INDY Week 2.6.19

RALEIGH 2|6|19

Beyond Monopoly Nine out of ten board games are made by white men.

With Rap Godz, Omari Akil is changing that.

BY BRIAN HOWE, P. 12

IS THE CHILD DANGEROUS? P. 8

IS TRUMP DANGEROUS? P. 10

IS GILBERT GOTTFRIED DANGEROUS? P. 22

2 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

WHAT WE LEARNED THIS WEEK RALEIGH

VOL. 36, NO. 6

6 Each month, Durham County distributes about $4.5 million in food-assistance benefits to about 36,500 people.

8 If you file an internal affairs complaint against a North Carolina cop, even if that complaint is sustained, you’ll never know if or how he was punished.

DEPARTMENTS 6 News 14 Food 15 Music

10 Dear Senator Burr: Is the president a megalomaniac whose arrogance and ignorance might get us all killed, or are our intelligence services FUBAR? Can’t be both.

20 Arts & Culture

12 Of the two hundred most popular tabletop games on the market, 93.5 percent were designed by white men.

26 Music Calendar

24 What to Do This Week 29 Arts & Culture Calendar

14 Raleigh restaurateur Greg Hatem takes over the venerable Mecca: “If we do it right, it will be around for the next ninety years.”

15 Are you wondering what’s going on with Moogfest? So are we.

16 Surf guitar titan Link Wray didn’t publicly reckon with his Native American identity until his forties.

20 Pill bottles make for a natural canvas, according to painter Ben Hamburger.

On the cover

Gilbert Gottfried (see page 22)

PHOTO BY JADE WILSON

PHOTO BY ARLENE GOTTFRIED

INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 3

Raleigh Durham | Chapel Hill PUBLISHER EDITORIAL

Susan Harper

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RALEIGH 919-832-8774 DURHAM 919-286-1972 Rob V CLASSIFIEDS ADVERTISING 919-286-6642 committin CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2018 INDY WEEK biting off All rights reserved. Material may not be very legit reproduced without permission. raised con Durhammay cau do not ex an even cost and Honolulu construct and with EDITOR IN CHIEF Jeffrey C. Billman MANAGING EDITOR FOR ARTS+CULTURE Brian Howe STAFF WRITERS Leigh Tauss, Sarah Willets MUSIC EDITOR Allison Hussey ASSOCIATE ARTS+CULTURE EDITOR Sarah Edwards FOOD+DRINK EDITOR Layla Khoury-Hanold EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Cole Villena COPY EDITOR Laura Bullard THEATER+DANCE CRITIC Byron Woods CONTRIBUTORS Amanda Abrams, Jim Allen,

4 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

backtalk

The Height of Absurdity A few weeks ago, a letter in this column asked where Durham’s leaders were on light rail. Lorisa Seibel of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit writes that it’s time for the Bull City’s business community to get on board.

“Durham’s growing fast,” Seibel writes.

“More than twenty people a day and seven thousand people a year move here. On average, new Durham residents earn $10,000 a year more than current residents. That extra $10,000 means more cars and higher housing prices. People who have to move further out will need to drive more.

“If we do nothing, more cars will make more traffic jams. Buses will keep trying to squeeze through congested roads to and from our downtown station. People will wait and hope to get to work on time.

“Who loses if we do nothing? The mother who commutes two-to-four hours per day on two buses to and from child care, then two more buses to and from work. The father who works two minimum-wage jobs because he cannot find a $15-an-hour job on a bus line. What can we do? The city and county want light rail as the backbone of an efficient transit station with crosstown buses and affordable housing. People can hop on light rail instead of sitting in traffic jams. They can catch a bus at any light rail station.

“Light-rail stations with buses and affordable housing could improve economic opportunities for all of us. Affordable housing around every transit station allows Durham residents of all incomes to live just a short walk to transit. We need to invest in light rail, buses, and affordable housing. Then all of us can live and prosper in Durham.”

Rob VanDewoestine counters that, by committing to light rail, the region may be biting off more than it can chew: “Several very legitimate issues have been recently raised concerning the manner in which the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project may cause traffic problems where they do not exist today, but there is potentially an even greater issue with the project cost and timing estimates. The city of Honolulu is in the middle of a light-rail construction project twenty miles in length and with many design elements similar

“Spending billions on a fixed rail line locks Durham into technology that will likely be obsolete the day the line opens.”

to the Durham proposal. Where does the Honolulu project stand?

“The original Honolulu project cost projection in 2006 was $3 billion without cars.

With construction underway in 2011, the cost went up to $5 billion. With about half the line in place, the current estimate is $8.3 billion, not including financing, which is expected to take the project over $10 billion.

In addition, it is still expected to take until 2025 to complete the last half of the line.

“In light of their experience, it is hard to see how the $3.1 billion cost proposal for the Durham light rail (including financing) and the five-year construction time are not grossly underestimated. The project likely represents a future obligation that will vastly exceed any benefits and Durham’s ability to pay. There are so many new technologies for flexible transportation coming in the next ten years. Spending billions on a fixed rail line locks Durham into technology that will likely be obsolete the day the line opens.”

On Friday, Sarah Willets reported that six residents of Culp Arbor, a fifty-five-and-up community near a planned light rail maintenance facility, have sued to block the facility from opening. Community First responds: “The plaintiffs are NIMBYs who have just moved to the area who are trying to stop a transit plan that’s been thirty years in the works. If they were truly unaware of the transit plan, perhaps they should complain to their realtor. This is a site right beside I-40, where the traffic count is one hundred thousand cars per day—hardly a quiet, wilderness-like area. This lawsuit is the height of absurdity, putting a privileged few above what’s best for the entire community.”

Want to see your name in bold? Email us at backtalk@indyweek.com, comment on our Facebook page or indyweek.com, or hit us up on Twitter: @indyweek.

INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 5

indynews

Disaster Mode

NEXT WEEK, THE GOVERNMENT COULD SHUT DOWN AGAIN. DURHAM COUNTY IS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THAT WILL MEAN FOR FOOD-STAMP RECIPIENTS. BY SARAH WILLETS

W

ith one thirty-five-day federal government shutdown behind them, Durham County Social Services officials are preparing for what another government shutdown could mean for the federal food assistance that more than seventeen thousand Durham households rely on.

About $4.5 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds—also known as food stamps—are distributed each month in Durham County, helping about 36,500 individuals buy groceries. As the recent partial government shutdown became the longest in U.S. history, social services officials had no idea if and when the next round of SNAP benefits would be released to recipients.

“I’ve been doing this for twenty-eight years, and I never thought I’d see SNAP shut down, but we got pretty close,” DCSS director Ben Rose last week.

Though the shutdown ended January 25, President Trump only agreed to fund government agencies through February 15 while Democrats and Republicans negotiate over funding for border security. That means another shutdown could begin next Saturday.

So on Thursday, DCSS convened stakeholders to prepare to meet additional needs for food assistance in the event of another prolonged shutdown—whether that comes next week or in the future. The meeting drew representatives from Social Services, county administration, area food banks, and community organizations.

Rose said he’s optimistic the government will stay open, “but we have to be realistic that we’re probably not completely out of the woods.”

Participants talked about preparing for another shutdown like they would a natural disaster. Brad Blackwell, benefits outreach manager for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, said the organization would go into “disaster mode.” The food 6 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

bank is still in disaster mode after hurricanes that struck North Carolina this fall, he added.

While in a natural disaster, local agencies could rely on partners throughout the country that weren’t in disaster mode for help, under a government shutdown, the same need would be felt everywhere. Throughout the meeting, the normal means of filling unmet food needs were traced back to federal dollars that, like SNAP, would be squeezed or unavailable in a shutdown.

things like SNAP, employment programs, child care, emergency financial assistance, and administrative costs.

“It’s very hard for Durham County to supplement the loss of a major federal program,” Rose said. “We have a lot of dependency on this program. Our families rely on SNAP to help them get through the month and meet their other needs.”

The group discussed whether the Board of Commissioners could make a bulk food pur-

During the shutdown, Blackwell said, the food bank got fewer supplies from the federal government than expected. Free meals served in public schools are supported by federal dollars. Even grocery stores—which could be tapped for food donations—would suffer from lost income by not receiving food stamps. Many residents who receive SNAP benefits also rely on support from other federal government agencies that could be affected by a shutdown, such as housing assistance.

