INDY Week 2.15.17

raleigh 2 I 15 I 2017

Back to Where You Don’t Belong The story of Felipe Molina Mendoza shows how capricious and arbitrary America’s immigration system can be—and it’s only going to get worse

BY ERICA HELLERSTEIN p.10

DOES THE MORAL MARCH MEAN ANYTHING? P.6

HOW MEANINGFUL IS MOOGFEST’S PROTEST? P.22

HAVE YOU GOD GAME? P.25

2 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK | RALEIGH 6 Organizers claim Saturday’s Moral March drew eighty thousand people downtown, but will the marchers be there when progressives need them most?

8 In Raleigh, the current land-development fee for an office building is $1,576. In Austin? More than $14,000.

9 While Mitch McConnell was silencing Elizabeth Warren for reading a Coretta Scott King letter, Jeff Sessions was picking his nose.

10 Whether your political asylum request is granted depends in no small part on which immigration judge you happen to draw.

19 The Blind Barbour’s Smoked Turkey cocktail derives heat from chile liqueur and smoke.

VOL. 34, NO. 5 DEPARTMENTS 5 6 8 9 10 19 22 24 26 28 33

Backtalk Triangulator News Democracy in Crisis Features Food Music Arts & Culture What to Do This Week Music Calendar Arts & Culture Calendar

22 MoogFest taps the activism trend to boost its brand by adding a “protest stage” to this year’s iteration.

25 In The God Game, victory is within the grasp of a political candidate—if only he can keep his atheism a secret.

On the Cover: ILLUSTRATION BY SHAN STUMPF

Thousands of demonstrators participated in the Moral March in Raleigh on Saturday.

PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN

INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 3

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PUBLISHER Susan Harper EDITORIAL

EDITOR IN CHIEF Jeffrey C. Billman MANAGING EDITOR FOR ARTS+CULTURE Brian Howe DESIGN DIRECTOR Shan Stumpf NEWS EDITOR Ken Fine STAFF WRITERS Thomas Goldsmith,

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backtalk

Glaring Omissions

Jana Antos writes that she loved last week’s cover story, “27 Reasons We Love the Triangle Right Now,” but says we missed something: “The incredible open space and trail systems available to Triangle residents— from the American Tobacco Trail (twenty-two-plus miles of trail!) to the Capital Area Greenway system (over one hundred miles of connected trail, including a fabuMcKeown lous Art Walk at the N.C. Museum of Art) to Lake Johnson to William B. Umstead State amillo, Park. Where else can you strap on your hiking boots, running shoes, or mountain bike stick, and be just a minutes from total immersion Ruccia, in nature, right in the za heart of a metro area?

Triangle residents value gs these amenities and have voted frequently to support their expanams sion. Our outdoor space is the emerald in our vibrant asphalt/concrete community.”

Ellen Schrader Stutts adds another: “Because wart n, the writers of Strangd Lanier, er Things, the Duffer es Maness, Brothers, are graduates of Jordan High!”

Weeks, Commenter toastmasterbone writes: “Also notable—the state’s contribution (Hillsborough’s, specifically) to the Bill of Rights in 1788.” This is an imporhua Rowsey tant point that requires a quick history lesson: AGER for two weeks in the summer of 1788, delegates debated whether to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. Ultimately, they decided neither to accept nor reject it—North Carolina was the only state in the union to do so—because the Constitution did not, in their view, fully protect basic freedoms. This led to the development of the Bill of Rights.

Speaking of the Bill of Rights, specifically eek.com week.com that pesky bit in the First Amendment about -1972 the establishment of religion, Barbara Ann Jackson writes about last week’s Democracy in Crisis column [“Church and Trump”], be which talks about the religious right’s Machiavellian relationship with the new president: “Countless churches should lose their taxexempt status and/or be prohibited from federal programs because their church pastors and leaders (intentionally or not) refuse to

provide economic opportunities to some of the very people who are being used as commodity for federal dollars.”

Responding to a recent story about whether police officers belong in Wake County schools [“Deletable Resources,” January 11], commenter Shawn1960 asks: “In the name of God and all that is holy, when is the time when you are supposed to see this in high school: ‘a young African-American girl in a pink shirt rises above her classmates before she’s thrown like a rag doll to the floor.’ Was she killing someone? Did she have an AR-15 rifle, or was she sawing off a head with a tree saw? Because if she wasn’t, that is the most onerous overreaction I have ever witnessed.

“First, show children love and respect. After they are eighteen, start in on America’s institutionalized racist ‘justice system,’ where one in three African-American males will go to prison, compared to one in twenty whites. God help us. This is insanity. I wish they’d let me help out at these schools with these bad kids, but since I was a bad kid, I would never be allowed, just like the only people who know what it means to be sentenced to prison—a convict—are never allowed to serve on a jury. Even though it’s been twenty-five years since I’ve committed a crime, I’ve since helped to raise a wonderful PhD daughter, gotten my master’s degree, and lived a good taxpayer’s life. I was scared straight, but I’m not allowed to show anyone with whom I am not related by blood the lessons I have learned. Don’t lock up children.”

Finally, a couple of corrections to last week’s cover story. First, we incorrectly stated that Jordan Staal was a player on the 2006 championship Carolina Hurricanes team; it was his brother, Eric Staal. Second, Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer Prize, not the Nobel.

“Our outdoor space is the emerald in our vibrant asphalt/ concrete community.”

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INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 5

triangulator +HEY, BIG SPENDERS

MONEY WELL-SPENT Build Better Schools

The state Association of County Commissioners wants to set up a state-county partnership to meet the cost of building, renovating, and equipping schools. The overall tab: a whopping $8.1 billion over a fiveyear period, according to a 2015 Department of Public Instruction estimate. The surplus could help get us started.

Feed and House Ten Thousand People

Another $6–7 million for the state Home and Community Care Block Grant would provide meals on wheels, in-home care for disabled and older people, and other help that’s so popular it’s created a waiting list of more than ten thousand. Also, the $970 million program could get that funding every year, instead of on a nonrecurring basis.

Keep Kids on Track

A $6-million, five-year study by UNC showed that Robeson County saved two-thirds of the cost of dealing with offenders ages eleven to eighteen in a Teen Court system as compared to sending them to juvenile court. In addition to saving money and preventing kids from having lifelong records, the system showed lower recidivism rates than juvie. Translated statewide, the program could save millions.

Improve Mental Health Care

Advocates for people with mental illness are calling for increased availability of behavioral health urgent care centers. The handful that exist in North Carolina have shown that they provide better care for clients in crisis as well as keeping them out of crowded hospital emergency departments. The state’s surplus could go toward building and helping sustain several such facilities.

Help Soldiers Learn

All items don’t have to have huge price tags. The state National Guard is asking for a $500,000 recurring annual increase for its North Carolina tuition assistance program, or NCTAP, which it calls “one of our most effective recruiting and retention tools for soldiers and airmen.” The Guard can’t meet all requests for NCTAP because the money’s not there.

Shelter Vulnerable Adults

Each county’s adult protective services staffers are the people who get the call when the person down the hall, or on the street, needs help with basic life activities and can’t take care of himself. Demand for this kind of help, and for related guardianship efforts, has increased by more than 50 percent in the past seven years, so that North Carolina is now spending more than $21 million a year on adult protective services. Only 3 percent of that money comes from the state, creating a burden on counties. With this surplus, the legislature can start rectifying this imbalance.

GRAPHIC BY SHAN STUMPF

6 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

The General Assembly is forecasting a surplus of $552.5 million for the 2017–18 fiscal year. Republican leaders see this as manna from heaven: proof that their policies work, but also dollars that can be stashed into the state’s rainy-day fund, spent on PR layups like teacher salaries, and doled out in additional tax cuts.

But scratch the surface a little, and you’ll find that the money could also go to a raft of government initiatives—some little known, many that have proven merit—that could very much use the help. To your left are six examples we thought of in a couple of hours.

There are many more.

+ ANGER INTO ACTION

In a recent poll conducted by The Washington Post, 25 percent of adults said they plan to get more involved in politics. Among Democrats, the rate was even higher, at 35 percent.

That resolve was on display in Raleigh Saturday, as the eleventh annual Moral March drew what organizers claimed to be more than eighty thousand people—if they’re right, the march’s largest crowd yet, though Republicans and a News & Observer analysis have disputed that count—many of whom picked up picket signs for the first time.

Cardes Brown, religion chair for the state NAACP, says there was “more unity and ubiquity” to this year’s march. Participants marched for many causes: repealing HB 2, bringing awareness to systemic racism, protecting immigrants’ rights, extending access to health care. From a stage in front of the state Capitol, at the end of the march route, speakers gave out phone numbers for North Carolina representatives and urged marchers to call them with their demands.

But in the face of a Republican-dominated legislature, can the energy of 160,000 (supposed) feet be translated into actual change?

Jen Jones, communications manager for the nonpartisan group Democracy NC, thinks so. This movement, she argues, is not a flash in the pan. North Carolina has been dealing with “regressive policies” since the GOP took control of the General Assembly in 2011. Now, with a Democratic governor and attorney general, the state can be a blueprint for progressives in a nation under President Trump.

Effecting change will require a twofold

attack, she says—and some time.

The next step, Jones says, is to get the people attending marches to go to local government meetings and run for local offices, creating a grassroots push that “ultimately rises to the General Assembly.” At the same time, advocacy groups need to get people engaged in voting—and fighting to preserve voting rights—to usher those new candidates into office.

“Groups are pouring in asking for help registering and mobilizing voters,” says Kate Fellman, program director for the People’s Alliance Fund. “People who have never really done anything before, folks who have never been activists are wanting to play a role and asking about training in voter engagement and support from us. It’s been kind of overwhelming.”

“It matters that you made the call the first time,” Jones says. “If you make the call, you’re more likely to go to the meetings. If you go to the meetings, you’re more likely to run for office. If you run for office, you’re more likely to be politically engaged for the rest of your life.”

+POTTY POLITICS

On Friday, the second day of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s tenure, the Department of Justice sent an unmistakable signal that it was no longer interested in protecting transgender students from discrimination. In a brief, the DOJ announced that it wouldn’t fight a federal judge’s injunction halting an Obama administration order that included transgender students in Title IX protections; more important, the Trump administration rejected the idea that transgender students deserve those protections at all.

It wasn’t unexpected: President Trump and Vice President Pence had promised to do this during the campaign. Still, the DOJ’s decision might seem like a clear blow to the many North Carolinians who’ve taken to the streets in protest of HB 2.

But there’s a wrinkle. Gavin Grimm, a seventeen-year-old New Jersey high school student who was born female but identifies as male, sued the Gloucester County School Board in 2015, arguing that a policy that bars him from the boys’ bathroom violated Title IX. His case is currently on the Supreme Court’s docket, with oral arguments scheduled for late March. If the court sides with him, it would render an HB 2 repeal moot.

Opponents of HB 2 and similar laws,

Rump

Lo

in

Round

Plate

Tens of thousands gathered Saturday for the Moral March in Raleigh. including Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin, have condemned the Justice Department’s latest move and contend the protections granted under the Constitution entitle transgender students to “the full protection … of federal nondiscrimination laws. It is heartbreaking and wrong that the agency tasked with enforcing civil rights laws would instead work to subvert them for political interests,” Griffin said in a statement.

“President Trump must immediately reverse course and direct the DOJ to uphold the guid-

PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN

ance protecting transgender students.”

Good luck with that.

Speaking of HB 2, on Thursday, Durham Mayor Bill Bell tried to forge a compromise to help get it repealed, offering a promise not to enact a citywide nondiscrimination ordinance until the Supreme Court decides Grimm’s case. (HB 2, of course, did much more than govern bathroom usage; it also forbade municipalities from enacting antidiscrimination and local wage ordinances.)

This sort of thing had been the sticky wick-

et that derailed the HB 2 repeal late last year; while Charlotte repealed its antidiscrimination ordinance, GOP lawmakers worried that, with HB 2 gone, other cities would pass antidiscrimination ordinances. (Indeed, officials in Carrboro, Durham, and Wake County suggested to the INDY that they’d be willing to explore such a step.) So Republicans attached to the repeal a moratorium on new antidiscrimination ordinances. Democrats balked. The repeal died.

“What I’m trying to do is to relieve some pressure now by getting [HB 2] off the books, allowing some time to see what happens in the next stage, which is the Supreme Court, and also freeing up the state from these economic pressures that we’re under because HB 2 is on the books,” Bell said at the council work session last week.

But the council split, and Bell’s motion failed. “I can’t support a measure that would remove the paper version of House Bill 2 while leaving it still effectively the law of the land, and that’s what this measure asks us to do is to leave the force of House Bill 2 in effect on this community while removing it on paper to allow the economic benefits to flow,” said council member Charlie Reece. triangulator@indyweek.com This week’s report by Ken Fine, Thomas Goldsmith, Erica Hellerstein, and Sarah Willets.

PERIPHERAL VISIONS | V.C. ROGERS

Erin Hoffman

erin_hoffman@med.unc.edu 919-843-0720 OR

Susan Blevins

suzanne_blevins@med.unc. edu 919-843-8763 INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 7

indynews

Development’s in the Details RALEIGH IS LIKELY TO HIKE FEES ON DEVELOPERS. THAT MIGHT HURT THE CITY’S PUSH FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING, DEVELOPERS SAY.

BY THOMAS GOLDSMITH

It costs money to pull permits and carry out inspections for new building, whether it’s a $150,000 house or a $20 million apartment complex.

Proposed changes to what Raleigh charges for these tasks would hike fees for developers by $6 million annually to meet what the city considers its cost of doing the work.

With these changes, Raleigh’s Development Services Department would increase its budget from $13 million to $15.4 million, offering perks such as increased opportunities to meet with inspectors face-to-face and to have one inspector sign off on the work of multiple trades, including electricians and plumbers.

According to a new city survey, Raleigh residents see the handling of growth as an important city function that isn’t particularly well handled. The new fees are intended to make sure new construction pays the city’s cost for ensuring high standards and that developers are served in a timely manner.

The new system, scheduled for a February 21 public hearing before the city council, will bring Raleigh’s fees closer to those of comparable cities, although they will still lag far behind the amounts charged by benchmark governments in Austin, Texas, and Loudon County, Virginia, according to a study Raleigh commissioned.

“The fees were no longer aligned with what the cost of services were,” says Hamid Dolikhani, the department’s assistant director. “If it had remained with the old fee rate, the gap would be around six million dollars.”

Council members who were interviewed and developers both appear likely to support the changes. “I won’t say how I’m going to vote, but I agree with the principle,” says council member Kay Crowder.

As might be expected, there are some caveats on the developers’ side. Raleigh developer Tom Anhut, who cochaired a yearlong advisory committee of developers, said in a letter 8 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPARISON Current fees

Office building landdevelopment fees

$1,576

RALEIGH AUSTIN

$14,049

SOURCE: City of Raleigh Development Services User Fee Study

presented to council on January 17 that the committee is worried about Raleigh recovering 100 percent of its direct costs for new commercial projects. The city, meanwhile, is setting new fees for residential development that will pay back about 89 percent of its costs. It will eat the rest so that Raleigh home prices remain competitive with other markets.

“Our goal has always been to ensure that Raleigh remains an attractive, competitive and viable place to do business and that there is recognition of the perpetual increase in tax base and economic benefit derived from development,” Anhut wrote. “Additionally, the study’s scope was limited to the fees associated with Development Services which is just one aspect of the overall cost of development in the City of Raleigh. There are other significant costs and requirements which are unique to Raleigh that we believe should

Proposed fees

$2,293

GRAPHIC BY SHAN STUMPF

be taken into account when benchmarking the overall cost of development against other municipalities.”

Anhut, who did not return a call from the INDY, ended his note with the hope that any fee increase would be phased in to give developers time to adjust.

Austin is often compared to Raleigh, Nashville, and other meccas for growth and development. It charges development fees far in excess of Raleigh, most notably for commercial projects. A chart presented at a January lunch session showed that Raleigh’s land development fee for a three-lot subdivision is $702 and would increase to $2,155 under the new proposal.

“That increase would be felt more by the land seller,” says Suzanne Harris, vice president of governmental affairs for the Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County. “The developer’s going to say, ‘Sorry, how

much did you want for that land?”

The increased figure is still less than the amounts charged by Cary and Charlotte. In Austin, the corresponding fee for a three-lot subdivision is $10,766. For an office building, Raleigh’s land-development fee would rise from $1,576 to $2,293. Again, Austin’s is far higher: $14,049. Finally, a house in the $250,000 range would bring fees of $1,600, compared to a little more than $1,000 currently. Austin’s fee at this level is roughly comparable with Raleigh’s.

Harris says increased fees can lead to higher home prices at a time when affordable housing is a key issue for Raleigh. Again, comparing the City of Oaks with Austin, the median cost for existing housing in Raleigh is $156,000, up 5.9 percent since 2006; Austin’s is $225,000, up 38.9 percent during the same period, both according to a 2015 survey.

The association Harris represents, as well as other developers, became part of the process of setting new fees, and groups speaking for schools, neighborhoods, and hospitals were invited to join in. Developers’ representatives aren’t likely to try to derail the entire proposal, but they would like some of its effects to be moderated.

“I think the ship has sailed on [the entire package], honestly,” Harris says. “I don’t know that we would get a lot of foothold to say, ‘Crush it.’”

As in Anhut’s written comments, developers may home in on modifying the new fee structure so that, for instance, it is phased in over a couple of years and that people who are already in the permitting process could continue at the rate quoted them.

Council member Mary-Ann Baldwin says the new fee structure could eventually lead to recovery of about $1 million in the department’s indirect costs, such as financial, human resources, and legal services.

“It’s a starting place,” Baldwin says. tgoldsmith@indyweek.com

news

Confirmation Bias

A NEW ERA OF LAW AND ORDER, WITH A SIDE OF WHITE SUPREMACY

BY BAYNARD WOODS

S

enators shuffle by the desk on Tuesday to cast their votes on the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education, chattering like kids returning from summer break to find that everything has changed. Somehow even the victors seem confused. None of them really expected the world to look like this.

Except, maybe, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. He’s standing toward the front of the Senate chambers, hands behind his back, at ease. A grin is on his face. He’s just cast his final vote as senator—to confirm DeVos. Though he is not attorney general yet, he was instrumental in planning the flurry of authoritarian executive orders marking Donald Trump’s first weeks in office, including the on-hold refugee ban. Sessions wanted to go even harder, hoping for a “shock and awe” approach, overwhelming the opposition with the dramatic pace of change.

In a Washington Post story that called Sessions the “intellectual godfather” of “Trump’s hard-line actions,” the director of a conservative immigration think tank compared the Republican senator to a “guerrilla in the hinterlands preparing for the next hopeless assault on the government” who suddenly learns that “the capital has fallen.”

With his dark suit, white hair, and wrinkled white peach of a face, Sessions does not look like he’s spent much time training in the jungle. But he does seem surprised— stunned almost—that the next vote his colleagues cast will make him attorney general of the United States.

He walks slowly to his seat. Sitting down, he bows his head. His eyes seem to be closed, as if praying. He brings the tips of his fingers together, facing upward, on his lap. A few moments later, he takes out a silver object and holds it gingerly between the first two fingers and thumbs of each hand, almost as if unwrapping foil on a stick of gum.

But it doesn’t seem to be gum—it’s impossible to tell what it is from the press gallery— and he does not unwrap it, he just fingers it, his head bowed. The vote is called. He puts away the silver object. The vote is 50–50.

As expected, Vice President Mike Pence confirms DeVos with a historic tie-breaking vote. It is a huge blow to anyone who cares about competency, public education, or ethics in government. The Democrats spent the last twenty-four hours complaining about all of these issues, but that doesn’t matter now.

They have no control.

