silentsham.

The new documents—released more than two years after a December 2019 request and reported first last week by Nick Ochsner of WBTV—show those offices, at least officially, didn’t give the issue much thought.

“Due to the timing of the matter, the availability of our attorneys, and Mr. Rand’s familiarity with the issues involved, it would be impracticable for this office to provide the required services,” chief deputy attorney general Alexander Peters wrote to Cooper’s general counsel, William McKinney, who signed off on the new quarter-million cap.

Greg Doucette, a Durham attorney who first blew the whistle on the irregular settlement between the SCV and the BOG by pointing out that the lawsuit was filed and settled within minutes, says Stein in particular had a duty to step in.

“I think it was malpractice by the attorney general’s office,” Doucette says. “The whole thing was corrupt as fuck.”

Doucette says that a criminal investigation is warranted.

He believes that Rand’s statements in court and by university officials in legal filings constitute a “sham legal proceeding.” The so-called settlement, he says, was a way for

Legislation goes around governor, AG for legal work UNC and the BOG will get even less oversight and scrutiny in the future when it comes to legal work. A provision quietly tucked into a coronavirus relief bill, signed

by Governor Cooper in September 2020, states that UNC’s BOG “may authorize the expenditure of funds to hire private counsel to represent the Board, The University of North Carolina, and any constituent institution.”

Monaghan, Cooper’s spokesperson, wrote that “legislators, without input or request from our office, included language in pandemic relief legislation allowing the UNC System to hire outside counsel without seeking that approval in the future.”

Stein’s spokesperson said their office was also not involved in changing the university system’s legal oversight process.

Most of the legal work had likely been completed by the time officials in the governor’s and attorney general’s offices approved both the initial cap of $125,000 and the increase to $250,000, says Hugh

Stevens, the attorney who represented The Daily Tar Heel in its lawsuit alleging a violation of the state open-meetings act.

“I think the way it’s supposed to work is no lawyer should be hired or do one minute’s billable work without first having their employment being signed off on by the attorney general or the governor,” Stevens says.

One of the primary legal issues at hand was whether the SCV ever had a claim to Silent Sam in the first place. The university was likely well aware of the issue, as it first gave $74,999—one dollar short of a requirement that would have triggered a review by the attorney general—to the SCV in a separate transaction. The university has admitted that a portion of those funds were spent to buy rights to the statue from the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

“You have people getting away with stuff that for any normal person would put you in jail for 20 years.”

A university historian later clarified that the SCV had no legal rights to Silent Sam and, thus, a court could not award the group the property as part of any legal settlement. Even the SCV’s leader was stunned at the turn of events, writing in a letter to its membership leaked to Doucette and later made public that “what we have accomplished is something that I never dreamed we could accomplish in a thousand years, and all at the expense of the University itself.”

Stevens’s view is more charitable than Doucette’s, as he says that decisions judged in hindsight are often cast in a harsh light when it comes to how the university and state leaders dealt with Silent Sam. “It’s easy to look back and see where things should have been done differently.

Somebody should have been a lot more diligent with research into whether SCV could legally retain title,” Stevens says.

“I don’t have any problem with the fact that the system hired Womble to handle this matter. Ripley is a good lawyer.

His colleagues are good lawyers and they have a well-developed reputation. The only reason I think it’s an issue at all is

it’s a lot of money and it turned out to be for nothing.”

Allen Baddour, the superior court judge who originally agreed to the settlement and who WBTV reports was meeting and texting with those involved before the settlement was filed, eventually threw out the deal, and a bulk of the money was never allocated after weeks of protests.

Baddour didn’t respond to several questions but did say in an email that he has “previously released all public records I have regarding the case.” Baddour is running for reelection this year and is unopposed thus far.

Both the Baddour and Rand families are considered “royalty” in North Carolina legal circles and know each other well, Doucette says.

In the end, Haddix says outside of her official role in the case, she reacts to events as a North Carolina attorney. “The fact is there are procedural rules in court, professional ethical obligations that members of the court and judges have to comply with.

Based on the evidence that I saw all of those rules were thwarted in this case by a number of different individuals who were never held accountable.”

Doucette, a criminal defense attorney, says the case is another example of America’s two-tiered justice system.

“I hate to say it but I think that’s politics,” he says. “You have people getting away with stuff that for any normal person would put you in jail for 20 years.”

Civil rights lawyers, including a group known as the Black Pioneers, ultimately intervened to save the university from itself.

The Lawyers’ Committee asked on behalf of its clients, led by student De’Ivyion Drew, that the $2.5 million go toward campus diversity efforts, though some had already been spent in legal fees. There is no indication that university leaders are looking at reallocating those funds.

North Carolina’s two top Democrats are hardly the biggest villains in the Silent Sam episode. The parties to the deal were Rand and university attorney Tom Shanahan, SCV lawyer Boyd Sturges, and UNCCH vice chancellor for public affairs Clayton Somers, The Daily Tar Heel reported.

BOG chairman Randy Ramsey defended the deal in its aftermath. There may have been other players involved that have not been revealed.

But in the end, attorneys argue, state leaders with oversight responsibilities should have intervened.

“There should have been a lot more transparency,” Haddix says, “and there should have been a lot more questions asked by these public officials.” W

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the university to make a deal without the required transparency for the allocation of university funds.

Cooper’s press secretary Jordan Monaghan wrote in an emailed response to a series of questions that the governor’s office “routinely signs off on requests for outside counsel when recommended by the North Carolina Department of Justice.”

And Stein spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed wrote in an email that the attorney general’s role was limited to assessing only if UNC and the BOG were legally allowed “to enter the agreement.”

“We learned about the agreement the University and Board of Governors negotiated in this matter only after it occurred,” Ahmed added. As to whether Stein should have intervened more forcefully given his professed interest in civil rights issues and why the office deemed the agreement legal, Ahmed said, “Without authorization from UNC, we’re not allowed to discuss privileged matters relating to this, including any attorney-client communications or legal conclusions of lawyers in our office.”

Stein’s office cannot open a criminal investigation into the case because the AG’s office “represents state agencies and universities as clients,” Ahmed wrote; any criminal investigation would fall to local district attorneys. (Doucette says prosecutors in Orange and Wake Counties would have jurisdiction but he is not aware of any ongoing investigation).

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February 9, 2022

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Orange County

A Central Location Orange County won’t close its popular recycling center at University Place until May, but it’s not clear if or where a new location will open to replace it.

BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG backtalk@indyweek.com

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uring his more than 30 years working with Orange County’s solid waste department, Blair Pollock was instrumental in expanding recycling programs and access across the county. Now, he’s not thrilled that one of Chapel Hill’s longest-standing recycling sites is set to close this spring.

Pollock, who retired last year, was a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student when the Town of Chapel Hill hired him in 1987 to initiate public recycling programs across the town and, eventually, the county. In the 1990s, Pollock helped establish an unstaffed drop-off recycling center at University Place, the 1970s-era shopping center located just off of Franklin Street, which in the following years would become a major part of Orange County’s recycling system. With a central location by the mall and Harris Teeter, the site not only became a popular drop-off location but was critical to local recycling and disposal efforts. Pollock recalls hosting regular motor oil and mixed paper drives at the University Place site in the 1990s.

“We would have these quarterly drives and hundreds of people would show up,” Pollock says. “Suffice it to say, there’s a long-standing relationship between the community and the mall.”

Much has changed about Chapel Hill and Orange County’s recycling program in the past three decades—with Pollock’s help, publicly funded curbside recycling was established throughout most of the county—but Pollock says the University Place site is still vital, providing a convenient space for residents to drop off large recyclables alongside easy access to the mall’s various businesses.

Now, less than a year after his retirement, it’s set to be removed. In early January, the Florida-based development group Ram Realty Advisors provided notice of 8

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termination to Orange County. By January 31, the notice said, all recycling containers at University Place would need to be removed. Based on approved redevelopment plans, the move was likely to make room for more parking spaces to accommodate new storefronts.

On January 27, just days before the scheduled removal, Orange County announced that it had made an agreement with Ram Realty Advisors to extend the planned removal of the University Place drop-off recycling center until May 31, a four-month extension.

“The property management group has agreed to extend the availability of the site so as to allow the Solid Waste Department extra time to attempt to find another location for a replacement recycling drop-off site,” a county statement read.

But Pollock hopes there’s still time to save the University Place location.

“It’s in the interest of all members of the community to keep the site open, so why is the current owner so hot to get rid of it?,” Pollock asks.