DCSS gets more than 50 percent of its funding from the federal government—for

chase to help stock Durham’s sixty food pantries, how local agencies could help alleviate other costs—like transportation—for families that rely on SNAP benefits to free up income they could then spend on food, and if magistrates could delay eviction actions and utility companies could delay bills if a shutdown crippled the SNAP program.

On Monday, county commissioners considered a resolution outlining the local impacts of SNAP, which, once finalized, they plan to send to other counties to co-sign, as well as to North Carolina’s representatives in Congress. Commissioner Ellen Reckhow

suggested the board add to the resolution an appeal to keep SNAP benefits flowing during government shutdowns, just like Social Security and disability payments.

“Clearly, basic nutrition services should be considered a vital government service,” she said.

Before the shutdown ended, it was unclear whether February SNAP benefits would be funded. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, found the money and released February funds early, on January 20. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research institute, that means about thirty million SNAP recipients may wait more than forty days until their March benefits are released. Depending on when they receive their monthly benefits, another eight million people may have to wait more than fifty days before their SNAP benefits are loaded to their EBT cards.

As the CBPP explains, the resolution that reopened the government will fund March SNAP benefits regardless of whether the government shuts down again on February 15. (Should the government remain shut down, that funding may not arrive in April and subsequent months.) But there will still be a gap between when February benefits were released early and when March benefits come. In Durham County, for example, the release of benefits is spread out during the first half of the month.

No matter what happens with the federal government, Rose said Durham County may need to help SNAP recipients who run out of benefits before they get the next round.

The program is designed to supplement, rather than cover, a household’s food needs.

Still, the CBPP says, “it’s well-documented that SNAP benefits normally run out for most households at the end of the month.”

According to the CBPP, households redeem more than half of their SNAP benefits within a week of getting them. swillets@indyweek.com

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news

Guns Drawn

AFTER A RALEIGH SWAT TEAM ALLEGEDLY POINTED RIFLES AT HER SIX-YEAR-OLD SON, LADONNA CLARK WANTS ANSWERS BY LEIGH TAUSS

M

ichael and Wanda Clark were babysitting their six-year-old grandson one afternoon in midNovember when the phone rang. The caller ID showed an unknown number.

Michael picked up. He couldn’t believe what he heard.

“This is the police, and we are outside your home.”

They were ordered to come outside. The temperature was in the mid-forties. It had been raining.

Michael, a sixty-four-year-old African American, opened the door to his house on Friar Tuck Road in Southeast Raleigh and saw a SWAT van parked on his lawn. Two dozen officers—all white, he later said in a complaint—had their rifles pointed at him.

They commanded him to put his hands up, turn around, and walk backward toward them. Then they told him to sit.

On the cold, damp ground? he asked.

“You can sit down there, or I will handcuff you,” Michael says an officer replied.

Inside, Wanda rushed to get a diaper on their grandson, who has special needs, as officers called her name through a bullhorn.

She opened the door, holding her grandson, and saw guns drawn on her. The child began to cry uncontrollably. She was terrified.

“Having guns pointed at a six-year-old was extremely frightening and completely unnecessary,” Wanda wrote five days later, in a November 19 complaint to the Raleigh Police Department. “Even now, I still have nightmares about those guns being pointed at me and my grandson.”

The family sat on the ground for more than an hour trying to comfort their grandson while police searched the residence.

The Clarks later learned that they were looking for evidence related to an armed robbery that had taken place two days earlier at an AT&T store on Capital Boulevard.

Their nephew was a suspect. According to the search warrant, one of the robbers— presumably the man the cops were after, Brian Clark—had left a box with his uncle’s 8 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

LaDonna Clark with her son

PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

name and address at the scene. The police believed he lived there. He did not, the family says.

Michael Clark, who says he knew nothing of the robbery, asked the police several times what was going on. According to the complaint he filed with the RPD, the officers refused to answer and were “extremely rude, callous, malicious, and racist” while conducting the search. He felt degraded and humiliated, and says he and his wife were treated as “less than human beings.”

That wouldn’t have been the case if they were white, they said.

The search came up empty, according to the family, but a few days later, Brian Clark was arrested and is currently being held in Johnston County on charges of seconddegree kidnapping. (His arrest form lists a different home address.)

“I grew up in the fifties, and I have seen a lot, but I have never been so humiliated and demeaned like the gang of all-white officers that came to my house,” Michael wrote in his complaint. “It is not solely black and white, but also right and wrong.

How that band of white officers treated our family was extremely wrong.”

The Clarks formally requested an internal affairs investigation. Their daughter LaDonna Clark, who’d dropped her son off at her parents’ house on her way to work the day police searched it, was allowed to view a single shot of bodycamera footage of the incident a month later. That shot, taken from a distance, showed her father exiting the home. She could not see her son or mother in the footage. Police told her a camera had been turned off, she says.

ing and is, of unnece what they cumstanc And the drawn, Bi perceived an intimid your weap force—you weapon yo is deadly f Accordi only perm arrest or p a deadly w a person w the public tinuum st used as a physical pepper ga fail to dees The AC the police opening a addition t LaDonna complaint the incide lated depa In an em a “miscom ment had since she “We need investigat Craig Barn On Fri inquired James N LaDonna have som he wrote.

To proceed with the investigation, LaDon-investigat na says, police told her they needed to inter-you to dis view the family in person. LaDonna thoughtoccurred they were being stonewalled: Why did the gested a m cops need an in-person interview when they On Mo the RPD had three formal complaints in writing?

She left the police station without a casecomplaint number and took her story to the North Caro-in Novem lina ACLU and city council member Corey “Viewin plaint in t Branch.

“Is it ever justified to point a rifle at a child? with the I guess that’s the ultimate question,” Branchto do that says. “I don’t see a reason why you would pointvideo. If th fine as we a rifle at a child, but again, I wasn’t there.”

The answer to that question is no, says investigat state ACLU policy counsel Susanna Birdsong.We just w “Especially when we are talking about an investigat elderly couple and a six-year-old with special Asked needs. Just thinking about the emotional andfor pointi mental harm that has caused is really disturb-nett replie

ing and is, unfortunately, just another example of unnecessary escalation by the police when what they should have been doing in that circumstance is deescalating,” Birdsong says.

And there was no reason to go in with guns drawn, Birdsong adds. “Drawing a weapon is perceived as a use of force and is often used as an intimidation tactic,” she says. “If you draw your weapon, you are threatening the use of force—you are threatening to use it, and if the weapon you are talking about is a gun, then it is deadly force.”

According to RPD policy, deadly force is only permitted in cases of self-defense, to arrest or prevent the escape of a person with a deadly weapon, or to prevent the escape of a person who presents an imminent threat to the public. The department’s use of force continuum states that firearms should only be used as a last resort, after verbal commands, physical presence, restraining techniques, pepper gas, batons, and less lethal weapons fail to deescalate a situation.

The ACLU is also investigating whether the police tried to prevent the Clarks from opening an internal affairs investigation. In addition to seeking an in-person interview, LaDonna Clark says, even before she filed a complaint, the police told her they’d reviewed the incident and didn’t see anything that violated department policies.

In an email Friday, Raleigh police called this a “miscommunication” and said the department had not been in contact with LaDonna since she viewed the footage in December.

“We need to talk to her further in order to investigate her complaint properly,” Captain Craig Barnett told the INDY in an email.

On Friday afternoon, after the INDY inquired about the incident, Sergeant James Neville of internal affairs emailed LaDonna: “We understand that you still have some concerns about the incident,” he wrote. “We are willing to continue the investigation and would like to speak with you to discuss any policy violations which occurred during the search.” Neville suggested a meeting this week.

On Monday, Barnett told the INDY that the RPD had been investigating the Clarks’ complaints “when the letters were received” in November.

“Viewing the video and reviewing the complaint in the letter created the need to speak with the Clarks,” he wrote. “We attempted to do that when they came and viewed the video. If they don’t want to talk to us, that is fine as well. We will move forward with the investigation without speaking with them.

We just want to complete the most thorough investigation possible.”

Asked if there is ever a justification for pointing a rifle at a six-year-old, Barnett replied, “I appreciate you are trying to

answer a bunch of your own questions. I have tried to answer as best I can, but have come to a point that I cannot go into further detail about this incident.”

A lack of transparency in the internal affairs process is a problem nationwide, Birdsong says, including in Raleigh. In North Carolina, because of laws protecting police officers’ privacy, even when a complaint is successful, residents aren’t privy to the outcome of the investigation beyond whether it was sustained. They are not told if or how officers are disciplined.

“The internal affairs process remains completely opaque and unavailable to average community members who have a complaint,” Birdsong says.