Sessions gets up and looks around the room again before he heads toward the door.

When he returns to the Senate later that day,

Sessions is the nominee under consideration.

He sits behind Majority Leader Mitch McConnell while Senator Elizabeth Warren quotes the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who called Sessions a “disgrace to the Justice Department” during a 1986 confirmation hearing, when Sessions was denied a federal judgeship because of allegations of racism.

Now Warren reads from a letter sent by Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., to the Senate during that same failed confirmation.

“Mr. President. Mr. President,” McConnell interrupts, defending Sessions. “The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, as warned by the chair. Senator Warren said, ‘Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.’”

“I call the senator to order under the provisions of Rule 19,” McConnell says.

The crazy thing about Rule 19, in this context, is that it was created in 1902, after the

notorious white terrorist and senator “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman beat up a colleague who had defected to the other side of a debate. Tillman founded a group called the Red Shirts, which terrorized African Americans as Reconstruction bled into Jim Crow. He was an early mentor of white supremacist Strom Thurmond, who, as the chairman of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, was the guy who both smashed Sessions’s hopes of becoming a federal judge and who kept King’s 1986 letter out of the Senate record. When Warren read the letter, she was correcting Thurmond’s thirty-year-old error.

So it is grimly fitting that McConnell, who has learned to manipulate the Senate in order to grab control of the judiciary for his party, cites Rule 19 to defend Sessions, the old-school law-and-order white supremacist who stuck around long enough to make it mainstream again.

During the exchange—in which McConnell now famously uttered the sentences “She was warned. She was given an explanation.

Nevertheless, she persisted”—Sessions picks his nose, rubbing it with a handkerchief, making sure he gets it all, blowing again.

Nearly twenty-four hours later, McConnell uses the last few minutes of debate to offer a cornpone encomium to his departing colleague, calling Sessions a “true Southern gentleman,” like that’s an unquestionably good thing, eliding the difficult history connecting Sessions’s home state and the fight for civil rights.

Finally, in a Thursday morning ceremony, Pence swears in Sessions, who cites a “dangerous permanent trend” of increasing crime and pledges to end “lawlessness.” Like Sessions, Trump regularly exaggerates the increase in violent crime. He uses the occasion of Sessions’s swearing in to sign three executive orders that further empower the already-vast police state. Neither mentions the epidemic of African Americans shot and killed by police.

“A new era of justice begins, and it begins right now,” Trump says.

Twitter: @baynardwoods INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 9

F

BACK TO WHERE YOU DON’T BELONG The story of Felipe Molina Mendoza shows how capricious and arbitrary America’s immigration system can be— and it’s only going to get worse

BY ERICA HELLERSTEIN 10 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER

elipe Molina Mendoza is trying to maintain his composure.

It’s an unseasonably warm Tuesday evening in February, and dozens of people are crowded into the pews of Durham’s Monument of Faith Church. Molina Mendoza, wearing jeans and a crisp plum-colored dress shirt, stands behind a mahogany lectern. Nearby, his boyfriend Francisco, in the same jeans-and-plum-shirt uniform, looks on encouragingly.

“I think the first thing I want to say is thank you,” Molina Mendoza begins.

“I was already getting emotional, to be honest, beforehand. This is because I see how much support I have from you guys.” His voice begins to waver. “To take time from your lives to come here and support me means a lot to me.”

He pauses, gulps, looks up.

“We love you, Felipe,” a voice offers.

The crowd breaks into applause.

Molina Mendoza cracks a smile.

The church is packed with nearly one hundred weary faces, far more than Molina Mendoza expected. The support has been overwhelming—hugs and messages from strangers, kind words from old teachers and friends.

Last week, two young girls cried with him at a rally in downtown Raleigh. The tears have come easily these past few months.

“I cry more than I’ve ever cried in my entire life,” he told the INDY the next morning. “But overall I try to keep calm.”

That’s his mantra these days: deep breaths, stay calm. It’s not easy considering the circumstances. The twentyfive-year-old is living in Durham, where he went to high school, on borrowed time—and in a matter of months, his time could be up.

Two years ago, Molina Mendoza applied for political asylum in the United States, claiming to have suffered homophobic abuse in his native Mexico. His application was heard—and denied—in an immigration court in Charlotte last year. Molina Mendoza’s supporters say the decision was based more on the luck of the draw than the merits of his case: his judge, Barry J. Pettinato, denied almost 85 percent of the asylum requests that came before him between 2011 and 2016, according to Syracuse Universi-

ty’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. By comparison, the national denial rate is 49.8 percent.

Until late last week, Molina Mendoza expected to be deported on Valentine’s Day. (He learned about his pending deportation on Christmas Eve.) But on Thursday he heard that, thanks in part to the intervention of U.S. Representative G.K. Butterfield, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had postponed his removal until his appeal is heard by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, probably later this year.

But Molina Mendoza still had to report to immigration court in Charlotte Tuesday, and despite the apparent reprieve, his court appearance was shot through with anxiety.

“There is a high chance of me being detained on Tuesday,” he told the INDY last week. “My lawyer said the fear is there’s a chance that they may try to detain you that day and keep you there.”

That didn’t happen. Molina Mendoza wasn’t apprehended on Tuesday morning.

He was allowed to go back home to Durham and told to check in with ICE in March.

Now it’s back to waiting, back to studying to become a nurse at Durham Tech, back to wondering what will happen next.

Molina Mendoza’s story is a case study in the many ways misfortune can imperil an immigrant’s quest for security and stability, particularly in a system that often seems capricious and arbitrary. He came of age in a state ungenerous toward undocumented immigrants and left the country before the Obama administration rolled out a program that would have afforded him relief. He came out as a gay man in a city that was, at least in pockets, openly hostile to his very existence, and when he tried to return home, he ended up before a judge who decided that the hostility wasn’t that big of an obstacle.

Every step of the way, Molina Mendoza’s case holds up a mirror to our current immigration system—and perhaps serves as a harbinger of what’s to come under a Trump administration that has declared itself atavistically antagonistic to undocumented immigrants and promised to deport millions of them, painting those here illegally as dangerous criminals and job-stealing leeches.

To those who would see him sent back, Molina Mendoza pleads: “Try not to view me as just a number. Try to see exactly what makes me me, what makes me a human.”

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olina Mendoza’s journey to America began in the dead of night, somewhere along the Mexico-Arizona border. Under the cobalt September sky, an eight-year-old Felipe ran past farms, cows,

and hills. The heat was dizzying. His mom and two older sisters were there, too, but his dad was back in Mexico. They were escaping him. He’d hidden the kids from their mom for two years after a custody battle. When she’d found them, she told them, “Get your stuff, get everything, let’s go,” Molina Mendoza recalls.

They wasted no time. A few days later, they were at the border.

They left home in a hurry, and Molina Mendoza darted out the door without thinking about what he was wearing. It was only when they started crossing the pitch-black border that he remembered he had on lightup sneakers. The moment his feet pounded they ground, they started blinking.

“We all forgot,” Molina Mendoza says. “At the time, my mom just stopped me and was like, ‘Pull your pants down,’ and she tied the end of my pants over my shoes.”

When they got to the States, they moved to Queens, New York. Molina Mendoza was dazzled by the skyline, the colors, the people. Mexico’s searing heat bothered him, so the crisp weather was a welcome change.

When the first snow blanketed the city, Molina Mendoza and his sisters were in awe. “We went crazy,” he says.

Three years later, they joined Molina Mendoza’s uncle in North Carolina. His new school didn’t have ESL classes or Spanish instruction. Molina Mendoza mainly learned English by watching TV. His favorite show was Pokémon, which explains the bright yellow Pikachu piñata sitting on a table in his living room. He enrolled in Durham’s Riverside High. At first he hated it, because he thought it looked like a hospital, but he eventually adjusted. He joined chorus, took honors classes, and made friends.

He also met his current boyfriend, Francisco, a fellow student. They became close, though they didn’t date until much later.

“Even though it’s only been a few months since I’ve known you, you’re a good friend,” Molina Mendoza wrote in Francisco’s yearbook. “You’re fun to hang around with, and I hope you have a good life wherever you go to.”

That lighthearted earnestness is textbook Felipe, and it’s helped win him lots of allies— so many that Butterfield, a Democrat who represents part of Durham, sent a letter to ICE last week asking to delay Molina Mendoza’s removal because, he wrote, “my office has been inundated with positive messages over the past several weeks from the Durham community.”

Despite his mostly cheery exterior now, Molina Mendoza felt like “a second-class citizen” as an undocumented student at Riverside. He was quiet in class and always sat

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near the back of the room. But he looked forward to working on projects, especially those that put his crafting skills to use. Matt Smith, Molina Mendoza’s junior year AP English teacher, still uses one of those projects—a pop-up picture book Molina Mendoza made—as an example of satire for a unit on humor.

“I have a little flipbook of his in my file cabinet,” Smith says. “It’s something I still pull out, as an example of a good piece of work.

It was a criticism of how accessible violent media is to children. It was a funny piece, but it also understood so many nuanced levels of media. It’s a really powerful piece.”

Recently, Molina Mendoza returned to Riverside to talk about his case with Wildin Acosta, an undocumented Riverside student who was detained on his way to school last year. (Acosta was later released from a private detention facility in Georgia after posting a bond while awaiting his appeal; he, too, is seeking asylum after fleeing gang violence in his native Honduras.) Smith couldn’t help but think about the picture book when Acosta introduced Molina Mendoza.

“All I could think about was, one hundred yards from him speaking about his deportation, I have a little flipbook of his in my file cabinet. And that it has stayed with me ever since. He has gone through so much since then …” Smith trails off. “I can’t even imagine.”

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hen Molina Mendoza moved to North Carolina, he was part of a wave of immigrants reshaping the state’s demography. Between 1990 and 2013, the immigrant population in North Carolina swelled by 551 percent, to an estimated 750,000, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Many of them were Latino.

According to the Pew Research Center, Latinos comprise about 9 percent of the state’s population, about 890,000 people.

Of those 750,000 immigrants, the MPI estimates, about 350,000 are undocumented.

Mexico and Central America account for more than 80 percent of the state’s undocumented population, with 61 percent coming from Mexico alone. The undocumented population makes up about 5 percent of the state’s labor force, the Pew Research Center estimates. Of that group, almost onequarter work in construction, the MPI says, and nearly one in five work in the service industry. Another 7 percent work in agriculture. (Peter Daniel, the assistant to the president of the N.C. Farm Bureau, estimates that 70–80 percent of the state’s farmworkers are undocumented.)

“The Latino and immigrant community are building the economy of this state. And

12 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

“I was like, at least I can be true with myself. And then everything started happening.” yet these are the very people that are being villainized,” says Ana Ilarraza-Blackburn, the Latino liaison for the N.C. NAACP. “It’s inhumane, and that’s not what our democracy is about. That’s not what we stand for in this country.”

Last year, then-governor Pat McCrory signed a law prohibiting municipalities from becoming sanctuary cities, barring government agencies and law enforcement officials from accepting ID cards issued by foreign governments, and expanding employers’ use of the E-verify program. Additionally, under state law, undocumented students are ineligible for in-state college tuition and instead have to pay the pricier out-of-state rate. (At UNC-Chapel Hill, tuition and fees for fulltime in-state undergrads amount to $8,898 a year; for out-of-state students, $34,588.)

Molina Mendoza learned that higher education would not come easy while inside his college counselor’s office at Riverside, filling out applications.

“She asked me, ‘What’s your Social Security number?’ and I was like, ‘Well I don’t have one,” he says. “And then she said, ‘They all require a social. If you don’t have a social, you can’t apply for them.’ At the moment, I knew I didn’t have papers, but I didn’t know the impact of how big that was until then. I kept it hidden from everybody.”

Molina Mendoza’s mom gave him an ultimatum: get a job and give up his dream of going to college, or go back to Mexico where college was more affordable. He chose the latter.

“It wasn’t easy. I cried a lot,” he says. “It was the first time I was ever away from my family. I was leaving my friends, my future here.”

In September 2009, Molina Mendoza hailed a bus in North Carolina. He arrived

in Mexico several days later. He was struck by the changing scenery as he crossed back over the border. On the U.S. side, houses were well-painted and modern, the roads smooth; in Mexico, homes were weathered and run down. Dirt roads proliferated.

He soon found a place to live in Mexico City and enrolled in music school for audio engineering. The next year, he made another fateful choice: he decided to come out to his friends and family. It was a long time coming. Molina Mendoza had known about his sexual orientation since the early days of high school, though he chose not to tell anyone about it.

He wasn’t sure how his family would take it—growing up, his stepfather, whom his mother met in North Carolina, often made offhanded remarks about gay people. But with all of the uncertainty in his life—Would he finish school? Get a work visa? Return to America?—he wanted to make a decision that was firmly his own.

“I was like, at least I can be true with myself. I decided to come out.”

He sighs.

“And then everything started happening.”

I

n the winter of 2010, he and his boyfriend, Angel, decided to make their relationship public. The two began to walk around Mexico City holding hands, Molina Mendoza often in distinctive, colorful clothing. Taunts and physical aggression soon followed, he says. Men shouted obscenities at them and shoved them. One day, he says, a group of men chased the couple down the street, roughed them up, and threatened them with rape and beatings. They were nearly hit with beer bottles.

“It was at that point, I didn’t know what to do with my life,” Molina Mendoza says.

“At that moment there were a lot of killings of gay people going on in this area in Mexico City called Zona Rosa—it’s predominantly gay. And I was like, I don’t want this to happen to me.”

He had reason to be afraid. Although statistics on homophobic violence in Mexico are hard to come by, a 2009 study by the nongovernmental organization Letra S reported 143 anti-LGBT murders between 1995 and 2008 in Mexico City alone. The borough that contains Zona Rosa was particularly hardhit, with forty-two killings over the same time period.

The violence set Molina Mendoza on edge. He began missing work at the call center that employed him, avoided leaving the house, and was constantly roiled by anxiety.

In October 2013, three years after he came out, Molina Mendoza decided to cross the border yet again. Shortly thereafter, he was

caught. He says he ended up signing a voluntary departure order, which fast-tracked his removal from the U.S. and meant he didn’t have to spend more time in detention.

The voluntary departure order is “basically a way of short-circuiting the deportation process so that, instead of going before a judge, ICE is able to get a removal faster, more efficiently,” explains Elizabeth Keyes, an assistant professor of law of the University of Baltimore’s Immigrant Rights Clinic. “My critical eye on it is people sign it in detention without being aware of exactly what it means.

They might have a piece of paper in front of them, but they’re not aware they are signing away their rights to see a judge.”

Keyes’s critique is consistent with the way Molina Mendoza frames his experience.

“They asked if I was in any danger if I went back to Mexico,” he says. “I was going to say yes, but they encourage you to not say yes.

They told me, if you say yes you will probably be in jail for like three or four years, and you’ll probably still get deported. Or if you sign your deportation now, we’ll just let you go.”

(ICE spokesman Bryan Cox directed questions about Molina Mendoza’s experience at the border to the U.S. Border Patrol, “as that encounter would not have been with” ICE. The Border Patrol did not respond to the INDY’s request for comment by press time.)

Unfortunately for Molina Mendoza, had he stayed in North Carolina, he likely would have been shielded—at least temporarily— from deportation by then-president Barack Obama’s 2012 executive order establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program grants undocumented immigrants who came to the United States at sixteen years of age or younger two-year work permits and protection from deportation during that time. After the program expires, participants can apply for renewal.

Molina Mendoza returned to Mexico dejected. But friends soon began encouraging him to apply for political asylum. Until then, he didn’t know that was a possibility.

So in 2014, he pressed his luck again. This time, he made his way to a port of entry in Otay Mesa, California, gave himself up, and announced that he was seeking asylum.

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olina Mendoza spent three days in what he calls a “cooler”— a freezing, white-walled detention cell, with about forty other men—and then was sent to a detention center run by Corrections Corporation of America, which now calls itself CoreCivic, the nation’s secondlargest private prison company. CoreCivic, which contracts with ICE, has profited enormously from the expansion of the immigration detention system. In 2014, according INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 13

to Securities and Exchange Commission records, the company earned $195 million in net revenue, up from $133 million in 2007.

Molina Mendoza spent three months at the private facility in San Diego. Conditions, he says, were dismal. “It’s a mental test, because they don’t let you do anything. You can only go from your cell to a mini-patio. I started getting rashes all over my skin. So I asked for a medical appointment, but I didn’t get one for almost like three weeks. When I finally got out I still had that condition on me for almost a year.”

(CoreCivic referred the INDY’s request for comment to ICE. On its website, CoreCivic’s Human Policy Statement says that “we value the inherent dignity of the human person and the need to treat every individual with respect.”)

Molina Mendoza passed his credible fear interview—a series of questions that an immigration officer asks to determine whether an asylum applicant has a reasonable fear of persecution, the first step in the asylum process—and was released from the detention center on a $7,500 bond. He left the center flat broke. He spent two weeks sleeping in an acquaintance’s car while his family cobbled together enough money to buy a plane ticket to North Carolina. He landed in Durham and began working. The asylum process allowed him to get a work permit and a Social Security number, so he began waiting tables. With his savings, he was able to buy a car. He found a lawyer who was willing to take his case pro bono and eventually reconnected with and began dating his old high school pal, Francisco.

“Everything was going good,” he says.

Until it wasn’t.

Molina Mendoza and his attorney, Helen L. Parsonage, thought his evidentiary hearing, held in November 2015, went well. Not so. On March 9, 2016, he received notice that Judge Barry J. Pettinato had denied his asylum request. The basis for the denial, according to Parsonage, was the fact that, in 2009, Mexico City had become the first Latin American city to legalize gay marriage.

“The immigration judge believed that the passage of marriage equality in Mexico City was an indication that Mexico was no longer a country in which my client needed to fear persecution on the basis of being gay,” Parsonage says.

“Immigration judges aren’t trained on adjudicating LGBTQ asylum cases,” says Sharita Gruberg, associate director of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the left-leaning Center 14 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

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Felipe Molina Mendoza in his Durham home for American Progress. “For places where LGBTQ people aren’t criminalized but where they still face persecution, the difference between laws on the books and actual treatment can be difficult for a judge not well versed in anti-LGBT persecution to grasp.”

Pettinato and his fellow Charlotte immigration court judges are known for being tough on asylum applicants, advocates say. According to a Department of Justice report, they granted asylum in just 21 of the 167 asylum cases they heard in fiscal year 2015—13 percent. By comparison, Phoenix’s immigration court asylum grant rate that year was 74 percent.

Even among judges in the same immi-

gration court, asylum grant rates can vary wildly, compounding the system’s seeming randomness. In Newark, New Jersey, for example, one judge denied 98.6 percent of asylum cases from 2011–16; another denied just 18 percent, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Indeed, a 2016 Government Accountability Office report “found huge variation in asylum grant rates depending on which judge heard the case,” Gruberg says.

The system’s arbitrariness is not lost on Molina Mendoza.

“If my case would have been in California or New York, it could have been totally different,” he acknowledges. “I would probably have my green card.”

hese are the twists and turns that led Molina Mendoza to where he is today.

It is a path paved with dualities—victories and setbacks, trauma and love, attention and solitude. And at the center of it all is a frustratingly vague picture of what his life will look like in the months ahead.

For anyone, this would be exhausting.

That helps explain Molina Mendoza’s measured response after hearing last week’s news about his postponed deportation. The notice to appear at ICE’s office in Charlotte Tuesday, he told the INDY the day before, meant that anything could happen.

“There is a high chance of me being detained on Tuesday,” he wrote in a text message, inserting a frowny-face emoji. “They will try to deport me again.”

They didn’t, but the day proved nonetheless to be another emotional roller coaster.