Other community members share Pollock’s concern. Carrboro Town Council member Randee Haven-O’Donnell says that for many years, the University Place site has been a critical part of Orange County’s recycling ecosystem. Haven-O’Donnell says she worries that if the University Place site is removed, even four months from now, it could disrupt people’s recycling habits.

“Recycling depends on two things: it depends on convenience and creating habits. And if you don’t make it convenient, you won’t create a habit,” Haven-O’Donnell says. “So when you pull out a convenient site that people have gotten accustomed to, what happens?”

Samantha Corte, a Carrboro resident, says she often uses the drop-off center for

PHOTO VIA PEXELS

larger materials like boxes that she doesn’t want to pile up until the next collection date. Corte says she appreciates the convenience of the University Place site, especially for its proximity to Harris Teeter.

“I use it when I have cardboard boxes piling up, which is somewhat frequently, and I want to combine it with a trip to the grocery store,” Corte says. “If I don’t have other recyclables, I don’t need to go to Eubanks.”

Aside from the University Place location, Orange County maintains two other full-service waste and recycling centers, including a location on Eubanks Road in Chapel Hill and Walnut Grove Church Road in Hillsborough. The government has three additional unstaffed satellite sites for nearby neighborhoods in rural Chapel Hill, Mebane, and Efland. But with its central, urban location, the University Place location is especially convenient for Chapel Hill and Carrboro residents.

Haven-O’Donnell says that beyond risking breaking recycling habits by requiring people to drive farther distances, the change could also increase gas emissions, essentially nullifying the environmental impacts of recycling.

“It’s zero sum, almost, in addition to the perception of whether or not it’s convenient,” Haven-O’Donnell says.

So far, no formal plans have been announced for a replacement site. Robert Williams, director of the Orange County solid waste department, said in an email

that the county is continuing to search for locations for a new site. Williams didn’t say whether any specific location, such as central Chapel Hill, would be a prime consideration for the site.

“I think the location will be at a site that is open and has room for the public and Orange County crews to safely access,” Williams wrote in the email.

Haven-O’Donnell stresses that decisions like this have serious implications for the ability of residents to practice good recycling habits and can have negative impacts for the environment. She points to the closure of the Carrboro Plaza recycling site in 2017 to demonstrate the adverse impacts a closure or relocation can have. According to Chapelboro, nearly 500 tons of recyclable materials were collected from the Carrboro site over the course of a year. Since its closure, no new location has been established.

“Convenience and habit is what makes the difference in community climate action and inaction,” Haven-O’Donnell says. “We can’t talk about climate action without realizing that these are the underpinnings that make the change.”

Pollock says he feels that even if a replacement site is built, it’s still harmful to the community to remove a wellestablished local resource like the University Place site.

“From my perspective, it’s a valuable community asset,” Pollock says. “Can’t something be done to hold on to it?” W

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North Carolina

Focused Forward A Q&A with Kody Kinsley, head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, the state’s largest public agency BY LEIGH TAUSS ltauss@indyweek.com

INDY WEEK: Nonelected leaders rarely get on the public’s radar, but your predecessor Mandy Cohen became a household name during the pandemic. How do you plan to fill those shoes, and what will your priorities be?

KODY KINSLEY: Right now, our team is

focused on responding to the COVID pandemic. DHHS is going to continue to do what it has always done, which is fight for the overall health and wellness of North Carolina. As we continue to try to get this pandemic to a more endemic stage, we’re able to return to a sense of normalcy and have the best resources and science to drive that process.

I am focused on the overall health and wellness of the state and looking at key priorities that I have been pushing for my four years here [while] also responding to the pandemic. They’re centered on three things: behavioral health and resiliency; second, health of children and families, or child and family well-being; and third, looking at building a strong and inclusive workforce.

Child and family well-being—is that the [adverse childhood experiences] approach?

We have had a generation of children impacted by this pandemic. So it is absolutely about adverse childhood experiences, considering that collective trauma is one of those. But it is also about responding to that, building out school interventions, partnering with individuals to help provide kids with the tools they need to respond and teachers and other staff in schools the resources they need to recognize mental health concerns.

It is also about the foundational things that we know drive health—food security, food access. I am proud that we are one of eight states providing pandemic EBT cards. We have to continue to build on

our SNAP and WIC programs; we have to continue to provide resources that are the building blocks of health for kids and healthy families. Then also investing in early ed, providing teachers and early educators in the childcare workforce with tools to respond to and address trauma and frankly support them in having access to a living wage. We know that that workforce is so critical for the lifelong health and wellness for our children.

Looking at pandemic numbers, the Omicron surge seems to be trending downward.

What do you make of the latest metrics?

I am hopeful, because we are starting to see the rapid decrease in cases we have seen in other places, other countries and jurisdictions. Omicron ramped up very quickly, it was four to six times as contagious as the Alpha variant, but we are seeing that fall off nearly as quick. We had a 35 percent decrease in our per population case rate this last week compared to the week prior, so I think we have peaked and we are now on the downfall. It is also hopeful to see some early decrease in our hospitalizations.

That is good for our health care workforce, which has been at the forefront of this from the beginning and really stretched.

There will always be variants. There is another potential variant on the horizon, and we are doing just as we did with this one—learn what to expect, follow the science, understand if it is going to be more transmissible, whether its severity profile is going to be more or less. There is a lot to learn with the BA.2 variant, and we’re watching it closely. We’re going to, again, make sure we are fighting for North Carolina to have all the available resources necessary to help our response, and I will do my job to make sure we are communicating with North Carolinians to

NC DHHS Secretary Kody Kinsley

PHOTO BRETT VILLENA

know what to expect, and we can manage through that together.

A few weeks ago, when Omicron was about to hit, people in the science community were talking about how the strain might possibly burn so quickly through communities that it might hasten the pandemic’s end. What’s your take on that—is the end in sight?

The end is in sight for COVID as much as the end is in sight for the flu. This is a respiratory illness that we are going to have to live with for some time. The good news with the flu is we all get our annual flu vaccine. In long-term care and certain health care settings, there are extra precautions to protect individuals that are most vulnerable, those who are older and more susceptible. But for the most part, we are able to go about our lives. We have vaccines, we have therapeutics, and we have effective testing. What the finish line looks like with COVID-19 is getting closer. And that’s really good.

There are lots of questions about whether the Omicron variant provides significant protection against potential other variants.

We should not discount the curveball that this virus can continue to throw at us, but the best news is that the vaccines that were formulated based on the initial variants continue to hold up, especially with the

booster, incredibly well against the Omicron variant, as it has with all the other variants. While the Omicron variant may have gotten a significant number of people with active infection some amount of immunity, we know the immunity you get from an active infection is significantly variable and significantly less reliable than the vaccine, and that is why we continue to message the importance of the vaccine.

Rams or Bengals?

I watch figure skating. The last sporting event that I went to was the world figure skating championship in Greensboro. No wait, it was the nationals. My partner would correct me on that, he would be so sad if I got that wrong …. It was the national figure skating championships. Are you talking about golf? I don’t know which sporting event you’re talking about. But I will Google it later and I will learn.

Those are the two teams going to the Super Bowl.

I will encourage people to gather safely.

That’s really good. It’s great [for people] to be with people, take care of themselves, maybe test before they go. W This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Read a longer version online at indyweek.com.

INDYweek.com

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North Carolina A photo of artwork from a client of Anna Celander PHOTO SHARED WITH PERMISSON FROM THE ARTIST

disorder. Cosky went on to survive more trauma, including his own suicide attempts, homelessness, and a near-fatal drug overdose that landed him in the emergency room at age 30. There, he decided to make a change.

From the hospital, Cosky asked to go to Healing Transitions, a residential addiction recovery program in Raleigh.

He’s been in recovery for two and a half years and released an album last year.

People have long used creative expression to process life’s experiences, behaviors and emotions. Some, like Cosky, are drawn to art naturally. Others have discovered its healing power through therapy.

Art in therapy

The Art of Healing People have long used art as a way to express themselves and work through life’s experiences and emotions—in the Triangle and across North Carolina, that’s no different. BY TAYLOR KNOPF backtalk@indyweek.com

F

or Iggy Cosky, music has been the one constant in his life.

“The therapeutic value of music was very obvious to me at a very young age,” he says.

At seven years old, he fell in love with the guitar when he first heard Eric Clapton playing on the car radio. After that, Cosky’s father found the young boy strumming tennis rackets and broomsticks; he bought Cosky his first guitar.