For that reason, the grassroots organization Police Accountability Community Taskforce has been pushing the Raleigh City Council to create a citizen oversight board to review complaints. “[Police] can’t investigate themselves,” says PACT executive director Rolanda Byrd, whose son Akiel Denkins was shot and killed by Raleigh police in February 2016. “An outside agency needs to be doing these investigations, and that would be the community—community oversight.”

So far, their calls have gone unanswered, in part because giving an oversight board access to police records would require a change to state law. (While Durham has an oversight board, it is limited to investigating when the department’s internal investigation was conducted appropriately.)

Some council members want the city to do it anyway, including Branch and David Cox, who called for the council to review the matter during its retreat this weekend.

But the issue isn’t listed on a draft of the retreat’s agenda, during which it will discuss its goals for the upcoming year.

Since the incident, LaDonna Clark says, her son has had emotional outbursts, and her parents are haunted by nightmares of the event. She wants answers, she says.

“They sat there for a couple nights, and they just cried because that was traumatizing,” she says. “Why do you need SWAT? Why do you have to use the level of force you use? You have become the judge, jury, and executioner of individuals that are collaterally associated with an incident that this person hasn’t been found guilty of. And you didn’t come in with an arrest warrant.

You came in with a search warrant.”

In his complaint, Michael Clark was more pointed: “I truly hope these unethical, dastardly, and antagonistic officers are disciplined, because the next innocent person may not be so blessed to not be killed.” ltauss@indyweek.com

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INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 9

soapboxer

We’re Waiting

SENATOR BURR, WOULD YOU MIND ANSWERING THE QUESTION?

BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN

L

ast Tuesday, in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the heads of the U.S. intelligence community released their annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, a routine exercise that probably wouldn’t have garnered much notice were it not for one thing: Many of the assessment’s conclusions ran directly counter to what the man in the White House seems to believe.

Among them: North Korea isn’t, in fact, giving up its nukes. Iran isn’t restarting its nuclear program; it’s actually still abiding by the terms of the international agreement President Trump abandoned. Trump’s trade wars and isolationism are straining alliances. The Islamic State has not been defeated and will continue to “stoke violence” in Syria, as national intelligence director Dan Coats explained to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The president, of course, maintains that the opposite is true in all of these cases: He’s wiped out the Islamic State. North Korea is no longer a threat because he’s on good terms with Kim Jong-Un. Trade wars are good and easy to win (and, under his leadership, the U.S. is finally respected in the world). And Iran poses an existential threat.

Just to be clear about what happened: Trump’s handpicked intelligence leaders went before the Senate Intelligence Committee and said, in front of television cameras, that the conclusions of the country’s intelligence apparatus are fundamentally at odds with the White House’s foreign policy.

That’s a hell of a thing.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is chaired by Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. We’ll get back to that.

Trump didn’t take kindly to be made to look the fool on the world stage. The next day, he abruptly canceled his intelligence briefing, then began venting his spleen on Twitter: “The Intelligence people,” he wrote, “seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran.

They are wrong!”

10 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

It went on from there [sic, of course]: “When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond.

Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

And on, and on: Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan—he was right, they were wrong. Trump, the reality TV personality who entered the White House with no foreign policy background, knows better than the analysts who’ve done this their entire lives.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Actually, don’t. Let’s ask Richard Burr about it.

After all, he runs the committee that received the threat assessment and heard

from the intelligence chiefs. He’s also closer to the information the intelligence community receives than almost anyone in the U.S. government—and, as a loyal Republican, he’s been a pretty good ally of the president. So what does he think about this Trump-onTrump-appointee rhetorical violence?

On Wednesday, after Trump’s Twitter barrage, we asked, first with a phone call, and then, at a staffer’s suggestion, an email: Do you agree with the president’s assessment that the intelligence chiefs are “extremely passive and naïve”? Do you believe the president’s judgment is superior to that of intelligence professionals when it comes to assessing the situations in Iran and North Korea?

If not, do you consider the president’s confidence in his own assessments—even when they contradict the conclusions of the intelligence community—dangerous?

As of Tuesday, when this paper goes to press, we’re still waiting for a response.

Obviously, there’s no good way for Burr to answer. If he says Trump’s right, he’ll not only throw career civil servants under the bus, but he’ll also undermine the public’s faith in intelligence agencies. And if he says Trump’s wrong, he’ll not only incur the president’s wrath, but he’ll also tacitly admit that the guy with the nuclear codes is a megalomaniac whose arrogance and ignorance could get us all killed.

It’s a no-win scenario.

To be clear, presidents should question intelligence. What they shouldn’t do is pressure the intelligence community into telling them what they want to hear. That’s how we got into Iraq, after all. And that’s what Trump’s bullying is trying to accomplish—to get the CIA, NSA, and Department of Defense to support his preordained conclusions about Iran, North Korea, and whatever else.

Trump can never be wrong. If the data says he’s wrong, the data must be wrong.

As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and as a top Republican, Burr is in a position to defend intelligence professionals from the president’s attacks, to defend rigorous analysis from the kind of shortsighted politicization that has led to so many foreign policy debacles.

He’s chosen not to do it.

In his defense, Burr hasn’t been completely silent. Last Wednesday night, he told CNN that he has “ultimate faith in the intelligence community.” But he also declined to comment on Trump’s Twitter tantrum.

On Thursday, Trump moved on to a new target: reality itself.

After spending the previous day berating intelligence officials for what they said to Congress, Trump now said that they’d been mischaracterized by the media and hadn’t really said what they’d said, never mind the transcripts and video of their testimony.

So everything’s fine now. There’s nothing to worry about. Right, Senator? jbillman@indyweek.com

INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 11

A Seat at the

Table

Tabletop games have long been a white world.

But with the Durham-born Rap Godz, Omari Akil and Hamu Dennis are out to change that.

BY BRIAN HOWE

P

lay may be universal, but games aren’t.

Not tabletop games, anyway.

Just two months ago, the academic journal Analog Game Studies, which examines games played with boards, cards, dice, and other physical means, published some depressing but unsurprising statistics on race and game design. Of the most popular two hundred games at the time on industry bible BoardGameGeek.com, white men designed 93.5 percent.

Some reasons for this disparity are obvious. Games are a leisure activity, and leisure is a product of income, which favors white men. Others are subtler—gaming’s ingrained Eurocentric lore, its elves and dragons and white knights, isn’t exactly a welcome mat for people of color. And tabletop gaming is ultimately a social experience. If a white perspective shapes most of the games, then, of course, white players will dominate the social spaces where games are played.

All of this is just starting to change, though that’s probably too passive a way to put it.

Rather, people like Durham’s Omari Akil, whose love of tabletop games and hip-hop music consummates in the forthcoming Rap Godz, are changing it.

Played with vibrantly illustrated cards on a board that at once suggests a turntable, 12 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

an astrology chart, and a graffiti-spattered Trivial Pursuit, Rap Godz pits two to four players against one another in a thirty-to-sixty-minute race to smash the charts with platinum plaques. But beyond the finely tuned mechanics of the card play, the metagame is a vessel for spontaneous storytelling, with each player portraying an archetypal rap persona and city. This is to say that the game is hip-hop in function as well as in form.

By producing Rap Godz independently, with his brother, Hamu Dennis, Akil is making a concerted effort to bring more people of color into the tabletop world. But he’s also just doing what savvy entrepreneurs do—filling a wide-open niche. When he and Dennis, unknown and untested in the world of game design, raised more than $25,000 in a month for Rap Godz on Kickstarter, they knew it had been the right decision for the branding on the box to say Board Game Brothas, not Parker Brothers.

B

orn in 1986, Akil grew up in suburban Algiers Point, Louisiana, a ferry ride away from New Orleans. The youngest of four children, with his nearest siblings more than twelve years his senior, he lived there until he left for Norfolk State University in Virginia, where he earned a degree in computer science. Then, he was more

Omari Akil with his game Rap Godz PHOTO BY JADE WILSON into video games than board games, though in retrospect, he realizes they were already playing a role in his life.

“I have a cousin from Los Angeles, and every time he came to town, we would have an epic Monopoly game with my dad,” Akil says with an amiable laugh in a dim booth at downtown Durham tabletop haven The Atomic Fern. “Nobody was happy, but

we’re doing it anyway, because that’s what Monopoly is.” His mother taught him Solitaire, his sister dominoes. “So all of my family members, I have this connection with each through a different game, and now, I’m making board games with my brother.”