He made the tense drive to Charlotte early Tuesday morning, alongside Francisco and a handful of supporters. He walked up to the second floor of the ICE office, anxiously awaiting an update, as immigration officers filed in and out of the room. And eventually he walked out with a notice to appear—along with renewed plans to spend the rest of his whirlwind Valentine’s Day with Francisco.

That felt nice.

“I gotta say, I feel really good,” he told the INDY afterward. “I’m happy because I thought there was a possibility for them to not respect the position and detain me. And that didn’t happen. It’s a small step, because my deportation is still pending. But I’m still here, I’m not deported.”

Mendoza Molina still worries. His next check-in might end differently.

“Maybe they didn’t detain me today because there was so much public pressure and media,” he said, “but maybe next time they might try to because maybe the media won’t be there.”

And so he’ll return to his home in Durham, where he’ll type away on his laptop underneath a poster depicting a cartoon unicorn in a red therapist’s chair, with a speech bubble capturing the shrink’s response: “You need to believe in yourself.”

That's all he can do, really. But he’ll still sleep restlessly. Sometimes after events, even after all of the kind words and hugs, he’ll still feel sad.

“I feel the pressure, I feel everything, the weight of the decision coming. But I try not to focus on that,” he says. “When I go out with my family or Francisco, like it or not, we always have that conversation. But I try to enjoy it.”

Sometimes, he adds, “I just stop, and I start breathing.” ehellerstein@indyweek.com

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Educated at The Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan, Cushman is the author of her own cookbook, “Simple, Real Food.”

Amanda’s healthy recipes have appeared in publications such as Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking and Vegetarian Times. In Los Angeles her highly successful private classes included celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Sims and Randy Newman.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

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ight Kitchen Bakehouse & Cafe opened in November of 2014 rather quietly. “We didn’t have much time or extra cash to have a big to-do,” says owner Helen Pfann, “My Dad brought some wine for a soft opening party, and then we were off.”

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Exchange and fine teas from Tin Roof Teas, it’s a great space to meet a friend or have a small gathering at one of the larger farm tables. A selection of sandwiches, daily soup and quiche specials round out the menu.

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Amanda’s healthy recipes have appeared in publications such as Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking and Vegetarian Times. In Los Angeles her highly successful private classes included celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Sims and Randy Newman.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

Educated at The Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan, Cushman is the author of her own cookbook, “Simple, Real Food.”

Amanda’s healthy recipes have appeared in publications such as Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking and Vegetarian Times. In Los Angeles her highly successful private classes included celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Sims and Randy Newman.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

In addition to a number of regularly scheduled cooking classes each month at venues such as Southern Season, Durham Wines and Spirits, Duke Diet and Fitness Center and UNC Wellness, Amanda offers private cooking classes in your home throughout the Triangle as well as corporate team building events. ●

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hef Amanda Cushman’s private cooking classes are just the thing for the foodie in you. If you love to cook, entertain, or just appreciate the pleasure of great food, private cooking classes are the place to indulge your passions. The classes are designed for both the novice cook and seasoned home chef and will empower you to cook with confidence. Bringing together groups from two to twenty in your home Amanda will provide tips on shopping, planning ahead and entertaining with ease.

Amanda’s healthy recipes have appeared in publications such as Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking and Vegetarian Times. In Los Angeles her highly successful private classes included celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Sims and Randy Newman.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

Educated at The Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan, Cushman is the author of her own cookbook, “Simple, Real Food.”

Amanda’s healthy recipes have appeared in publications such as Food and Wine, Cooking Light, Fine Cooking and Vegetarian Times. In Los Angeles her highly successful private classes included celebrities such as Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Sims and Randy Newman.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

Wanting a slower pace with more focus on local, farm to table access and a stronger sense of community Chef Amanda and her husband recently moved to Durham.

In addition to a number of regularly scheduled cooking classes each month at venues such as Southern Season, Durham Wines and Spirits, Duke Diet and Fitness Center and UNC Wellness, Amanda offers private cooking classes in your home throughout the Triangle as well as corporate team building events. ●

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ight Kitchen Bakehouse & Cafe opened in November of 2014 rather quietly. “We didn’t have much time or extra cash to have a big to-do,” says owner Helen Pfann, “My Dad brought some wine for a soft opening party, and then we were off.”

These days, there’s a lot more buzz about Night Kitchen.

European classics such as croissant, scones, and french macarons have received high marks; as well as more American items such as brownies or the bread pudding, a muffin-shaped treat with caramelized sugar on top.

The breads at Night Kitchen, however, are the real focus.

“I got started as a bread baker,” explains Pfann, “...and though I enjoy pastry work, making bread is what I love most.” Night Kitchen sells Sourdough, 9-Grain, and French bread everyday, and features daily specials. The bakery supplies bread to several local restaurants, including Farina, J Betski’s, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar. “I designed the kitchen so we could do wholesale and have room to grow. We’ve just started working with the Produce Box, so folks statewide can try our breads.”

The final piece of the pie is the cafe at Night Kitchen.

Exchange and fine teas from Tin Roof Teas, it’s a great space to meet a friend or have a small gathering at one of the larger farm tables. A selection of sandwiches, daily soup and quiche specials round out the menu.

The breads at Night Kitchen, however, are the real focus.

“I got started as a bread baker,” explains Pfann, “...and though I enjoy pastry work, making bread is what I love most.” Night Kitchen sells Sourdough, 9-Grain, and French bread everyday, and features daily specials. The bakery supplies bread to several local restaurants, including Farina, J Betski’s, and Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar. .These days, there’s a lot more buzz about Night Kitchen. European classics such as croissant, scones, and french macarons have received high marks; as well as more American items such as brownies or the bread pudding, a muffin-shaped treat with caramelized sugar on top. ●

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As a client, you can expect to become better acquainted with your thinking, behavior, responses, and feelings so that you can ultimately live more fully and authentically. We’ll work together to discover and build on your strengths and empower you to conquer negative patterns so you have greater emotional and overall psychological freedom.

My therapeutic foundation is based on a blend of Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a full, heartfelt engagement with the world. Using a mix of narrative therapy, mindfulness, meditation, breathing, and physical movement techniques, I help you uncover and develop your strengths, so that you can live more fully and enjoy more emotional balance, stronger relationships, and get what you want out of life.

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INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 15

FIGHTING

WORDS A DURHAM PUBLISHER AND NATIONAL POETS FIND CONCRETE WAYS TO CONFRONT POLICE VIOLENCE THROUGH ART IN RESISTING ARREST

BY BRIAN HOWE

R

esisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky, published by Durham’s Jacar Press last spring, begins with two epigraphs. The first, “Writing is fighting,” comes from Ishmael Reed, who is included in the anthology. It establishes the book’s contested terrain as that of racial justice in America. The second, from Brecht, is, “You can’t write poems about the trees when the woods are full of policemen.” It echoes Adorno’s famous but unheeded words. We kept writing poetry after Auschwitz.

Now we find ourselves in another historical moment when beauty alone seems insufficient at best, grotesque at worst as a response to various human crises, including the epidemic of police violence against people of color. The risk for poets, to continue Brecht’s analogy, is of missing the cops for the forest.

But Resisting Arrest sees differently. It contains contributions from a wide range of writers, from accomplished North Carolinians like Metta Sáma, Jaki Shelton Green, and Howard Craft to Pulitzer or National Book Award winners such as Rita Dove and Yusef Komunyakaa. All their voices stream together in a democratic chorus with no hierarchical section breaks, resolutely focused on police brutality. Nobody involved, from the contributors to the publisher, is making a dime. At reading events like the one at Letters Bookshop next Wednesday, anyone is invited to read a poem from the anthology. The tacit argument is that if we’re to continue writing poetry during our own slow, ongoing American genocide, the line between art being about social justice and art being involved must shift.

Tony Medina, a creative writing professor at Howard University who has been involved in a gargantuan number of book projects, edited Resisting Arrest. His introductory essay, “Call Their Names,” comes directly to the point.

“The rate at which black and brown—and even white—

RESISTING ARREST: POEMS TO STRETCH THE SKY Jacar Press publisher Richard Krawiec PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER 16 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

Wednesday, February 22, 7 p.m., free Letters Bookshop, Durham www.jacarpress.com

people killed by police are packing American morgues is breathtaking,” it begins. “The rotting stench of such outlandish policing is enough to lead mobs of people to their local jailhouses and police precincts demanding justice lest they turnover each façade brick by brick.” Then Medina unfurls a funerary shroud of stories—Sarah Lee Circle Bear, Sandra Bland, Troy Goode, Tamir Rice, Andy Lopez, Walter Scott, Gilbert Flores, on and on—wound together by concise treatments of Black Lives Matter, the prison pipeline, and the normalization of police violence.

Another layer of the Brecht epigraph is revealed in Medina’s growing sense of dark absurdity, which comes out when he touches on Durham’s Jesus Huerta: “The narratives are becoming more Kafkaesque and absurd: handcuffed in the back of a patrol car, he grabbed the officer’s gun and shot himself dead in his chest.” The persuasive critique goes on for 2,500 words; poetry doesn’t come up until the very end. It’s clear in its intent to be a call to action, not an aesthetic object.

Guernica, Medina signs off.

The poems, like the essay, teem with actual names, dates, people, and places. Urgency shines out in the emergency-broadcast quality of their titles: Camille Rankine’s “Survival Guide for Animals Born in Captivity,” Sáma’s “How to Not Get Killed by the NYPD,” and Medina’s “#IfIDieinPoliceCustody,” which asks us to know that “Regardless of my hands/ Cuffed behind my back/ That I preferred my blood/ Inside my body instead[.]”

As Medina drew upon his vast network of contacts to gather poems for the anthology, he found people not only eager to contribute but also to suggest others, which caused the book to swell to nearly two hundred pages.

“They wanted to be a part of something that was dealing with this major crisis in the country,” Medina says by phone from Washington, D.C. “They gladly gave me the work.” Contributors were paid in a copy of the book. All proceeds go to the Urban League’s Whitney M. Young Social Justice Scholarship, which supports students in the D.C. metro area who are pursuing a field in social justice or police reform. Medina expects to hand over the first check, for at least fifteen hundred dollars, in August.

When I first came across Resisting Arrest last year, I wondered then what you’re probably wondering now: How did such an ambitious anthology, curated by an influential Howard professor, wind up on a small independent press in Durham?

The answer lies in Medina’s chance meeting with Richard Krawiec and the unique nature of his Jacar Press—the result of his long experience in writing and activism.

Tony Medina PHOTO COURTESY OF TONY MEDINA

M

edina and Krawiec met at a reading in Bethesda, Maryland, several years ago. Krawiec had published Medina in an anthology, and they had similar views on the state of the nation. They kept in touch on Facebook. “There were a lot of poets writing about police brutality, and Richard had a similar idea,” Medina says. “I was like, ‘I want to do this anthology, are you down?’

He was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’ He was very supportive.”

Krawiec is a gregarious sixty-four-year-old New Englander with a lifelong attraction to the nexus of writing and social justice.

“I grew up one street over from the projects,” he says at Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe, discussing his childhood in Brockton, Massachusetts. “We weren’t upwardly mobile so much as trying not to fall backwards. I’d go play baseball in sneakers and dungarees, and the other kids had the cleats and stuff. I was subconsciously aware of exclusion—that people I hung out with in the projects, their voices were really not heard. I didn’t come to this writing about myself. I came to it writing about other people’s lives.”

Krawiec developed a sharp social consciousness early, perhaps because of his liminal class position (the novelist Richard Price comes to mind). He carried a fish around his neighborhood when he was eleven to protest the slaughter of baby seals. In the sixties, that conscience found ample ways to express itself, first through the antiwar movement.

“That opened up everything: civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights,” Krawiec says. “I started to see it as all interconnected.”

After graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a creative writing degree, Krawiec made his first steps into publishing. Most notably, in 1986, Viking issued one of his novels, Time Sharing, which was favorably reviewed but poorly promoted after

Krawiec’s editor left the publishing house, stranding him at midlist.

This was one of several experiences that shaped the model of what would eventually become Jacar Press. Another was founding a nonprofit called Voices, which, among many activities, offered literacy workshops in writing, a rarity in a field that usually focused on reading skills. Krawiec ran it through the eighties and into the nineties.

“We did a lot of work in homeless shelters and women’s shelters,” Krawiec says, “and I believe were the first to publish an anthology of writing by homeless people in the country.”

Voices’ publishing projects, which also included textbooks on teaching writing to adult learners and inner-city poetry anthologies, set the scene for the next phase as Krawiec became disillusioned with the nonprofit world—something that crystallized around 2008.

“When Obama got elected and talked about a stimulus plan for the banks, and I thought poets could have a stimulus plan too,” Krawiec remembers. “I thought of this anthology called The Sound of Poets Cooking, with poems and recipes by poets. I tried to give it to so many publishers but said I wanted the money to go back to fund workshops in low-income communities, and no one wanted to do that. So I said ‘screw it’ and started a press. Then we just kind of continued publishing, because you can’t have too many ways to lose money, right?”

Jacar set out to be what Krawiec calls a “community active” press. “You’re not going to make money anyway,” he says, “so I started from that notion, that I’m doing this instead of buying a new car or house. It was very freeing.”

Though Jacar doesn’t have nonprofit status—Krawiec had been there, done that—all the money it generates from book sales funds future publications and community work, or goes to causes such as Black Lives Matter and the Dakota Access Pipeline. The poetry doesn’t always, or even often, have an overtly activist bent, but the structure behind it explicitly does.

“One of the models I had in my head was Alice James Books in Boston, kind of a cooperative,” Krawiec explains. “When they started people thought of them as self-publishing because everyone contributed [money]. Our writers don’t contribute, but I liked the communitarian model that incorporated writers into the press.”

Jacar writers teach workshops and work as editors and readers for the press’s online journal, One. The press handles its own distribution to avoid fees that would cut into donatable proceeds.

“When Tony said to me, ‘We’ve been writing about this shit for decades, we’ve got so many poems about this and should put

[Resisting Arrest] together, we thought it was a great idea,” Krawiec says. “There are too many black people being killed and we have to do something. It was Tony’s vision, and we knew it would be wrong to make money on it.”

Jacar doesn’t follow the traditional publishing model that Krawiec calls “launch, then forget,” and the promotion of the book goes on. The Durham event this week follows large readings in Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, and elsewhere. As at those events, the one at Letters will feature a mix of invited performers—including Howard Craft, members of Black Ops Theatre Company, and filmmaker Rodrigo Dorfman—and audience members.

Anyone who comes is invited to participate by reading a poem and weighing in during the discussion that follows. Future events for Greensboro and Wilmington are in the works.

“We want to try to break it down,” Krawiec says of the audience-performer divide, “and to involve people who don’t normally think of themselves as readers. It’s not just the stage, and we’re watching it—we are the stage. I don’t want to take ownership of it, but for each community to facilitate it, how to move forward and address issues of race and violence.”

This widening circle of involvement represents what poetry can do that other kinds of reportage can’t.

“It humanizes,” Medina says, “outside of statistics and news items, where people become numb to things. It gives you the interior and puts some meat on the bones of those victimized. All these poets come from various aesthetic backgrounds—it’s multigenerational, multicultural. In the introduction, I’m mentioning not just African Americans being killed by police, but white folks, Native Americans, Latinos.”

For Jacar Press, “the activism is not exactly separate [from the poetry], it’s kind of the outcome of our values,” Krawiec says. Resisting Arrest treads the same line between fine art and active activism. Medina is teaching it in his classes at Howard, and students are writing responses to the poems.

“We wanted it to be an artistic tool and also something that’s used for activism,” Medina says. “But it’s ultimately about art. The poetry itself has a lot to teach us in terms of language, poetics, metaphors—how we perceive things and the ways in which we enter into these lives that have become broken through violence. There’s always this dichotomy between art and social responsibility. This, I think, just fits perfectly with the two. The art is just as important as what is being discussed about human behavior in our society.”

At a time when anxiety over the efficacy of art is understandably high, Resisting Arrest is an example of how art can matter. Add your voice to the chorus at Letters Bookshop in a week. bhowe@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 17

INDY WEEK’S BAR + BEVERAGE MAGAZINE ON STANDS FEBRUARY 22

18 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

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Joey Barbour preps and pours a Smoked Turkey cocktail at his Raleigh bar, The Blind Barbour.

PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN

Turkey Lurking

THE BLIND BARBOUR REALLY HAS A DRINK CALLED THE SMOKED TURKEY, AND ONE OF THOSE THINGS REALLY IS IN IT

BY CURT FIELDS Excluding certain small-batch bourbons and twenty-five-year-old single malt Scotches, the best thing you can have in your glass at the moment is a Smoked Turkey.

No, this is not some Thanksgiving-themed fever dream. It’s a specialty cocktail at The Blind Barbour in Raleigh that stimulates your palate with an array of flavors: Wild Turkey rye, yellow chartreuse, Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur, and a habanero syrup. Oh, and smoke. Lots of smoke.

The concoction owes its existence to a Texan gentleman who’s adopted The Blind Barbour as his watering hole whenever he’s in town. According to Joey Barbour, the bar’s owner, one night this out-of-town regular came in and asked Barbour to make him something smoky with a little kick.

Barbour set to work experimenting. He went with the rye, which has a rounder spice flavor profile than sweet bourbon. He added the yellow chartreuse for a touch of earthiness. Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur, an aperitif made in Puebla, Mexico, and the bar’s own habanero syrup took care of the heat. The smoky part posed more of a challenge.

At first, Barbour tried resting a glass over smoke while making the drink. That was promising, but it did not produce enough smoke. Then Barbour got “a smoke gun”–a

glass-bulb-and-hose contraption that might well bring back memories of late-night dormroom bong sessions to a certain demographic of patron. The gun funnels the smoke from cherry wood chips into the drink itself. With a bit of swirling liquid and smoke, the desired visual effect is achieved to perfection.

The initial sip is pleasant, smooth, with a smoky aura but not remarkable. Then, at the third or fourth swallow, the heat of the habanero and chile claims residence at the back of your throat, providing a gentle but persistent reminder that you’re holding a glass of complexity in your hand. From that point on, the savory layers of spice, smoke, and real heat make your taste buds dance.

“When there are ten or twelve people in here, all it takes is for someone to order that first one,” Barbour says. They start watching the smoke gun in action and “then at least two or three others will want one.”

He says he also gets customers coming in who have never heard of the Smoked Turkey.

“They just say ‘Give me that smoky thing’ after seeing it on someone’s Instagram or Facebook.”

Now you know: “that smoky thing” is called a Smoked Turkey and you definitely want one. .food@indyweek.com

MDD Study

The Frohlich Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill is looking for individuals who would be interested in participating in a clinical research study. This study is testing the effect of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on mood symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder.

Transcranial current stimulation is a technique that delivers a very weak current to the scalp. Treatment has been well tolerated with no serious side-effects reported. This intervention is aimed at restoring normal brain activity and function which may reduce mood symptoms experienced with Major Depressive Disorder. We are looking for individuals between the ages of 18 and 65, diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder currently not taking benzodiazepines or antiepileptic drugs.

You can get compensated up to $280 for completing this study. If you are interested in learning more, contact our study coordinator at: morgan_alexander@med.unc.edu Or call us at (919) 966-4755 INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 19

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COOK THIS ]

Hot Take BIG SPOON’S NEWEST PEANUT BUTTER

SPICES UP SAVORY AND SWEET RECIPES

BY EMMA LAPERRUQUE

Sesame n Big Spoon’s Hot Peanut butter is the base for a satay-style peanut sauce. PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN

M

ark Overbay has been thinking about Hot Peanut since he started Big Spoon Roasters in 2011.