“I love recording music,” explains the now 32-year-old Raleigh-based musician. “I use it as a process to psychoanalyze what’s going on with myself, because subconsciously lyrics will come up to the surface. I don’t know what I’m saying but they tell me what’s going on with me. The song tells me how I’m feeling.”

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Cosky has always leaned into music as a way to help him understand and cope with his life’s trauma. As a child, he witnessed the deaths of both parents in a murder-suicide.

Cosky moved in with a legal guardian, his older half sister, whose husband was a guitar teacher.

“He saw I had an interest in art and music, and he provided me with everything I needed to express myself,” Cosky recalled of the man who became like a father to him.

“He essentially gave me the keys to myself, which is the most freeing thing an adult can do for a teenager who has experienced horrors in life,” he said.

Cosky later lost another sister to suicide and his brother to a drug overdose. He said he self-medicated with drugs and alcohol and was later diagnosed with bipolar

“Art-making is inherently therapeutic. [Art therapy] creates a space for people to have the benefits of just processing the meaning and content of whatever comes up in their artwork. It’s using art in order to better express yourself or discover certain patterns that you’re engaging in,” said Anna Celander, a licensed clinical therapist and art therapist based in Durham.

Celander has led art therapy sessions for patients in every kind of setting, from hospital inpatient units, to intensive outpatient programs to private therapy, both in-person and virtually. She’s worked with a lot of patients going through life transitions, or dealing with medical diagnoses such as cancer, or who are struggling with addiction issues.

She’s also counseled caregivers of people with long-term physical or mental illness.

She said she starts by establishing treatment goals and incorporates traditional mental health therapy techniques, such as talk-based cognitive behavioral therapy. For some patients who have never worked with art, it can seem intimidating. Celander said she will start them with something like a collage, which is less threatening.

“The art kind of guides the work and makes my job a lot easier, because a lot of stuff ends up coming up as people are expressing themselves creatively, and oftentimes they feel more safe doing it through art-making than verbally,” she said.

At the start of the pandemic, Celander thought leading virtual art therapy sessions would be really difficult, but she said it’s been amazing and led to innovative forms of art.

One client took a work email about pandemic-related changes and used it to create blackout poetry, using Microsoft Paint to select words to express herself while covering the rest. Another client created an interactive video game in which he tackled his mental health struggles. He shared it with friends and family and it opened the door for others to share about their mental health.

“People got really inspired through the virtual component, which I hadn’t anticipated and honestly didn’t have a

lot of experience in,” she said. “So it ended up being really cool.”

Celander said she’s also watched patients soothe themselves through art during moments of anxiety.

“Maybe they’re having physical symptoms like sweaty palms or a racing heart when they’re talking or working through some of this stuff,” she explained, “and in that moment, I’m helping them use their art materials often as a grounding experience. What are you smelling? What are you feeling and touching with your hands, whether it’s oil pastels or chalk or watching watercolors drip down the page? So it’s both used as a kind of outlet and a grounding exercise.”

Art as mindfulness When Charlotte-based artist Melissa Fish stopped drinking alcohol, she said she would get thirsty around happy hour each day. Someone in her recovery support group suggested she try baking to distract from her cravings.

So she did and it worked. She baked cookies and decorated them in royal icing designs.

Fish, 45, had always been interested in art. In college, she started as an art major but quickly changed to something else. Feelings of self-doubt crept in and she thought she wasn’t good enough to be an artist. Fish got caught up in the college party scene and her alcohol addiction snuck up on her.

For the following decade, she stopped creating art altogether and kept drinking.

By the time Fish was baking cookies in recovery, she met artist Windi White, who is now the director of development at Healing Transitions in Raleigh. White also leads art therapy groups for program participants and encourages people to embrace colors, textures, shapes, and movements rather than striving to make their art look like a certain picture in their head.

Fish said White saw her beautiful baked goods and fanned the creative embers in her. The two artists also bonded over their journeys of recovery from addiction and similar feelings of self-doubt as artists.

“Just by sharing that I had never felt comfortable calling myself an artist, and now I was saying, ‘No, I am an artist. I am creative.

I am worthy of this expression,’” White said of their conversations.

Painting and creating other forms of art allows Fish to practice what mental health professionals would call mindfulness. When Fish is creating, she’s not thinking about

the past or planning out the week or worrying about the future.

“I’m literally where my feet are, where the art is. My brain is there. My body is there,” Fish said. “And you just kind of get in the zone, and it’s like being in a meditative state. I feel like that any time I’m creating art.”

In October, White hosted Healing Transitions’ first art event, called Art of Recovery, where Fish displayed her work publicly for the first time. Cosky also performed his music live at the event.

Art and community As for Cosky, he’s found playing music with others to be therapeutic, too. At Healing Transitions, he was allowed to bring his guitar and amp to campus, and he jammed with others in the program.

Playing music while sober was new for him, and at first Cosky was concerned that he wouldn’t be as “tapped in” to the music, he said, alluding to the romanticized idea some artists have about drugs and creativity. However, he discovered that writing, playing, and recording music while sober gave him clarity and insight into himself.

“Being sober and doing it kind of clears the fog off the mirror, you can actually see yourself for what you really are and see all your blemishes, and those can be beautiful as well,” he said. “You don’t have to hide behind them by getting high or using alcohol or whatever.”

In recovery, Cosky said he has been able to purchase all the music equipment he previously sold off to buy heroin. He now has a modest recording studio in his room in a sober living house, including a synthesizer, drum machine, software, bass, guitars, and microphones. He has everything he needs to make a record, but Cosky said he’s learned he doesn’t have to play all the instruments by himself. He can invite others in.

“Something I’ve learned through the process of getting into recovery is asking for help,” he said. “Recovery promotes community. You’re around like-minded people that know what it’s like to carry your pain.”

He’s taught guitar lessons to others in recovery and played in groups together.

Now Cosky says he’s looking for more ways to help people experience the healing power of art and music. W This story was originally published by NC Health News. NC Health News is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina.

Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org.

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PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

FEATURE

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A lot has changed about our social attitudes toward sex in the last two decades. Durham boutique Frisky Business has been around to see it all.

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

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early 25 years ago, women nationwide sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, and discovered the Rabbit vibrator.

Pink, pulsing, and phallic, the sex toy became an instant best-seller when Miranda gushed about it to her friends on Sex and the City. But the vibrator didn’t just become a pop culture sensation—it also ushered in a new age of sexual freedom and exploration. “[That show] had a big impact on normalizing stores like this,” says Matt Ferber, owner of the Frisky Business Boutique. The adult toy store, which opened in 2004, is the largest of its kind in Durham.

Sex and the City took sex toys out of the shoebox beneath your bed and into the public, according to Ferber. Seeing Miranda discuss dildos, masturbation, and female pleasure so openly made it okay for other women to talk about those things with friends, partners, and adult store owners. “[When people come in] for the first time, they often need that little bit of comfort,” Ferber told the INDY. “Information is far more accessible now than ever before, and I think that’s a positive.”

Discussion of sex in the media created a big boost in business. In 1992, only 2 percent of people reported buying vibrators or dildos, according to the National Health and Social Life Survey. Fewer people, 1.5 percent, reported buying other sex toys.

Today, the purchase and use of “marital aids” is much more prevalent. In 2015, about half of women and 33 percent of men reported using a vibrator or dildo during their lifetime, according to a survey led by researchers from Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion. About 17 percent of people had used anal sex toys.

“I think toys have become a more regular part of a lot of people’s sex lives,” says Gaby Soto-Lemus, who will assume ownership of Frisky Business in March. “There are sexfluencers on Instagram and people who are posting reviews [of sex toys]. There’s a lot more access to information about it than there was before social media.”

Phone calls from customers today aren’t about the Rabbit vibrator but about the newest toy trend on TikTok, she says.

The internet has made word-of-mouth recommendations easier than ever, according to Ferber. Before social media, people who came into Frisky Business were mostly acting on the word of a gregarious friend who didn’t mind volunteering information about their sex life, Ferber says.

“Now, social media means everyone has a gregarious friend who’s gonna tell you, ‘You really should try this,’” he says.

SHADES OF SEXUALITY In 2011, another shock wave hit the sex toy industry with the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey. Like Sex and the City, the racy romance shed light on stigmatized sexual practices. In the late 1990s, it was sex toys and masturbation. A decade later, it was BDSM, which includes

PHOTOS BY BRETT VILLENA

bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism.