After college, Akil was on track for a career in video games, and he moved to the Triangle for a job as a programmer at

IBM. But eventually, he realized he was less interested in the technical aspects of games than in their ludic, emotional core.

He left IBM and spent several years working a variety of jobs, including a long stint as a business systems analyst at UNC. He was also, he realized, kind of lonely.

He had friends from work and church, but he mostly gamed alone, on the internet.

Then he stumbled across TableTop, a web series about tabletop games starring sci-fi icon Wil Wheaton (aka Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation).

“I was like, ‘This is the greatest thing ever,’” Akil recalls. “The games looked fun, but also the social interaction, cracking jokes on each other.” Akil went to Atomic Empire and bought two of the card-based games he’d seen on the show, Munchkin and Smash Up. Then he realized he had no one to play them with. So he found a welcoming Meetup group at Looking Glass Café, which was near where he lived in Chapel Hill at the time (he’s been back in Durham since 2017). Akil received a crash course in contemporary games—and a social scene—in a few months. But it wasn’t until his brother visited him in the spring of 2016 that his new passion shifted toward a new career.

Hamu Dennis, fourteen years older than Akil, is a photographer and videographer who still lives in Louisiana.

“He got here and was shocked at the number of games I had,” Akil says. “It was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is a thing, and you’re, like, a nerd in this way.’ Then he dropped it on me: ‘Oh yeah, I tried to make a board game a long time ago with my friend.’”

Indeed, in 2007, Dennis and his friend, the rapper Tim Smooth, had drawn a prototype for a hip-hop trivia game on poster board, but it slipped onto the back burner, and then Smooth passed away.

“The idea sat and sat for all that time,” Dennis says. “Then, playing games with my brother one weekend, I realized his knowledge of games, and I had always wanted to play this game in my head so bad.”

That weekend, Akil gave Dennis his own crash course in modern tabletop games, and they settled on two ideas that remain central to Rap Godz: the three kinds of currency (money, rap skills, and street cred) and the idea of storytelling progression.

“My brother is hardcore when it comes to new projects, and he went home and basically started making it,” Akil says. “He sent me a picture of the board he made a couple of weeks later. I was like, ‘Well, OK, I guess we have to make a game now.’

To this day, I call this his baby, because it came from an idea he had ten years ago.”

Dennis also recalls playing board games with their family fondly, but there was always something missing for him.

“I wanted to be a rapper in a game, and I didn’t want to fight him, I didn’t want him to shoot people,” he says. “Rap lyrics are the lifestyles of the rappers, so I wanted to live all of that, all the elements of their lives we don’t get to see. But nobody had ever made that.”

There are ways in which making a tabletop game is like making software: iterate, playtest, iterate, playtest.

“First, we built a spreadsheet, like, ‘OK, what happens to rappers?’” Akil says. “We probably put six hundred items in there, and then we had to narrow those down and sort them into the story. Buying a limousine—what category does that fit into in a rapper’s career?”

In Rap Godz, you have fifteen turns in which to play cards from random draws, and you might confront an unusual dilemma: Do I want to win or play the game? When you begin, you choose a character—say, “She’s a G,” the gangster rapper persona. The decision that’s truest to your character may not always earn you the most points.

“When you finish the game and look at the cards you played, it feels like that character,” Akil says. “That’s totally optional: You can play however you want. But when I see a card being played that fits with the character, I get super excited, like, it works.”

There’s also a “beef” mechanic that illustrates the unique challenges of creating game systems, where making a single change has an exponential effect. Because players are mostly developing their own stories with their cards, Akil wanted to add a way for them to interact with one another directly. Initially, beefing was an extra turn that could confer benefits or backfire, which is to say, it was realistic. (Just ask Drake.)

“Logistically, it was difficult to make that work,” Akil says. “If you have something outside of the norm, there’s so many more rules you have to introduce to prevent someone from using it in a way we don’t intend. You have this opportunity cost, and you have to incentivize it in some way.”

So beef became a core mechanic rather than an auxiliary one.

“We made it work like every other turn, except you roll dice,” Akil says. “We’ve watched the game played a million times, and so many people are into the storytelling part that it doesn’t need to be so perfectly fair, perfectly balanced. I was at a convention in Los Angeles, and one woman was like, ‘I have these two cards I could play. One fits my character, and one gets me more points.’ She played the one that fit her character, because she was all in on the story.”

Y

ou can get a nice prototype of your game manufactured for less than $150, but traveling to conventions is the biggest cost for the start-up game designer.

“The popular thing for developing games right now is Kickstarter, but if you want it to be successful, you have to be really physical before,” Akil says. By the fall of 2017, he and Dennis had a handmade version of Rap Godz they felt good about and started booking tables at game conventions. One of them, PAX Unplugged, in Philadelphia, has a module called Unpub for unpublished tabletop designers. Akil remembers demoing the game for upward of eight hours at a time. After building support at conventions, Akil and Dennis felt confident enough to start sinking more money into Rap Godz.

Initially, they wanted to find a publisher to handle manufacturing, distribution, and marketing.

But then they changed their minds and decided to publish the game themselves. “[A traditional publisher] was less scary,” Akil says. “You make a good game and hand it off. The turning point was when we decided we want to do more than make games.

You want to be an example and enabler for other people who want to make games, especially in the black community.”

Twenty-five grand is a lot for first-time game designers to raise in a month, which speaks to both the brothers’ charisma and Rap Godz’s unique appeal.

“A lot of people supporting us are people who met me or my brother and were like, ‘You guys are passionate about what you’re doing, but also, we need more games like this,’” Akil says. “There’s very few hip-hop games. There’s very few music games. It’s a lot easier to get into designing games now, but until this point, the path was paved primarily with only white males. But I think it’s changing. At my first PAX Unplugged, I felt like I was the only black designer in the room, but when I went back the next year, there were three black designers in the room at the same time.”

One of the games Akil saw that day is revealing of the kind of perspective designers of color can uniquely bring to the space.

In Check Your Privilege, you draw a selection of cards describing your profession and race and then debate, say, who would be most likely to be harassed by police in a certain scenario.

Akil says he saw people of different genders and races playing Check Your Privilege and having a blast, but the question hovers: Should white people play Rap Godz?

Akil admits he’s encountered skittishness from some white gamers—perhaps because the subject matter is unusual for a board game, perhaps because of fears of cultural

appropriation, perhaps because of racism, and probably for a nebulous combination them all.

“I’m sure some of it is that they’re uncomfortable putting themselves in this position,” Akil says. “We’ve definitely had conversations about the stereotypes that exist, and we have some of those concepts in the game, but we balance it with all the positive things about hip-hop that people don’t see. But yeah, we have African-Americanvernacular English that you have to read out loud. If I was a fly on the wall watching four white people playing this game, what would it look like?”

Indeed, it’s easy to imagine a racially mixed group of friends playing Rap Godz together, but to imagine four white people playing it alone is to cringe. It’s a fundamentally black game, in the same way that Settlers of Catan is fundamentally a white one—anyone is welcome to play, but some will find the cultural touchstones more familiar than others. Until game design demographics are more balanced, it will feel off-kilter, if collegial, to play in each other’s worlds.

None of this is to say that Akil isn’t grateful to the traditional game and design scene that nurtured him in the Triangle. In particular, he says, video and board game designer Brian Sowers has been a mentor since they met at Akil’s first Looking Glass meet-up.

But he’s also reaching beyond the traditional gaming sphere, taking Rap Godz to places like Durham hip-hop festival Beats n Bars, where it earned cosigns from local luminaries like G Yamazawa and Defacto Thezpian.

Board Game Brothas incorporated at the beginning of 2018, with Akil as lead game designer and Dennis, who drew Rap Godz’s copious character artwork, as art director.

The game is currently available for preorder for $40 on Kickstarter or RapGodzBoardGame.com—but only until the end of this month. It’s scheduled to ship in August. Akil anticipates ending up with about fifteen hundred copies.

As he prepares to see his first big game through production, he’s hosting his game night at Atomic Fern every Monday from 7:30 p.m. to midnight. He and Dennis are also working on a new game, Graffiti Knights, a fast, party-style card game where you crew up and tag spots around the city.

Dennis, meanwhile, is hosting a Rap Godz game night with his friends every Friday.