He stumbled upon the flavor more than a decade before that—in 1999 in Zimbabwe, where he lived and worked as a Peace Corps volunteer. There, his local neighbors roasted peanuts over an open fire, smashed them into butter by hand, and stirred in any number of ingredients. Some went the sweet route with coconut oil or meat. Others, savory with avocado. And others still, fiery with bird’s eye chili. The last, especially, had Overbay wide-eyed.

“Conventional wisdom says there are five flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami.

I believe there is a sixth,” he says. “Heat.”

A few years after he left Africa, he crossed paths with the flavor again—this time in Washington, D.C. A friend from Haiti introduced Overbay to his homeland’s favorite condiment, spicy peanut butter, which soon became Overbay’s equivalent to a millenni20 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

al’s sriracha. He used it to improve anything and everything in his kitchen: toast with apricot jam, raw carrots and celery, sautéed vegetables and rice.

When he eventually decided to start a nut butter business, he knew he wanted to produce his own version. It just took six years to get it right. The flavor, which debuted in September, is the most recent addition to the Big Spoon collection.

“It’s been a passion project, for sure,” he laughs. “This is an usually long recipe development process.”

He tried infusing raw chilies into honey and dried chilies into salt. He tried jalapeños and tobagos and aji dulces. He adjusted and altered, tweaked and tailored, “trying to nail down the right combination of brightness and complexity and smokiness and sweetness.”

Finally, he found it: punchy guajillos, dark anchos, floral habaneros, a little kiss from cane sugar and another from salt. The

result is addictive enough to, well, eat by the spoonful. But just like Overbay in D.C., I can’t stop cooking with it.

SESAME NOODLES

When you think of sesame noodles, you’re probably thinking of peanut butter noodles, supplemented by a little sesame oil or sesame paste. This version is American-Chinese takeout-style, gratifying and best eaten in bed. Serve with cucumber spears, scallion slivers, and sambal oelek to dollop on top.

1/

2 pound whole-wheat spaghetti 5 tablespoons Hot Peanut 2 tablespoons tahini 1 tablespoon black vinegar 1 tablespoon mined ginger 2 garlic cloves, minced or microplaned 5 teaspoons soy sauce 1 teaspoon sriracha 2 tablespoons water, plus more as needed

Boil the spaghetti in salty water until al 1 teaspo dente, about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, stir 1 teaspo together the rest of the ingredients. Adjust 1 garlic the thickness (water) and spice (sriracha) to your preference. When the noodles are Stir tog done, drain and add to the sauce. Toss.Add a spo thickness Chill completely before serving

SATAY-STYLE PEANUT SAUCE PEANU This Southeast Asia-inspired sauceCOCKT

evokes what you’d expect from chicken Cockta satay—or grilled, skewered meat. But don’ting guru D limit yourself to chicken. Try it with porkbook, Dor ribs, crispy tofu, fried eggplant, summermeant for rolls, and rice bowls. Store any leftovers inof-the-nig the fridge for up to five days. Just make sureinspiratio to take it out well in advance of serving, ascrosses b swaps in s the sauce solidifies when cold. peanuts a 1/ 1/

4 cup Hot Peanut

4 cup unsweetened coconut milk

1 tablespoon fish sauce 1 tablespoon soy sauce

4 ounce 1/ cup H 2 3 tables 1 egg yo

PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER

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Sesame noodles get a local kick. PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN

1 teaspoon brown sugar 1 teaspoon teaspoon minced ginger 1 garlic clove, minced or microplaned Stir together all ingredients until smooth.

Add a spoonful or two of water to adjust the thickness to your preference.

PEANUT BUTTER COCKTAIL COOKIES

Cocktail cookies—a term coined by baking guru Dorie Greenspan in her latest cookbook, Dorie’s Cookies—are savory cookies, meant for appetizers and drinks (or middleof-the-night munchies). This recipe draws inspiration from classic peanut butter crisscrosses but omits most of the sugar and swaps in spice instead. Imagine salty, spiced peanuts and ice-cold beer—just better.

4 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature 1/ cup Hot Peanut 2 3 tablespoons sugar 1 egg yolk

1/ teaspoon salt 2 1/ teaspoon baking soda 2 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment.

Combine the butter, Hot Peanut, and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream until combined, about 1 minute. Add the egg yolk and mix to combine. Add the salt and baking soda and mix to combine. Slowly add the flour and mix to combine, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.

Scoop the cookies by the tablespoon on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them a few inches apart. Smush flat with your palm and decorate with the prongs of a fork into crisscrosses. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the bottoms and edges begin to brown.

Cool completely before serving with very cold drinks. food@indyweek.com

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indy indymusic music WILL MOOGFEST’S PROTEST STAGE DO GOOD IN A BATTLEGROUND STATE, OR IS IT JUST A BUNCH OF BUZZ?

I

f you watched the Super Bowl, you probably noticed a curious, softened shift in advertisers’ messages this year. Ford used Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” a song about the civil rights movement, to hawk new cars, while Audi touted girl power to do the same. Airbnb’s spot delivered the platitude that “we all belong,” while 84 Lumber appeared to offer a proimmigrant message—but in an interview with People magazine, CEO and owner Maggie Hardy Magerko said she supported President Trump’s proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico. At a tumultuous time, brands have caught wind of the idea that marketing with a message can move units.

Moogfest, which takes over downtown Durham for the second time in mid-May, is joining those ranks. On February 6, the day after the Super Bowl, the festival issued a press release announcing that this year’s iteration would feature a “protest stage.” Quoting Martin Luther King Jr., denouncing HB 2, and praising the January 21 women’s marches, the press release offered links to the ACLU of North Carolina and Equality NC but revealed little in the way of useful information about the protest stage’s actual purpose or end game. Which raises the question: Is Moogfest trying to join the corporate masses seeking to cash in on bleeding hearts, or is the festival genuinely committed to effecting change in its home state?

22 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

BY ALLISON HUSSEY

The answer, at least right now, is tricky.

Like last year, Moogfest’s programming features different themes, which include Transhumanism, The Joyful Noise of STEAM, The Future of Creativity, and Techno-Shamanism, among others. In an interview with the website CLRVYNT earlier this month, the festival’s creative director, Emmy Parker, said that the current volatile political climate made "Protest" an obvious theme choice for 2017.

But she didn’t elaborate much.

“We were trying to use the various elements provided by the festival to give urgency to these issues and concepts, so protest, as an idea, became the main stage. The festival opens that first day with programming around the theme of protest, and a lot of it will take place on that stage,” the website quoted Parker as saying. (Parker declined the INDY’s request for an interview.)

Representatives from the festival declined to comment further on the protest stage, saying they couldn’t share additional details until the festival made its first announcements about nighttime programming in early March. That seems to suggest that whatever’s going on at the protest stage is connected to the festival’s ticketed events, rather than its free daytime programming, which is open to the public. (Asked directly whether the protest stage will be a ticketed event, Moogfest’s publicist said she'd have more details soon.) Those nighttime tickets aren’t cheap: a weekend pass costs $249

(you can upgrade to a $500 VIP pass), and there are no single-day ticket options.

If you want to participate in Moogfest’s protest, it appears, you’ll have to shell out a hefty sum.

If that’s Moogfest’s strategy, it’s one that’s been proven to work—as those Super Bowl ads demonstrated. Jonathan Wisely, the executive creative director at the Raleigh-based communications firm Capstrat, notes that brands always want to connect with audiences based on perceived relevance. This year, they’re doing that by hooking on to what everybody’s talking about: the state of the nation, rather than singular pop culture events or trends.

“It just so happens that the most talked-about events just happened to be more on the social side,” he says. “Whether it’s because of the travel ban, or whether it’s because people are still feeling the sting of the election, it’s very much on everybody’s minds. I think that brands and advertisers see that as an opportunity to be relevant.”

Moogfest, meanwhile, is trying to demonstrate its relevance to North Carolina’s here-and-now through the lofty promise that it’s pushing back against inequality.

But even that claim feels weak.

When the festival didn’t want to clarify its work with the protest stage, the INDY reached out to nineteen organizations to gauge the extent to which Moogfest had begun working with local activists and social-justice-minded groups—the very

ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE OLIVA

outfits that are already on the ground doing the work to which Moogfest claims it’s committed. Those organizations included nationally affiliated groups such as Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, NARAL Pro-Choice NC, the Human Rights Campaign, and the ACLU, plus grassroots groups such as Triangle SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), Durham Artists Movement, and the LGBTQ Center of Durham.

Of the dozen that responded by press time, none said that Moogfest had contacted them. Several, including Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Girls Rock NC, and the new Come Out & Show Them, indicated that they’d be interested in collaborating with Moogfest. But even though they might be logical places for the festival to start, Moogfest had not gotten in touch with them.

Three more months remain until Moogfest starts, which doesn’t leave the festival much time to flesh out its mission of protest. If Moogfest can manage meaningful collaborations with local organizations, then it has an opportunity to support progressive causes in a significant way. The festival is a mighty force with a lot of money behind it, and it can wield its power to encourage its affluent, out-of-town audience to make a real difference. But if the “protest” is merely a string of self-aggrandizing buzzwords, it doesn’t take any deep listening for it to ring hollow. ahussey@indyweek.com

FINDER

on stands

THE INDY'S GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE

now

INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 23

indystage

NC COMEDY ARTS FESTIVAL

Wednesday, February 15–Sunday, February 26 Various venues, Chapel Hill www.nccomedyarts.com

Hijinks & Highlights

THE FUNNY SIDE OF INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE, HENSON GONE WILD, AND A MADCAP MUSICAL AT THE NC COMEDY ARTS FESTIVAL

BY ZACK SMITH

Josh Cohen and Tamra Malaga

T

PHOTO COURTESY OF NCCAF

he seventeenth NC Comedy Arts Festival, which brings a wide variety of events to DSI Comedy Theater, The ArtsCenter, and Local 506 over the next twelve days, has a simple slogan: “Because you need to laugh again.” Lord knows that’s true these days, when life has a level of absurdity that almost defies parody. The annual gathering of improv, sketch, and stand-up acts has grown into a Southeastern destination for independent comedy since its inception, offering shows for fans and workshops for industry hopefuls and pros. This year includes the usual raft of marquee names (Emo Philips, Aparna Nancherla), up-and-comers, and wild cards. Here are a few of our tops picks that might otherwise slide under your radar.

AIL PODCAST: KEISHA ZOLLAR & ANDREW KIMLER (Saturday, Feb. 18, 7:30 p.m., The ArtsCenter, $20) You might have seen Keisha Zollar at the NC Comedy Arts Festival before— alongside Sasheer Zamata, who is now a regular on Saturday Night Live. You also might recognize her from her season-two 24 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

appearance on Orange Is the New Black or her recurring role on HBO’s Divorce, with Sarah Jessica Parker. But outside of her acting career, she’s built a formidable reputation for her hilariously direct, blunt comedy.

In 2014, she raised more than five thousand dollars on Kickstarter for the roundtable video "An Uncomfortable Conversation About Race;" more recently, she started AIL Podcast with her husband, Andrew Kimler. In it, they discuss the issues that come with an interracial marriage, along with anything else they and their comedian friends want to talk about.

Catch this live show while it’s still relatively new—as fans of such podcasts as Criminal and Welcome to Night Vale can attest, live shows for breakout podcasts tend to sell out fast.

Appearing in tandem with Mark Kendall’s one-man show The Magic Negro and Other Blackness, which is about the representation of black men in the media, this show should give fans something to talk as well as laugh about.

Keisha Zollar PHOTO COURTESY OF NCCAF

T.J. Mannix PHOTO COURTESY OF NCCAF

THE JOSH & TAMRA SHOW (Friday, Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m., The ArtsCenter, $20) Puppets meet improv courtesy of a crazed duo perfect for fans of Avenue Q. Tamra Malaga and the Jim Henson Workshop-trained Josh Cohen have been doing puppet comedy for as long as NCCAF has existed, creating rapid-fire characters and situations with a good bit of felt thrown in. Not for kids, but great fun for the wickedly childish at heart, the show is ticketed with performances by Boston improv group Actual Garbage People and (Eric + Holly) of Los Angeles.

from the audience to suggest song titles, subject matter, and even choreography.

“We’ve never done this show together before, so I have no idea how this is going to go,” Mannix recently told the INDY. Past versions of LimboLand with other music directors have gotten elaborate. “I end up singing duets and trios and quartets with myself, running back and forth from chair to chair,” Mannix says. “Last year at the festival, I think I wound up playing a family of four who were all singing together.”

A former Upright Citizens Brigade student trained by Amy Poehler, Mannix has toured with Second City and is now a veteran improv teacher himself. But coming up with a suggestion-based musical on the fly remains a unique challenge. “You basically have to develop these characters and remember their point of view and maintain their physicality while coming up with lyrics and remembering the plot,” Mannix explains. In other words, amateur improvisers: don’t try this at home. LimboLand is ticketed with shows by Messing with a Friend and the NCCAF Improv All-Stars. arts@indyweek.com

LIMBOLAND (Saturday, Feb. 25, 9 p.m., The ArtsCenter, $20) Improv players are all over the festival, and improvised music can be heard at any jazz club. But what happens when the two spontaneous forms combine? T.J. Mannix, a former resident of Apex and Raleigh, takes on the challenge in LimboLand, his one-man show with music director Mike Descoteaux. They’ve previously collaborated on the off-Broadway show Blank: The Musical, where they took text suggestions

stage

THE GOD GAME

ZUCCOTTI PARK

HHH½ Through Feb. 19 Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh www.sonorousroadtheatre.com

HH Through Feb. 26 Umstead Park UCC, Raleigh www.thejusticetheaterproject.org

Breaking Faith

THE INHERENTLY POLITICAL NATURE OF THEATER IS EXPOSED, WITH VARYING SUCCESS, IN THE GOD GAME AND ZUCCOTTI PARK

BY BYRON WOODS As I noted last week in “27 Reasons We Love the Triangle Right Now,” the ancient Greeks used theater to consider the thorniest political problems of their day. What’s less obvious, though, is that theater is inherently political, even when it isn’t trying to be.

Since every tale can’t be told simultaneously, whenever a company chooses to place a particular play in the public eye, it’s necessarily privileging that narrative above others, at least for a time. When a company announces a season, as several have in recent weeks, we have every right to conclude that it has chosen shows that express its best thoughts about the most relevant and immediate stories for our time.

One cannot fault THE GOD GAME, whose incisive regional premiere closes this weekend at Sonorous Road Theatre, on such grounds—or Zuccotti Park, for that matter, which Justice Theater Project unveiled last weekend in its new venue at Umstead Park United Church of Christ.

In The God Game, playwright Suzanne Bradbeer’s characters—a young Virginia senator, his wife, and a potential political kingmaker who’s been their longtime friend—debate an uncomfortable and paradoxical reality of present-day American politics: in a republic whose Constitution expressly forbids legislation “respecting an establishment of religion,” only a professed Christian has a chance of being elected to the nation’s highest office.

Under June Guralnick’s direction, a pensive David Hudson portrays Tom, a rising, somewhat progressive Republican star whose military service, political bona fides— and conspicuously devout wife, Lisa (Courtney Christison)—have until now deflected questions about his personal religious beliefs.

But when the party’s presidential nominee, a reactionary who’s been pandering to the “anti-intellectual and anti-gay wing of the party” wants him as his running mate, Lisa realizes two things. Tom’s agnosticism can’t stay hidden, and it could pose more than a political risk to them both.

that subject on Fox News in 2016.

But we begin to feel lectured—if not preached at—as the video runs overlong when a series of locals present their views on government. And it’s hardly subtle when Guralnick concludes the production not with Bradbeer’s last lines but with video overkill: footage from Jeff Sessions’s confirmation hearings, juxtaposed with footage of a forest fire.

Beau Clark and Courtney Christison in The God Game Contemplating the religious fringe element, she tells Matt (Beau Clark), the political operative who’s just offered Tom the vice presidency, “If people found out he didn’t believe in God, someone would try to kill him!”

But as it continues, the discourse between Matt, Tom, and Lisa takes on biblical overtones all its own, primarily related to temptation and resistance. Before the end, Tom and Lisa are both seduced by their old friend with the promise of power and its trappings. And all it would take is the smallest compromise: an occasional word about God from the lips of an unbeliever.

Bradbeer’s plotting is uneven. In one energy-sapping sequence, she gins up a gratuitous argument on the nature of souls to

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONOROUS ROAD

highlight Tom and Lisa’s disagreements on religious matters. The trio’s backstory runs a little long as well. Still, the confrontations of conscience at the end effectively pull taut any slack on the line.

But this production sometimes appears to lack its own necessary faith in the story.

Guralnick needlessly adds a sound and light cue or two to the script to underline moments that are already adequately portentous.

Miyuki Su and Jeffrey Nugent’s tasteful set wraps around the audience, placing us in Tom’s home office. And Neill Prewitt’s preshow multimedia montage punctuates eighteenth-century military tattoos and contemporary hymns with Ronald Reagan’s remarks on the separation of church and state and Franklin Graham’s thoughts on

In ZUCCOTTI PARK, playwright Catherine Hurd and composer Vatrena King attempt to immortalize in musical theater the historic Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that took place there before similar protests were sparked across the country in 2011. Ironically, some of the problems that ultimately limited the long-term impact of the movement also bedevil this stage interpretation.

Early on, after a dippy TV news reporter (Lucia Foster) asks what the group is protesting, the ensemble roars, “Everything!” Unfortunately, when you try to put everything, including a contrived romance, into one show, focus and characterizations become problematic.

Hurd’s script strings together stand-alone sequences that momentarily look at factory workers forced into unemployment, medical insurance caps, inflation and fixed living costs, and homeless military veterans with PTSD, among other complaints.

Given so little stage time to spend with the people embodying these difficulties, directors Jesse Presler and Aya Wallace struggle throughout to develop robust, believable characters among their extended cast. The pitch problems that plague certain singers only make things worse.

The subject matter is noble, and the social struggles depicted here continue to this hour. Unfortunately, weak production values and a script that tries to cover everything in two brief acts don’t bring justice to Zuccotti Park. arts@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 25

2.15–2.22

Weekly podcast airing on several radio stations throughout the country seeks an additional co-host. Looking for someone who will commit to the show and will research topics for discussion.

Good experience for journalism majors.

thisishowweseeit@gmail.com

Talib Kweli COURTESY

community church concerts features

Hank, Pattie & The Current

MUSIC

OF PRESS HERE PUBLICITY

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16 & FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17

TALIB KWELI

It’s highly improbable that revolutionary-minded Brooklyn emcee Talib Kweli will ever reunite with his former partner Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) for another Black Star album, but Kweli’s career has been as busy as his rhyme patterns, and his other partnerships have been just as productive. There’s his relationship with longtime producer Hi-Tek over two Reflection Eternal albums, his experimental dip with vocalist Res as the provocative duo Idle Warship, his Javotti Records label venture with 9th Wonder’s Jamla Records and Pharoahe Monch’s W.A.R. Media as Indie 500, and, most recently, a joint album and tour with Styles Friday October 10th at 8:00PM P of the Lox. Kweli brings that work ethic to Durham in a weeklong artist’s residency at Community Church of Chapel Hill 106 Purefoy Road, Chapel hill NC 27514 Duke, where he’ll take part in two public conversations on music and politics, perform backto-back nights at Motorco, and guest-deejay for 9th Wonder’s monthly 95 Live party in Advance Sale $20 at Raleigh. Hopefully, all these bookings mean that he’ll be spending less time on social media www.communitychurchconcerts.org fighting off bigoted Twitter trolls, so that we get maximum time to enjoy the man responsible for the Nina Simone-inspired hip-hop anthem “Get By” to help us get through these dreary Trump-drunk days. —Eric Tullis

The Kruger Brothers

MOTORCO MUSIC HALL, DURHAM 9 p.m., $10–$32, www.motorcomusic.com

STAGE

“A soulful evolution of American acoustic music, weaving bluegrass into the tapestry of jazz, blues, and classical styles.”