The book was a “door opener” for many who were interested in BDSM but not knowledgeable about it, says Soto-Lemus. Fifty Shades helped people find their local community, learn safe practices, and discover what they were actually interested in, she says.

Activities like spanking, bondage, and role-playing are pretty common in the bedroom, according to Indiana University’s 2015 study. Among men and women, about 30 percent have engaged in spanking during their lifetime, 22 percent have tried role-playing, and about 20 percent have tried tying up their partner or being tied up.

Other common sexual behavior included wearing sexy lingerie or underwear (75 percent of women), having public sex (about 43 percent of men and women), and watching sexually explicit videos (60 percent of women, 82 percent of men).

After Fifty Shades of Grey came out, a lot of people came into Frisky Business because they were encouraged by reading the book, according to Ferber and Soto-Lemus.

“We had lots of people come in who had never been into a store like this before,” Ferber says. “It was a great doorway for us to be able to say, ‘Well, let me give you some accurate information.’ It allowed us to start conversations.”

Ferber says he tried to make sure that when they walked out, they felt more comfortable figuring out what they liked, talking about sex with their partner, and exploring kink. One of his goals is to educate everyone who comes through the door, he says.

The Frisky Business website doesn’t just advertise toys but also addresses topics like sexual health, acceptance, safety, and consent. The store’s blog answers frequently asked questions about BDSM, anal play, and lube. There’s discussion about stereotypes, misinformation, and why there’s no need for shame.

“Our goal is to help people walk out better informed and making good choices for themselves,” Ferber says.

“We’ll take any opportunity we can to tell people about [what they’re buying].”

S H I F T I N G AT T I T U D E S Adult toy stores today don’t have grimy floors or blackout curtains. At Frisky Business, the latest products are proudly on display. There are boutique-style tables with brightly packaged dildos, mannequins adorned in lacy lingerie, and racks of high-end cuffs and collars.

“Attitudes have changed a lot as more stores like ours have emerged,” Soto-Lemus says. “We do get a lot of older adults who are coming into a store like this for the first time because it’s more comfortable for them, and their idea of what an adult store is like is shifting.”

When Ferber opened the business, he wanted it to be a store that served everyone, he says.

“I wanted to have something that was as inclusive as possible, for men, women, couples together, LGBTQ people,” Ferber says. “I didn’t want anyone to feel like they were left out.”

The store is at its busiest, of course, in the weeks before Valentine’s Day, Ferber says. Customers come in all shapes and sizes—men coming in to buy lingerie for girlfriends, couples stopping for some new goodies on their way out of town, and people buying massage oil for an intimate night with their partner.

“What’s the most fun about this [business] is the sheer diversity of reasons people come to see us,” Ferber says. “It really runs the gamut from people who have just started to date and this is kind of a fun little adventure for them to people who have been together for a long time and want to spice things up.”

The benefits of visiting an adult store may not be immediately obvious, but several studies have shown that use of vibrators and other sex toys is linked to positive sexual function and relationship satisfaction.

A pair of 2009 studies by Indiana University showed vibrator use among men and women was linked to positive sexual experiences. Among women, it was linked with desire, arousal, and orgasm. Men who used vibrators, either alone, with a female partner, or with a male partner, often said they had greater desire and satisfaction with sex and found it easier to get an erection and orgasm.

More recently, a 2016 study found that women and men who were satisfied with their relationship were more likely to have tried using sex toys together, showering together, trying new positions in bed, and scheduling a night to have sex.

“I think it can be very empowering [and] healing to have a place where you can come in and think about what you want,” Soto-Lemus says. “People feeling independent and taking control of their own pleasure is really valuable. As well as couples coming in and learning how to communicate about their desires.” W INDYweek.com

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PAGE

HEATHER HAVRILESKY: FOREVERLAND

HEATHER HAVRILESKY READING

[Ecco; Tuesday, Feb. 8]

Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill | Thursday, Feb. 17 | Signing begins at 5:30 p.m.; limited seating

Heather Havrilesky and her husband, Bill Sandoval PHOTO BY CLAIRE HAVRILESKY

The Marriage Plot In Foreverland, Durham author Heather Havrilesky explores the “divine tedium” of holy matrimony. BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com

“C

an I make myself smaller?” Heather Havrilesky asks, squinting and fiddling with her Zoom settings. This might be the only time you’ll hear her make a request like this.

Havrilesky is the author of the popular advice column “Ask Polly,” which has, since she began writing it in 2012, taken the genre to new heights with sprawling existential answers that are, in turn, nourishing, tender, brutally honest, and laced with profanity. As Polly, Havrilesky encourages readers to embrace life’s messiness and be honest about the limitations of perfectionism. She does not, however, ever ask them to take up less space.

Mid-pandemic, Havrilesky, long based in Los Angeles, moved to the Bull City, where she grew up. This is where she is Zooming with me now, having adjusted her camera settings to satisfaction and having just begun interviews 14

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for her new book Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage. The book, a reflection on her marriage, came out this week.

“Even though I visited a lot, I forgot about bugs,” Havrilesky says, laughing, of her move back to the South. “I forgot about weeds. But I knew that I would enjoy being around smart, interesting people in an extremely community-oriented, creative place.”

Havrilesky grew up in Durham in the 1970s and ’80s, her father a professor of economics at Duke University, where Havrilesky later studied. After college came the move to California and jobs that resemble the CliffsNotes version of a certain foundational era of internet writing: work at Suck.com, a long run as Salon.com’s television critic, the birth of “Ask Polly” at The Awl, a move to New York Magazine, and now, a new era at Sub-

stack. Also along the way: marriage to Bill—whom you will come to feel quite close to, in Foreverland—and children. Last year, the family moved to Durham.

“I’ve been surprised by how little I found myself haunted by having grown up here,” Havrilesky says.

“All the things that I was worried would be hard about this move have turned out easy. Being around my family is amazing—there’s something about being in the same town with your family where you just understand each other better.”

Foreverland is, in part, about family and understanding each other, but it is also very much about the flaws and warts of marriage. That’s the “divine tedium” part: the phlegmy partner and suburban tag-teaming at Little League games, the marital doubt and self-doubt.

“I knew I wanted to talk about the sort of delights and perils of commitment and boredom and repetitiveness, but also the inherent gifts of companionship,” says Havrilesky, who has been married 15 years. “As I got deeper into the book, I was confronted more and more with the arbitrary, strange, moralistic aspects of tying yourself to someone for the rest of your life.”

I came to Foreverland as a longtime reader of Havrilesky’s work. In my early twenties and swimming in confusing feelings, I used to swap her columns over Gchat with my friend Molly like baseball cards. The emotional swagger of Polly felt aspirational and, no matter the question asked, her answers landed in a pleasantly disruptive way. (“YOU ARE CURRENTLY PRAYING AT THE ALTAR OF THE MOST TEDIOUS RELIGION IN THE UNIVERSE” she write-shouts in one column to a woman made bitter by the rejections of men.)

As my twenties fell behind, I kept reading her writing, realizing that Havrilesky’s advice would continue to resonate because life, as it turned out, continued to have its own complications. This is one of the foundational aspects of “Ask Polly”: an acknowledement that life is a bit of an open wound and that the trick is to try and move through it with love and vulnerability, anyways, to try and be good to yourself and other people. Also: an acknowledgement that there really is no one trick.

I

n early January, The New York Times published an excerpt from Foreverland. The title of the piece was tongue-incheek—“Marriage Requires Amnesia”—with a grabby subhead: “Do I hate my husband? Oh for sure, yes, definitely.”

Maybe the essay landed on a slow day on the internet, or maybe just at the perfect point of Omicron fatigue, but it sparked a day of online outrage, leading even Mindy Kaling to weigh in: “Wait this is crazy,” Kaling tweeted.

“Does her husband not care that she says she hates him in the New York Times?”

“If you’re really showing up and being truthful and real with another person, there are going to be times when it’s not going to be easy.”

“The Times chose that chapter,” Havrilesky says. “I was surprised that they chose it, but also sort of open to it—it comes two-thirds of the way through the book.”

Thanks to the Times piece, though, opinions on the book rolled in weeks ahead of publication: Marriage should be sacred, private. If you don’t like your partner, leave them. One person, Havrilesky says, commented that the book failed to “read the room”: i.e., during a pandemic, people don’t want to think about the dark, dusty corners of a relationship. Havrilesky doesn’t buy this idea.