“Grown men show up like poker night and play this game on a pro level,” he says, laughing. “It’s ridiculous. I can’t win. But I’m already winning, with the feeling that I get from watching people play and have a good time. This is a game that I am in, you know?” bhowe@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 13

indyfood

THE MECCA RESTAURANT

13 East Martin Street, Raleigh 919-832-5714; www.mecca-restaurant.com

Keep It Holy

DESPITE HIS CRITICS, RALEIGH RESTAURATEUR GREG HATEM WANTS TO RESTORE MECCA TO ITS ORIGINAL GLORY

BY ELIZABETH SZYPULSKI

T

he Mecca Restaurant is a true diner, with 1930s decor and prices that make it equally accessible to lawmakers hanging up their suit jackets at lunch and workers grabbing a quick bite at the counter. During lunch on a recent Thursday, I ordered my usual: the $9.50 fried chicken special, which comes with rice and gravy, two sides, and sweet tea. The chicken was just right, with rich, crispy skin. The black-eyed peas and gravy had a depth of flavor I hadn’t noticed before. The collard greens were better than I remembered: vinegary, with a good bite. It was delicious. It was the Mecca, the same as it’s always been.

That shouldn’t be surprising, as Mecca has been serving classic Southern diner food since 1930, when Nick Dombalis founded it.

The prices have evolved over time—you can’t get a T-bone steak, salad, and dessert for a dollar anymore—but the food and decor have essentially stayed the same, with multiple generations of the Dombalis family greeting customers from behind the lunch counter.

But the Dombalis family doesn’t own it anymore. Last May, Raleigh developer and restaurateur Greg Hatem bought it. At the time, he told The News & Observer that he planned to keep Mecca exactly as it had been. Some people didn’t believe him. I was one of them, especially after walking by last December and noticing a new, pared-down dinner menu that included a $19 low-country boil—twice as much as I was used to paying for a meal there.

People are inevitably going to get nervous when a long-time family restaurant changes hands, but a significant portion of the criticism was about Hatem himself. Hatem owns Empire Properties, which includes Empire Eats, the restaurant group behind Sitti, Raleigh Times, and The Pit, among others. Many people (including the INDY) have accused Hatem of trying to build a downtown that’s a playground for people who want to eat a mid- or high-end meal and head home before ten. Some online commenters worried that the prices would go up, 14 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

Fried chicken special at The Mecca Restaurant PHOTO BY AMY LYONS the menu would change, or that it would lose its distinctive character. To be fair, it’s not clear if these critics were the average Mecca customers. If you’re a regular, you probably came to say goodbye to the Dombalis family, then returned the next week for your usual order.

Whether you call it revitalization (as he does) or gentrification (as his critics do), Hatem has played a major role in downtown Raleigh’s transformation, where institutions like Mecca—where a meat-and-three lunch costs less than $10—have become increasingly rare. How could someone responsible for so much change be committed to keeping a Raleigh institution, well, the same? To Hatem, the answer to that question is simple.

Preserving Mecca is exactly what he wants— not just for its customers, but for himself, too.

And his business savvy, historic preservation knowledge, and love of Southern food just might make him the best person to save it.

Hatem has been a fan of the restaurant since the 1980s, coming in for lunch so often that he developed a friendship with the Dom-

balis family, including Floye Dombalis, who could be seen behind the register at Mecca for more than fifty years.

“I know there was some chatter about us turning it into something else,” Hatem says.

“I chuckled at that, because I’ve been here for over thirty years. The last person who wanted to see the Mecca go away was me. If we do it right, it will be around for the next ninety years.”

So far, the next ninety years look a lot like the first ninety. Mecca’s decor is the same, from the portrait of F.D.R. on the wall to the age-spotted mirrors and darkened booths.

“One of the things we’re very careful about is not cleaning the wood,” Hatem says. “Part of the patina is eighty years of cigarettes.

That’s part of the feel and the charm.”

This isn’t to say that Hatem and his staff want to run Mecca like a museum exhibit.

Upstairs, he’s removed a drop ceiling and torn out old carpet and tile to reveal the original hardwood underneath. The room is elegant, airier, and brighter than it used to be, but it still looks like Mecca.

While the menu is essentially the same, it’s been trimmed so that the kitchen staff can focus on cooking well. (Hatem insists that the pricier menu I saw was an experiment, and that if those dishes return, it’ll be as specials.) There’s also a renewed focus on local food made from scratch, something that was lost over time at Mecca with staffing difficulties, rising prices, and the challenge of cooking a large menu in a tiny kitchen. The fried chicken recipe is exactly the same as the Dombalis’s recipe, but Empire Eats’ executive chef, Melanie Dunia, says other recipes have been tweaked, and the kitchen has moved away from using canned food. It turns out I hadn’t imagined the difference in my collards and black-eyed peas.

According to Hatem, scratch-made food and farm-to-table aren’t just characteristic of the “elevated” Southern cuisine that often comes with a fine-dining sensibility. It’s how homestyle Southern food used to be.

“Southern food was never supposed to be inaccessible,” he says. “It became so processed that we lost sight of how to really cook Southern food. In the fifties and sixties, all those wonderful church cookbooks are saying, ‘Add a block of Velveeta.’ They’re using processed food instead of going back forty more years and using raw tomatoes. I think that’s where we got lost. When we came back to understanding the beginnings of our food culture, we had trouble translating cooking from scratch affordably into today.”

Hatem says that he can keep Mecca affordable partially because he can offset smaller profit margins with his other Empire Eats restaurants. He says he’s not just trying to preserve Mecca, but to restore it. Many families who are unable to keep a restaurant going decide to close it. The Dombalis family chose to sell it to Hatem.

Six months in, Hatem been faithful to its legacy while making changes that could help it survive long enough for a new generation of customers to experience what the Dombalises created. food@indyweek.com

ant.com

indymusic Fest Quest

LORY WONDERING WHAT’S GOING ON WITH MOOGFEST? SO ARE WE.

BY ALLISON HUSSEY

O

talent—it’s markedly more expensive to fly So when is the announcement coming? n the evening of May 20, Moogfest e same, it’s in a band and their gear for one show than Neither Kai Riedl, Moogfest’s Durhamissued a press release recapping its staff can it might be to slot a festival stop into the based “head of innovative curation,” nor third festival in Durham. In addisists that band’s pre-existing East Coast tour. festival publicist Susan Zimmerman, periment, tion to laudatory highlights about perforThe hoi polloi aren’t the only ones left who goes by SiouxZ, would say. Asked be as spe- mances from Jenny Hval, Mouse on Mars, in the dark: The very rooms required to specifically when the announcement would s on local and Moses Sumney, the email contained g that was one other key piece of informag difficul- tion: new festival dates—April e of cook- 25–28, 2019—and a link to buy The fried early-bird tickets. me as the Since then, however, Moogfest ts’ execu- has had little to say about what ther reci- will happen in Durham on those tchen has days. Toward the end of Janud. It turns ary, I noticed that the tech-heavy nce in my festival’s social media channels had been unusually dormant as made food it heads into its fifteenth-anniacteristic versary event. As of February 5, that often Moogfest’s Twitter feed had been y. It’s how silent since November 4, and its Instagram and Facebook pages e. osed to be had lain fallow since December e so pro- 22. As I started sniffing around, eally cook the answers I got were surprising, sixties, all by virtue of barely existing at all. s are say- In short, nobody outside of the y’re using festival’s inner circle seems to back forty know what’s going on. es. I think Moogfest’s biggest public-facKaitlyn Aurelia Smith performing at Moogfest in 2018 PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA ame back ing issue at the moment is that f our food there’s no announced lineup. That make Moogfest happen are, too. An essenhappen, Riedl offered “February,” while g cooking doesn’t mean they don’t have one—J. Cole’s tial piece of booking any show or festiSiouxZ said that the lineup announcements Dreamville festival released its lineup just ” val is a hold, a save-the-date arrangement would “begin in a few weeks.” p Mecca two weeks before the festival was scheduled between venues and promoters as they Big-name bookings like Sunn O))), Anican off- for mid-September last year—but it doesn’t finalize details for a show. The Pinhook, mal Collective, and Gary Numan have been his other bode well for a festival of Moogfest’s scale.

The Carolina Theatre, American Tobacco a strong advance-ticketing driver for Moogs he’s not It’s standard for festivals to release lineCampus, The Fruit, and Durham Armory fest, so the lack of an announcement so far to restore up information several months ahead of all confirmed that they are holding April could suggest that there’s not even enough e to keep time; even Hopscotch usually has a lead 25–28 for Moogfest events. confirmed programming to warrant an se it. The time of about four months. The practice But the venues’ information ends there— announcement. o Hatem. also doesn’t follow Moogfest’s own track they have no other details on programming It’s not impossible to book a music festihful to its record of announcing at least a handful of or production needs. val on relatively short notice, but it is signifhat could artists well in advance: In 2017, Moogfest According to Glenn Boothe, who handles icantly more difficult. Many artists already new gen- announced its first wave of programming booking for Motorco, there’s no hold on the have their summer festival appearances nce what in early January, and the first artists for the 450-capacity room for the festival, indicatconfirmed, and last-minute booking usu2018 iteration were announced in the first ing that the venue is likely not participating. ally requires spending a lot more money on yweek.com week of December 2017.