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16–SATURDAY, MARCH 4

BRIGHT HALF LIFE

Tanya Barfield’s Bright Half Life has a lot in common with Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs, which Sonorous Road staged last September. Both are two-character dramas focused on chronic An evening with Jens, Uwe and Joel is always a special overthinkers in love, and both propel us through decades of couples’ lives with the hand musical experience. brake off. But Barfield’s work differs from Macmillan’s in two crucial respects. The dyad in Community Church of Chapel Hill Bright Half Life is lesbian and interracial, and instead of progressing in chronological order, “I used to think the banjo was somewhat limited to certain un8l Chapel I heard Jens Kruger. has played some of the the play flips through their crucial and resonant moments seemingly at random. Lives flash 106 Purefoystyles, Road, Hill, NCJens 27514 most beau8ful and expressive banjo I’ve ever heard.“ before our eyes as Jules Odendahl-James directs JoRose and Tamara Kissane in this Tickets –Ron Block available at regional premiere. —Byron Woods Alison Krauss and Union StaTon www.communitychurchconcerts.org

SATURDAY FEB. 18TH

MANBITES DOG THEATER, DURHAM Various times, $5–$20, www.manbitesdogtheater.org 26 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

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WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

ART FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17 & SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18

STAGE TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21–SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26

MUSIC THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16 & FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17

A busy weekend at the Scrap Exchange begins with an opening reception in its Cameron Gallery that invites viewers to notice the living art around us in the form of plant life. In Specimen: A Collection of Botanical Artistry, which runs through March 11 after this Third Friday opening reception, Aisha Sanders reframes plants as art objects, literally and figuratively. And on Saturday is the twelfth-annual Swap o Rama Rama, where the operative phrase is “new to you.”

That describes the condition of items of clothing you’ll likely be leaving with after attending this popular day of creative reuse. The idea is simple: bring a bunch of clothes, hats, and accessories you’re no longer into, swap them with likeminded others, and then put your own stamp on your new duds at one of various stations devoted to the creative modification of sweaters, T-shirts, and the like. A team of experts will help you with your alterations. —David Klein

Adapting a novel for the stage is a challenge in the best circumstances. But when dealing with Simon Stephens’s adaptation of Mark Haddon’s best-selling 2003 novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the National Theatre’s creative team, including director Marianne Elliott (War Horse), were tasked with making the mind of an adolescent mathematic genius with a spectrum disorder visible onstage as he navigated multiple mysteries—and coming of age—in a bewildering world. They succeeded, conquering the West End (with seven Olivier Awards in 2013) and Broadway (with five Tony Awards two years later). Variety’s Marilyn Stasio termed the spectacle “Cirque du Soleil with brains” and Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised “a production that retunes the way [we] see and hear.” —Byron Woods

Fresh off a two-year residency at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the New York-based Aizuri Quartet visits the Triangle for a few days of teaching and performances. The ensemble’s name comes from an especially intricate and vibrant style of predominantly blue Japanese woodblock prints, an apt comparison for this young quartet’s sound. For Thursday’s show, part of N.C. State’s Arts NOW Series, the group will perform a handful of recent works, including the premiere of a new string quartet by N.C. State professor Peter Askim, whose writing for strings is fluid and expressive. The next day, the Aizuri arrives in Carrboro for the latest installment of Jennifer Curtis’s Overtone Series, where they’ll mix Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Webern with Curtis’s own “Moon in the Sand” for violin and mandolin. Shows in the Overtone Series always have a pleasantly loose feel to them, like a group of friends jamming on the porch. —Dan Ruccia

SPECIMEN & SWAP O RAMA RAMA

THE SCRAP EXCHANGE, DURHAM 6–9 p.m. Fri., free/10 a.m.–3 p.m. Sat., $10 suggested donation, www.scrapexchange.org

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, DURHAM Various times, $30–$155, www.dpacnc.com

AIZURI QUARTET

N.C. STATE’S THOMPSON HALL, RALEIGH 7 p.m. Thurs., $5–$10, www.live.arts.ncsu.edu CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, CARRBORO 6:30 p.m. Fri., $15, www.catscradle.com

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO?

NINA CHANEL ABNEY AT THE NASHER (P. 33), THE BODY AND QUEER LISTENING AT POWER PLANT GALLERY (P. 35), EARLS OF LEICESTER AT DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM (P. 29), ELECTRONIC SUMMIT AT KINGS (P. 30), THE GOD GAME AT SONOROUS ROAD THEATRE (P. 25), NC COMEDY ARTS FESTIVAL IN CHAPEL HILL (P. 24), A PIECE OF PARADE AT THE VAULT (P. 35), RESISTING ARREST AT LETTERS BOOKSHOP (P. 16), TIMOTHY B. TYSON AT QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS (P. 36), ZUCCOTTI PARK AT UMSTEAD PARK UCC (P. 25) INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 27

music

TH 2/23 @THE RITZ

2/16 THE RADIO DEPT. W/ THE GERMANS ($15/$17) 2/17 STRFKR W/ PSYCHIC TWIN

SOLD OUT

SHOVELS & ROPE

2/18 ABBEY ROAD LIVE! TWO SHOWS, 4 PM & 8:30 PM

TU 2/21

HAMILTON LEITHAUSER

2/21 HAMILTON LEITHAUSER W/ LUCY DACUS ($17/$20) 2/24 NRBQ W/TERRY ANDERSON AND THE O.A.K. TEAM ($25) 2/25 VEGABONDS W/ATLAS ROAD CREW, LEFT ON FRANKLIN, BAKED GOODS, WILL OVERMAN BAND ($5/$10) 2/26 NIKKI LANE HIGHWAY

QUEEN TOUR

W/ BRENT COBB & JONATHAN TYLER ($15/$17) 2/28 THE ENGLISH BEAT ($18/$20) 3/1 JAPANDROIDS W/ CRAIG FINN ($20/$23)

CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 2/15 DUSTBOWL REVIVAL W/LESTER COALBANKS AND THE SEVEN SORROWS ($10)

3/2 THE GROWLERS ($20) 3/6 COLONY HOUSE W/ DEEP SEA DIVER ($12/$15)

2/18 (8PM) SUSTO W/ JUSTIN PETER KINKEL SCHUSTER ($10/$12)

3/9 TIM O'BRIEN SEATED SHOW ($22/$25)

2/19 KINGS PRESENTS TAYLOR PHELAN ($10)

3/10 ELECTRIC GUEST W/ CHAOS CHAOS ($12/$14)

2/20 JOHN DOE (SOLO) W/ DJANGO HASKINS $16/$18

3/12 SENSES FAIL W/ COUNTERPARTS, MOVEMENTS, LIKE PACIFIC ($15/$18)

2/21 G-NOME PROJECT ($7/$10)

3/18 MARTIN SEXTON** ($25/$29) 3/23 SOHN** W/ WILLIAM DOYLE ($17/$20) SOLD 3/24 JOHNNYSWIM OUT 3/25 HIPPO CAMPUS W/MAGIC CITY HIPPIES ($13/$15) 3/28 THE MENZINGERS W/ JEFF ROSENSTOCK, ROZWELL KID ($17/$20) 3/29 COREY SMITH ($20) 4/1 DINOSAUR JR W/EASY ACTION ($25) 4/2 LAMBCHOP W/XYLOURIS WHITE ($15) 4/7 CARBON LEAF W/ ME AND MY BROTHER ($16/$20 MOVED FROM 2/18) 4/8 DIRTY BOURBON RIVER SHOW W/ ELLIS DYSON & THE SHAMBLES ($10/$12) 4/11 WHY? W/ESKIMEAUX ($16/$18) 4/15 MIKE POSNER AND THE LEGENDARY MIKE POSNER BAND ($20/$24) 4/17 CASHMERE CAT ($17/$20) 4/18 CHRONIXX

W/ KELISSA, MAX GLAZER ($22.50/$25) 4/20 FOXYGEN ( $18/$20) 4/21 JUMP,

LIT TLE CHILDREN

SOLD OUT

4/23 THE STEELDRIVERS ($28/$35) 4/24 AN EVENING WITH NOAH & ABBY GUNDERSEN ($16/$18) 4/25 PARACHUTE W/ KRIS ALLEN ($18/$20)

JOHN DOE

2/17 OVERTONES SERIES: AUZURI STRING QUARTET W/JENNIFER CURTIS ($15) 2/18 (NOON) ROCK FOR REYES BENEFIT W/ HAPPY ABANDON, ORLANDO PARKER JR, OG MERGE, SOMEONE’S SISTER ($5/$10)

3/17 TORTOISE ($15)

MO 2/20

@CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM

2/22 EISLEY W/ CIVILAIN, BACKWARDS DANCER ($15) 2/23 THE GRISWOLDS

SOLD OUT

2/24 PENNY & SPARROW SOLD W/ COREY KILGANNON OUT 2/25 BLUE CACTUS ALBUM RELEASE SHOW W/ NICK VANDENBERG AND MOLLY SARLÉ ($10) 2/26 KEVIN GARRETT THE FALSE HOPE TOUR W/ ARIZONA ($12/$15) 3/1 JESCA HOOP 3/3 FRONT COUNTRY W/ BIG FAT GAP ($10/$12) 3/4 ALEX DEZEN (OF DAMNWELLS) AND HIS BAND ($10/$12) 3/5 ALL THEM WITCHES W/ IRATA ( $12/$14) 3/7 MOOSE BLOOD W/TROPHY EYES, BOSTON MANOR, A WILL AWAY ($15/$17) 3/8 MAJOR AND THE MONBACKS 3/10 TIM DARCY (OF OUGHT) W/ MOLLY BURCH ($10/$12) 3/17 DARK WATER RISING W/ORLANDO PARKER JR, OG MERGE ($8/$10) 3/21 NYLON MUSIC TOUR PRESENTS POWERS & BRIDGIT MENDLER ($16/$18) 3/22 THE JAPANESE HOUSE W/BLAISE MOORE ($15/$18) 3/23 SABA W/ SYLVAN LACUE ($15/$18) 3/24 THE FAUX HAWKS THE CINNAMON GIRLS, "SEQUEL TO ZIGGY STARDUST" LISTENING PARTY 3/25 REBEKAH TODD & THE ODDYSSEY W/ LAURA REED BAND

THE RADIO DEPT. 4/28 SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS ($10/$12) 4/30 SEAN ROWE W/FAYE WEBSTER 5/3 CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH W/ LAURA GIBSON ($16) 5/8 THE BESNARD LAKES W/ THE LIFE AND TIMES ($12) 6/7 GRIFFIN HOUSE ($20/$23) 6/9 JONATHAN BYRD 6/17 BARNS COURTNEY ($14/$16) ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) 3/2 KT TUNSTALL W/ KELVIN JONES ($25) PINHOOK (DURHAM) 2/21TALL TALL TREES ($8/$10) 2/24 SAVOY MOTEL W/ DRAG SOUNDS 4/24 MATTHEW LOGAN VASQUEZ (OF DELTA SPIRIT) $13/$15 KINGS (RAL) 5/3 ANDY SHAUF W/ JULIA JACKLIN ($13/$15) RED HAT AMPH. (RAL) 5/14 THE

XX

CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR) 3/7 VALERIE JUNE 3/20 THE ZOMBIES 'ODESSEY AND ORACLE' 50 YEAR TOUR 4/14 WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE W/ERIN MCKEOWN THE RITZ (RAL) (TICKETS VIA TICKETMASTER)

2/23 SHOVELS & ROPE W/ JOHN MORELAND ($23/$25) 5/1 THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS ($30) NCMA (RALEIGH) 5/6 MIPSO W/ RIVER WHYLESS (ON SALE 2/17) 6/13 KALEO (ON SALE 2/17)

4/26 DOPAPOD ($13/$15)

3/29 CHERRY GLAZERR W/LALA LALA AND IAN SWEET ($13/$15)

5/5 ADRIAN BELEW POWER TRIO W/ SAUL ZONANA ($26/$30)

4/2 CARRIE ELKIN W/ DANNY SCHMIDT

5/10 SLOWDIVE ($36/$39)

4/13 MATT PRYOR AND DAN ANDRIANO ($13/$15)

7/22 MANDOLIN ORANGE W/ JOE PUG (ON SALE 2/17)

4/14 KAWEHI ($12/$15)

HAW RIVER BALLROOM

4/15 DIET CIG W/ DADDY ISSUES ($10)

3/6 COLD WAR KIDS W/ MIDDLE KIDS 3/11 SON VOLT W/JOHNNY IRION ($22/$25)

5/14 SARA WATKINS ($18/$22; ON SALE 2/17) 5/16 WHITNEY W/ NATALIE PRASS ($16) 5/17 NEW FOUND GLORY ($22/$26) 5/19 PERFUME GENIUS W/ SERPENTWITHFEET ($17/$19) 5/20 SAY ANYTHING / BAYSIDE W/ HOT ROD CIRCUIT ($20/$23) 6/6 THE ORWELLS ($18/$20)

4/17 SALLIE FORD W/ MOLLY BURCH ($10/$12) 4/18 SWEET SPIRIT ($10/$12) 4/19 ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE W/ BABYLON ($10/$12) 4/27 THE WILD REEDS W/ BLANK RANGE ($12/$14)

6/18 JASON

ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT (ON SALE 2/17)

4/1 PATRICK WATSON ($20/$22) DPAC (DURHAM 4/20, 21 STEVE MARTIN AND MARTIN SHORT WITH STEEP CANYON RANGERS

CATSCRADLE.COM ★ 919.967.9053 ★ 300 E. MAIN STREET ★ CARRBORO

**Asterisks denote advance tickets @ schoolkids records in raleigh & chapel hill order tix online at ticketfly.com ★ we serve carolina brewery beer on tap! ★ we are a non-smoking club 28 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

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CONTRIBUTORS: Elizabeth Bracy (EB), Timothy Bracy (TB) Grant Britt (GB), Elizabeth Byrum (EGB), Zoe Camp (ZC), Allison Hussey (AH), David Klein (DK), Noah Rawlings (NR), Dan Ruccia (DR), David Ford Smith (DS), Patrick Wall (PW), Jamie Williams (JW)

WED, FEB 15 Shaggy 2 Dope

TH 2/16

2.15–2.22

CLOWNIN For reasons AROUND unexplained, the two members of the Insane Clown Posse have embarked on solo tours that both stop in Chapel Hill this week. There are no more funny juggalo jokes to make; they’ve long been a goofy cultural punching bag for their bizarre antics, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re pretty harmless. Let them have their fun.

Just make sure you get all that Faygo scrubbed off of you. —AH [LOCAL 506, $15–$25/7:30 P.M.] ALSO ON WEDNESDAY BLUE NOTE GRILL: The Herded Cats; 8 p.m. • CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Dustbowl Revival; 8 p.m., $10–$12. • THE CAVE: The Paul Swest, Reflex Arc, Patrick Gallagher; 9 p.m., $5. • HUMBLE PIE: Peter Lamb & the Wolves; 8:30 p.m. • IRREGARDLESS: Piedmont Pea Pickers; 6:30 p.m. • KINGS: The Love Hangover; 8 p.m., $8. • THE MAYWOOD: Eve to Adam, Message from Sylvia, Faith & Scars, Strength Betrayed; 7:30 p.m., $13–$15. • POUR HOUSE: Shwizz, John Ginty; 9 p.m., $6–$8. • SLIM’S: Dim Delights, Mimi Oz, Sam Barron; 9 p.m., $5. • THE BULLPEN: Harvey Dalton Arnold; 7 p.m. • UNC’S KENAN REHEARSAL HALL: UNC Jazz Combos; 4 p.m., free.

THU, FEB 16 Alash FULL “Jet Airliner” THROAT composer Paul Pena introduced Americans to Tuvan throat singing, the seemingly physically impossible overtone technique of singing two pitches simultaneously, like Captain Beefheart and Howling Wolf vocalizing from the same body.

Siberian natives Alash add Western influences to the traditional Mongolian folk music at The ArtsCenter. —GB [THE ARTSCENTER, $22/8 P.M.]

Henbrain BAWK Mitch Easter, who BAWK recorded Henbrain’s organ-heavy “Hang Glider” seven-inch, says the Carrboro outfit sounds like Yes circa 1969 if the band were fronted by Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick.

I’d say Hawkwind minus the treble, but the idea’s the same: Henbrain’s double-bass attack draws deeply from the reservoir of Nixon-era psychedelia. Charlotte’s Lara Americo opens. —PW [THE CAVE, $5/9 P.M.]

Keller Williams and Leo Kottke 12 STRING Leo Kottke has MAGIC compared his vocalizing to “geese farts on a muggy day.” Thankfully, his guitar skills have helped him soar since the release of his 1969 debut LP, Twelve String Blues, and 6 and 12 String Guitar later that year. For his stop in Durham , he’ll team up with singer-songwriter Keller Williams on their “Shut the Folk Up and Listen” tour. —GB [CAROLINA THEATRE, $23–$45/8 P.M.] ALSO ON THURSDAY 2ND WIND: 2 fer; 7:30-9 p.m.

• 4020 LOUNGE: African Rhythms; 10 p.m., $5. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Bruce Katz Band; 8 p.m., $10. Carolina Lightnin’; 7-9 p.m., free. • CAT’S CRADLE: The Radio Dept., The Germans; 8 p.m., $15–$17. • KINGS: Electronic Summit 2; 8 p.m., $7. See box, page 30. • LINCOLN THEATRE: PULSE: Electronic Dance Party; 9 p.m. • THE MAYWOOD: Kiss The Curse, Take Heart, Through All This Time; 9:30 p.m., $8. • MOTORCO: Talib Kweli, Actual Proof; 9 p.m. See page 26. • POUR HOUSE: Local Band Local Beer: Goodbye, Titan, Gray Young, Waul; 9:30 p.m., $3–$5. • RUBY DELUXE: SSION, Juan Huevos; 8 p.m., $10–$15. • SLIM’S: Thoughts on Standby, Nym, Gnarley Nick; 9 p.m., $5.

• THE STATION: Onyx Club Boys; 9 p.m., free. • UNC’S HILL HALL: UNC Jazz Faculty, Charanga Carolina; 7:30 p.m. • UNC’S KENAN REHEARSAL HALL: Faculty Jazz Concert; 7:30 p.m., free.

FRI, FEB 17 Beautiful Struggle: Hip-Hop’s Role in the Trump Era DON’T There are certain STOP swaths of people who claim that there are no longer any good protest songs, that they died with the social movements of the sixties and seventies. Those people have never listened to any hip-hop. Talib Kweli, who’s in town for a two-night stand at Motorco, will discuss the role of hip-hop as contemporary protest music with Mark Anthony Neal, a renowned Duke scholar of African and African-American Studies. With two minds as sharp and insightful as theirs, this conversation is absolutely worth tuning in to.

—AH [BEYÙ CAFFÈ, FREE/3 P.M.]

NC Rhythm Project BANG ON Chapel Hill-based A CAN percussionist and educator Jim Roberts heads this inspiring, forward-looking deep dive into the possibilities of rhythmic improvisation and cross-cultural dialogue. Musically restless, Roberts has collaborated with performers whose expertise ranges from Africa to South America in search of the unique sound featured in his ambitious live act. —TB [THE STATION, $8/8 P.M.]

Prison Books Collective Benefit LITERACY Prison Books LIFT Collective is an organization that supports incarcerated people by supplying them with books and zines. To keep its admirable cause in motion, the group is throwing a fundraiser at Nightlight, which features the jazz pyrotechnics of vocalist Nicki Rivers and her band. There’s also an extended set from local noisemakers Reflex Arc, plus spoken word from UNC poets.

