November 27, 2024
A Little Respect
A new campaign asks, “Does Duke respect Durham?”
by Justin Laidlaw, Erin Gretzinger, and Ren Larson, p.
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Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill
Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill
CONTENTS
NEWS
4 Durham Public Schools' new superintendent just wrapped a series of community listening sessions. He has his work cut out. BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR
6 NC State students are demanding accountability for cancer-causing PCBs found in campus buildings. BY CHRISTINE ZHU
8 Here are five things we learned from the Raleigh City Council election. BY JANE PORTER
10 A new campaign asks: 'Does Duke respect Durham?' BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW, ERIN GRETZINGER, AND REN LARSON
FEATURE
14 What local chefs and farmer's market managers are excited to put on their tables this Thanksgiving. BY SARAH EDWARDS
CULTURE
16 “Finding wonder in the past makes me a bit more open to wonder in the present,” says The Memory Palace podcast host Nate DiMeo. BY SARAH EDWARDS
18 Downtown Raleigh rock club Kings celebrates 25 years. BY JORDAN LAWRENCE
20 How Durham cellist Daniel Levin "learned to want yellow." BY BRIAN HOWE
THE REGULARS
22 Culture calendar
W E M A D E T H I S
PUBLISHER
John Hurld
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief
Jane Porter
Culture Editor
Sarah Edwards
Reporters
Chloe Courtney Bohl
Lena Geller
Justin Laidlaw
Chase Pellegrini de Paur
Contributors
Mariana Fabian, Jasmine Gallup, Desmera Gatewood, Spencer Griffith, Carr Harkrader, Matt Hartman, Tasso Hartzog, Brian Howe, Kyesha Jennings, Jordan Lawrence, Elim Lee, Glenn McDonald, Nick McGregor, Gabi Mendick, Cy Neff, Sam Overton, Shelbi Polk, Byron Woods, Barry Yeoman
Copy Editor Iza Wojciechowska
2 November 27, 2024 INDYweek.com
CREATIVE
Creative Director Nicole Pajor Moore
Graphic Designer Ann Salman
Staff Photographer Angelica Edwards
ADVERTISING
Publisher John Hurld
Director of Revenue Mathias Marchington
Director of Operations Chelsey Koch
CIRCULATION
Berry Media Group
MEMBERSHIP/SUBSCRIPTIONS
John Hurld
Daniel Levin playing cello in his home. (See story, page 20.)
PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
N E W S Durham
Listening More
In his first three months on the job, Anthony Lewis, Durham Public Schools’ new superintendent, held meetings across the district to hear from the community. He has his work cut out.
BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR chase@indyweek.com
Earlier this month, in the new Northern High School cafeteria, Durham’s new superintendent, Dr. Anthony Lewis, pitched himself to staff, families, and a handful of students through a “community listening session.”
Backed by a robust résumé—Alabama special education teacher turned principal; assistant superintendent in Kansas City; superintendent in Lawrence, Kansas; and graduate degrees aplenty in education— Lewis has radiated confidence, charisma, and competency in his first three months in the job, a period that he joked about in his opening remarks.
“I’ve done my 90-day trial, right?” he told the crowd of about 100 people in the cavernous cafeteria, which may have been modeled after an aircraft hangar or a brilliantly lighted Costco warehouse. He reminded them that it will take many hands to fix some of the district’s struggles.
“When I meet people, they say, ‘Well, you have your work cut out for you.’ And I quickly correct them and say, ‘No, no, no, we have our work cut out for us.’”
That work will mostly involve cleaning up the mess left to Lewis by the previous administration, which announced a pay increase for classified staff—nurses, cafeteria workers, instructional assistants, maintenance staff, and others—in October 2023. Then, in early 2024, the administration told staff that many raises could not be accommodated by the budget and blamed an “accounting error.”
Through the winter, staff protested through actions that included several “sickouts,” closing down some schools. Former superintendent Pascal Mubenga and for-
mer chief financial officer Paul LeSieur both resigned in the wake of the crisis.
At the listening session, Lewis reminded the crowd of his right to alter the district’s strategic plan, the supreme planning document that outlines the priorities of a school system, which, in the 2024–25 fiscal year, accounted for more than a fifth of the county’s overall spending.
“[My] quick assessment over these first three months is that there’s tons of opportunities here in Durham. Now, there are some things that are going to take us a year, or two, three, to get out of. And frankly, folks, there are some things that I would consider low-hanging fruit or, quite frankly, some fruit on the ground.”
The event at Northern was the last of seven sessions meant to help the superintendent gather information before making any major decisions to shape the future of the troubled district. The first exam of the suave leader’s skills is scheduled for January, when he will present his post-entry plan of goals and priorities to the school board that hired him.
The listening sessions were also opportunities for parents and staff to get to know Lewis.
During this month’s session, tables of stakeholders put their heads together to dream of their perfect Durham Public Schools (DPS). And as Lewis moved around the room, he was grabbed by various passionate people with their specific concerns.
At one table, Northern High School parent Laura Guerrette grilled Lewis over issues with the new Northern building, a roughly $90 million endeavor paid for in
part by voter approval of a 2016 bond referendum. She told Lewis that most of the athletic fields at the new school are still unusable, which has impacted the sports teams of two of her kids. Guerrette’s concern was particularly timely, as the district is already undertaking another massive project—a new Durham School of the Arts (DSA), the cost of which has already ballooned to about $241 million.
The decision to build a new DSA, which played out just before Lewis’s arrival, was its own source of intense debate, as many parents and neighbors tried to keep the historic school in its current downtown location.
But parents at the listening session, including Guerrette, were cautiously optimistic about Lewis.
“He seems engaged,” Guerrette tells the INDY. She recognized that he’s been in the role for only three months and still has a lot to learn.
“So now let’s see where it goes. Durham needs somebody that’s going to take a hold of all this, because Durham Public Schools is a mess and everybody knows it.”
Even just at Guerrette’s table of parents and staff, it was apparent that there was appetite for change.
Some parents said that the district doesn’t communicate enough, and they’ve missed important messages about their
students. Others said DPS communicates too much, and they can’t sort through all the messages to decide what’s worth paying attention to. Teachers said that the district-provided curriculum was expensive but ineffective, and parents, nodding sympathetically, mourned the loss of good old textbooks which are no longer being used.
Among the barrage of constructive criticism, transportation stood out as a key issue for Lewis to address. This year, the district has struggled with a shortage of bus drivers, leaving some students waiting hours for a bus that never arrives.
“Consistently, and I mean almost every day, either the bus doesn’t stop for him, the bus doesn’t show up, or we get a message a bus is two hours late,” Jane Dornemann told the 9th Street Journal in September. “The other issue is that my son is also consistently waiting for the bus downtown for up to two hours,” she added. “He most of the time gets home by six o’clock. His school lets out at 3:20.”
Like most problems in the district, that’s not exactly Lewis’s fault—districts nationwide are dealing with similar shortages— but it is his responsibility to fix.
On that issue at least, Lewis has some social goodwill banked because he has two
Superintendent Anthony Lewis. PHOTO BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR
children in the district who are among the roughly 70 percent of students—totaling 7,000 stops—who ride DPS buses.
He says that the first step is “getting the right people in the seats to get the work done,” referencing the new CFO, Jeremy Teetor, and new COO, Larry Webb, both of whom are starting before the year’s end. Lewis has previously mentioned that the district has about 37 drivers currently in the training pipeline and urged community members to help recruit drivers who either have their commercial driver license or are interested in being trained.
Other pieces of the city-county government apparatus have tried to alleviate some pressure from the transit crisis.
In a recent joint meeting, county commissioners and board members agreed that driver salary could be more competitive. Board member Natalie Beyer pointed out that pay for GoTriangle drivers starts higher, and has a higher cap, than pay for DPS drivers. “We’re at about $19.43 [per hour],” Lewis said at that meeting. “We’re right there close to Wake [County]. But we’re not number one. And we definitely want to be number one.”
And the city’s transportation director, Sean Egan, recently told the INDY that the GoDurham lines servicing Northern and Riverside High Schools have been doubled in frequency. That same benefit will reach Southern High School in the spring.
At the listening session, trust—or a lack thereof—between staff and adminis-
tration was also top of mind.
Millie Rosen, a seventh-grade math teacher at DSA, said that there have already been several instances this year when staff input could’ve helped administration flag problems earlier. She pointed to the recent lunch menu revamp, which was a positive change for students but put more pressure on cooks and kitchen staff who were not fully trained or sometimes did not have the proper equipment or ingredients.
“When we go to the school board, the school board members tell us, ‘Oh, just email us if you have issues.’ But that doesn’t suffice,” Rosen says.
Rosen, who sat next to Guerrette during the breakout session, is also the secretary of the Durham Association of Educators (DAE), which was the organizing force behind the staff sickouts. Because of North Carolina law, though, local governments are barred from officially negotiating with public-sector employee unions.
Rosen and the DAE believe that the best way to get staff feedback is to recognize the staff’s union through the “meet and confer” process, which allows something of a seat at the decision-making table without breaking the law.