“It’s not my job as a writer to read the room,” Havrilesky says. “I understand there’s influencer culture and this sort of thing where you become part of the culture—like, ‘I give you things and you’re my buddy, and you can talk to me in the comments.’ I’m not against this, I feel like it’s about human connection. But when you’re creating an artifact that you want to sing and that feels alive, you can’t think about whether or not it makes readers feel comfy and safe. The goal of art is not to make you feel more comfortable in everything you already feel. That’s a politician’s job.”

Nevertheless, readers of Foreverland will find themselves endeared to Bill, who comes across as smart, good-humored, and caring. The book begins with the story of how they met—Bill, a college professor and fan of her writing, sent her a cold email when he heard she was single—and fell in love, before tromping through a tundra of pregnancy, suburbia, aging, extramarital crushes, haywire vacations, and health problems.

It’s an engaging and self-effacing read that, despite all the discourse drummed up around it—a recent dismissive New York Times review of the book bore the headline “Heather Havrilesky Compares Her Husband to a Heap of Laundry,” spurring a slew of angry male commenters—really isn’t even all that dark. (Who isn’t a heap of laundry, sometimes?) Want marital darkness? Try Norman Mailer.

While Havrilesky might be more honest than most people about how annoying she sometimes finds her partner, the

book shine with affection and it’s clear that she doesn’t hate him. Exaggeration is part of her coping toolbox; some readers will appreciate this. Others won’t.

As we chat, Bill comes into the frame, back from a walk with the dog, who vigorously shakes off rain. Hearing an interview going on, Bill affably ducks out the doorway. “Hi, babe,” Havrilesky calls after him, before turning back to the camera.

“I set out to write the book, partially because I didn’t like any of the books about marriage,” she says. “I just hated the way people wrote about their marriages. I felt like it was always a little bit bullshitty or sugarcoated or just wretchedly negative because they’d already been divorced. I didn’t want to write, like, a tragedy or a lighthearted feel-good comedy. I wanted to write something that had elements of both, because that’s how life feels.”

We are sold so many ideas about sex, love, and marriage. Writing, here, from the perspective of an unmarried person in the South, the surround-sound sell seems to be that marriage is the ultimate act of self-actualization, that it will complete you and tie up every loose end; that your parents and tax accountants will finally accept you. I mention this to say that I wondered how I would feel, reading Foreverland: What version of marriage was it going to try and sell?

Thankfully, I found the book much more nuanced than a sales pitch, and a refreshing counterpoint to the pervasive idea that marriage is a hush-hush institution you’re not allowed to feel complicated about.

This is the thing Havrilesky comes back to often in her writing: that we should make space for our feelings, no matter how tender or ugly, because that’s the only way to move through them—and maybe the only way to be really known and loved.

“There’s an idea that relationships should be easy for us or they should end, and I think that’s bad for us,” she says. “If you’re really showing up and being truthful and real with another person, there are going to be times when it’s not going to be easy because you’re not mirrors of each other.” W

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February 9, 2022

15

E TC. Anita Rao, host of Embodied PHOTO BY SANDRA DAVIDSON

occasional “trigger warnings” for particularly sexual topics, in case children are around, Rao is a forthright interviewer and there isn’t a lot of verbal blushing or winking about intimacy. Instead, it is treated as a practical need, a frame that feels especially necessary during a pandemic when the world has felt increasingly isolating.

Listeners have responded in kind, too: the show, which broadcasts on WUNC 12:00–1:00 p.m. on Fridays, is also available in podcast form; by the show’s second season, downloads had increased 21 percent, with 52,5500 downloads. Recently, we caught up with Rao about vulnerability, taboo topics, and having her parents join the conversation.

INDY WEEK: How has your idea of the scope of these topics changed since starting the show?

ANITA RAO: This sounds ridiculous but the name for the

Body Language As the host of the popular WUNC show Embodied, Anita Rao isn’t afraid of a taboo topic or two.

As a culture, supposedly we’re becoming more open. Do you feel like there are still topics that are still off-limits?

BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com

I

f you’ve never had the experience of listening to public radio—maybe on a morning commute, maybe balancing a mug of coffee—and suddenly encountering a segment on sex toys, then allow me to introduce you to Embodied, a live, weekly WUNC radio show hosted by Durham’s Anita Rao, which celebrated its first birthday last month.

Rao, 33, is the former managing editor and part-time host of The State of Things, which ended its long run at the end of 2020. Embodied began as an experiment during Rao’s time filling in as a host, as she sought to reach a younger, more diverse audience with topics that don’t often see airwave space; once The State of Things ended, Embodied became its own show.

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February 9, 2022

INDYweek.com

show literally came to me at like three in the morning. I woke up and was like, “Embodied. That’s perfect.” It came from the idea that all these things we are experiencing—sex and relationships and things that we’re experiencing out in the world—affect how we see our body and how our body relates to other people and what it feels like to be in a body.

Some of the conversations I have grown to love most are about two people in a relationship and how their conception of their bodies has changed because of their relationship to the other person. One of my favorite conversations was with this couple—she has ALS and they were talking together about her terminal illness and their romantic relationship.

The way that they cared for one another through their words and conversation and what came through about the tenderness of an intimate relationship when you’re dealing with, like, looking at death every single day—I found that to be so powerful. How relational our bodies are is what’s coming to the fore for me.

On the WUNC website, the show falls under the tag “health & fitness,” a designation that almost makes it sound as if it’s a show about how to optimize your abs routine. Embodied, though, is a show about understanding, not optimizing. With its three-pronged approach to sex, health, and relationships, it offers an expansive picture of what it means to be human and to live in a body. Past episode topics have included death doulas, love in incarceration, menopause, and body builders.

The sex toys episode, for instance, is treated with a practical and curious touch, with Rao interviewing the CEO of a sex toy company, the cofounder of a company that makes accessible sex toys for people with disabilities, and a blogger who reviews sex toys. Though Embodied does come with

Sex. There’s a 29-second promo that airs in the days leading up to the show that teases what the show is about. And whenever we’re talking about sex we get so much pushback before the show even airs.

One of the criticisms of the show that I struggle with the most is, “Fine if you guys are going to have a show about these topics but put it after dark; it’s not appropriate to be talking about in the middle of the day.”

I find it to be extra important that it’s in the middle of the day, because the point of the show is that sex is not inherently salacious. There is a way to talk about these things that open up more—more empathy, more curiosity, and more understanding. Relegating us to a time at night where only certain people are engaging with it is precisely what I’m pushing back against with the show.

Our program director is a huge advocate of the show and when we do get that listener feedback that says

that, he’ll say, you know, “Have you listened to the whole show? Or listened to this other episode?”

That attitude is wild because it suggests that sex is just something on a shelf, you know, not something that affects every other area of life.

Yeah, exactly. And the show fundamentally believes that pleasure is a human right.

It’s a part of our existence that we should embrace and talk about. So many problems emerge from not being willing to acknowledge that publicly.

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Your parents have participated. How did they come to be involved in the show?

How has that felt?

In the run-up to launching the podcast version of the show, I did some interviews with other women in the podcasting industry whom I admired, getting their advice for launching a show and becoming hosts. I had a conversation with Anna Sale, who is the host of Death, Sex & Money. One of the things that she said to me that really struck a chord was like, “Why should people trust you to be having these conversations? How are you making yourself vulnerable in the process of doing the show?”

It really got me thinking, because I feel extremely comfortable in the role of interviewer, of being the one leading and moderating the conversation, but when the tables are turned back on me, I’m not always comfortable. Bringing my parents into the show was an exercise in my own vulnerability, because I did not grow up in a sex-positive household. I never got the sex talk from my parents. My mom grew up in a very Catholic upbringing and my dad is an Indian immigrant—my parents are both immigrants. We just never talked about sex, ever. Opening up these topics with them was mirroring to listeners that I’m willing to make myself really uncomfortable; I’m willing to be vulnerable about what I don’t know and ask questions that make me scared.

I think they have really appreciated getting to know me in a different way. I feel like the part of my interests that come out in Embodied are not something that I have really shared with them as openly. This was a way of kind of like bringing that full circle into my relationship with them as their kid.

What’s on your wish list for this next year of Embodied?