—DS [NIGHTLIGHT, $8–$10/10 P.M.]

N.C. Symphony: Romantic Nights BAD RO- Of all the love stories MANCE across the ages to choose from, the North Carolina Symphony has chosen the music of The Phantom of the Opera for its post-Valentine’s Day concert. To recap: that’s a tale about a grown man obsessed with a teenager, his student, who he then stalks and terrorizes. Later, he tortures her fiancé, too. That all sounds like the opposite of an ideal romance, but hey, different strokes! The programming also features music from West Side Story—better!— and, uh, Gone With the Wind.

—AH [MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL, $23–$66/8 P.M.]

The Earls of Leicester

PHOTO COURTESY OF HIGH ROAD TOURING

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18

THE HILLBENDERS & THE EARLS OF LEICESTER Playing other people’s music is a guiding principle of bluegrass. Along with the traditional tunes that belong to nobody and everybody, artists swap and rework one another’s songs out of admiration, both within and increasingly beyond the genre.

The Seldom Scene did J.J. Cale’s “After Midnight” and Eric Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally” in 1981, while The Gourds’ 2001 rendition of Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” was a novel, if questionable, effort. Punch Brothers, while not technically bluegrass, have used those same instrumentations to tackle Radiohead, Mclusky, The Beatles, The Strokes, and more in recent years. When it comes to covers, everything is fair game.

Saturday night, one intrepid ensemble brings its bluegrass-gone-rogue effort to Raleigh. In 2015, the Colorado quintet The HillBenders premiered Tommy: A Bluegrass Opry, which is exactly what it sounds like: a straight-through cover of The Who’s 1969 LP, Tommy. The banjo picking in the intro to “Pinball Wizard” more closely matches Elton John’s version featured in the 1975 film, but the band is mostly faithful to its source material, adorning it with extended instrumental solos.

Over in Durham on the same evening, you can find a veritable bluegrass ouroboros: The Earls of Leicester, an outfit that honors the music of Flatt & Scruggs, takes the stage to a sold-out crowd at Duke’s Baldwin Auditorium. Led by celebrated dobro master Jerry Douglas, The Earls of Leicester (pronounced “lester,” mind) pay direct homage to two of the men who, along

with Bill Monroe, were the original pillars of bluegrass.

The personnel of The Earls of Leicester are some of the best contemporary players in the genre—Douglas, but also bassist Barry Bales and guitarist and vocalist Shawn Camp. Where The HillBenders aim to transmogrify a rock classic, The Earls seek to re-create the music of their heroes, note for note. In a 2014 interview with the INDY about the project, Douglas delighted in the fact that the Earls’ recordings often matched the length of the Flatt & Scruggs originals to within a second. In the same interview, he gushed that the point of the Earls was to “pay homage,” because the originals, they thought, couldn’t be played any better.

It’s fair to ask of each band both “Why?” and “Why not?” The HillBenders’ efforts can come off as superfluous, but then, maybe it’s fun to hear an old favorite done in a new style. The Earls of Leicester at least offer an up-close opportunity to study the technical execution of artists who are no longer alive, but again, the whole point of the endeavor is a Flatt & Scruggs facsimile. The novelty factor for each is high, but at least both can back it up with chops.

—Allison Hussey THE HILLBENDERS N.C. STATE’S TITMUS THEATRE, RALEIGH 5 & 8 p.m., $8.75–$35, www.live.arts.ncsu.edu THE EARLS OF LEICESTER DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM, DURHAM 8 p.m., $10–$48, www.dukeperformances.duke.edu

Marcus Roberts and and the Modern Jazz Generation KING OF Blind since KEYS childhood, the Jacksonville, Florida-born jazz pianist is renowned for an elegant style that smoothly amalgamates jazz, gospel, and soul traditions.

Having risen to prominence through performances with Jazz at Lincoln Center, Roberts is a composer, the leader of a fine eleven-piece ensemble, and an emissary of jazz to future generations. —DK [UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL, $15–$49/8 P.M.]

STRFKR DANCE STRFKR has spent PUNK the past decade in a state of nonstop evolution. It began as the solo project of Portland musician Josh Hodges, and soon expanded into a formidable dance-punk crew à la Chromeo. The group’s got five albums under its belt—most recently, last year’s Being No One, Going Nowhere—but its frantic live shows remain its calling card: during last year’s trek, members marched out men dressed up as aliens, tossed inflatable rafts into the crowd, and covered Cyndi Lauper. Now that’s a party. —ZC [CAT’S CRADLE, $20–$23/8:30 P.M.]

TAFT ELECTRO TAFT doesn’t merely PSYCH write songs, it embarks on emotional psychedelic journeys. The band’s namesake, Austin-born singer-songwriter Taft Mashburn

sings acoustic folk in the vein of Elliott Smith while the rest of the group keeps things trippy, churning out dance-ready grooves and sending his despair aloft. The result is a transcendent live show.

Brice Randall Bickford and Evil English open. —ZC [DUKE COFFEEHOUSE, $5, FREE WITH DUKE ID/9 P.M.] ALSO ON FRIDAY BLUE NOTE GRILL: Duke Street Dogs; 6-8 p.m., free. • CARY ARTS CENTER: Ken Lavigne; 7:30 p.m.

• CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): Aizuri Quartet; 6:30 p.m., $15. See page 27.• THE CAVE: People of Earth, Cosmic Punk, Digital Cowboy; 9 p.m., $5. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Duke Jazz Ensemble, Mark Gross; 8 p.m., $5–$10. • IRREGARDLESS: Doug Largent Trio; 6:30 p.m. • KINGS: Town Mountain; 10 p.m., $10–$12. • LINCOLN THEATRE: Ill Digitz, DSCVRY; 9 p.m., $7. • MOTORCO: Talib Kweli, Actual Proof; 9 p.m. See page 26. • THE PINHOOK: Y2K 3.0 Dance Party; 10 p.m., $5. • POUR HOUSE: Roots of a Rebellion, Doco, Inner Prolific; 9 p.m., $8–$10.. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ DNLTMS; 10 p.m. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: Claire Daly and David Richards Quintet; 8 p.m., $10–$20. • SLIM’S: Withered, Immortal Bird, Moynoq; 9 p.m., $10.

SAT, FEB 18 J20 Protest Benefit FIGHT Thousands of people BACK showed up to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20. More than two hundred and thirty people were arrested as the protests turned turbulent, and most of those arrested face a felony charge of rioting, which carries a maximum ten-year prison sentence. Though a list of specific places the money will go isn’t yet available, all of the door money from this show goes toward the legal fees of the arrested. On the bill: Raleigh d-beat rippers Skemäta, Raleigh punk freaks Drugcharge, and Greensboro pogo goons Bad Eric.

—PW [NIGHTLIGHT, $10/9:30 P.M.]

Rock for Reyes GIFT OF In late December, MUSIC Jeremy Reyes of Carrboro succumbed to injuries sustained in a horrific car crash, leaving behind his wife and three children, along with scores of grieving friends. Some of his

musical friends have joined forces for an evening devoted to raising much-needed funds for the family.

The lineup includes the lush indie pop of Happy Abandon, soulful pop from Orlando Parker Jr., OG Merge’s acoustic hip-hop hybrid, and crunchy Americana from Someone’s Sister. —DK [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $5–$10/NOON]

Susto FINE The second record TODAY from Susto, & I’m Fine Today, finds the affable and country-tinged South Carolina pop-rock act on the precipice of a breakout. Paste and Rolling Stone have endorsed the record; Conan O’Brien’s website debuted the video for “Waves.” Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell is a fan and a mentor; later this year, the band has a run of opening dates with The Lumineers. Who knows—maybe the elliptical “Jah Werx” is the next “Ho Hey.” —PW [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $10–$12/9 P.M.]

Jeremiah Tall TALL With a big voice and TALES Bunyan-esque presence, Jeremiah Tall lives up to his storybook-sounding name.

Delivering his songs in a pleasantly rough bellow, Tall accompanies his tales with a stomping beat derived from an old suitcase-cum-kick drum and sprightly banjo. With deft songwriter Charles Latham and Blackbird Barn. —DK [KINGS, $10–$12/9 P.M.] ALSO ON SATURDAY ARCANA: The Floor; 9 p.m., $5. • BEYU CAFFE: Angela Johnson; 7 & 9 p.m., $15. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Good Rocking Sam, Roy Roberts; 8 p.m., $10. • CAT’S CRADLE: Abbey Road LIVE!; 4 & 8 p.m., $8–$13. • DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: Earls of Leicester; 8 p.m., $10–$48. See box, this page. • IRREGARDLESS: Michelle Cobley; 11:30 a.m. Paul Bomar Duo; 6 p.m. Marimjazzia; 9 p.m. • LINCOLN THEATRE: Perpetual Groove, Groove Fetish, ELM; 9 p.m., $20. • THE MAYWOOD: Hub City Stompers ,The Dirty Politicians, Roar the Engines; 8:30 p.m., $10. • MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: NC Symphony: Romantic Nights; 8 p.m., $23–$66. • THE PINHOOK: Vivica C. Coxx; 10 p.m., $10. • POUR HOUSE: Viva La Venus, Pivot, Lactose Quervo; 9 p.m., $5–$7. • RUBY DELUXE: DJ PlayPlay; 10 p.m. • SHARP NINE GALLERY: Will Goble Quartet, Jason Marsalis; 8 p.m., INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 29

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Though most music fans might not know it, a quiet, opinionated war played itself out on Twitter, Facebook posts, and message boards late last year. Turner Broadcasting’s programming block Adult Swim, which has utilized music as a cultural virtue signaler for the better part of a decade through partnerships with labels like Stones Throw and with its eclectic Adult Swim Singles program, opted to put out a compilation of noise music. It featured recognizable icons like Merzbow, Wolf Eyes, and Prurient, and was released for free on the Adult Swim website, presumably financed by Scion and General Mills and other Cartoon Network advertisers you see wrenched between Family Guy reruns.

The blowback from scene veterans was immediate. Accusations of “press release noise” were bandied about, and a fierce debate raged about whether this decidedly anti-commercial music, presumably created in defiance of things like basic cable, should be run through the same gears as pop music. Can experimental music be co-opted to sell sugar water and movie tickets?

That might be a loaded question, but as cultural cachet becomes an increasingly large part of people’s identity, and casual listeners get more and more attuned to music scenes that were once restricted to the shadows, these debates keep springing up. Perhaps a delineating factor, then,

is the difference between curated taste and real-life participation. One of the crucial aspects of experimental music is the community, and this can never be reduced to a simple matter of sitting at your computer and deciding what artists best benefit your personal portfolio.

Often, some of the finest noise projects, including the ones on that Adult Swim compilation, only got off the ground because of community—because of venues that are willing to book the stuff, because of supportive people who show up to said shows. It’s a scene that is self-perpetuating, and it’s been reassuring to see local venues like Kings sharpen its bookings in this vein recently.

This second edition of Kings’ Electronic Summit series looks to keep the fire going with a strong international-meetslocal lineup. Carrboro’s Secret Boyfriend headlines a bill of players that also includes Strict Nurse and Staplerfahrer, both hailing from the Netherlands. There’s also Gardener and Nagual, from Virginia, plus Durham’s Oceanette. It’s an accessible opportunity to participate in an active regional scene—come, lest you be a walking Adult Swim compilation.

—David Ford Smith KINGS, RALEIGH 8 p.m., $7, www.kingsraleigh.com

$10–$20. • SLIM’S: Antique Hearts, Stray Owls, Go Benji Go; 9 p.m., $5.

• THE STATION: Jazz Saturdays; 2 p.m., free. • STEEL STRING BREWERY: Hal Engler Quartet; 5 p.m. • UNC’S HILL HALL: North Carolina Regional Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Festival; 9 a.m. UNC Jazz Band; 8 p.m., $10. UNC Jazz Band, Dayna Stephens; 8 p.m., $5–$10.

SUN, FEB 19

lineup like this. Durham emcees Jooselord Magnus, Kenny MacGuyver, and Made In Twiwan’s will trade bars with Fayetteville’s Vinnie Dangerous and Raleigh’s Nyck News for a unruly night of hip-hop. —DS [THE PINHOOK, $5/8 P.M.]

Kelly Holland Memorial

PIPE With a singing career LEGEND that straddles the eras of Bing Crosby and Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett has done it his way, to borrow a phrase. He never “got with the times” or hosted a variety show, and he went without a record company when his sales slumped. Fortunately, his long run as a national treasure continues unabated. —DK [DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, $66–$371/7:30 P.M.]

FALLEN Kelly Holland was FRIEND the lead singer of Cry of Love, a Raleigh band whose future looked bright in 1994 when it was signed to a major label and toured with Aerosmith. After some chart success, Holland left the band, struggled to find his footing, and battled various personal demons until his death of an abdominal infection in 2014.

Tonight, Hank Sinatra, Jive Mother Mary, and Automatic Slim pay tribute to a friend gone too soon.

—DK [LINCOLN THEATRE, $12/6:30 P.M.]

Made in Twiwan

Youth League

Tony Bennett

STACKED For only five bucks, RAPS you really can’t go wrong with a stacked local rap

NOODLES The band-naming formula of “Youth” plus a noun or adjective has withstood the test of time—Youth

Lagoon, Sonic Youth, Reagan Youth, Sagan Youth—and Durham’s Youth League decide to keep a good thing going. Sonically, the band works within the well-trod tradition of emo-tinged indie rock: Dark, murmuring vocals call to mind mid-career Brand New, while intricate, noodling guitar riffs conjure up the instrumental technique of American Football or Cap’n Jazz.

Youth League is not carving out new musical territory, so much as operating comfortably within an established one. With My Brother My Sister, Vivian K, and Boysin.

—NR [SLIM’S, $7/7 P.M.] ALSO ON SUNDAY ACKLAND ART MUSEUM: NCCU Choir; 2 p.m. • BLUE NOTE GRILL: Kamara Thomas; 5 p.m. • CAROLINA THEATRE: Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle; 3-5 p.m., free–$30. • CAT’S CRADLE: Taylor Phelan; 8 p.m., $10–$12. • HALLE CULTURAL ARTS CENTER: Boylan Bridge Brass Band; 3 p.m., $6–$12. • PAGE-WALKER ARTS & HISTORY CENTER: Brian Reagin; 4 p.m., $15. • POUR HOUSE: Haley Jane and the Primates; 9 p.m., $6–$8. • RUBY DELUXE: Eunyce Raye’s Drag Showcase; 11:30 p.m.

MON, FEB 20 N.C. Opera: The Marriage of Figaro MAWAGE With this production, N.C. Opera will have done three of the four big Mozart operas (all that’s left is The Magic Flute). This one, with a libretto by the great Lorenzo Da Ponte, is a screwball tale of love, class, and comic manipulation. Past productions of Mozart in Fletcher Theater have been among N.C. Opera’s most thoroughly satisfying. The hall is just the right size to allow for a perfect balance between singers and orchestra.

—DR [FLETCHER OPERA THEATER, $25–$99/8 P.M.]

John Doe Even at its most X MAN frantic, John Doe’s L.A. punk band X stood out from for its musicality, especially in Doe’s lacerating harmonies with Exene Cervenka, so his eventual embrace of roots music and his introspective later work makes sense. He’s amassed a great songbook since 1980. The Old

Ceremony’s Django Haskins opens with a solo spot. —DK [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $16–$18/8 P.M.] ALSO ON MONDAY CAT’S CRADLE: Sticky Fingers; 9 p.m., $15–$18. • THE CAVE: Tinnarose; 9 p.m., $5. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Atomic Rhythm All Stars; 8 p.m., $5. • NIGHTLIGHT: Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Steve Kruger, Trevor McKenzie; 8:30 p.m., $12. • POUR HOUSE: Jared & The Mill, Hey Monea, Paul Pfau; 8 p.m., $8–$10. • THE SHED JAZZ CLUB: Sessions at the Shed with Ernest Turner; 8 p.m., $5. • UNC’S MEMORIAL HALL: UNC Wind Ensemble, UNC Symphony Band; 7:30 p.m., $5–$10.

TUE, FEB 21 Dirty Dozen Brass Band TOP Now forty years old, BRASS this storied collective gained acclaim with an agile blend of New Orleans, funk, jazz, R&B and other styles, leading to collaborations with everyone from Dr. John to Modest Mouse and David Bowie. The band is a rousing

TH 2/16 2/17 2/18 SA 2/18 TU 2/21

live act that you feel in your gut. If you have ears, you’ll move. With The Get Right Band. —DK [MOTORCO, $17–$35/8 P.M.]

Hamilton Leithauser NPR INDIE On I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, his second album since The Walkmen announced an “indefinite hiatus,” Hamilton Leithauser uses his big voice to reflect on the regrets and anxieties of modern urban existence. It’s a familiar formula for fans of his other band, but the production of ex-Vampire Weekend mastermind Rostam Batmanglij adds plenty of sonic intricacy. He stays home, behind the scenes as Leithauser brings the songs, and that voice, to the Cradle stage. Lucy Dacus opens. —JW [CAT’S CRADLE, $17–$20/8 P.M.]

Tall Tall Trees STRANGE Tall Tall Trees is the GRASS adopted musical moniker of Mike Savino, a Brooklyn-based experimentalist armed with a homemade banjo-cum-sampling device known as the Banjotron 5000.

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LOUD PRESENTS:

Banda Magda

Brian Herberger / Dejahzh Hedrick / Kelly Ryan / Aaron Cobb / Tank Smith

WHOLE As a conglomeration WORLD of multinational confederates featuring members from South America, southern Europe and Japan, Banda Magda is world music in the best sense of the genre, having achieved a rewarding and resonant hybrid of its vast cultural influences. On its recordings, Greek-born ringleader Magda Giannikou demonstrates a charming, protean capacity to move between songs like the Edith Piaf-style melodrama of “El Pescador” to the light Jobim/ Gliberto fare of “Amour, T’es Là?”.

—EB [THE ARTSCENTER, $12–$15/7:30 P.M.]

NC COMEDY ARTS FESTIVAL NC COMEDY ARTS FESTIVAL MONDAY NIGHT OPEN MIC CRANK IT LOUD PRESENTS: VIOLENT J

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32 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

ALSO ON TUESDAY CAT’S CRADLE (BACK ROOM): G-Nome Project; 9 p.m., $7–$10. • LINCOLN THEATRE: Boombox; 9 p.m., $15. • LOCAL 506: Violent J; 7:30 p.m., $15–$20. See Feb. 15 listing for Shaggy 2 Dope at Local 506.

• POUR HOUSE: The Movement, Elephant Convoy; 9 p.m., $12–$15 • RUBY DELUXE: Daniel Chavis, Honeychild Coleman; 11 p.m.

WED, FEB 22

SHAGGY 2 DOPE LOCALS AT THE LOCAL feat.

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Accordingly, his one-man show resembles a country performance from the distant future: a bricolage of loops, effects, and riffs, which grows all the more intricate by the minute. —ZC [THE PINHOOK, $8–10/8 P.M.]

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PHOTO COURTESY OF RED LIGHT MANAGEMENT

Dope KNife HAUNT- Hailing from HOP Savannah, Georgia, Dope KNife is one of the many projects of Kendrick Mack, who is also the founder of Savannah’s Dope Sandwhich, a record label and hip-hop collective. Downright haunting bass loops drive the tracks on Dope KNife’s latest album, NineteenEightyFour, as piano and horn parts drift ominously in and out. Such elements complement Mack’s dark, politically charged lyrics well.

Dope KNife earnestly expresses rage and resilience against police, domestic dissolution, and both the pitfalls and appeals of drugs with earnestness and power. With OC From NC and B Square. —NR [THE PINHOOK, $5/9 P.M.]