“When you have a district that is burning to the ground because of state cuts, we need a coordinated effort by the staff to have an organization that can reach the vast majority of staff in a short amount of time, which, right now, is the Durham Association of Educators,” Rosen says.
The board has been reluctant to approve the process, but Rosen says she has “a lot of hope for the new superintendent, because when he worked in Lawrence, he did the exact process that we are trying to get rolling.”
In his first 100 days, Lewis has often spoken about listening to students more. Damien Malone Jr. from Shepard Middle School tells the INDY that Lewis should focus on reducing unnecessary testing.
“We have too many tests. Every other Friday we have a [county] test, and that’s a big grade,” says Malone. He also wants Lewis to maintain a focus on diversity in staffing.
And across the system, other student voices have been louder than ever. Last week, students at DSA held a walkout to promote a “Green New Deal for Schools,” with demands for a “climate justice curriculum,” climate disaster plans that utilize school buildings as community-wide recovery zones, and pathways to jobs in climate-related fields.
DPS board chair Millicent Rogers says that the district also needs to include students in conversations about school safety.
“What makes them feel most safe in school? Do they have a trusted adult? Do they feel safe en route to school?” Rogers says. “Letting them lead those conversations is going to be really important. The students know what they need.”
To wrap up the evening, Lewis turned the attention back to some students in the room.
“Oftentimes in education we do things to and for students, but not with them,” he said. In a move sure to win approval from the audience, Lewis handed the mic to Luna, a student at Holt Elementary School, whom he had spoken with earlier in his rounds. He held up a list of questions that Luna had written.
“What would you do differently from [former superintendent] Mubenga, and how would you do it?” Luna asked. She also reminded Lewis to occasionally stop by classrooms to ask students themselves what they want out of DPS.
The crowd of adults went wild with applause.
“You tell him, Luna!” shouted one staff member as Lewis smiled proudly.
Lewis told Luna and the crowd that those in charge won’t know what’s best for students if they don’t talk with them and involve them in decision-making.
“Our work will be so much easier if we listen to our students,” Lewis said. W
Additional reporting by Justin Laidlaw
Superintendent Anthony Lewis at a community listening session in November PHOTO BY CHASE PELLEGRINI DE PAUR
A Toxic Workplace
NC State students are demanding accountability for cancer-causing PCBs found on campus.
BY CHRISTINE ZHU backtalk@indyweek.com
One year after the closure of Poe Hall at North Carolina State University, students are demanding more action from the school’s administration to address the issue of PCBs on campus, which are linked to breast cancer. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were found with levels up to 38 times greater than EPA standards at Poe Hall last December.
But the university hasn’t done enough to address the issue since then, students say.
The Campus Community Alliance for Environmental Justice and the NCSU Grad Workers Union delivered a petition to the institution Tuesday afternoon to express their continued concern over the health and well-being of campus community members.
Organizers circulated a list of six demands to Chancellor Randy Woodson beginning in March, which has received 1,276 signatures to date.
These demands include asking the university to identify and contact faculty, staff, and students who have had
extensive exposure to PCB chemicals in Poe Hall, regardless of their current employment or student status at the university.
The petition also demands that the university fully compensate all current and former Poe occupants for relevant short- and long-term health screenings, as well as medical costs for those who have been diagnosed with cancer.
In addition, the petitioners asked NC State to keep Poe Hall closed until it is independently confirmed that the building no longer poses a danger in regard to PCBs.
Upon delivering the petition to the chancellor’s office, the students are giving Woodson 30 days to meet the six requests.
“We’re not asking; we’re demanding today,” public history master’s student Celine Shay said.
Holladay Hall, which contains the chancellor’s office, was tested for PCBs in 2023, but Woodson told WRAL in March that he doesn’t know why or what the results of the tests revealed.
Following initial remarks from speakers, a group of about 20 students marched from Poe Hall toward Holladay Hall to deliver the petition to Woodson. Along the way, they shouted chants asking for action.
Eric Martineau, a senior studying environmental science and plant biology, said he was disappointed by the modest turnout for the event but thinks it was a marketing issue.
“It’s not that people don’t care about this, it’s that people don’t know they should care,” he said.
Martineau attended a meeting on Monday with about 60 people and was the only one from that group to join in delivering the petition.
Upon arriving at Holladay Hall, students found the back entrance locked. Organizers were confused—they’d gone to the building the day before at around the same time and had no issue entering.
The group then circled around to the front entrance, which was also locked. Some students peered through the windows. A photographer from the Technician, NC State’s student newspaper, said he could hear a police radio.
At one point, NC Newsline witnessed phones held up to a basement window through the blinds, documenting the students.
“Holladay Hall is locked at various times. We do have external signage with a number to call for deliveries and admittance to the building for meetings,” Maggie Thomas, the chancellor’s communications specialist, told NC Newsline in an email. “A call was not received this afternoon, but a petition was delivered to the Chancellor’s Office.”
Unable to deliver the petition directly to Woodson or his staff, the students settled for taping it above the doors of the front entrance. The unfurled petition was 34 pages long.
“This has gone beyond North Carolina, who has been signing this petition, because they all know that you shouldn’t have to work in and tolerate a toxic workplace,” marine science graduate student Hwa Huang said. W
This story originally published online at NC Newsline.
NC State students taped a list of demands to Holladay Hall earlier this month PHOTO BY CHRISTINE ZHU
Staying the Course
In the Raleigh City Council election, voters stuck with incumbents and are generally happy with the direction of the city. Still, right-leaning candidates did well, and it’s not clear if grassroots campaigns targeting young voters are a winning model for the future.
BY JANE PORTER jporter@indyweek.com
Last Tuesday marked the last day of meetings for a Raleigh City Council that was led, for the last five years, by outgoing mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin. Baldwin decided not to run for reelection, but on Election Day, voters largely chose to continue moving the city in the same direction that Baldwin has taken it during her tenure by embracing growth, investing in transit, and preserving parks and greenways.
As the Baldwin era comes to an end and we look ahead to the new council’s swearing-in on December 2, here are our five biggest takeaways from the Raleigh City Council election.
Residents are generally happy with how things are going and voted to stay the course
Since she announced her plan to run in January, Raleigh mayor-elect Janet Cowell, who won in a landslide taking 60 percent of the vote, has said she feels that, overall, Raleigh is headed in the right direction.
“We have a high quality of life, vibrant and diverse neighborhoods, and residents who make this a special place to live,” Cowell wrote in an INDY Week candidate questionnaire last month. She noted that rapid growth has brought new opportunities and wealth, but also dis-
NICOLE PAJOR MOORE
placement and burden for some, and she promises to work to ensure that Raleigh is a “city that works for everyone.”
Before the election, we published a story asking if Raleigh voters would choose to change or stay the course, and we seem to have our answer: voters connected with Cowell’s message and across the board elected incumbents in every council seat except for District A.
Voters chose experienced candidates
It’s not unrelated to being happy with the way things are going, but when given the chance to pick newcomers over incumbents—unlike two years ago when they elected four millennials to the city council—this time voters picked candidates with experience in office in Districts B, C, and E and for the at-large seats.
The only exception came in District A, where voters unseated first-term incumbent Mary Black in favor of Mitchell Silver. But Silver, too, is an experienced candidate: a former City of Raleigh planning director for a decade before he worked as New York City’s parks commissioner, Silver has an insider’s knowledge of how city government works and was even responsible for writing Raleigh’s guiding documents, the comprehensive plan and unified development ordinance that has put the city on its path for growth through 2030.
At the top of the ticket, Cowell has served in government roles for most of her career. She was a Raleigh City Council member in the early 2000s before serving as a state senator and state treasurer.
Right-leaning candidates fared surprisingly well
The last time Paul Fitts, a Republican mortgage lender, officially ran for mayor was in 2017 against long-serving mayor Nancy McFarlane. He took away just under 15 percent of the vote (or about 7,800 votes) against McFarlane, who won with more than 48 percent of the vote, and the other Democratic challenger, Charles Francis, who netted about 37 percent of the vote. (In 2022, Fitts won 1.4 percent of mayoral votes, or just over 2,000 votes, as a write-in candidate.)
This year, Fitts placed second in a field of five candidates, winning more than 18 percent of the vote, or more
ILLUSTRATION BY
than 40,400 votes, placing well ahead of the other Democrats in the race, Terrance Ruth and Eugene Myrick, who won 11.3 and 6.4 percent of the votes, respectively. Ruth had placed second in a close race against Baldwin in 2022, running just six points behind her.
It was a similar story in other races.
In District A (the city’s most conservative district) Republican candidate Whitney Hill placed second with 33 percent of the vote, behind Silver’s 40 percent haul and ahead of Black’s 26 percent. (Hill came in third in District A in 2022, behind Black and candidate Catherine Lawson, winning about 29 percent of the vote).
And in the at-large races, where candidates are elected citywide, conservative (though officially unaffiliated) candidate James Bledsoe placed third out of seven candidates, winning more than 48,400 votes, or 14 percent of the vote, behind incumbent winners Stormie Forte and Jonathan Lambert-Melton. Forte won about 29 percent of the vote, or more than 98,700 votes, and Melton won 24 percent, or more than 83,800 votes.