And a representative of Raund Haus, Durham’s premier beatmaking and hiphop collective, which had its own stage at the festival last year, said that its involvement with Moogfest this year has yet to be determined.

Even internally, the festival appears to be scrambling.

Past and present employees, who requested anonymity for fear of professional retribution but spoke independently of one another, have characterized the working environment as chaotic, marred by poor communication and unclear chains of command.

Last year, the festival came under new management by UG Strategies, but it’s no longer clear if that company is involved (both SiouxZ and Riedl declined to offer specifics). The employees reported that several people had been laid off, and others were required to re-interview for their jobs outright with that restructuring. The festival has a new CEO in Gillian Ryan, who previously was the chief operating officer at UG Strategies and who has worked in the music industry in various capacities for nearly twenty years. Ryan did not respond to multiple requests for a comment or clarification, though SiouxZ wrote that Ryan had been traveling and “apologizes for not getting back to [me] herself.”

Moogfest organizers promise that the festival is happening, though one staffer said that planning for 2019 didn’t begin in earnest until December of 2018. As of press time, it’s entirely possible that it will all go on without a hitch, with all the bells and whistles bigger and better than ever before.

But in the meantime, the festival has a lot of blank spaces to fill, and the odds aren’t entirely favorable. music@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 15

music

Free to Be Shawnee LINK WRAY GREW UP HIDING FROM THE KKK IN DEPRESSION-ERA RURAL NORTH CAROLINA. BUT OVER THE COURSE OF A SIXTY-YEAR CAREER, HE REFUSED TO BE ERASED. BY DANA RAIDT 16 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

I

n 1972, Link Wray took the stage in Greenwich Village. For the forty-threeyear-old North Carolinian who had rocked the world with his dangerous-sounding instrumental hit, “Rumble,” in 1958, it was like any other gig. Except for the dozens of Native Americans representing a swath of reservations and tribes standing in the back of the small club, that is.

“Most of the time when I’m playing, the crowd hollers and screams,” Wray, a Shawnee Native American, said twenty-five years later. “But the Indians just stood there, completely still and silent through the whole thing.”

The Village show was one of many Wray played to promote his eponymous 1971 album, a comeback after several years away from the record industry. Often overshadowed by “Rumble”—his distorted, power chord–heavy Top 40 hit, which everyone from Pete Townshend to Iggy Pop to Poison Ivy cite as rock’s ground zero, and that was pulled from radio station playlists for fear of inciting violence—Link Wray was a beautiful and brilliant homage to his rural North Carolina roots and a harbinger of modern Americana, blues-rock, and alt-country. (Jim James of My Morning Jacket has called it “a masterwork on par with Exile on Main St.”) It proved Wray’s versatility and saw him finally mastering his powerful but imperfect voice, its rawness the result of losing a lung to tuberculosis in the mid-fifties.

Despite the success of “Rumble”—and the fact that Bob Dylan recently had told him over dinner that he was better than Hendrix (or so Wray claimed)—he was nervous that night in the Village. After all, he and his family spent much of their life in Dunn, North Carolina, hiding their Shawnee identity, not openly discussing it.

The men sent word backstage that they wanted to talk. Wray, not knowing what to expect, came out to find them standing in a line. “They each came forward and gave me a great big hug, one at a time. They were saying we support you; we like you,” he recalled.

That validation and sense of cultural community was a far cry from Wray’s upbringing and that of countless other Native American musicians, whose erasure and censoring and—in Wray’s case, banning—is the centerpiece of the 2017 documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World. Robbie Robertson of The Band, who is half Mohawk, recounts in the film the advice his mother gave him: “Be proud you’re an Indian, but be careful who you tell.”

Link Wray marked Wray’s unofficial “coming out” as Shawnee; its cover featured Wray in profile, his pompadour grown out and adorned with a headband, leather jacket replaced by a tribal-print shirt and turquoise

jewelry. Until then, he was often assumedWray, com white, even as he played “Rumble” to racistpoor” and bikers in the volatile, newly integrated neigh-comparin borhoods of mid-sixties Washington, D.C. industry Shawnee on his mother’s side and claim-other Nat ing Cherokee heritage from his paternaland play w grandfather, Wray and his family were con-Indian-ne sidered third-class citizens in 1930s Dunn,did it beca hated by whites and sometimes even otheror it was d people of color. They “passed” whenever pos- Upon sible, listing themselves as white on censusesof Link and effectively erasing their identity in themeeting w name of survival. Lillian Wray refused torepresent teach her three boys the Shawnee languageWray wa for fear of what would happen if they werefree to caught speaking it. She turned out lightsfree to be and put blankets over windows when theto make Ku Klux Klan burned crosses nearby. During(as he ca KKK raids, she and local Cherokee parentsbackwood would conduct the horrifying and humiliat-poultrying ritual of hiding their children in barns,studio. Bu under beds or even in hastily dug holes in thewas as ground. As Wray said, “The cops, the sheriff,timing as the drugstore owner—they were all Ku KluxBy the e h Klan. They put the masks on and, if you didthe something wrong, they’d tie you to a tree andco-opted Indian cu whip you or kill you.”

There were bright spots in Dunn: wander-newfound ing through the woods around Rhodes Pond,granted to singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” within part be his mother as she worked the cotton fields,marketab guitar lessons from a black neighbor remem-Red Powe bered simply as “Hambone.” Wray paintedwas occup an idyllic picture of North Carolina on Linkand figh Wray—bullfrogs croaking (“Black Riverreturn o Swamp”), the smell of pine trees (“Take Meland in Home Jesus”), and religious reverie (“La Deat Woo Da”)—but he also referred to it more than“playing Lana Ri once as “one big hell.”

Wray’s career was likewise punctuatedit in a p by sublime beauty and heartbreaking lows,subject. often due to someone wanting Wray to beSainte-M what he was not—and it’s not crazy to thinkeven Jo that at least some of that ties back to a child-to some hood spent hiding your identity. Even afterbeing bl two hits in the late fifties (“Rumble” andpublicly “Rawhide”), Cadence Records unceremoni-Indigeno ously dropped him, the label boss dismissingsame g his cash cow as “that Indian in Washing-white roc ton.” Epic picked Wray up, but the deal sooncolonized soured when he didn’t fit their clean-cutAmerican Duane Eddy mold and refused to re-recordwere feti his reverb-laden “Jack the Ripper” with anAmerican Native A orchestra.

Even though he didn’t openly discuss beingthe cover Shawnee until he was in his forties, grow-he borrow ing up Native—or black, female, or queer forBut no m that matter—on top of being poor can’t helpbe, from but marginalize you, especially when thoseagain hid who wield power can erase your art or your Link very existence. There were always chancesresponse, for white artists, even poor ones, that Wrayshuffle, b and other Native musicians didn’t have thebrothers means or opportunities to get. To paraphrasereinvente

Wray, comparing Elvis Presley’s “white-man releasing several more records and touring poor” and “Shawnee poor” was really like almost up until his death in 2005. His entire comparing apples to rotten apples. Music existence became a reflection of a struggle industry executives expected Wray and to be seen and heard. Everything he did other Native artists to play ball, play dumb, in his rarely recognized sixty-year career, and play white. Those artists didn’t hide their whether it was the amp-turned-to-eleven Indian-ness because they wanted to. They chords of “Rumble” or a twangy ballad about did it because they had to— or it was done for them.

Upon the release of Link Wray and his meeting with the Native representatives, in a way Wray was finally free— free to be Shawnee, free to be an artist, free to make “earth” music (as he called it) in his backwoods Maryland poultry-coop-turnedstudio. But that freedom was as much great timing as anything else.