I want to have more adolescents on. I love that age where they’re unfiltered and brutally honest about the world and also learning about their bodies in real time—there’s a lot to learn. W

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February 9, 2022

17

SC R E E N

OCEAN BODY Wednesday, Feb. 9–Wednesday, Feb. 16, free CURRENT ArtSpace + Studio, Chapel Hill | carolinaperformingarts.org

To allow for social distancing, each screening of Ocean Body has a capacity of 10, with advance reservations required.

Business with the Water Helga Davis and Shara Nova plunged a live musical performance into the deep well of their personal connection and drew back up a multiscreen film, Ocean Body.

BY BRIAN HOWE arts@indyweek.com

I

n a preview clip from the film Ocean Body, which comes to CURRENT in Chapel Hill this week, Helga Davis and Shara Nova face each other at a distance.

Their matching white dresses are connected by long strings, which they manipulate with their hands as they sing. The energy is more collaborative than competitive—not a tug-of-war but, perhaps, a tug-of-peace, using designer Annica Cuppetelli’s “embodied sculpture” to probe the seam where independence meets its foil. Still, the image has literal tension and reflects the music’s dignified beauty tinged with harmonic unease.

Davis and Nova are both accomplished in the genre we feebly call “new music,” where a learned classical past hurtles into an uncodified future. Davis has starred in major productions by the famed experimental opera director Robert Wilson, singing music by Bernice Johnson Reagon and Philip Glass; she also interviews luminaries like Solange and Hilton Als on HELGA, her podcast for the New York classical station WQXR. Nova, who is based in Detroit, is known in overlapping circles for her indie chamber-pop band, My Brightest Diamond, and her more formal commissions for prized new music ensembles such as Brooklyn Rider and Roomful of Teeth. In 2015, Carolina Performing Arts (CPA) staged her baroque chamber opera, You Us We All, which featured Davis.

Davis and Nova are both “Creative Futures” artists-in-residence at CPA. This partly provided the occasion to make Ocean Body, which they composed and performed with a palette of harp, drums, bass, guitar, the Detroit Women’s Chorus, and other singers. But the motivation goes back to when they first bonded, a decade ago. In fact, their relationship—its inner dimen18

February 9, 2022

INDYweek.com

sions as well as its contact points with more public, political spheres—is the subject.

What was first conceived as a live theater piece called Body Vessel began to evolve when director Mark DeChiazza, who previously worked with Nova on a largescale orchestral project called Look Around, filmed Davis and Nova spontaneously entering the water on the Gulf Coast of Florida. That moment of rebirth enlarged the work’s scope, revised its title, and foreshadowed its ultimate form as a 45-minute multiscreen film, as we learned in a video chat with Davis, Nova, and DeChiazza.

INDY WEEK: What was the motivating spark for Ocean Body?

SHARA NOVA: I love singing with Helga, and

so the desire is always there. I walked into an artist studio here in Detroit, and on the wall, there was a pencil drawing of two women in a dress that was connected with strings. I said, “I want to be in that with Helga; how do we make that happen?” Well, that puts us in a relationship to time and to where we come from, in terms of women in corsetry, and it puts us in relationship to one another. One of the things that Helga says so often is, we start right where we are—with ourselves.

I thought maybe the image of the dress was the first thing that sparked the piece.

HELGA DAVIS: I just want to stop you, because that isn’t the first thing. The first thing is us, singing together, and then we find a device through which we can have a conversation.

MARK DECHIAZZA: As the piece developed and became film-based and involved the ocean, them not being in this device, the dress, became as important as them being in it—who they are alone and together, dependent and independent. So, it definitely was one of the sparks, but it

A still from Ocean Body

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAROLINA PERFORMING ARTS

was a physical metaphor for this existing relationship and, as Helga said, a way to start talking about it.

Helga, you and Shara have been friends for about a decade now. How did you first connect?

HD: I was at New York Public Radio, and a

producer said to me, “Do you want to come hear this band with me tonight?” I heard this music, and I was a little bit freaked out, because I hadn’t ever heard anything like it. I felt from the very beginning that I wanted to sing those songs, to find a way to work with the person who was making this music. Fortunately, we knew someone in common who happened to be at that concert. I said, “Who is this? What is this music?” And he said, “Oh, we’re writing an opera together. Do you want to be in it?”

Have you two done other collaborations?

HD: It doesn’t feel like we’re ever not

collaborating. Shara is a person with whom I have a continuous friendship and musical relationship and spiritual relationship that isn’t about whether or not we make stuff for other people to see.

There isn’t a lot that I write that I don’t also pass by her.

How did Ocean Body evolve from a live piece to a film?

HD: When we got to the residency at

the Hermitage Foundation, it was very clear to me that we had business with the water—that there was something about this piece that needed to begin again at a source that was, indeed, in us and of us. It’s all the things of birth and

baptism and what our physical bodies are made of.

MD: Something very interesting about this piece is that it’s also a document of the process of making it. For me, much of directing it was listening to what was really happening with Shara and Helga’s relationship in real time. When the water becomes important, how do we pivot to a new angle of looking?

What do we hear in the piece—a lot of orchestration, or choirs, or music sung by you two?

HD: Yes, is the answer. We explore our

roots that we have in common—evangelical, classical, all those categories of music.

SN: In Detroit, the public school that we were working with was Cass Tech. Alice Coltrane, Regina Carter, Zeena Parkins, Carla Cook, Jack White—many, many great musicians came from Cass Tech. Particularly, their harp and vocal program is really important. So, harp plays a prominent place.

To what extent is this piece about the personal relationship of Helga and Shara versus something broader?

HD: You go, Mark, I’m going to keep thinking

about what I’m trying to say.

MD: I don’t think there’s a difference. In looking at this relationship, it’s impossible that these other things aren’t touched.

But we very purposefully did not turn to make statements about societal issues.

We felt that we had to trust that they would emerge in relatable ways through honestly keeping our focus on what was right in front of us.

HD: See, I knew to be quiet. W

M U SIC

SAM MOSS: BLUES APPROVED

[Schoolkids Records; Jan. 28]

A Star Is Reborn Tar Heel guitar hero Sam Moss gets his due with posthumous release Blues Approved.

BY NICK MCGREGOR music@indyweek.com

I

n Winston-Salem, Sam Moss is a local legend—“the guitar god no one’s heard of,” according to his heartfelt 2007 obituary. An axe slinger in both technical and economic terms, a teenaged Moss swept into town in 1967 fully formed, dazzling countless Triad contemporaries with his mastery of the electric blues. In 1982, he opened a vintage guitar store on Winston’s West End, building up a robust international business fueled by his quarter-million-dollar sale of the “Mossburst”—what many aficionados consider the most beautiful 1959 Gibson Les Paul in existence.

By all accounts, everyone who encountered Sam Moss came away with meaningful memories, cosmic connections, and creative inspiration. What no one was able to take home with them, though, was an actual audio document of his musical mastery: Moss never released a single record, tape, or CD in his lifetime. That has changed with Blues Approved, a fabled “lost tape”— featuring Moss and Mitch Easter blowing the roof off Easter’s Chapel Hill home studio in 1977—that was released last month on Raleigh’s Schoolkids Records. With the artifact out in the world, Moss’s rock ‘n’ roll star power has rolled from the Triad to the Triangle and beyond, making him a bona fide North Carolina treasure.

Chapel Hill-based producer and musician Chris Stamey discovered the soulful, Stax- and Muscle Shoals–influenced recordings in 2020 at the end of an old four-track reel.

“It wasn’t so much discovering something that was lost as discovering something I didn’t realize existed,” Stamey says over Zoom on a recent Tuesday afternoon. “I’d heard about the sessions from Mitch, but I had not realized the material was so good. I felt like I was opening King Tut’s tomb—all of a sud-

den the light goes on and there’s a lot of gilded stuff laying around.”

Stamey, who played with power-pop icon Alex Chilton of Big Star in the 1970s and indie rock pioneers The dB’s in the eighties, consulted with Easter on the remastering of the tracks, separating the original layers to remove generations of tape hiss before resculpting them with sharp, modern sizzle. A few tracks (“Rooster Blood,” “King of My Hill,” and “Vida Blanche”) feature tasteful brass from saxophonist Crispin Cioe (who played with The Rolling Stones, James Brown, and Ray Charles), backing trademark Moss lyrics like “Ain’t nobody gonna stop me, baby / Gonna move when I want to, baby.”