A perennial candidate, it was Bledsoe’s best-ever showing. In 2022, he ran for an at-large seat and placed fifth out of seven candidates with 12 percent of the vote, or a little more than 31,200 votes. In the 2019 at-large race, Bledsoe came in last out of six candidates with 5 percent, or about 4,500 votes.
Raleigh and Durham are very different cities, and their municipal elections reflect that
In Durham’s municipal election last year, city council member Nate Baker was the top vote-getter in the three-seat at-large races between six candidates, winning nearly 23 percent of the vote. Baker ran a strong grassroots campaign with a deep bench of volunteers and a message about building an inclusive city with green infrastructure.
In Raleigh’s at-large races this year, which also featured six candidates, Raleigh planning commissioner Reeves Peeler ran a similar campaign to Baker’s, but he didn’t see the same results. Peeler placed fourth, winning about 10 percent of the vote and running well behind incumbents Melton and Forte.
While Peeler (and District A candidate Black) hoped to appeal to a core base of support from working-class residents, renters, and young voters—the same demographics that Baker targeted in Durham— they fell short where Baker succeeded.
Peeler tells the INDY that he realized during his campaign that running for office in Raleigh is fundamentally different from running for office in Durham.
“We have more top-end wealth in Raleigh, there’s probably overall greater inequality,” Peeler said. “There’s more luxury development pressure. Our zoning code paves the way for big houses to be built and small ones to get torn down faster than other places. And because of Raleigh’s history as a strong economy, a state capital, lots of jobs, great schools, people move here more from out of state.”
Does it mean young, progressive candidates like Peeler, Black, and Baker will have a harder time running grassroots campaigns targeting younger working-class voters and renters in the future?
That remains to be seen.
District E broke its seat-flipping streak
Finally, some stability in District E after four election cycles that saw the seat flip as many times.
Incumbent council member Christina Jones defended her seat against a well-financed challenger, change management professional John Cerqueira, but it was a tight race: Jones won with 51.5 percent of the vote to Cerqueira’s 48 percent, or with a difference of just about 1,700 votes.
District E is one of the city’s fastest-growing in Raleigh, and also one where that growth doesn’t always seem to be the most productive, with teardowns of older single-family homes giving way to much larger single-family homes dominating the residential landscape. But it’s also home to residents who oppose growth, or density, in general: in 2023, homeowners in District E’s wealthy Hayes Barton neighborhood filed a lawsuit against the City of Raleigh over its missing-middle development policy in an effort to block the construction of new town homes.
In 2015, Bonner Gaylord, the COO of Kane Realty, won a third term in District E. In 2017, Gaylord narrowly lost the seat to eventual Livable Raleigh cofounder Stef Mendell, who ran on an antidevelopment platform. In 2021, a growth-friendly attorney, David Knight, unseated Mendell, and in 2022, Jones defeated Knight by running a campaign focused largely on community outreach and engagement.
That strategy seems to have worked for Jones: she’s one of the most visible and active district council members, even if some see her as divisive and antidevelopment. W
Durham
A Little Respect
A new campaign asks, “Does Duke respect Durham?”
BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW, ERIN GRETZINGER, AND REN LARSON backtalk@indyweek.com
On a windy Saturday afternoon in September, approximately 100 people filled the pews of Asbury United Methodist Church in Durham. But it wasn’t a congregation that gathered under the filtered light of the stained-glass windows.
“This is a justice service!” proclaimed Keith Bullard, a member of the Union of Southern Service Workers, prompting hoots and hollers from the crowd.
A colorful spread of T-shirts dotted the pews, from the bright red of the service workers and the Durham Association of Educators (DAE) to the black of Durham’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter. Sitting alongside members of community organizations and activists were families, neighbors, and Duke University employees, including some housekeeping workers and a few faculty members.
Duke’s East Campus was just a stone’s throw away, where locals pace the public gravel paths within the stone-wall perimeter. Inside the church, Bullard led a call-and-response.
“When I say ‘Bull City!’ you say ‘Our city!’
“When I say ‘It’s time!’ you say ‘To make Duke pay!’”
The event marked the launch of Duke Respect Durham, a campaign to persuade the university to give more money to the city it calls home. Most private universities are nonprofits and largely exempt from the property taxes that fund K-12 schools, public safety, and infrastructure, even as they own large swaths of land and bring in billions in revenue.
Similar campaigns have convinced Harvard, Yale, Brown, and other universities to make voluntary payments to their hometowns to support such services, also known as payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOT agreements. Duke Respect Durham, which has the support of 30 local organizations, wants the school to pay the city $50 million each year—much more than those other universities pay.
Duke sees things differently. University officials told The Assembly and INDY Week that Duke already contributes tens of millions of dollars to Durham through taxes and community programs. Duke’s investments have been an economic lifeline for the region, officials say, and are integral to the city’s success.
“Duke is fully invested in the future of Durham and
everyone in it,” the university wrote in a statement. “Duke is part of Durham, and Durham is part of Duke.”
The school already works closely with local neighborhoods, government, police, schools, and nonprofits, the university says, and “is constantly looking for more ways we can partner to improve the city we call home.”
The Duke Respect Durham debate comes as the university celebrates its 100th anniversary, and it shines a spotlight on a complicated local history. But it also is a microcosm of town-gown debates that have played out across the country: What does a university that is a major employer and a magnet for talent owe to a community dealing with poverty, gentrification, and struggling schools?
“We are Bull City, baby. We are not easily broken,” said Christy Patterson, the vice president of the DAE, at the campaign launch. “So Duke, you hear me, and you hear me loud and clear: You will pay!”
Massive footprint
At the turn of the 20th century, a few high-profile residents had a different message for Duke: Welcome to Durham.
Trinity College, then a small Methodist school in Randolph County, was looking for a new home at the behest of its president, John F. Crowell, who wanted a more urban environment.
A small collection of Durham’s most influential industrialists, including Julian Carr, Washington Duke, and Duke’s son Benjamin outbid Raleigh for the rights to claim the school. Carr donated more than 60 acres of land to
cement the deal. Trinity’s Board of Trustees said Carr’s donation would be enough to “relieve the college of the necessity of ever investing in additional lands.”
That was “obviously a false prophecy,” Eric Moyen, now a professor of higher education and leadership at Mississippi State University, wrote in a 2004 dissertation on Duke and Durham’s history.
In 1924, a $40 million donation from James Buchanan Duke established the Duke Endowment and renamed the school Duke University in honor of his father, Washington. It also prompted the university to aggressively expand its campus.
When the new Duke University didn’t buy property quickly enough, J. B. Duke threatened to move the college to Charlotte. The university soon acquired 60 new pieces of property in Durham, using a shadow real estate agent to avoid drawing local attention to its plans, according to Moyen’s dissertation, which cites documents in Duke’s archives.
“To be able to acquire as much land as we have and connect it up with the present campus seems almost unbelievable,” a Duke official wrote in a letter to Benjamin Duke, quoted in Moyen’s paper. “I also derive a great deal of satisfaction out of the fact that we were able to acquire the land without anyone knowing about it.”
Over decades, the small college grew into a global powerhouse research institution and medical center, hitting its stride in the 1970s and ’80s alongside the boom of nearby Research Triangle Park. Today, the university owns more than 3,000 acres in Durham County.
The Assembly’s analysis of county tax records found that Duke owns about 2 percent of all the property in
A lawn sign in Walltown. PHOTO BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE
Durham County and about 3 percent in the city of Durham. Citywide, only the city government owns more land. About half of Duke’s property in the county is Duke Forest, which includes recreational areas open to the public as well as research and teaching labs.
The value of Duke’s property and landholdings totaled more than $787 million as of 2024—surpassing each of the next two highest landowners, Durham County and Durham Public Schools, by more than $100 million.
At times, Duke’s growth put it at odds with the city, particularly poor residents. In 1965, Duke bought property between its East and West Campuses to connect the university and demolished dozens of homes to build student housing, Moyen found. Additionally, some neighborhoods where employees lived, such as Duke Forest, were governed by covenants that barred Black people from buying homes there.
Many residents viewed the university as isolated from the city, which faced economic struggles as the tobacco industry collapsed. Durham’s crime and drug problems, as well as its underperforming public schools, sparked concerns that Duke could lose prospective students and faculty to other elite institutions. Ultimately, those forces pushed the university and city closer together.
Both the community and the university paint the 1990s as a turning point. In 1996, the launch of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership brought university resources into neighborhoods surrounding Duke’s East and West Campuses. The program initially involved 12 neighborhoods and today supports 14 neighborhoods with services like cultural preservation, development, and traffic and pedestrian safety.
Throughout the 2000s, the school founded more community-focused programs and made investments in real estate that helped redevelop downtown, including the American Tobacco Campus, which converted abandoned tobacco factory buildings into a bustling business district.
“You saw a pivot toward developing a very intentional partnership and relationship, investing in Durham, seeing that the fates of Duke and Durham are intertwined, and the importance of building those relationships,” says Durham County commissioner Wendy Jacobs, a 1983 Duke graduate.