By the early seventies, the hippies had co-opted American Indian culture; Wray’s newfound freedom was granted to him at least in part because it was marketable. While the Red Power movement was occupying Alcatraz and fighting for the return of Indigenous land in 1969, hippies at Woodstock were “playing Indian,” as Lana Richards puts it in a podcast on the subject. While Buffy Sainte-Marie (and even Johnny Cash, to some extent) was being blacklisted for From top: The shack on the edge of Dunn, NC where Link publicly supporting Wray was born PHOTO BY DANA RAIDT Indigenous rights, the The historical marker on the site of Wray’s childhood same generation of home PHOTO BY ALLISON APPERSON white rock stars who’d Rhodes Pond in Dunn, NC, which Wray immortalized in colonized “Rumble” and his 1971 song "Black River Swamp" PHOTO BY ALLISON APPERSON American blues music were fetishizing Native American culture. In fact, the turquoise bullfrogs in Dunn, North Carolina—it was Native American jewelry Wray sports on all an act of defiance just as powerful and the cover of Link Wray wasn’t even his— arresting as forty Native American elders he borrowed it from his Italian producer. and chiefs standing in a small club in the But no matter how that freedom came to Village, watching a rock show. be, from the early seventies on, he never music@indyweek.com again hid his identity.

Link Wray received great critical Dana Raidt is an author who lives in response, but largely got lost in the hippie Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her biography, shuffle, buried by the popularity of the Link Wray: The First Man in Black, will brothers Allman and Flying Burrito. Wray be published by Bazillion Points Books in reinvented himself dozens more times, summer 2019.

Eat & Drink Almanac The INDY’s Ultimate Guide to food and drink in the Triangle

On Stands: 4/24 Reservations: 3/20 Contact your Marketing Executive or advertising@indyweek.com

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F E B R UARY

TH 7 TAUK W/ PEOPLE’S BLUES OF RICHMOND 8p

FR 8 COSMIC CHARLIE PRESENTS: DARK SIDE OF THE DEAD 8p

SA 2/9 • 7P

JUPITER COYOTE & THE BLUE DOGS

MO 11 ALAN DOYLE BAND 7p FR 15 THE BREAKFAST CLUB SA 16

W/ BAD INC 8p NANTUCKET W/ MAJ DEEKA/ PEGASUS PLUS 7p

FR 22 CORROSION OF CONFORMITY W/ CROWBAR/THE OBSESSED/ MOTHERSHIP 6:30p

SA 23 MAYDAY! & RDGLDGRN W/ LITTLE STRANGER 8p

SU 24 ASLEEP AT THE WHEELSTRING BAND TOUR 7p

WE 27 JJ GREY AND MOFRO W/ CRIS JACOBS BAND 7p

CO M I N G S O O N

3/2 WHO’S BAD – THE ULTIMATE

MICHAEL JACKSON EXPERIENCE 7:30p

3/3 Y & T 7p 3/8 WHISKEY MYERS

DIE ROCKIN’ TOUR

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3/26 GETTER PRESENTS VISCERAL 7p 3/27 SHALLOU & SLOW MAGIC: INTO THE WILD TOUR 7p

3/29 RECKLESS KELLY & PAUL THORN 7:30p

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music

THE CROSSING

Saturday, Feb. 9, 8 p.m., $10–$25 Duke’s Baldwin Auditorium, Durham www.dukeperformances.duke.edu

Old Flames

THE CROSSING REINTERPRETS GRIEF AND MOURNING WITH A NEW LOOK AT A HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN CLASSIC BY ELIZABETH SZYPULSKI

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hose stories can help us understand suffering? In classical music, a “passion” generally tells the story of the suffering of Christ, which has traditionally been treated as uniquely tragic and transcendent. In composer David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion, the story is humbler, but no less haunting: Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl,” in which an impoverished, abused child freezes to death on the street as she imagines her late grandmother welcoming her home.

The Crossing has told this story before, and they do it exquisitely, richly conveying both the desolation and the beauty of the original story. The Crossing is something unusual: a twenty-four-voice chamber choir dedicated to performing new music.

For composers, working with the group is a rare chance to write for a large, talented group willing to experiment. And for the rest of us, attending one of their concerts is a chance to hear familiar tales in a new format.

At Duke, the program begins with other contemplations of loss, including Lang’s solemn, deliberate make peace, a take on the Jewish prayer of mourning. The words of the title are a repeated exhortation, rolling in like waves to prepare the audience for the sad story that will follow. Ahead of the performance, we spoke to Donald Nally, the conductor of The Crossing, about how art can help us turn tragedy into something transcendent.

INDY: “The Little Match Girl” is a powerful story—I remember encountering it as a child and feeling absolutely bereft at the idea of this child dying alone in the cold.

DONALD NALLY: David [Lang], the composer, says that the story has kind of a naive equilibrium between suffering and hope.

And I think that’s true. There’s this incredible moment where [the girl] notices that a star is going out, and she remembers that her grandmother had told her that means

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mu The Crossing PHOTO BY CHRISTIAN STEWART someone is dying. You imagine her thinking, “Oh, I feel sorry for this person who’s dying.” It’s incredibly touching to see this little girl, who’s just trying to do the right thing, to see her not realize that she’s the one who’s dying. There’s something in that that captures the whole thing for me.

Is there a way that telling this story transcends the sadness of it?

For me, it’s a piece about the way in which we observe the suffering of others. And whether or not we observe it. Because in the story, there are obviously some people who observe her and don’t take her in.

We observe her, and we observe the people who we imagine ignoring her. There’s a lot of value in doing pieces of music that talk about how we treat each other and how we observe they way we treat each other, right?

How do you tell this story as a choir?

It’s kind of chanted in a very beautiful manner and in a way that’s very, very direct.

And then between these moments of the

storytelling, there are little textures taken from various sources like Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.” It’s not overtly religious. But there’s a strange spirituality about it.

A lot of the story is about being left alone.

In the nine So one of the last movements ends with the alt-country choir singing, “Stay with me,” over and over Scout Nibl and over again. It’s really, really remark- lovely mel able. It’s text from a chorale in “St. Mat- so drunk, a thew’s Passion,” with the Christian part of it It’s easy taken out. You’re left with the quintessential Durham’s aspect, which is, “When it is time for me to and single leave, don’t leave me.” We go back and forth exploring t between the very direct telling of this very On open real, poignant but not sentimental story, and would hav Songs”), R then this request not to be left alone.

station. Rig Poignant but not sentimental—why is that time will w another in distinction important?

GODKIL I think when we sentimentalize things in alone by R art, we run the risk of making them about particularl ourselves. And that isn’t really what art palpable th does. Art speaks to us because we recognize combines the ideas or the feelings or the images of well as mo another person, and we relate to them. already im

Given everything going on in this moment, what does it mean to perform a piece like this in 2019?

I’m not really interested in doing pieces that don’t speak to us and our world. In the programming of The Crossing, everything has to do with the way we live our lives right at this minute. We don’t do historical music.

Not to say that you can’t relate to historical music, but our performances are about our lives right now. One can’t not be struck by the human cruelty behind a story like this. And we see a lot of cruelty today.

A few of the other pieces you’re performing were written in honor of The Crossing’s late cofounder, Jeff Dinsmore. How do they fit in with The Little Match Girl Passion?

In April of 2014, we were out at the LA Philharmonic. We were about to start a rehearsal, and Jeff just had a heart attack and died. It changed everything about our lives. I decided one of the ways I’d like to memorialize him is to ask fifteen composers whose lives Jeff had crossed or intersected with if they would write a work of three to five minutes. They gave us permission to make a book out of them, a volume called “Jeff Quartets.” It was

music

really generous on everyone’s part, and we have these wonderful pieces of music.

[For this concert,] I decided to put together five of those Jeff Quartets that go on a little journey. They look at how we try to make peace with each other, and they look at how we deal with loss, and they look at how we deal with love. They’re related to each other because they’re all a journey through life, and yet they’re quite a variety of styles.

That’s interesting to me, because I’d assumed that these pieces would all be about loss or mourning. Does memorializing someone necessarily mean creating an expression of grief?

I don’t think it needs to be! I don’t think memorials always have to be grief stricken. They can be celebrations. Or they can be something that that person enjoyed. For us, memorials aren’t limited to pieces that are sad. In fact, Jeff’s memorial fund funds our Christmas concert. He loved our Christmas concert. It’s probably an odd choice to have an annual Jeffrey Dinsmore Memorial Christmas Concert. But it fits, because that would have made him smile. music@indyweek.com

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WEDDING GUIDE

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Highlighting wedding possibilities around the Triangle

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BRIEF

aall u n u n n A n t A s t 1 s s 1 ’ s Weeeekk’ IINNDDYYW

AL RIGGS GODKILLER SUAH SOUNDS 

In the nineties, the lo-fi recordings of Bill Callahan under the moniker Smog toed the line between alt-country and harsh homespun experimentation. Alongside contemporaries like Cat Power, Scout Niblett, and Dirty Three, Callahan reveled in dichotomies, perversely amused to combine a lovely melody with obliviating distortion or a whiplash-inducing threat like “I’m gonna be drunk, so drunk, at your wedding.”