Eisley MOODY Eisley has a knack for MELODY producing heartfelt, shiny indie pop that is equally temperamental, endearing, and catchy. The band’s fifth LP, I’m Only Dreaming, was released this month and appears just as lyrically cathartic as previous works, only this time it’s paired with consistently harder instrumentation. With Civilian and Backwards Dancer. —EGB [CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM, $15/8 P.M.]

Lemuria GROWN Lemuria is a Saratoga UP pop band with a bleeding punk heart straight out of our national’s capital. The group’s last two albums, including 2013’s

The Distance Is So Big, were produced by Jawbox frontman J. Robbins, one of the biggest luminaries of the Dischord age and one of the most sought-after producers in rock. Judging from its past tours alongside alt icons (Ted Leo, Aimee Mann) and pop-punk posses (The Menzingers, Screaming Females), fans should expect to take the tuneful with the tough. Cayetana and Mikey Erg open. —ZC [MOTORCO, $7–$8/8 P.M]

Palberta ART Gloriously bent New SCHOOL York avant-rockers Palberta are radically egalitarian: Its three members cycle between guitar, bass, and drums throughout its sets, lending further unpredictability to their acerbic, primitive art-punk. These songs smash together careening rock and giddy, noisy delirium; think Yoko Ono fronting Sun City Girls.

With Fitness Womxn. —PW [NIGHTLIGHT, $7/9:30 P.M.] ALSO ON WEDNESDAY BLUE NOTE GRILL: Blue Wednesday; 8 p.m. • THE CAVE: The Paul Swest, Mac McCaughn, Mark Dauman, Sam Miller-Finkel, Charles Chace; 8 p.m., $5. • HUMBLE PIE: Sidecar Social Club; 8:30 p.m., free.

• IRREGARDLESS: The String Peddlers; 6:30 p.m. • LOCAL 506: Wvrm, Seeker, Cognitive, Suppressive Fire, Oxidant; 8 p.m., $12–$14. • NEPTUNES PARLOUR: Free Improvised Music Series: James Gilmore; 8:30 p.m., $5–$10. • POUR HOUSE: That 1 Guy, Barefoot Wade, The Infamous Sugar; 9 p.m., $12–$15.

art

2.15 – 2.22 political, culinary, scholarly, sporting, and cultural—this traveling Smithsonian exhibit reframes what it means to be an Indian American. Thru Apr 2.

City of Raleigh Museum, Raleigh.

—David Klein

OPENING SPECIAL Earth Is Closed EVENT Everyone Is Fired: Aaron Zalonis. Feb 17-Mar 3.

Reception: Feb 17, 6-9 p.m.

SPECTRE Arts, Durham. www. spectrearts.org.

SPECIAL Sabungeros EVENT (Cockfighters): Photography by Douglas Vuncannon. Feb 17-Mar 11.

Reception: Feb 17, 6-9 p.m.

Through This Lens, Durham. www.throughthislens.com.

SPECIAL SPECIMEN: A EVENT Collection of Plant Artistry: Aisha Sanders. Feb 17-Mar 11. Reception: Feb 17, 6-9 p.m. The Scrap Exchange, Durham. www.scrapexchange. org. See p. 27.

Be the Good: John Harrison,

ONGOING Nuestras Historias, Nuestros Sueños/Our Stories, Our Dreams: Documenting the experiences of Latino farmworkers in the Carolinas.

Thru May 7. Historic Oak View County Park, Raleigh. www. wakegov.com/parks/oakview.

2-Dimensional Art Show: Group show. Thru Mar 22.

Carrboro Branch Library, Carrboro. www.co.orange.nc.us/ library/carrboro.

About Place: Greg McLemore and Barbara Campbell Thomas.

Thru Feb 25. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org.

Animal Spirits: Visionary Folk Art: Group show. Thru Apr 6. Alexander Dickson House, Hillsborough. www. historichillsborough.org.

Ansel Adams: Masterworks: An artist is not always the best person to assess his or her own work, but in the case of Ansel Adams, the great photographer of the American West, the king of the coffee-table book, we’ll make an exception. Adams called this “the Museum Set,” the ultimate expression of his legacy. Unlike many great artists, who experience a golden age in youth, Adams, who worked as a photographer for five decades, was so devoted to the refinement of his

Nina Chanel Abney: “Randaleeza” (2008) COURTESY OF KRAVETS WEHBY GALLERY, NEW YORK THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16

NINA CHANEL ABNEY: ROYAL FLUSH On Inauguration Day, the artist Kara Walker made a monumental painting that references Emanuel Leutze’s iconic 1851 work “Washington Crossing the Delaware.” But Walker’s boat is filled with sketchy, grotesque figures: a white patriot and a black slave wrestle over an oar; a Russian gleefully steps onto land from the bow while a woman leaps off the stern into shark-infested waters; and Trump stands in Washington’s place. It’s our country’s provisional “Guernica.” Now the Nasher brings us a show of comparably critical work by the young New York-based artist Nina Chanel Abney—her first solo museum exhibition. Dealing with the politics of race and gender in colorful, cartoonish tableaux, Abney crashes the real and the virtual to show us the resultant debris and injury. Filled with faces, letters, and numbers, her paintings and collages range from parody on the verge of glibness to nightmarish negative fantasy. You won’t soon forget Condoleezza Rice in a white bikini, star tats on her shoulders. In addition to a ten-year survey of about thirty works, Abney will also create a temporary wall mural for the Nasher. The show runs through July, but see it Thursday with a highlights tour at six p.m. followed at eight by performances from Duke student musicians, poets, and spoken-word artists, all emceed by Pierce Freelon. —Chris Vitiello NASHER MUSEUM OF ART, DURHAM 6–10 p.m., free (cash bar), www.nasher.duke.edu technique that his final work might accurately be called his ultimate creations. These fortyeight masterworks, taken in locations like Glacier National Park, Yosemite, and Monument Valley, speak to Adams’s

monumental purity of vision.

Thru May 7. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www.ncartmuseum.org.

—David Klein Artspace Long Pose Figure Study Exhibition: Thru Feb 25. Artspace, Raleigh. www.

artspacenc.org.

Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation: By examining the history of Indian immigrants as they assimilated and contributed to American life—musical,

aka Jphono1, makes beguiling music out of the gauzy brushstrokes of his voice and a latticework of hypnotic acoustic guitar patterns. In his screen printing and mixedmedia art, Harrison creates an apt visual complement for his bright, off-kilter acoustic excursions. Single images sit in sharp relief against backgrounds of colorful, Escher-like tessellations: a cool fifties chair, bare branches against a rippling sky, an Ibanez Turbo Tube Screamer guitar pedal. The patterns— starbursts, vines, op art—will be familiar to anyone who’s ever dabbled in psychedelics, or even just scrunched their eyes shut tight. Thru Feb 24.

The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. www. artscenterlive.org. —David Klein

Black History: Artists’ Perspectives: Mixed media. Thru Feb 28. Hayti Heritage Center, Durham. www.hayti.org.

LAST Jarrett Burch: CHANCE Paintings. Thru Feb 16. ERUUF Art Gallery, Durham. www.eruuf.org.

A Celebration of 100 Years

of Solitude: Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, the story of the rise and fall of the fictional Colombian town of Macondo, is built on a grand pattern of Latin American myth and history, intermeshed with an intimate one of seven generations of a family, and both wound by Márquez into shapes of fated repetition and doom. This exhibit by the Artist Studio Project, including twelve artists’ responses to the novel, was curated by Rafael A. Osuba, who put on a similar tribute to Don Quixote last year.

The featured artists include Luis Ardila, Cornelio Campos, Ernesto Hernández, Saba Taj, and Antoine Williams. Thru March 10. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www.durhamarts.org.

—Brian Howe Collecting Carolina: 100 Years of Jugtown Pottery: Pottery.

Thru May 29. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org.

Corridor Exhibitions: Carrie Alter, Paula Baumann, Andie Freeman, Celia Gray, Judy Keene, and Don Mertz. Thru Mar 25. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org.

Darning Memory: Fabric works

by Leatha Koefler, Mary Starke, and Ely Urbanski. Thru Mar 24.

Miriam Preston Block Gallery, Raleigh. www.raleighnc.gov/arts.

Discover Your Governors: Thru Aug 6. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www.

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ncmuseumofhistory.org.

chapelhillpreservation.com.

Fever Within: The Art of Ronald Lockett: Self-taught artists also teach one another. Starting in the 1980s, Alabama produced a remarkable crop of AfricanAmerican ones who entered the canon as it slowly grew less homogenous. Scavenger sculptor Lonnie Holley has had a retrospective at the Birmingham Museum of Art; assemblage master Thornton Dial has been collected by MOMA, the Whitney, and the Met. Little known but primed for reconsideration is Dial’s cousin, Ronald Lockett, who explored the panoramic violence and racial strife of the twentieth century in richly textured, starkly totemic paintings on discarded materials, wrought with wire and nails, twigs and leaves. He made some four hundred works before his death from complications of HIV/AIDS at age thirty-two in 1998. See fifty of them in the first solo exhibition of his work.

Thru Apr 9. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www.ackland.org.

—Brian Howe

Howard Murry Rediscovered: Charlotte native Howard Murry lived and painted in the resort town of Valle Crucis, near Boone. Murry was interested in the ways and means of living in rural North Carolina, from traditional farming methods to religious practices, and his watercolor landscapes depict a slightly idealized past, free of utility lines and automobiles, taking subtle modernist liberties with his subjects. This exhibition, the first of Murry’s work in twenty-five years, consists of forty watercolors from a collection that the artist’s grandson has owned since Murry’s death in 1968. Thru Mar 25. Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh. www.leehansleygallery.com.

—David Klein

Flora and Fauna: Mixed media.

Thru May 14. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. www. ackland.org. #Greenspaces: Paintings

by Judy Crane and Wendy Musser. Thru Feb 27. Betty Ray McCain Gallery, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

Guin Down the Coast: Photography. Thru Feb 27. Bond Park Community Center, Cary. www.townofcary.org.

History and Mystery: Discoveries in the NCMA British Collection: This is the first time in decades that NCMA has curated an exhibit from its British holdings of Old Master painting and sculpture. Thru Mar 19. NC Museum of Art, Raleigh. www. ncartmuseum.org. —Brian Howe Josh Hockensmith and Mark Iwinski: Mixed media. Thru Mar 27. Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill. www.

food

Chefs for Change Launch Event: $25. Mon, Feb 20, 6:30 p.m. The Rickhouse, Durham. www.rickhousedurham.com.

Chinese Pop-Up Dinner: $150.

In Light of Nature: Nathalie Worthington. Thru Feb 26.

Nature Art Gallery, Raleigh. www.naturalsciences.org.

Location Known: Gail Biederman, Chad Erpelding, and Travis Head. Thru Mar 11. Artspace, Raleigh. www.artspacenc.org.

Magic Realist: Paintings. Thru Feb 25. Artspace, Raleigh. www. artspacenc.org.

Memory & Imagination: Folk art. Thru Feb 23. Orange County Main Library, Hillsborough. www.co.orange.nc.us/library.

Moor and Moon: Mary Walker.

Thru Mar 10. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www. durhamarts.org.

LAST Next Chapter: CHANCE Paintings by Lori D. White. Thru Feb 22. Village Art Circle, Cary. www.villageartcircle. com.

LAST Now & Again: Mixed CHANCE media group exhibition. Thru Feb 19.

Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, Hillsborough. www. hillsboroughgallery.com.

Oceans and Moods: Drawings and paintings by Lyudmila Tomova. Thru Feb 26. The

Tue, Feb 21, 5:30 p.m. Royale, Raleigh. www.royaleraleigh. com/.

PICNIC 1st Year Anniversary Pig Pickin’: Sun, Feb 19, 3 p.m.

Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist, Chapel Hill.

Oil Paintings of Carolina Vistas: Wyn Easton. Thru Feb 28. Little Art Gallery & Craft Collection, Raleigh. littleartgalleryandcraft. com.

Orange County Artists Guild Members Exhibit: Group show. Thru March 21. Carrboro Branch Library, Carrboro. www. co.orange.nc.us/library/carrboro.

Pick 2: Group show. Thru Feb 25.

Tipping Paint Gallery, Raleigh. www.tippingpaintgallery.com.

LAST Post Mégantic: CHANCE Photography by Michel Huneault. Thru Feb 18.

Duke Campus: Center for Documentary Studies, Durham. www.cdsporch.org.

Reclusive Flora: Vincent Whitehurst. Thru Feb 28.

Cameron Village Regional Library, Raleigh. www.wakegov. com/libraries.

Selma to Montgomery: A March for the Right to Vote: Photographs by Spider Martin.

Thru Mar 5. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www. ncmuseumofhistory.org.

Sense of Scene: Group show.

Thru Mar 11. Durham Arts Council, Durham. www. durhamarts.org.

LAST Soundings: You’d be CHANCE forgiven for taking a break from the post-election news for your sanity’s sake. But there’s no better way to tune back in than with Soundings, a sound exhibit that features digital audio works by more than twenty artists. This politically charged exhibit covers frontpage themes including climate change, migration, and incarceration, and includes a programmed schedule of special listening times for specific artists throughout its run. You’ll hear the album We Lost Half the Forest and the Rest Will Burn This Summer by Postcommodity, a collective based in the Southwest, before

Steel String Craft Brewery, Carrboro. steelstringbrewery. com.

its inclusion in this year’s Whitney Biennial. And French Afro-futurist Kapwani Kiwanga’s “Tongue” unpacks the loss and transformation of cross-cultural transmission.

North Carolina-based artists Kirsten Stolle and Hong-Ân Truong are also included, as well as Duke experimental and documentary arts MFA alumni Jonna McKone and Mendal Polish. Thru Feb 18. Power Plant Gallery, Durham. —Chris Vitiello Textiles in Tiers: Trudy Thomson, Sandy Milroy, and Rose Warner. Thru May

25. National Humanities Center, Durham. www. nationalhumanitiescenter.org.

The Weight We Leave Behind: Photography by Jessina Leonard. Thru Feb 28. Bull City Arts Collaborative: Upfront Gallery, Durham. www. bullcityarts.org.

Together: Group show.

Thru Mar 5. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. www.

PleiadesArtDurham.com.

TRANSITS AND MIGRATIONS: A Summer in Berlin: Student photography. Thru Apr 15.

Duke Campus: Center for

Documentary Studies, Durham. www.cdsporch.org.

Michael Weitzman: Photography. Thru Feb 28.

Duke University Hospital- Art & Health Galleries, Durham.

Wood Forms in Ironwood & Turquoise: Larry Favorite.

Thru Feb 28. Little Art Gallery & Craft Collection, Raleigh. littleartgalleryandcraft.com.

Yes You: Multimedia Becky Brown. Thru Feb 24. UNC Campus: Hanes Art Center, Chapel Hill. art.unc.edu

stage SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18 & SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19

A PIECE OF PARADE After studying movement research and performing in Baltimore and Buenos Aires, Chapel Hill native Porter Witsell returns to the Triangle to stage her first large-scale choreographic work. Because A Piece of Parade is so social, communal, and political—more focused on process than polish—it’s a natural fit for Durham Independent Dance Artists, which Chris Tyson and Moe Rivera in A Piece presents it for two nights at the Vault. of Parade PHOTO BY TIM WALTER Under the lodestar of a bell hooks quote about rooting our moral imagination in present reality while projecting it beyond, fourteen performers engage in a multilingual conversation through hip-hop and modern dance, poetry, dialogue, and music, weighing the troubled world we have against the better one they can envision among one another.

Most of the performers are nondancers from many walks of life; several are children, and they come together within the “heightened reality” of a parade’s joyful, diverse, purposeful rabble. Half of the take goes to the performers while the other half goes to Alerta Migratoria NC, a Durham-based resource for undocumented immigrants seeking asylum. —Brian Howe THE VAULT, DURHAM I 7 p.m., $1–$35, www.didaseason.com

OPENING Bright Half Life: Play. $5-$20.

Feb 16-Mar 4. Manbites Dog Theater, Durham. www. manbitesdogtheater.org. See p. 26.

Soundings photo by Mendal Polish

PHOTO COURTESY OF POWER PLANT GALLERY

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17

THE BODY AND QUEER LISTENING The solitary act of immersing yourself in sound becomes communal on Third Friday at Power Plant Gallery in the American Tobacco Campus. Currently on view—actually, make that on hearing—is Soundings: Protest|Politics|Dissent, an audio exhibit ranging from experimental works to podcasts dealing with climate change, the diasporic imagination, mass incarceration, and other current sites of cultural conflict, oppression, and erasure. For one night only, exhibit contributor Mendal Polish, a graduate of Duke’s experimental and documentary arts MFA, curates and hosts The Body and Queer Listening, which integrates works by nine artists into a group-listening rite. “We will come together in the dim light to listen to one another,” Polish writes. “We will convene, yearning to hear queer voices.” Visit the CDS Porch blog to read Polish’s thoughtful, emotive essay on the event (bit.ly/2lyBllZ)— and search for the #F17 hashtag on Twitter to learn why the gallery is only serving drinks already in its inventory rather than buying any more. —Brian Howe POWER PLANT GALLERY, DURHAM 6 p.m., free, www.powerplantgallery.com

Feb 17 & Sat, Feb 18. Various locations in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. See p. 24.

NC Youth Tap Ensemble: Dance. $5-$10. Sat, Feb 18, 2 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. www. artscenterlive.org.

Commedia Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Play. Sat, Feb 18, 3 p.m. Cary Arts Center, Cary. www.townofcary.org.

Noises Off: Play. $5-$15. Feb 16-26. William Peace University: Leggett Theatre, Raleigh. theatre. peace.edu.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Musical. $20-$125. Feb 21-26. Durham Performing Arts Center. www. dpacnc.com. See p. 27.

Once Upon a Mattress: Musical. $5-$10. Feb 21-26, 7:30 p.m.

Meredith College: Jones Auditorium, Raleigh. www. meredith.edu.

Todd Glass: Stand-up comedy. $20. Feb 16-18. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. www. goodnightscomedy.com.

Sexy Dancer: A Burlesque Celebration of Prince: $10. Fri, Feb 17, 9 p.m. Arcana, Durham. www.arcanadurham.com.

Myq Kaplan: Stand-up comedy. $10-$12. Sun, Feb 19, 8 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham. www.motorcomusic.com.

The Who and the What: Play. $10. Thu, Feb 16, 7:30 p.m. UNC Campus: Historic Playmakers Theatre, Chapel Hill.

Jay Leno: Fri, Feb 17. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. www.dpacnc.com.

ONGOING

Marc Maron: Comedy. $32$160. Fri, Feb 17, 8 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. www. carolinatheatre.org.

The Marriage of Figaro: NC Opera. $25-$99. Feb 20-Mar 5.

Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

NC Comedy Arts Festival: Fri,

LAST Agnes of God: Play.

CHANCE $13-$18. Thru Feb 19, 7:30 p.m. Wake Forest Renaissance Center, Wake Forest. www.wakeforestnc/ renaissance-centre.aspx.

LAST Brigid, the Legend CHANCE Begins: Musical. $7-$15. Thru Feb 18. EK Powe Elementary School, Durham.

powe.dpsnc.net.

LAST ½ The God CHANCE Game: $8-$18. Thru Feb 18. Sonorous Road Productions, Raleigh. www. sonorousroad.com. See review, p.

25.

LAST The Little Mermaid: CHANCE Dance. $20-$89.

Thru Feb 19. Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

N: Play. $12-$24. Thru Feb 26.

Theatre In The Park, Raleigh. www.theatreinthepark.com.

The Night Alive: $17. Thru Feb 25. North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, Raleigh. www. nract.org.

One Man, Two Guvnors: $15$27. Thru Feb 26. Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh. www. raleighlittletheatre.org.