Still, tensions have flared at times. Perhaps the most famous recent incident involved the death of a proposed lightrail transit system between Durham and Orange Counties. Throughout the pro-
cess, institutions like the state legislature and the American Tobacco Campus quibbled with the light-rail plan, creating roadblocks that jeopardized the project’s viability. But it was Duke that ultimately killed the plan when officials said they would not sign a cooperative agreement with the other stakeholders, saying magnetic interference could cause problems at the hospital.
Duke’s past with the community has to come to a head at some point, Moyen says in an interview.
“History matters … especially recent history, where those individuals who are impacted by that—some are gone, but many of them are still here,” Moyen says. “Looking at it from a historic lens, how can we rectify these situations that we’ve been facing?”
The ivory tower
Rectifying Duke’s long history with the city was a motivation for Nate Baker when he ran for city council last fall. Baker, a Durham native and professional urban planner, grew up in the Trinity Park neighborhood adjacent to East Campus. He campaigned on a PILOT agreement that
he said would push Duke to contribute more to Durham.
“Duke has built its multibillion-dollar endowment and its worldwide prestige in large part on its tax-exempt status in a community that needs resources,” Baker said at the September launch event. “It’s past time that Duke University strengthened its partnership with the people of Durham, that it does what’s right, and that it begins to make reasonable payments to our local governments and to the collective good.”
The majority of Ivy League institutions have agreed to voluntary payments. New York’s Cornell University owns about 4 percent of the property in Tompkins County, similar to Duke in Durham County. Following public pressure, Cornell agreed last fall to up its annual voluntary payment to the city of Ithaca to $4 million from $2.4 million.
The amount that institutions pay in these agreements varies significantly depending on the local context, says Adam Langley, an associate director of tax policy at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, who conducted a comprehensive study of PILOT agreements in 2012. That study found that the average PILOT agreement for a higher-education institution was around $813,124, and the maximum was
just over $10 million.
Alongside Cornell, other elite private universities including Brown, Harvard, and Princeton have negotiated increases to existing arrangements in recent years. The agreements vary in length, and the annual amounts fluctuate, but those three institutions’ contributions average out to be at or below $11 million a year.
“Duke likes to compare itself to other Ivy League institutions, other elite institutions,” says Samantha Heller, a member of the Triangle’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter who recently graduated from Cornell. “If Duke wants to honor the community in the same way that other major elite educational institutions have, they should contribute to PILOT.”
Private institutions across the country are facing such pressure because of changes in the role of universities, says Davarian Baldwin, a professor of American studies at Connecticut’s Trinity College and the person whom activists have turned to in recent years when they want to start a PILOT campaign.
Between the 1970s and 2000s, universities and their medical centers, often called “eds and meds,” became the lifeblood of many U.S. urban communities following the decline of manufacturing,
Baldwin wrote in his book In The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Institutions expanded their physical footprints in cities as part of urban renewal and revitalization, often resulting in gentrification. Federal legislation changes in the 1980s allowed universities to own inventions developed through federally funded research, bolstering their incentives to produce intellectual property that could be patented, sold, or spun off into startups.
Baldwin writes that this helped universities become “new companies” in the knowledge economy, with cities as their “company towns.”
Baker reached out to Baldwin for advice before launching Durham’s PILOT campaign. Baldwin, who has advised on a half-dozen such efforts, says Duke and Durham echo dynamics he’s seen across the country.
“When you come into Durham and the Research Triangle, Duke … they’re everywhere, right? They are their own city,” Baldwin says in an interview. “There’s a shift in leverage of who controls and who makes decisions around the city of Durham.”
While this appears to be the first concerted push for a PILOT agreement in Durham, Baker says questions about whether Duke should pay more to Durham have been raised before. He points to a 2004 op-ed for the INDY by John Schelp, a historian and former president of the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association, who wrote that Duke contributed to Durham “far less than what Princeton, Harvard and Brown universities pay to their host cities” and that the money “could have funded important projects in our community.”
Over the past few months, the Duke Respect Durham campaign has focused on pushing that message to the Durham community. The group frequently set up a table downtown during high-foot-traffic events in the summer. Following the September launch event, dark blue signs popped up in neighborhoods around East Campus, with “Duke: Respect Durham” in yellow. Last week, the campaign held an event on Duke’s campus aimed at getting students and faculty involved.
On social media platforms, the campaign continues to solicit input from residents on one question: What could Durham do with $50 million?
What we owe each other
The PILOT campaigners say Duke should pay Durham $50 million a year, which is their estimate of what Duke would pay
in property taxes if it wasn’t exempt. But unpacking that figure is fairly complicated.
The Duke Respect Durham campaign arrived at $50 million by reviewing the university’s public tax forms, according to Abhishek Chhetri, a postdoctoral student at Duke who has helped with the campaign’s research. Duke and its health system reported in their 2022 filings that the combined book value of their properties, land, and leasehold improvements is worth $4.13 billion. Applying the county’s tax rate of 1.39 percent, the group calculated that Duke would pay more than $50 million in taxes, providing the basis for their ask.
That number, however, is likely too high. Figures that Duke and other tax-exempt entities provided in 990 filings represent the market value, which is generally higher than the tax-assessed value. It also includes property that Duke owns outside of Durham County, like the majority of Duke Forest and hospitals in neighboring counties.
Duke already pays taxes on properties that are not part of the university’s academic mission. The Assembly’s analysis of county tax records found that Duke paid more than $2 million in property taxes in 2024. While properties like dorms and classrooms are clearly exempt from taxes, certain commercial activities can fall into “gray areas,” says Chris McLaughlin, a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill professor who studies local government taxes.
For example, one property makes up nearly one-fourth of Duke’s tax bill: the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club, a four-star luxury hotel situated on 17 acres. While the university paid $551,000 on the inn, it paid nothing on the more than 400 adjacent acres that include an 18-hole golf course and faculty swim and tennis club. While there is no precisely comparable hotel in Durham, the five-star Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, which has a comparable square footage and is situated on 10 acres surrounded by pine forest, would have been assessed a $975,000 tax bill if located in Durham County.
Duke said in a statement that the university pays a rate that is determined in consultation with the county tax office. Stays at the hotel for university-related business are exempt, while all others are not.
The Assembly’s analysis of county tax data found that Duke would have been billed roughly $11 million in property taxes in 2024 were taxes applied to all of its property. However, officials from the county tax administration said that is a low estimate.
Some of Duke’s property, including the
famous Duke Chapel and all of the buildings on East Campus, have no assigned tax value. They likely haven’t been assessed because of the age of the buildings and the fact that they are exempt from taxes.
“We do recognize that things need to be done at Duke,” says Keyar Doyle, Durham County’s tax administrator, adding that a thorough evaluation of the entire campus is on the county’s radar once it completes the 2025 reappraisal process. “But because of the lack of revenue provided from that property, it cannot take precedence over some of the immediate concerns we have.”
Tax assessors routinely don’t put many resources into assessing tax-exempt properties, says Langley, the tax expert. He says the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
If Duke weren’t exempt from many property taxes, its bill would likely fall somewhere between $11 million and the $50 million the PILOT campaigners calculated. Chhetri acknowledges the number comes with uncertainties and caveats. Still, the campaign feels its figure is justified.
“We’re not going to lowball our offer and make it easier on Duke,” Chhetri says.
Duke’s commitment
From the fifth floor of the Mutual Tower, an iconic landmark near the heart of downtown Durham, Stelfanie Williams looks out the window of the Duke Office of Durham and Community Affairs, which she leads as its vice president.
Once one of the tallest buildings in Durham, the historic brutalist-style struc-
ture formerly was home to the oldest Blackowned life insurance company in the United States. Today, Duke is leasing its office instead of buying the building, which Williams says has been the university’s recent policy downtown so that buildings stay on the tax rolls and are available to other renters if demand for the space increases.
“It’s great to be here and be accessible and visible, but we’re also doing it with sensitivity to how we can actually support the development of downtown,” Williams says. Williams boils down Duke’s direct benefit to Durham into one number: $24 million. That includes the more than $2 million the university pays in taxes for nonacademic buildings it owns, $7 million in taxes connected to the 2.8 million square feet of space the school leases, $4 million in direct payments for emergency services in Durham, and another $10 million it gives to local nonprofits.
Williams and two other Duke representatives push back on many of Duke Respect Durham’s core arguments.
Adam Klein is the associate vice president for economic development at Duke and the former head of startup incubator American Underground. (The Assembly and INDY Week have offices at American Underground.) He said large capital improvement projects, like the American Tobacco Campus business park, needed anchor tenants like Duke to be viable. There’s also the Durham Performing Arts Center, which brings in millions of dollars to the city. Duke contributed $7.5 million to its construction in 2008, but the city retained ownership.
“Duke has taken a relatively quiet role
Stelfanie Williams speaks at an event on campus PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
in a lot of the partnership work that it’s done downtown,” Klein says, “but it has been very present in a way that Durham is lead and Duke is secondary.”