“There was one particular lineup Sam led in the seventies called Rhythm Method,” Stamey remembers. “They had a horn section and played material influenced by [Mike Bloomfield’s band] The Electric Flag, Stax, and Motown. Mitch, Gene Holder, and I debated whether we should add anything to the guitar, bass, and drums, but we decided Sam would love it.” That Southern swagger carries over on “Ain’t That Peculiar,” one of five songs pulled from early 1990s sessions recorded at Creative Audio and Turtle Tapes in Winston-Salem that supplement Blues Approved.

The rest of the album oozes excellence, from Sam’s sexy strut on “If You See My Baby” and the Steely Dan swing of “Trying to Do Better” to prog rock, psychedelia, and Texas blues on “PJ,” “Nightflight over Berlin,” and “My Man Mike.” A country-fried cover of Buck Owens’s “Act Naturally” pulled from a church basement demo recorded in 1967

by Moss’s first band, Clique, rounds out the historical document.

“Sam was really known as a guitar slinger,” Stamey says, “but this is not a guitar slinger’s record. He was the best player in

Sam Moss PHOTO COURTESY OF MARGIL CONRAD any room but also a beloved figure. I mean, he literally showed me how to play—where to put my fingers. Only a few people had cracked the code of electric rock guitar in 1967, and this preacher’s kid from Taylorsville was one of them.”

On today’s terms, Blues Approved tracks as more effortless than ambitious—the comfortable, cohesive statement of a confident artist so fully aware of his charisma he doesn’t care enough to leverage it beyond his small circle of friends. Stamey credits that spirit—and the inside joke of the title Blues Approved, which plays off Moss’s trademark turn of enthusiastic phrase (“Sam approved!”)—with the success of the project. After remixing the found recordings in 2020, he set up a Kickstarter to pay for professional mastering, which blew past its $8,000 goal.

That enabled the production of a beautiful CD set (available now) that includes a deluxe booklet designed by Laura Williams

and liner notes written by Ed Bumgardner, along with a corresponding vinyl version that’s out later this summer. A show planned for August at the Ramkat in Winston-Salem is sure to be a sellout celebration. Fourteen years after his death, Moss even earned a star on the city’s downtown Walk of Fame alongside Maya Angelou and Stuart Scott, cementing his status as a true Tar Heel legend.

“Blues Approved has found a lot of love, but I’m not the only one pushing this,” Stamey says. He cites the invaluable contributions of Easter, Gene Holder, Henry Heidtmann, Doug Williams, and other heavy hitters in the Triad, the Triangle, and beyond (even the Netherlands, where the album has garnered positive reviews from blues-loving press). “I think it connects because Sam is singing from the heart on this record.

There’s something immediate and honest— and, like Sam, a little unpredictable—that makes him come alive for all of us.” W INDYweek.com

February 9, 2022

19

C U LT U R E CA L E NDA R

art Guided Tour: Explore the Ackland’s Collection and Peace, Power & Prestige Thurs, Feb. 10, 1:30 p.m. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

Frank Lee Craig: Near Distance Feb. 10–Aug. 20, various times. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh.

Mindful Museum: Virtual Sensory Journey Through Art Thurs, Feb. 10, 7 p.m. Online; presented through NCMA.

Virtual Lunchtime Lecture: Meet Curator Lauren Applebaum Thurs, Feb. 10, 12 p.m.

Online; presented through NCMA. Guided Tour: Peace, Power & Prestige: Metal Arts in Africa Fri, Feb. 11, 1:30 p.m. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.

Peter Kimani Reading and Q&A Fri, Feb. 11, 6:30 p.m. Rubenstein Arts Center, Durham.

Cordae performs at the Ritz on Saturday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m.

Meet the Artist: Radical Repair Workshop Sat, Feb. 12, 12 p.m. The Nasher, Durham.

Ballet Hispánico runs at Stewart Theatre in Raleigh on Friday, Feb. 8 PHOTO COURTESY OF NC STATE LIVE

screen Film Fest 919 Presents: The Contenders $13.

Feb. 4-17, various times. The Drive-In at Carraway Village, Chapel Hill.

stage Carolina Ballet: Romeo and Juliet $27+. Feb. 3-20, various times. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Ballet Hispánico $30 (general), $8 (NC State students), $15 (NC State faculty). Fri, Feb. 11, 8 p.m. Stewart Theatre, Raleigh.

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson $50+. Wed, Feb. 9, 8 p.m.

DPAC, Durham.

Kathleen Madigan: Do You Have Any Ranch? $29+. Fri, Feb. 11, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

An Evening of New Work $10 (recommended donation).

Feb. 11-12, 7:30 p.m.

Swain Hall Black Box Theatre, Chapel Hill.

Leanne Morgan: Big Panty Tour $29+. Sat, Feb. 12, 7 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

Music and Comedy Show Sat, Feb. 12, 8 p.m. Big Boss Brewing Co., Raleigh.

Transactors Improv $15. Sat, Feb. 12, 8 p.m.

The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

ONA $8. Sun, Feb. 13, 2 p.m.

The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE RITZ

Ackland Film Forum: The Man Who Saved the World Thurs, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m. The Varsity Theatre, Chapel Hill.

Film Club Presents: True Romance Mon, Feb. 14, 7 p.m.

Durty Bull Brewing Company, Durham.

music Pat Metheny $10+. Wed, Feb. 9, 9 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Queer Country Night Wed, Feb. 9, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Dancing in the Street: The Music of Motown $45+.

Feb. 10-12, various times. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Dogs in a Pile $10. Thurs, Feb. 10, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Imagine Dragons $54+. Thurs, Feb. 10, 7 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.

Joshua Bell and Peter Dugan $79+.

Thurs, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m. Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill.

Killswitch Engage $38. Thurs, Feb. 10, 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Drew Baldridge $18. Fri, Feb. 11, 7 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Dylan Innes Fri, Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m.

The Oak House, Durham.

Frontside Vinyl Release $10. Fri, Feb. 11, 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Nashville Songwriters with Special Guest Lainey Wilson $24+.

Fri, Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m.

DPAC, Durham.

Cordae $30+. Sat, Feb. 12, 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Geiger / Toss / Sluice $5. Sat, Feb. 12, 8 p.m.

Duke Coffeehouse, Durham.

NC Master Chorale’s Valentine Concert: Romance in the Air $25.

Sat, Feb. 12, 4:30 p.m. Transfer Co. Ballroom, Raleigh.

Sunnyslopes / Speedstick / Art Star Sat, Feb. 12, 8 p.m. Nightlight Bar & Club, Chapel Hill.

A Musical Affair $10+. Sun, Feb. 13, 3 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle: Variaciones Concertantes $22+. Sun, Feb. 13, 3 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Five Ton Faces $5.

Mon, Feb. 14, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Loamlands / Aquarian Devils $10. Mon, Feb. 14, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Jill Sobule $20.

Tues, Feb. 15, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Mannequin Pussy $15. Tues, Feb. 15, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Subtronics $30.

Tues, Feb. 15, 7 p.m.

The Ritz, Raleigh.

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR: INDYWEEK.COM 20

February 9, 2022

INDYweek.com

TH 2/10 @CAT’S CRADLE

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WE 2/15 @CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

JILL SOBULE

TU 3/1 @CAT’S @CAT’S CRADLE

DAVID BROMBERG QUINTET W/ ROB ICKES &TREY HENSLEY CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM

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FR 2/11 WASHED OUT W/ BRIJEAN ($25) SOLD SA 2/12 THE OUT PRESENT:

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SHOOK & THE DISARMERS

W/ IV & THE STRANGE BAND SA 2/19 LOW

SENSES FAIL, WE CAME AS ROMANS, THE COUNTERPARTS, SEEYOUSPACECOWBOY TU 4/5

WE 2/23 SAMIA W/ ANNIE DIRUSSO

SA 2/26 SUPERCHUNK W/ TORRES

[CANCELLED] IGORR, MELT BANANA, VOWWS

SU 2/27

TU 2/22 @CAT’S CRADLE

ANDY SHAUF

SA 2/26 @CAT’S @CAT’S CRADLE

SUPERCHUNK

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SA 2/26 WXYC PRESENTS:

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WE 4/20

SIERRA FERRELL

TH 4/21

PEDRO THE LION

SU 2/27 [POSTPONED TO MAY 11] A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS, SPIRIT SYSTEM, AND WALIN STORMS

5/19 PRINCE DADDY & THE HYENA W/ MACSEAL, INSIGNIFICANT OTHER, CALIFORNIA COUSINS HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX) 2/19 JOHN MORELAND /