LAST Saturday Night CHANCE Fever: Musical. $18$85. Thru Feb 19. Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh. www. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

LAST The Secret Garden: CHANCE Thru Feb. 18. NCSU Campus: Stewart Theatre, Raleigh.  Zuccotti Park: Musical. $10$22. Thru Feb 26. Umstead Park United Church of Christ, Raleigh. www.upucc.org. See review, p. 25.

INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 35

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screen SPECIAL SHOWINGS Lion Ark: Sat, Feb 18, 1 p.m. Full Frame Theater, Durham.

Unexposed Presents: Her Battleground: Fri, Feb 17, 7 p.m.

Lump, Raleigh. www.teamlump. org.

Unexposed Presents: The Voice of God: Sat, Feb 18, 7 p.m. Lump, Raleigh. www.teamlump.org.

OPENING A Cure for Wellness—In Gore Verbinski’s psychological thriller, a young executive unravels the secrets of a sketchy “wellness center” in the Swiss Alps. Rated R. Fist Fight—Ice Cube and Charlie Day square off after school in a loose remake of eighties teen comedy Three O’Clock High. Rated R. The Great Wall—Mark Wahlberg and other white folks battle mythical beasts at a famous landmark in medieval China. Rated PG-13.

I Am Not Your Negro—In his acclaimed documentary, Raoul Peck “finishes” James Baldwin’s unfinished book about the assassinations of his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Rated PG-13.

A L S O P L AY I N G The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at www.indyweek.com.  A Dog’s Purpose—Josh Gad voices a reincarnating dog in this maudlin, improbable family movie.

Rated PG.  The Comedian—Robert De Niro gives us too much insult, not enough comic. Rated R. ½ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them—A Rowling-penned, promising start to a new Harry Potter franchise. Rated PG-13. ½ Hidden Figures— This true story of three black women triumphing over racism and sexism in the 1960s space race has

36 | 2.15.17 | INDYweek.com

a TV-movie softness but powerfully portrays bigotry and courage. Rated PG. ½ John Wick: Chapter 2—This smartly made return for the reluctant hit man character that resuscitated Keanu Reeves’s career runs on muscle cars and muscle memories. Rated R.  La La Land—Damien Chazelle reunites Gosling and Stone for a breezy jazz musical with Technicolor charm. Rated PG-13.  The Lego Batman Movie—Cranking up the Jokes Per Minute with an astonishingly high success rate, this animated film blends over-the-top laughs aimed at youngsters with countless gags for adults. Rated PG.

HH½ Passengers—This glossy interstellar vehicle for provocative moral entanglements ultimately implodes from the pressure of its star-driven, crowd-pleasing mission. Rated PG-13.  Patriots Day— Mark Wahlberg’s ego singlehandedly avenges the Boston Marathon bombing victims. Rated R.  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story—This war flick set in the Star Wars universe takes place just before the first film, and works great as a stand-alone. Rated PG-13. ½ Silence—Scorsese offers a masterful, reverent tale of seventeenth-century Jesuits traveling to Japan.

Rated R.  The Space Between Us—Men are from Mars and women are typecast in this garishly inauthentic interplanetary romance and YA weepie.

Rated PG-13.  Split—M. Night Shyamalan sticks a killer twist in this tense tale of a kidnapper with multiple personalities (James McAvoy)—but the biggest shocker of all is that the movie’s pretty good. Rated PG-13.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17

TIMOTHY B. TYSON: THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL The murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in August 1955, the subsequent publication, on his mother’s insistence, of the horrific postmortem photograph of his battered face, and the not-guilty verdict rendered upon the two accused of the lynching helped set the stage for the civil rights movement of the next decade. Pivotal to the story is the notion that Till, a Chicagoan visiting relatives in the unfamiliar South, whistled at a white woman, but in court the woman went further, suggesting that Till physically menaced her. In the newest book by Timothy Tyson, author of the celebrated Blood Done Sign My Name, the truth about those allegations is revealed through the story of Carolyn Bryant Donham, who was twenty-one and working at a country store when her one-minute encounter with Till left a permanent mark on her life as well as on the trajectory of U.S. history. In excavating her story, Tyson reveals that Donham eventually recanted her basest allegations and could not recall the other details, including the whistling part (apparently Till spoke with a lisp, which could have accounted for it).

The killings that capture the American imagination and point a finger at the nation’s very soul, like Till’s, like Kitty Genovese’s, have long been rendered as myth; authors like Tyson perform a valuable service in transforming these stories back into history. —David Klein QUAIL RIDGE BOOKS, RALEIGH | 7 p.m., free (signing line with book purchase), www.quailridgebooks.com

READINGS & SIGNINGS Troy Ball: Pure Heart: A Spirited Tale of Grace, Grit, and Whiskey. Sun, Feb 19, 2 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks. com.

Peggy Parsons: Foggy Mountain Troubadour: The Life and Music of Curly Seckler. Sat, Feb 18, 3 p.m. Regulator Bookshop, Durham. www. regulatorbookshop.com.

Karen Pullen: Cold Heart: A Stella Lavender Mystery. Sat, Feb 18, 11 am. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com.

John Darnielle: Universal Harvester. Wed, Feb 15, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www. quailridgebooks.com.

Helen Simonson: The Summer Before The War. Wed, Feb 22, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com.

Frye Gaillard, Kelly Starling Lyons, Susie Wilde: Go South to Freedom and multicultural children’s books discussion. Tue, Feb 21, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www. quailridgebooks.com.

Tim Tyson: The Blood of Emmett Till. Fri, Feb 17, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www. quailridgebooks.com..

Kathleen Grissom: Glory Over Everything.

Mon, Feb 20, 7 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. www.flyleafbooks.com.

Lauren Hunter: Poetry. Sat, Feb 18, 8 p.m.

The Shed Jazz Club, Durham.

Sylvia Inks: Small Business Finance for the Busy Entrepreneur. Sat, Feb 18, 2 p.m. McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro. www. mcintyresbooks.com.

L I T E R A RY R E L AT E D Beautiful Struggle: Hip Hop’s Role in the Trump Era: With Talib Kweli and Mark Anthony Neal. Fri, Feb 17, 3 p.m. Beyù Caffè, Durham. www.beyucaffe.com.

Blackspace Youth Slam February: Poetry.

Tue, Feb 21, 6:15 p.m. Beyù Caffè, Durham. www.beyucaffe.com.

Michael McFee: We Were Once Here. Thu, Feb 16, 7 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. www.flyleafbooks.com.

Bullish on Durham: Neighborhood Panel: Robert Korstad, Benjamin Filippo, Aidil Ortiz Hill, James Johnson. With Leoneda Inge.

Thu, Feb 16, 7 p.m. Hayti Heritage Center, Durham. www.hayti.org.

Syd Nathans: In A Mind to Stay: White Plantation, Black Homeland. Sat, Feb 18, 2 p.m.

Historic Stagville, Durham. www.stagville. org. Mon, Feb 20, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www.quailridgebooks.com.

William Henry Curry: Music Director and Conductor of the Durham Symphony speaking on Charles Ives. Thu, Feb 16, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. www. quailridgebooks.com.

Hutchins Lecture: Julie Reed: Social Services in the Cherokee Nation. Thu, Feb 16, 4:30 p.m. UNC Campus: Wilson Special Collections Library, Chapel Hill. www.lib.unc. edu/wilson.

Notable North Carolina Lecture Series: Philanthropic Families: The Reynolds Family: With Michele Gillespie and Phil Archer. Tue, Feb 21, 7 p.m. NC Museum of History, Raleigh. www.ncmuseumofhistory. org.

Tim Portlock: Hanes Visiting Artist Lecture.

Tue, Feb 21, 6 p.m. UNC Campus: Hanes Art Center, Chapel Hill. art.unc.edu.

Kim Smith: “Five Orange County AfricanAmerican Families Remembered: Harriet Smith and the Smith, Fitzgerald, Morphis, Kirby, and Toole Descendants.” Sun, Feb 19, 2:30 p.m. Chapel Hill Historical Society, Chapel Hill. www.chapelhillhistoricalsociety. org.

Talking Music: Talib Kweli and 9th Wonder in Conversation: Wed, Feb 15, noon. Duke’s Forum for Scholars and Publics, Durham.

Peter H. Wood: “The Harper’s Ferry Five: Tracing the Roots of John Brown’s Actual Plan for 1859, and the Southern Black Freedom Fighters who Joined Him.” Tue, Feb 21, 7 p.m. Hayti Heritage Center, Durham. www.hayti.org.

indy classifieds employment AIRLINE CAREERS BEGIN HERE

Get started by training as FAA certified Aviation Technician.

Financial aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance 800-725-1563 (AAN CAN)

AUDIBEL HEARING AID CENTER

Now Hiring Patient Care Coordinators. $11 Per Hour Apply In Person. 8819 Six Fork Road, Raleigh, NC. Office Locations: Raleigh, Durham, Cary

BARTENDERS NEEDED MAKE $20-$35/HOUR

Raleigh’s Bartending School 676.0774 www.cocktailmixer. com 1-2wk class

DRIVER TRAINEES NEEDED!

Become a driver for Stevens Transport! NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED! New drivers earn $800+ per week! PAID CDL TRAINING! Stevens covers all costs! 1-888-748-4137 drive4stevens.com

FTCC FAYETTEVILLE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE

is now accepting applications for the following positions: Computer Programming & Development/Database Instructor, Certified Nursing Assistant Instructor For detailed information and to apply, please visit our employment portal at: https:// faytechcc.peopleadmin.com/ Human Resources Office Phone: (910) 678-7342 Internet: http://www.faytechcc.edu An Equal Opportunity Employer

LEAD EDUCATOR FOR COOKING CLASSES (PARTTIME) Enjoy the art of cooking and designing recipes that children love to make? Appreciate local food? Kidzu Children’s Museum is looking for a playful/professional individual to lead weekly food and cooking programs. $11 an hour.

More details at kidzuchildrensmuseum.org/join-the-team.

MEDICAL BILLING TRAINEES NEEDED! Train at Home for a new career now at CTI! NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED! Online Training can get you job ready! 1-888512-7122 HS Diploma/GED & Computer needed. careertechnical.edu/nc

DANCE CLASSES IN SWING, LINDY, BLUES, CHARLESTON At ERUUF, Durham & ArtsCenter, Carrboro. RICHARD BADU, 919-724-1421, rbadudance@gmail.com

STRUGGLING WITH DRUGS OR ALCOHOL? ADDICTED TO PILLS? Talk to someone who cares.

Call The Addiction Hope & Help Line for a free assessment. 800-978- 6674 (AAN CAN)

TAI CHI Traditional art of meditative movement for health, energy, relaxation, self-defense.

Classes/workshops throughout the Triangle. Magic Tortoise School - Since 1979. Call Jay or Kathleen, 919-968-3936 or www.magictortoise.com

misc.

XARELTO Xarelto users have you had complications due to internal bleeding (after January 2012)? If so, you MAY be due financial compensation. If you don’t have an attorney, CALL Injuryfone today! 1-800-4198268.(NCPA)

massage FULL BODY MASSAGE by a Male Russian Massage Therapist with strong and gentle hands to make you feel good from head to toe.

Schedule an appointment with Pavel Sapojnikov, NC LMBT. #1184. Call: 919-790-9750.

MASSAGE BY MARK KINSEY Ten years helping clients feel at home in their bodies.

Swedish & deep tissue massage for stress relief. Near Duke.

MassageByMarkKinsey.com.

NCLMBT#6072. 919-619-6373.

medical services MAKE THE CALL TO START GETTING CLEAN TODAY. Free 24/7 Helpline for alcohol & drug addiction treatment. Get help! It is time to take your life back! Call Now: 855-732-4139 (AAN CAN)

products ACORN STAIRLIFTS The AFFORDABLE solution to your stairs! **Limited time -$250 Off Your Stairlift Purchase!** Buy Direct & SAVE. Please call 1-800-291-2712 for FREE DVD and brochure.(NCPA)

KEEP DOGS SHELTERED

To adopt: 919-403-2221 or visit animalrescue.net

Reno

PAID IN ADVANCE! Make $1000 A Week Mailing Brochures From Home!

No Experience Required.

Helping home workers since 2001! Genuine Opportunity.

Start Immediately! www.

IncomeStation.net (AAN CAN) for established Durham law firm doing civil litigation in state and federal court.

Excellent word-processing and organizational skills required.

Certification preferred. Send resume to Lisa Ruizesparza, Glenn, Mills, Fisher & Mahoney, P.O. Drawer 3865, Durham, NC 27702 or to lruizesparza@gmfm-law.com.

studies VETERANS! HAVE YOU SUFFERED FROM SLEEP PROBLEMS, SPECIFICALLY INSOMNIA? IF SO AND YOU HAVE COMPLETED COGNITIVEBEHAVIORAL THERAPY FOR INSOMNIA (CBT-I) THROUGH THE DURHAM VA MEDICAL CENTER SLEEP CLINIC OR ANOTHER HEALTHCARE PROVIDER, WE WOULD LIKE TO TALK WITH YOU. * VA MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES AND BLUERIDGE IT SOLUTIONS ARE DEVELOPING AN ONLINE CBT-i COURSE FOR VETERANS. * WE WANT TO INCLUDE BRIEF VIDEO DISCUSSIONS WITH VETERANS ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH INSOMNIA AND INSOMNIA TREATMENT. * WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SPEND 60-90 MINUTES MAKING A VIDEO DISCUSSING YOUR SLEEP ISSUES? * VETERANS WHO ARE INTERVIEWED WILL RECEIVE A $100 GIFT CARD. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT MR. GREEN BLUERIDGE IT SOLUTIONS AT 850-685-6243

GOT KNEE PAIN? BACK PAIN? SHOULDER PAIN? Get a pain-relieving brace at little or NO cost to you. Medicare Patients Call Health Hotline Now! 1- 800-591-5582

Book your ad • CALL Sarah at 919-286-6642 • EMAIL

Coalition to Unchain Dogs seeks plastic or igloo style dog houses for dogs in need, as well as indoor metal crates.

To donate, please contact Amanda at director@unchaindogs.net.

GOT A MAC?

misc.

EFFICIENT GREEN HOME geothermal heating/cooling, solar water heater, 1st floor master, prewired solar, 3 bdrm, 2 Ω bath, gym/lake/ walking trails, full veggie/ fruit/flower garden. Call Jack 919-967-6443

ROBERT GRIFFIN IS ACCEPTING PIANO STUDENTS AGAIN! See the teaching page of: www.griffanzo.com Adult beginners welcome. 919-6362461 or griffanzo1@gmail.com

for sale

services Need Support? Let AppleBuddy help you. Call 919.740.2604 or log onto www. applebuddy.com

own/wake co.

lessons

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body • mind • spirit classes & instruction

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getaways

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COMING TO ASHEVILLE? Upscale Spa. private outdoor hot tubs, 26 massage therapists, overnight accommodations, sauna and more.

Starting at $42. Shojiretreats. com 828-299-0999

DECLUTTERING? WE’LL BUY YOUR BOOKS

JEWELRY APPRAISALS While you wait. Graduate Gemologist www.ncjewelryappraiser.com

We’ll bring a truck and crew *and pay cash* for your books and other media. 919-872-3399 or MiniCityMedia.com.

PREGNANT? CONSIDERING ADOPTION? Call us first. Living expenses, housing, medical, and continued support afterwards.

Choose adoptive family of your choice. Call 24/7.

877-362-2401

CALL SARAH FOR ADS! entertainment #1 CHAT IN RALEIGH

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claSSy@indyweek.com

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LIVELINKS

INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 37

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HIGHLIGHT! ★★★★★★★

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Who:

TROSA (Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers, Inc.)

What:

TROSA is an innovative, multi-year residential program 1 that helps men and women recover from substance use disorders. We pro6 vide comprehensive treatment, vocational 8 training, education opportunities, and continuing5care to an average of 500 residents daily4– at no charge. Reginald,

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2 8 TROSA graduate, has been sober for eight years. 9 “Coming3to TROSA was the best 3 decision 4 of my life,”2 says Reginald. “I am 7 most proud of learning 9 how to trust myself.”

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Give: www.trosainc.org/donate 7 2

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TO BE FEATURED IN A GIVE! GUIDE HIGHLIGHT, CONTACT CLASSY@INDYWEEK.COM

2016

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

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MEDIUM

# 26

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.

9 6

1 8

6

76 94

19

4

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1 27

6 8 1 71 2

3 66

8 1 6

5

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4 41 7 79

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9 47 63 2 6

2 4 2 8 97

MEDIUM

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5 9

4 6

MEDIUM 6 1 2 4 8 5 3 9 7

5 9 4 3 7 6 2 1 8

7 3 8 1 2 9 5 6 4

# 27

6 1 5 8 3 7 9 2 4

3 9 7 4 6 2 5 1 8

2 4 8 9 1 5 7 3 6

5 2 6 1 4 9 8 7 3

3 4 8 # 73

7 3 4 5 2 8 1 6 9

1 8 9 6 7 3 4 5 2

4 7 1 2 8 6 3 9 5

8 5 2 3 9 1 6 4 7

9 6 3 7 5 4 2 8 1

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7 4 3can’t 9 5 1wait, 6 8 2 If# 28 you just check 2 9 1 8 3 6 7 4 5 out the 8current week’s answer 5 6 7 2 4 1 3 9 key at 5 www.indyweek.com, 1 4 2 6 9 8 7 3 9 3“Diversions”.

2 4 8 7 5 1 6 and click 6 8 7 5 1 3 2 9 4

Best of1 luck, 6 8 3and 9 2 have 4 5 7fun!

3 7 5 6 4 8 9 2 1 6 8

www.sudoku.com 4 2 9 1 7 5 3

solution to last week’s puzzle

Page 7 of 25

9 8 6 1 5

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2.15.17

30/10/2005

4

1 Book 8 your ad2 • CALL Sarah at 919-286-6642 • EMAIL claSSy@indyweek.com 7 6 4 8

If you are a man or woman, 18-55 years old, living in the RaleighDurham-Chapel Hill area, and smoke cigarettes or use an electronic nicotine delivery system (e-cigarette), please join an important study on smokers being conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

RECYCLE THIS PAPER

919-416-0675

www.harmonygate.com

What’s Required?

• One visit to donate blood, urine, and saliva samples • Samples will be collected at the NIEHS Clinical Research Unit in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina • Volunteers will be compensated up to $60 Who Can Participate?

• Healthy men and women aged 18-55 • Current cigarette smokers or users of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes (can be using both) The definition of healthy for this study means that you feel well and can perform normal activities. If you have a chronic condition, such as high blood pressure, healthy can also mean that you are being treated and the condition is under control.

For more information about this study, call 919-316-4976

Bolinwood Condominiums Affordability without compromise

Convenient to UNC on N bus line 2 & 3 bedroom condominiums for lease

www.bolinwoodcondos.com • 919-942-7806

Lead Researcher Stavros Garantziotis, M.D. • National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

CALL SARAH FOR ADS!

919-286-6642

last week's puzzle

Dating Made Easy

Playmates or soul mates, you’ll find them on MegaMates Always FREE to listen and reply to ads!

Always FREE to listen and reply to ads!

Raleigh:

Raleigh:

(919) 573-6821 (919) 573-6818 www.megamates.com 18+

Book your ad • CALL Sarah at 919-286-6642 • EMAIL

claSSy@indyweek.com

www.megamates.com 18+

INDYweek.com | 2.15.17 | 39

TO A DV E R T I S E O N T H E B AC K PAG E : C A L L 9 1 9. 2 6 8 .1 9 7 2 ( D U R H A M /C H A P E L H I L L ) O R 9 1 9. 8 3 2 . 8 7 74 ( R A L E I G H ) • E M A I L : A DV E R T I S I N G @ I N DY W E E K .C O M