It’s also not fair to characterize the university as a business, says Jeff Welch, who works in Duke’s Office of Translation and Commercialization, which helps Duke researchers take their research into the marketplace. Making money isn’t the office’s goal, Welch stresses. In fact, after one license expires next year, he says the office will not be able to cover its own costs.
Rather, the office’s chief goal is recruiting high-quality faculty and talent—something that Welch says helps Durham’s economic growth, too. In his view, that “outweighs anything that the university could produce through a PILOT program.”
There are benefits to Duke investing directly in the community, says Jacobs, the Durham County commissioner and Duke grad. Nonprofits can encounter a lot of “red tape” in government bureaucratic processes to receive funds, she says. But money coming directly from Duke “can be more accessible.”
In 2018, Duke president Vincent Price announced that stronger community partnerships would be a part of its broad strategic vision for the next 100 years, called “Toward Duke’s Second Century.” And next February, Duke will open a new Center for Community Engagement to help local organizations partner with the university. The perception may still exist among some Durhamites that the university keeps the community at a distance, Williams acknowledges, saying that it’s “clear-
ly a complicated history.” But she hopes that residents realize the university’s “deep commitment to partnership.”
“It’s an ongoing relationship that we have, and one that we have to consistently maintain, recalibrate, listen, understand,” she says. “Like any close relationship in your life, you’ve got to be in communion in a way. You’ve got to communicate, you’ve got to coordinate.”
The long road
While the PILOT campaign and Duke have not met, Williams says the university is open to a discussion. Baker says the coalition is open to it, too. He thinks the next step would be a memorandum of understanding between the university and organizers that lays out Duke’s contributions to the city, which he says would add more transparency to the discussion.
Eventually, Baker hopes that officials from the campaign, Duke, the city, and the county would all come together to discuss the possibility of a PILOT agreement.
“That’s where ultimately this thing needs to end up,” Baker says, “because at the end of the day, that’s where the negotiations will happen.”
It’s not clear how much traction Baker and the coalition have gained with other elected officials. Nida Allam, a county commissioner, was quick to sign on. A few others appear interested but not publicly committed, such as city council member Javiera Caballero and school board member Natalie Beyer, who both attended the
campaign launch in September. Some city and county leaders have discussed with university officials additional ways to partner, two local officials told The Assembly and INDY Week
Even if all parties come to the table, PILOT discussions often take years—and frequently come down to who is in the room and their collective willingness to reach agreement, Langley says.
“It’s kind of a long road,” Langley says, “and oftentimes these campaigns are ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons.”
Whether there is a PILOT agreement or not, conversations around the relationship between the university and city remain up in the air.
Over the past year, Duke has asked the city to rezone dozens of acres on its Central Campus to the versatile “University and College” category, which would give Duke wide latitude for development there without additional sign-off from the city. But in two meetings, city officials expressed skepticism of Duke’s proposal and the university itself.
“It’s like your uncle who paid for you to go to college but molested you. It’s a difficult relationship,” says Mayor Pro Tem Mark-Anthony Middleton, referencing a refrain from comedian Chris Rock to make his point.
Amid the pushback, Duke withdrew one of its zoning requests. Another request was approved in October, though a Duke official says that the school would need to do more in the future to win such approvals from the council.
“We look forward to reframing our relationship with the city of Durham moving forward in the spirit of transparency and collaboration,” says Adem Gusa, Duke’s director of planning and design.
At the meeting, Baker echoed the sentiment: “The destinies of Duke and Durham are intertwined and interlinked.” W
About the data: Property data is from Durham County’s real estate billing files, and acreage excludes publicly owned roads. Government, business, and nonprofit owner names were standardized to account for inconsistent entries; ownership information is current as of August 2024. Duke’s properties include those owned by the university, its health system, and affiliates, like the Washington Duke Inn and Associated Health Services.
Disclosure: Reporter Justin Laidlaw worked for Adam Klein in a previous job at American Underground, and his girlfriend currently works in Duke University’s Community Affairs office. Ren Larson is an adjunct lecturer at Duke University, where she teaches data and investigative journalism.
A statue of Benjamin Duke on campus. PHOTO BY ERIN GRETZINGER
Table Read
With Thanksgiving and the holidays around the corner, we asked seven Triangle culinary mavens about what they’re cooking this year.
BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com
Jacob Boehm
Chef & Owner, Snap Pea
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
Pretending like I’m gonna keep it simple, and then impulsively going big at the last minute.
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
A simple little gem salad. Thanksgiving dinner is always full of heavy, mushy, brown foods (delicious nonetheless), but this salad provides the relief we all need. Little gems from Ten Mothers Farm—denser and crunchier than anyone thought possible for lettuce— are simply tossed with a bright lemon dressing to make the perfect foil to the rest of the menu.
Best way to prepare turkey and/or stuffing?
In whatever way makes the best story for you to tell at the table. Does the butter under the turkey skin actually make a difference? Who knows, but it sure makes for good conversation.
Best way to use leftovers?
As leftovers. Or, if you must, as Thanksgiving “shepherd’s pie”: turkey, veggies, and gravy down below, mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes up top.
Something you’re thankful for this year?
The local farmers who are growing all the food we take for granted. Whatever is happening in the world— meteorologically, sociopolitically, or otherwise—they are out there planting in the sweltering heat of summer, harvesting the morning after the election, loading out for the farmers market at 5:00 a.m. in freezing temperatures in a down bodysuit all so that we can have tasty, nutritious food on our table. Never question how much they are charging.
James Eason
Executive Chef, Irregardless
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
Starting on Thanksgiving, my family immediately starts watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. We have done that every year since I was probably about 10 years old. That movie is playing every day in my house until Christmas. And I’ve got to say, it is something I really do look forward to because I love that movie so much.
Best way to prepare turkey and/or stuffing?
My favorite way to prepare a Thanksgiving turkey
is brined, rubbed, and then fried in peanut oil. The brine adds a salinity throughout the meat, which helps maintain a level of juiciness. The rub is going to create a really crispy bird when you fry it. Frying not only reduces the cooking time and gets the turkey out of the kitchen, but fried turkey is just unmatched in terms of flavor, juiciness, and crispy skin. Last year, I made a sweet-tea-brined turkey with a Cajun rub and then fried it in peanut oil, and it was so good.
Best way to use leftovers?
Standing in front of your refrigerator, eating them cold.
Something you’re thankful for this year?
I’m a new father. My son is 13 months old—I’m really thankful for Henry and my wonderful partner, Chloe.
Andrea Reusing Chef & Owner, Lantern
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
Wednesday night is for oysters. We love Core Sounders. They are easy to teach the kids to shuck for raw and are also perfect roasted.
Best way to prepare turkey and/or stuffing?
This is the only way to prep a whole turkey: Unwrap it as soon as you get it, wipe it clean, and salt it like crazy everywhere. This could be right before you cook it or up to or three days ahead. Twelve hours before cooking starts, bring the bird to full room temp. Two hours before cooking, place plastic bags full of ice on the breasts as the rest of the bird gets even warmer. Dry it off, salt again, and don’t stuff it. Roast at 350 degrees, basting with butter until done. Rest for 30 minutes before carving.
Paula de Pano
Founder and Owner, Rocks + Acid Wine Shop
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
for a long day helps. This way I’m fully awake (and well caffeinated) early enough to get through a long prep list. We host Thanksgiving and I love all of the sides, so it can be a full day of cooking.
Something you’re excited to put on the table this year?
Thanksgiving was not something I grew up with in the Philippines. I joke that we have Lent, then typhoon season, then Christmas for the following four months. Working in hospitality meant that I’d either be somm-ing on restaurant floors or expediting in kitchens the day of. I’ve watched countless families celebrate this very American tradition year after year—some joyfully dysfunctional to a few holding on to every strand of sanity while being around each other. Yet despite all of the stress, they leave the premises grateful … even if it’s only because they survived the meal.
Best way to prepare turkey and/or stuffing?
I get why a whole roasted turkey would make a lovely centerpiece, but have you ever tried spatchcocking instead? Optics and under/overcooked poultry have devoted fans, but I’d rather have optics and perfectly cooked dark and white meat with crisp skin to boot. And don’t get me started on folks who choose deep-frying a giant bird …. Two other bonuses when you spatchcock: quicker cook time and those pan juices are the basis for an amazing gravy.
Something you’re thankful for this year?
We all hear it these days through social media—how gratitude can be a powerful thing to combat the anxiety uncertainty brings. Each year that I “celebrate” Thanksgiving, I think about change and, despite how difficult and stressful life can be, we still push through. I am thankful for time itself, because no matter what, we move along and grow from the challenges hurled toward us throughout the year.
Christopher McLaurin Owner, Lutra Bakery
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
I’m a big fan of the Turkey Trot. Distance and pace don’t really matter, but I’ve always found that a quick run with a few friends before getting into the kitchen
This will be the third year in a row making marshmallows from scratch with one of my niblings. What we don’t eat immediately tops the sweet potato casserole. Everyone should try their hand at marshmallows. They don’t take much, and I’m always amazed that a few ingredients, which don’t taste like anything, become such a classic treat!