SU 4/17

WE 4/27 FR 4/29

SA 3/12

LEPROUS W/THE OCEAN

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND W/ FIRESIDE

TU 3/15

COLLECTIVE

TH 3/17

[CANCELLED] LA LUZ

MO 3/21

KISHI BASHI ($25/ $27)

TU 3/22

MO 7/25 @KOKA @KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE

IRON & WINE AND ANDREW BIRD

JOJO

WOLF ALICE

TANK AND THE BANGAS W/ CORY HENRY

WE 3/23 SA 3/26 SOLD OUT

PENNY & SPARROW W/ LERA LYNN

WE 3/30 CAVETOWN W/ TESSA VIOLET

W/

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

SCIENTISTS

SA 3/5 MARIELLE KRAFT, SKOUT

SA 3/12 PINK SIIFU 4 THA FOLKS’! U.S. TOUR

SOLD TU 3/15 OUT

FR 3/18 SECRET MONKEY WEEKEND W/ DON DIXON AND JEFFREY DEAN FOSTER

[CANCELLED HOODOO GURUS]

4/14 JAMES MCMURTRY 4/20 DEL AMITRI ($29.50/$35) LINCOLN THEATRE (RALEIGH)

SOLD OUT 3/25

THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE DON BROCO

TU 3/29 NAKED GIANTS W/ WOMBO

MO 5/16 LAUREN SANDERSON W/ JORDY AND MIKI RATSULA

RITZ (RALEIGH) 2/18 MITSKI

SOLD OUT

WE 3/30 LEIF VOLLEBEKK

4/12 MT JOY

5/4 PUP W/ SHEER MAG, PINKSHIFT

SU 4/3 MATTHEW PERRYMAN

JONES

5/12 LUCIUS W / CELISSE

TU 4/5 JACK SYMES W/ RENNY CONTI

10/18 MOTHER MOTHER DPAC (DURHAM) 3/24 GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV W/ JOE PURDY FLETCHER OPERA THEATRE (RALEIGH) 4/9 THE MAGNETIC FIELDS

SU 4/10 HOT FLASH HEAT WAVE W/

SPARKS IN CONCERT

3/29 THE MIDNIGHT

SA 4/2 GRIFFIN HOUSE

TU 5/10

NOSO

3/1 [POSTPONED] BOB MOULD SOLO ELECTRIC

SU 3/27 REMEMBER JONES

BUILT TO SPILL ($25/ $29)

4/15 SHOVELS & ROPE

RICHMAN

SA 3/26 ZACHARY WILLIAMS OF THE LONE BELLOW

MOLLY BURCH

SOLD

W/ TOMMY LARKINS

DEL WATER GAP

DESTROYER

SA 5/14

4/7 TODD SNIDER ($25/ $28)

THE ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) 2/10 [POSTPONED] JONATHAN

TH 3/10 SAM WEBER

THE PINEAPPLE THIEF

WE 5/11

3/19 LANGHORNE SLIM 4/6 BLACK MIDI W/ NNAMDI

4/22 OUT SHARON VAN ETTEN ($31/$34)

WE 3/9 THE RED PEARS

SA 3/19 ERIC SLICK (OF DR DOG) W/ BLACK HAUS

MO 5/9

TH 4/14 GUERILLA TOSS FR 4/15 POM POM SQUAD SU 4/17

MAN ON MAN

($14/$16)

FR 5/20

DRY CLEANING

MO 4/18 ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS

4/10 THE MAGNETIC FIELDS HISTORIC DURHAM ATHLETIC PARK

SA 5/21

BEACH BUNNY

WE 4/20 ADULT., KONTRAVOID,

MAY 19 SYLVAN ESSO W/ MOSES SUMNEY, VAGABON

EELS ($37/ $39)

TH 4/21 HOVVDY W/ MOLLY PARDEN ($15/$18)

W/ MAMALARKY SA 3/19

TASHA

SA 5/7 SNAIL MAIL W/ THE GOON SAX

W/ WEAKENED FRIENDS ($16/$18)

REVEREND HORTON HEAT W/ HILLBILLY CASINO

NILFER YANYA

FT. GAVIN HARRISON

SU 5/8

TU 3/1 [CANCELLED] WE ARE

GANG OF YOUTHS

MO 5/2

MEET ME @ THE ALTAR, ANXIOUS

FR 3/11

STRANGERS

GUIDED BY VOICES

SA 4/30

WILL JOHNSON

SU 2/29 A PLACE TO BURY

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR ($35)

TU 5/3

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS

($20/$23)

TU 4/26

KNUCKLE PUCK, HOT MULLIGAN,

TH 3/10

W/ TIMBO

BARNS COURTNEY

MO 4/25

BRE KENNEDY

STIR THE EMBERS

SA 4/23 HOMEHSAKE W/ BABEHEAVEN ($17)

DEAFHEAVEN ($25)

DRAMA

3/21 SUNFLOWER BEAN

DEAR HUNTER, TWIABP

PORCHES

SU 5/1

WE 3/9 GARY NUMAN W/ I SPEAK MACHINE

3/17 [POSTPONED TO AUG 11]THE

SA 2/19 JULIA W/ MELLOW SWELLS, SHRUBB ($7/$10)

FR 4/15

SU 3/6

W/ TORRES

TH 2/17 SUN JUNE W/ DAPHNE TUNES

5/10 JOY OLADOKUN /

DAVID BROMBERG QUINTET

MO 3/7 WUNC MUSIC PRESENTS:

MO

FENNE LILY

FUZZ ($20)

W/ ROB ICKES & TREY HENSLEY TH 3/3

3/8 [POSTPONED] SHAME W/ THEY HATE CHANGE

SU 4/10

TH 2/24 VEGABONDS W/THE STEWS FR 2/25 AVAIL AND HOT WATER SOLD OUT MUSIC W/ BE WELL

MOONCHILD

WE 2/16 SQUIRREL FLOWER W/ CHRISTELLE BOFALE

FR 2/25 JON WARD BEYLE W/ JACK THE SONGMAN

OF ROCK CHAPEL HILL SHOWCASECUPID’S JAM ($18/$20)

MO 2/14 FIVE TON FACES ($5)

MOTORCO (DURHAM) 2/18 [POSTPONED TO MAY 18] VUNDABAR W/ M.A.G.S. 2/21 ILLUMINATI HOTTIES,

FR 4/8 BOY HARSHER W/ CLUB MUSIC AND PERMANENT

CUT CONNIE

ANDY SHAUF

TH 2/10 DOGS IN A PILE

FR 2/11 DREW BALDRIDGE ($18/$20 ) TU 2/15 JILL SOBULE W/ JESS KLEIN ($20/$25)

TH 4/7

SU 2/20 SCHOOL

TU 2/22

W/ OH HE DEAD

MO 4/4

MARIAS CINEMA

FR 2/18 SARAH

SA 2/19 @CAT’S CRADLE

THE DIP

TH 3/31

W/ KY VOSS

FR 5/27

SYMPHONY X, HAKEN, TROPE

FR 6/10 MO 6/13

ALDOUS HARDING

TU 6/21 SOLD OUT

FAILURE

TH 6/23

TU 9/27

($25/$30)

BIKINI KILL

OSEES

W/ BRONZE

AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT

WE 10/26

THE PACK AD SPIKE HELLIS

FR 4/22 RIVER WHYLESS

SOLD MAY 20 OUT

SYLVAN ESSO

W/ YO LA TENGO AND INDIGO DE SOUZA

WE 5/25 EMILY WELLS ($15/ $18)

MAY 21 SYLVAN ESSO W/ LITTLE BROTHER AND MR TWIN SISTER LOCAL 506 (CHAPEL HILL) 4/7 TOGETHER PANGEA ($18 / $22) KOKA BOOTH AMPHITHEATRE (CARY)

FR 8/12 THE BLAZERS ’22 SUMMER REUNION

7/25 IRON & WINE AND ANDREW BIRD ($40- $60)

SA 4/30 KELSY KARTER TH 5/5 BORN RUFFIANS FR 5/20 DRY CLEANING

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February 9, 2022

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P U Z Z L ES

ALL RE A LTHC T HEA ERS GE K R WO

FF O % L 10 ON ALKS

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages” at the bottom of our webpage.

BOO

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su | do | ku

this week’s puzzle level:

© Puzzles by Pappocom

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box.

The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered.

Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages.”

Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com solution to last week’s puzzle

22

February 9, 2022

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LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

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