Best way to prepare turkey and/or stuffing?
I normally brine and roast a turkey breast. It’s nice to have on the table but a whole turkey takes up too much valuable oven space! Dressing is one of my favorites, and I generally make a corn-bread version with chunky bacon, lots of black pepper, and Parmesan. All of that mixed with the corn-bread cubes and a custard make a bread pudding of sorts.
Best way to use leftovers?
I love a big leftover sandwich piled high with dressing, cranberry relish, and gravy. Some turkey is nice but not necessary.
Something you’re thankful for this year?
I look forward to gathering with family both biological and found and celebrating each other. The incredible support from those close to me for the launch of Lutra has been so meaningful.
Sam Jones
Owner and Chef, Sam Jones BBQ
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
Growing up, we always ate on Thanksgiving Day at my grandma and granddaddy Jones’. Then it was customary, matter of fact, to have an afternoon squirrel hunt. Whether we killed anything or not, we walked around with .22 rifles because my granddaddy did not raise us to squirrel hunt with a shotgun.
Something you’re excited to put on the table this year?
Since my grandparents have passed, my mom took on the tradition. She has a big old spread. My mom cooks extremely too much food. The best is her biscuit pudding and chocolate gravy.
Best way to prepare turkey and/or stuffing?
Don’t overcook the turkey. You can cook a turkey whether you bake it, smoke it, whatever—but just don’t cook it to death. I mean, it’s not a cremation service.
Best way to use leftovers?
Ham or turkey—if it’s cooked properly to start with,
you can put it in the refrigerator, get you out two pieces of loaf bread, slice it with a piece of cheese and some mayonnaise, and you got a sandwich tomorrow.
Something you’re thankful for this year?
Both my parents are still alive and my two children are healthy.
Helena Cragg
Founder and Market Manager, North Durham Farmers’ Market
Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
Though I hail from New York originally, my favorite Thanksgiving traditions are deeply rooted in Southern food traditions from my mom’s family in South Carolina (where she was one of 10 children). While no Thanksgiving meal in my family would be complete without deviled eggs, turkey and stuffing, ham, mac and cheese, corn bread, and so much more … the star of the show for me was always the greens and the sweet potato pie. As a small child during the huge family gatherings for the holidays, I was usually relegated to the kids’ table. But the production that was involved in preparing such large family meals meant that holiday meals were when my mother or my grandmother invited me into “their” kitchen to help out washing and cutting greens and sweet potatoes to move them on to the next step of meal prep, and that invitation always made me feel like I was really a big girl now. Those sweet moments in their kitchen gave me my very first lessons in cooking, so will always hold such fond memories that continue to serve me well in my adulthood.
Something you’re excited to put on the table this year?
I am excited that this year will be my first where the vast majority of our meal will be sourced from our North Durham Farmers’ Market community. Even sweeter is incorporating my cherished Thanksgiving meal traditions with local and healthy ingredients and preparation all from our market family. From Chef Netta putting her spin on a batch of collard greens from the Black Tiger Farming Collective with a taste of lean pork from Rooted Tree, to incorporating sweet peppers from Kindred Micro Farms, and finishing up dinner with a homemade sweet potato pie made with pie-crust dough from Lutra Bakery and sweet potatoes from Toad Hill Farm, it has been a blast to evolve and create new food traditions this year. I look forward to more and more of Durham’s community learning about and incorporating the amazing offerings of our small local farmers and food entrepreneurs and creating new traditions! •
Jacob Boehm photo by Tim Lytvinenko; James Eason photo by Juli Leonard; Andrea Reusing photo by Jeremy M. Lange, Paula de Pano photo by Brett Villena; Christopher McLaurin photo by Deven Crock Helena Cragg photo by Kumolo Studios.
The Center for Documentary Studies, Durham | Dec. 2, 6 pm
Always Historicize
Talking with podcast host Nate DiMeo ahead of a Durham book event for his new book The Memory Palace. BY
SARAH EDWARDS arts@indyweek.com
“Finding wonder in the past makes me a bit more open to wonder in the present,” says the writer Nate DiMeo. In new book The Memory Palace: True Short Stories of the Past, DiMeo introduces a slate of characters that traverse, with keen wonder, through the annals of history: grape pickers march across California with Cesar Chavez, a socialite moves to Wisconsin to study prairie chickens, a child sits on a roof for years trying to photograph the solar system.
As with DiMeo’s popular, long-running podcast of the same name, all these characters are real people lifted from the past and given, in DiMeo’s grave, sonorous voice, brief poetic treatment. In the book version of the popular podcast—released by Random House on November 19— fans will find new stories, photographs, and other ephemera alongside favorite show segments.
Ahead of a December 2 book tour stop at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, DiMeo sat down with the INDY to talk about the process of putting the book together and how learning about the past can crack open greater possibilities for the present. This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
INDY: How did you determine which stories belong in the book?
NATE DIMEO: At this point, there’ve been 223 stories in the 16 years of The Memory Palace. And so there was a lot of picking and choosing, about what would work and which things hinged upon sound too much, and which ones would work on the page and which ones wouldn’t.
As a kid, there were so many books that were collections of short pieces that my dad had purchased probably for, like, a dime each, these old paperbacks of Ripley’s Believe It or Not stories or Guinness Book of World Records, these things that you might pick up off the shelf over and over. And six months later, you’d read something and you’d be that little bit older, and suddenly this one would click. People have talked to me about the
show and that’s kind of the way it works—people listen to some stories, but every once in a while one will knock them out and there’s something about it that speaks to them in their life.
[I was] thinking back to those books that I loved so much as a kid: What happens when you build one of those for adults, where the randomness is the point? You open [the book] up and are not expecting to laugh, and suddenly you are, or you’re not expecting to cry, and suddenly you are—a book that could sneak up on you. Books used to do that all the time as a kid, and they stopped doing that when you’re an adult. I wanted to bring a little bit of that back.
Was that part of the decision not to order things chronologically?
Yeah, absolutely. Part of the way that the show works is that you go in cold, by design. It is antialgorithmic in that way—I’m sure I could probably find more listeners if I could maximize my SEO and, you know, follow some, like, Mr. Beast format and figure out exactly how to entice and hook people.
Please don’t.
Yes, thank you. Thank you. The truth of the matter is, I know that if you tell someone “Here’s a story about
the second woman to ever cross the English Channel” or “Here’s this woman who made sculptures in butter,” you might think, “I don’t care about this woman who makes sculptures in butter.” But I want you to, and I don’t want you to come in with your guard up, so I don’t tell you what it’s going to be. In this book, I continue to do that. There is no table of contents. You enter each story cold and with the first line, hopefully, it will raise some mystery or question that you want to be answered with the next one.
I’m curious what you feel the difference may be in listening to this material versus reading it.
It is a leap of faith, and I do think that for me in particular, it was a difficult one to make, because as a person talking, you know what a good audio sentence is, and I have more faith in that than I might in a good book sentence. Music can do a lot of work, and pacing can do a lot of work. Dramatic pauses are dramatic for a reason, and it’s difficult to simulate a dramatic pause on the page. What I’ve noticed is that in that sort of imaginary space that all history has to live in—because we have no other way to access it—there’s a conjuring act that feels like magic. I realized that is the same thing that happens when you read: If you are reading a Jane Austen novel and riding the bus, part of you is on that bus and part of you is in the Cotswolds in 1805, or whatever. Holding those
Podcaster and author Nate DiMeo PHOTO BY EMILY BERL
two spaces is wonderful. I started to notice that that’s the same way that history and memory lives—it kind of occupies the present at the same time. In the same way that if you’re walking the dog and part of you is back in the argument that you’re going over in your head that you had the night before, or you are reading a book and it is a dry factual account of Gettysburg, and part of you is on the battlefield, and part of you is, again, on that bus.
The thing that kind of cracked how I could tell these stories was realizing that it was the same as the book—that what you’re doing is giving details and describing things using the same tools of poetic devices or literary devices and trying to create that same kind of fictional space. And that there was nothing wrong in doing that, because the facts were there and it was accurate in that fictional space, which is all we ever have of the past.
In the introduction you talk about how, when learning about a historical figure there can be this moment—some decision or action the figure takes—where they feel real. I wonder about the importance of that kind of moment, when, in our own age, there’s AI and misinformation and people are having a harder time putting a shape around the present and what is “real.”
The present itself is always so contingent and up for debate. It’s always this pro-
cess of coming to a mutual understanding through language and stories. So why shouldn’t the past be anything else? If there’s anything that I am trying to remember or let my readers know about the past it’s that it is just like the present. The people in the past were just like us and were real people. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the people that we read about in the news today are real people. It takes a leap of imagination to put yourself in their shoes, or even in the shoes of the person who’s a couple of rows away on the bus.
“Our time now is itself historical. And [that] snaps me into a kind of presence.”
To me, there’s something really valuable about looking to the past and seeing the ways in which people’s lives are constricted or determined or enabled by the economic condition and rules and mores of the day and what was simply in the air they breathed or the work they were allowed to do. It reminds me that the present is no different—that our time now is itself historical. And it snaps me into a kind of presence.
All of the strangeness and disassociation and unreality of the present, while very pointed right now because the questions about AI are so present—the truth is, I think it was there all the time, we just had a bit more comfort in the things that we were hanging our hats on. And now it feels like our hat is going to fall if we hang it on this piece of news or that piece of news.
You don’t have to give any spoilers away, but at the Durham event you are going to reference some stories from North Carolina. Is that right?
What will go down at this event is that I’ll tell stories for a while, and then I’ll have a conversation about the book and about process and stuff like that. A lot of the stories are pretty dynamic and set to music, there are visuals and some pretty incredible animations that, over time, I’ve commissioned and worked with people on. And I will also be reading, including a North Carolina story that is really pivotal in the book about the Outer Banks. It’s a good time. It really is. W
Long Live Kings
The downtown Raleigh rock club celebrates its 25th anniversary with new ownership and a commitment to the programming that has made it last.
BY JORDAN LAWRENCE music@indyweek.com
Kings, the small Raleigh rock club that has long served as one of the Triangle’s most thoughtfully programmed and most steadfastly adventurous listening rooms, celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this month. But the club actually hit the quarter-century mark in July.
Herbie Abernathy—aka Valient Himself, the lead singer of extraterrestrial-themed Triangle metal mainstay Valient Thorr— and his business partners Mike Howell and Josh and Alan Novicki bought the club from longtime stewards Paul Siler and Cheetie Kumar last October. When the big anniversary came around, they weren’t yet in a place to celebrate.
“We were so busy, we just said, ‘Let’s push it to where we can make it to where we all have time to do something,’” Abernathy says.
Part of the busyness had to do with the other businesses Abernathy and Josh Novicki operate. The Richmond-based business partners have a pair of establishments in that Virginia city—Cobra Cabana, a “heavy stoner bar food” joint and venue, and Hot for Pizza, a Van Halen–themed pizzeria. The pair also have a seafood bar and venue in the Wilmington area at Carolina Beach called the Sandspur. They’re also actively working to open another bar in Richmond along with a small listening room in a space behind Cobra Cabana.
But the demands of their other businesses weren’t the only reasons why the Kings anniversary celebration had to wait until November. Up until last fall, the Raleigh club with a capacity of 250 had
sat mostly dormant since the onset of the pandemic, only opening for some parties during the annual Hopscotch Music Festival and a smattering of other special events. Getting the club back into a rhythm hosting multiple shows and events each week, and getting the word out that the room was rocking and rolling again, has taken considerable effort.
“It being closed for a while during the pandemic—a lot of the business went to other venues,” Abernathy says. “Nature abhors a vacuum. So shows went to other venues. There’s a lot of competition.”
In 1999, Siler, alongside Ben Barwick and Steve Popson, brought Kings to a building on McDowell Street; that building was eventually leveled in 2007 to make way for a parking garage. Back then, the rock club landscape was much different than it is today. The Pinhook in Durham and the Cat’s Cradle Back Room in Carrboro, two similarly sized rooms that book similar acts, weren’t around yet.
When Kings reopened in its current upstairs space on Martin Street in 2010, it was able to reclaim its place in the local venue scene. The last year has been about reclaiming that place once again.
“When Paul and Ben and Steve opened Kings, there was a need for a place downtown in Raleigh,” Abernathy says. “Now, Raleigh is different.”
But while the market may be more crowded now than it was 25 years ago, Abernathy still believes there’s a need for Kings.
“Kings was an incredible spot,” he says of the role it played in him starting up bands
while in college at East Carolina University. He and his friends would come to large clubs like Cat’s Cradle to see big acts such as Flaming Lips, but it was in rooms like Kings that they found greater musical variety and proof that they might be able to make a real go at pursuing music.
“Our friends’ bands who were a little bit older than us, the guys who already had it together, people that we respected, like Dragstrip Syndicate and Cherry Valence and The Loners, and even the Greensboro bands,” Abernathy recalls. “They all were playing at different places. And there was this new place called Kings, and we had a band called Lo-Fi Conspiracy, and they were the first ones that gave us a chance before we turned into Valient Thorr.”
One of the strengths that has historically set Kings apart in the Triangle is the breadth of styles incorporated into its attentively booked programming, spanning various shades of indie rock, metal, hip-hop, and experimental music, among others.
Maintaining this variety and opportunities for up-and-coming locals remains an emphasis, but it means having to adapt. The draw of indie rock isn’t as reliable as it once was, Abernathy says, and the crowd doesn’t drink as much as it has in the past, eroding bar sales that are crucial to the club’s bottom line. But things like jam-leaning bands and newer strains of hip-hop are showing gains.
Adapting to these audience trends isn’t just about generating revenue. It’s necessary to maintain Kings’ role as a hub to explore what’s fresh and exciting among the local and national underground.
“It’s stuff that we jokingly would call ‘bleep bloop’ music there for a while. It’s just stuff that I have no idea how to do,” Abernathy says, laughing at how far removed he is from some of the hip-hop and electronic music Kings books. “I’m not booking the room for my ears anymore. You gotta think about what the kids want to hear.”
But Kings also isn’t abandoning the kinds of rock shows and diverse community events that endeared it to regulars in the past. The annual Great Cover Up, which finds locals dressing up to perform cover sets across multiple nights, remains, and the venue has hosted two or three movie premieres in the last year.
Abernathy says that they’re looking at bringing back a dog show that Kings hosted in the past and that more 25th-anniversary programming is on the way, likely to include a show featuring Siler and Kumar’s stalwart Raleigh rock band Birds of Avalon and perhaps the return of one of the game shows the club hosted back in the day.
“We’re booking the future now,” Abernathy says. “But it’s nice to focus on where the past was, to shine a light on the past, and show where it came from. So those people will want to be back involved.” W
Herbie Abernathy, Josh Novicki, Alan Novicki and Mike Howell bought longstanding Raleigh rock club Kings last fall PHOTO BY NATHAN MCDANIEL
The Discipline of Letting Go
How Durham cellist Daniel Levin, who gave up a career in classical music for a life in free improvisation, learned to want yellow.
BY BRIAN HOWE music@indyweek.com
When Durham musician Daniel Levin performs, walls fall—between player and instrument, music and sound, public and private. He’s a big guy who plays a big cello with his whole body, less holding the instrument than locked in a mutual embrace as they move together like dance partners. He has all the fancy double-stops and string crossings that you’d expect in a trained classical musician, but he will also produce homely squeaks from the wooden body, or strike the end pin on the floor, or cease playing entirely to swish his bow in the air. When he returns to the strings, his eyes will close, his mouth will open, and his head will fall back as he sinks within himself, deeper than we can fully follow. He’s making it up as he goes along.
Levin’s many albums over the last two decades mark him as “one of the [cello’s] most brilliant contemporary practitioners,” according to The Wire, which is like Rolling Stone for people who left conservatory yearning to be free. Lately he’s become a local magnet for this scattered scene, connecting it with others, especially dance.
Besides his own performances, he hosts Sanctuary Series, an intimate salon for local and international musicians, movers, and poets at his home in the East Durham suburbs. The event series grew out of a pandemic collaboration with Duke University and has continued as a nonprofit. Its 35th edition, on December 7, features a guitarist, a flutist, and two dancers. But with capacity limited and only available by RSVP, a better bet to see Levin perform might be a Shadowbox Studio event on December 11, when Levin will be joined by Duke dance professor Barbara Dickinson.
He also co-leads the roaming Improvisers Lab with dance artist Ginger Wagg, where dancers and musicians are split into pairs to create, discuss, and refine spontaneous works. The most memorable moment of last month’s lab was when Levin, at Dickinson’s prompting, sort of speared her with the cello as she lay on the floor.
By day, he’s the arts director at Durham Charter School, where he teaches the orchestra.
“I’m trying to create what I had at Walnut Hill, but for free, in a public school setting,” he explains. “There’s this overlap I’m experiencing right now between presenting, producing, doing the improvisation work, and the education side.”
Walnut Hill is the arts high school outside of Boston where Levin began on a traditional classical track. He came from a musical family, and when he was six, his mom asked if he wanted to play something. He said yes, cello, because he liked the low notes. “It just was such a rich world to swim around in, emotionally and psychologically,” he says. “Schubert, Beethoven, Mendelssohn. The intimacy of it.” But already, he was glimpsing something else in the music’s cracks.
During his senior year, he began to experience strange audiovisual phenomena, such as playing long open tones and seeing a “yellow chamber” spreading like an artery through his arm. It changed him. “It was like, wait a minute—it’s not about the goal of making the sounds; it’s about what making the sound does to me,” Levin says.
Accepted at two prestigious music colleges in New York, he chose Mannes over Juilliard because he wanted to study with cellist Paul Tobias.
After a year at Mannes, at an arts festival in Florida, Levin got his first chance to improvise with a dancer, something he’d never done.
“It was wild to watch this dancer and not be sure what I should be doing,” he says.
“I remember at the end she was spinning; ‘OK, I guess I’ll kind of mimic that,’ so way up high, trilling. Then I had this feeling like, ‘She’s going to hit the mat,’ this information coming from who knows where. So I fly down”—he makes a sound like a dive bomber—“to the lowest note, C. And she slammed onto the mat.”
These kinds of experiences were pushing him away from written scores, toward using the cello as something between an inner dowsing rod and a form of ESP. Instead of going back to Mannes, he spent some time as a bike messenger before obtaining a jazz studies degree from the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC), under the tutelage of mentors like Joe Maneri.
“A lot of this has to do with Joe,” Levin says. “As soon as I went to his class, I was like, ‘Oh, this is it.’ It was all about using the music to go to transcendent places and being grounded in technical rigor. But when I started trying to create my own music, I sucked at it, and I wasn’t prepared to suck at anything to do with the cello. But I had to. It took me many years to do something like invite the space Bach has and not get stuck there.”
He’s invoking not Bach the dead composer, but Bach the living musician, who could captivate an audience at the keyboard on command. It’s not that Levin stopped playing those treasured suites—“I think I’m going to be in a nursing home playing them,” he says. He simply stopped playing them in public.
Instead, after graduating, he plunged into New York clubs, playing gigs at the Knitting Factory and CBGB, with his quartet, usually of cello, trumpet, vibraphone, and bass. The music was still color-coded. He would see four interdependent entities—a “kinesthetic sculpture”—vibrating in a room: yellow, red, blue, and green. “Metaphor is really helpful for me in general,” he says.
“I remember being a kid and playing with Legos,” he continues, “how tactile that is. There’s this searching, this motion and vibration; sometimes you know what you’re looking for, but sometimes you’re just sorting and something pops up. It’s a yellow square. ‘OK, now I want a little guy, some wheels, and a radar dish. No, I don’t like that, start over.’”
“I realized I needed to apply that to improvising,” Levin concludes. “When I first started, I was like, Well, would Joe Morris”—another NEC mentor—“like this? But you’re not neurotic when you’re a kid and play with Legos. It’s a space of casual but decisive choices. Should I put yellow? No, I want yellow.” W
Daniel Levin plays the cello in his home. PHOTO BY ANGELICA EDWARDS
WED
11/27
Thanksgiving Day Events
MUSIC
Air Supply 8 p.m. DPAC, Durham.
Dance with the Dead 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Girl in Red: 2024 North American Tour 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
Thanksmissin 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
STAGE
The Christmas Case of Hezekiah Jones Nov. 26–Dec. 15, various times. PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill.
Cirque Holiday Pops Nov. 27-30, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Jake Weddle and Ben Malone 7:30 p.m.
Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.
FRI 11/29
TURKEY TROT
Birds of a Feather Turkey Trot 8:30 a.m. Chapel Hill.
Gallop and Gorge 8 a.m. Carrboro.
Gobbler’s Run 8 a.m. Wake Forest.
Inside-Out Sports Turkey Trot 9 a.m. Cary.
Raleigh Turkey Trot 8:30 a.m. Raleigh.
Trosa Turkey Trot 8 a.m. Durham.
DINNER
Thanksgiving Buffet 11 a.m. The Westin, Raleigh.
Thanksgiving Buffet 12 p.m. Washington Duke Inn, Durham.
Thanksgiving Celebration 11 a.m. JB Duke Hotel, Durham.
Thanksgiving Feast 12 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.
MUSIC
Arin Ray 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Blue Goose Kaboom 7 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Fogsgiving featuring Into the Fog and Friends 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Harvey Street 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
Holiday Music on the Roof: United Strings of Color 7:30 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.
Iajhi Hampden and Friends 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Sauce’d: A Black Friday Situation 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Weston Estate: SUPERBLOOM TOUR
7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
STAGE
The ComedyWorx Show Fridays at 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
Hadestown Nov. 29–Dec. 1, various times. DPAC, Durham.
The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
Hush Hush: Comedy Based on Secrets 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
Mettlesome Thanksgiving Mixer 8 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
Mojo Brookzz Nov. 29–Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.
Iajhi Hampden and Friends performs at Sharp Nine Gallery on November 29.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SHARP NINE GALLERY
SAT 11/30 SUN 12/1
MUSIC
Bass Bunker 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Blankstate / Cuffing Season / Mush Puppy 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Crazy Chester: A Very Carrboro Tribute to the Band and the Last Waltz 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
The dB’s 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.
Holiday Music on the Roof: Bell Durham 7:30 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.
Jazz Is Led 7:30 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Julia / The Psycodelics / Duck 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Matt Vorzimer and Friends: Inspired Modern Sounds through Black American Music 7 p.m. Succotash, Durham.
Peaches & Cream: An RNB & Hip-Hop Throwback Party 10 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Pentatonix: Hallelujah! It’s A Christmas Tour 7 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.
R&B Only Live 6:45 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
Speed Stick 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Studio 54 Disco Party 10:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Zac Lor: All Night Long 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points
STAGE
A Celtic Christmas by A Taste of Ireland 7:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Hush Hush: Comedy Based on Secrets 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
Secret Society Improv Show 7 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
The Setup: An Improvised Play 8 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
Will Wood: Slouching Towards Bethlehem! Tour 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
MUSIC
The String Queens: My Favorite Things 2 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
TUES 12/3
MUSIC
BYO Vinyl 6 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Jeremy “Bean” Clemons Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham.
STAGE
Comedy at Slim’s Dive Bar “Say it at Slim’s” 10:30 p.m. Slim’s Downtown, Raleigh.
Irene Tu 8 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.
WED
12/4
Durham.
AJ McQueen 8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Kes 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.
SCREEN
King Kong 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre,
Bell Durham performs at the Durham Hotel on November 30.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE DURHAM HOTEL
THURS 12/5
MUSIC
DJ Swiftie presents: A NIGHT FOR LIAM 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Joe Troop in Residency: Truth Machine 7:30 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
North Carolina Symphony: Messiah & More 7:30 p.m. Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill.
Slippery Hill: Debut Album Release Show 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Young Nudy 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh
STAGE
Cirque du Soleil: ’Twas the Night Before ... Dec. 5-15, various times. DPAC, Durham.
The Rainmaker Dec. 5-8, various times. Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh.
SCENE ON RADIO: Live Podcast Event 7 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Shelly Belly Live! 8 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.
SCREEN
Jewish Film Series: The Catskills 7 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
FRI 12/6
SAT
12/7
MUSIC
Chef Boyarbeatz 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.
Crys Matthews / Flamy Grant / Jennifer Knapp 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Dexter and the Moonrocks 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Friday Favorites: Classical Christmas with Carlos 12 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts
Jhené Aiko: The Magic Hour Tour 7 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh.
Moodboard 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
My Favorite Things: “Shana Tucker Sings in the Holidays” 6 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary.
Stellar Disco Drag and Dance Party 11 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
SUSTO Stringband 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
STAGE
A Christmas Carol Dec. 6-8, various times. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Cinderella Dec. 6-22, various times. Raleigh Little Theater, Raleigh.
Elf the Musical Jr. Dec. 6-8, various times.
Garner Performing Arts Center, Garner.
The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.
Hush Hush: Comedy Based on Secrets Fridays at 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.
Northeast Piedmont Chorale Holiday Concert 7:30 p.m. Wake Forest Baptist Church, Wake Forest.
MUSIC
The Breakfast Club (’80s Party Band) 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Classical Christmas with Carlos 3 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts.
Stephanie J. Block 7:30 p.m. Theatre Raleigh, Raleigh.
Underground Springhouse / Satellite Dog 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Wicked and Friends 10:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. PAGE
Andrea di Robilant: This Earthly Globe 1 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
SCREEN
NCMA Cinema: Summertime 2 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
STAGE
Cary Ballet Company: The Nutcracker 5:30 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.
Silent Fright Circus Show 8 p.m. Motorco, Durham.
Tip “T.I.” Harris Live! Dec. 7-8, various times. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.
Dexter and the Moonrocks perform at Lincoln Theatre on December 6.
PHOTO COURTESY LINCOLN THEATRE
MUSIC
The Bygones 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Pinhook’s Sweet 16th Birthday Party! 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.
Road to Memphis: Triangle Blues Society Benefit Concert 1 p.m. The Blue Note Grill, Durham.
Sights and Sounds Concert Series: The Vega String Quartet 2 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
STAGE
Amahl and the Night Visitors Dec. 8-9, various times. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
MUSIC
Mariah Carey’s Christmas Time 7:30 p.m. PNC Arena, Raleigh
Ride 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.
MUSIC
Lynn Blakey Christmas Show featuring Dave Hartman, FJ Ventre, Ecki Heins 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
North Carolina Jazz Repertory Orchestra 7 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.
Jeremy “Bean” Clemons Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham.
Tip
SU | DO | KU
© 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. Difficulty level: MEDIUM
If you’re stumped, find the answer keys for these puzzles and archives of previous puzzles (and their solutions) at indyweek.com/puzzles-page or scan this QR code for a link. Best of luck, and have fun!
U Z Z L E S
Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Patti Varol
Weekdays
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