It’s easy to hear a bit of Callahan’s mix of sweet and sour in GODKILLER, the latest release by Durham’s astoundingly prolific Al Riggs, who, at last count, has released more than eighty albums and singles on Bandcamp. Riggs has a similarly unadorned speak-sing delivery and excels at exploring the polarities of sonics and emotions with the anchor of this authoritative voice.

On opener “The Deer In The Forest” (a reference to touchstone Arthur Russell, who likely would have appreciated the aesthetic Riggs calls “Sad Queer Songs and Sometimes Angry Queer Songs”), Riggs tensely plucks their guitar over the sounds of a train screeching into an unseen station. Riggs begins to strum a grooving melody, then states plainly “time will not save my work/ time will work against it all.” They continue with koan-like phrases that eventually layer over one another in a violent culmination.

GODKILLER features saxophonist Matt Douglas on one track, but was otherwise recorded alone by Riggs in their living room. While this is not an unusual set up for Riggs, this album feels particularly intimate. Sounds may shift and mutate, but a thick discontent and vulnerability are palpable throughout. A highlight of the album is the heartcrushing “Gender Reveal Party,” which combines the choogling caginess of Cass McCombs, the atmospheric bleakness of Grouper, as well as more tender moments. On the whole, GODKILLER is a seductive record, by an artist whose already impressive momentum shows no signs of waning. —Josephine McRobbie

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News • Music • Arts • Food

Overdosed

PAINTING MAGIC MUSHROOMS ON PILL BOTTLES AND CELL PHONES, BEN HAMBURGER CONTRASTS OUR CULTURE’S MINDFUL AMBITIONS AND MINDLESS HABITS

BY EMILY PIETRAS 20 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

ome of the works in Medicine Cabinet, Ben Hamburger’s exhibit at The ArtsCenter, are conventional meetings of paint and canvas. But others are painted on pill bottles and cell phones, a juxtaposition Hamburger uses to explore the adverse effects of technology on mental health and the disconnect between natural and artificial remedies.

“I think we are massively overprescribed in this culture, so the reuse of pill bottles for a painting surface is a nod to just that,” Hamburger says. “I think we dream of a quick fix for our psychological problems, and this same impulse might be why we compulsively look at our phones. ... Both the phones and the pill bottles represent ways we search for happiness that often lead to dependency and the opposite.”

While the exhibit’s title is quite literal, given the pill bottles, Hamburger says it also more broadly represents the ways that people attempt to heal and take care of themselves. In “Psilocybin,” Hamburger transforms the lids of five pill bottles into a fragmented painting of magic mushrooms.

That contrast between science and nature is also illustrated in “Sunset,” an arrangement of six phone screens coated in hues of blue and gold that depict a sky at dusk.

“I have been interested in exploring the tension between our compulsive use of technology and prescription meds and our desire to be natural or psychologically free and enlightened,” Hamburger says. “I think there is a trend toward finding natural states of being—meditation, yoga, even ways of eating—that are direct rebuttals to the screens we stare at all the time and the number of meds we are prescribed.”

For Hamburger, who was born and raised on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and is now based in Carrboro, the act of painting itself is a rejection of this desire for instant gratification.

“It is slow, takes a deep concentration and awareness, and is totally ancient and analog,” he says of the art form.

The paintings featuring the pill bottle lids and cell phones also represent how a dependence on technology often leads to a desire to escape from it, Hamburger says.

"Selfie" by Ben Hamburger

“Painting on top of these particular surfaces represents a certain dichotomy that is part of our contemporary culture: a need for technology and synthetic moodchanging drugs and a primal urge to return to something more simple, authentic, and natural,” he says. “Some of these paintings depict something natural and beautiful on top of something synthetic or digital,

Hamburger says. “I was also interested in showing the difference in scale between the little tiny phones and these large paintings of people. So much powerful stuff is scaled down to fit in our pockets.”

This isn’t the first time that Hamburger has used his paintings as a form of social commentary—one of his series, titled Monuments, depicts the removal of Confederate

The all new

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"Psychiatry" by Ben Hamburger

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

representing this tension. The tension isn’t bad; it’s just something that I think a lot of people are living in.”

Hamburger included three self-portraits in Medicine Cabinet, which runs through the end of February after Friday night’s opening reception and artist talk. One of the self-portraits is on a phone screen, one is on pill bottles, and one is on canvas. “Selfie,” the canvas piece, mimics the rectangular dimensions of a photo taken on a phone camera, though it is larger in size. Other portraits on canvas, many of which depict individuals contorting their limbs to fit within the limits of the frame, replicate that same shape.

“I wanted to use this format to show how that can affect people, showing them trapped within the confines of the rectangular frame,”

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statues—but he says he knows he doesn’t have all the answers. What he does have, though, is a lot of questions.

“I make art, first of all, about what I’m interested in, issues that I find myself really pondering or unable to clearly answer, issues that I think need to be unpacked,” Hamburger says. “I think we’re in a time when things are so black and white, and there are these binaries, and art has the capacity to open up the door for different kinds of conversation and look at things from multiple perspectives at once. So I think all of the subject matter that I tackle through my painting comes from not necessarily wanting to answer questions, but more just putting that curiosity out there.” arts@indyweek.com

MEDICINE CABINET: NEW WORKS BY BEN HAMBURGER Friday, Feb. 8, 6–8 p.m., free The ArtsCenter, Carrboro www.artscenterlive.org

INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 21

indystage The Voice of Gott

A COMEDIAN FAMED FOR BOTH FAMILY FARE AND FILTH LETS HIS SOFTER SIDE SHINE THROUGH HIS STRIDENCY

BY ZACK SMITH

T

o answer your first question: No, when you talk to him on the phone, Gilbert Gottfried does not sound like “that”—the gravelly, whiny bray he’s blasted forth throughout decades of stand-up, TV, and movie appearances; on The Tonight Show, multiple reality programs, and Comedy Central roasts; and, of course, as the voice of Iago the parrot in Disney’s Aladdin.

Actually, the veteran comic, who performs three sets at the Raleigh Improv on February 8 and 9, is infinitely calmer and more reasonable-sounding than his apoplectic stageand-screen persona would suggest. But this is something fans have already gotten to know through such recent projects as his thoughtful exploration of old Hollywood, Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast!, in which he talks to Hollywood veterans about their careers and favorite films, and the documentary Gilbert, which deals with the contrast between his public persona and his new life as a family man.

We called Gottfried to talk about the changing face of comedy, the unexpected hits of his career, and more.

INDY: Do you find you have more freedom with the kind of material you can do since the podcast and the documentary?

GILBERT GOTTFRIED: Yeah. I remember when I started doing the podcast, no one would know who these people were, and now I’m getting all kinds of people emailing and tweeting at me saying, “I had no idea who that person was, but now I’m looking them up!” So it’s become a kind of fun homework for people.

It’s certainly put a different side of you in the public eye.

It’s funny, because it’s people I would have sat down and talked with anyway, but I figured I needed a reason to do that, and so, the podcast.

22 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

Interviewing is a good excuse for conversations like that.

Absolutely. It’s kind of depressing, though— we did an “In Memoriam” at the end of the year and realized like five or six people who’d been on in the past year had passed away.

And it was kind of humbling, realizing we’d at least gotten them on the record while they were still here.

Not to make too huge a comparison, but that’s the purpose behind a lot of organizations that interview people, like the Shoah Foundation—getting people’s stories while they’re still around to tell them.

We did have some overlap with the Holocaust, people who were alive in World War Two talking about Nazis occupying their homes, forcing them to let their houses be used as headquarters. So, we’ve been getting those stories, which are chilling, but fascinating.

The podcast and the documentary are very different from the persona that many people associate with you. They’re showing some different sides to you and your work.

The documentary, that was strange. To me, a documentary means you’ve either done something incredible, like cure a disease, or you’ve been dead for thirty years. And this filmmaker, Neil Berkeley, came up to me and said, “I’ve always dreamed of making a Gilbert Gottfried documentary,” and I said, “Well, you should have set your dreams higher.” And he followed me around with the camera. I hated the process of making it, and I hate watching it even more, and yet, the reviews have all been terrific! And people keep coming up to tell me how much they like it.

You’re at a stage now where a lot of your work has an audience that’s grown up with it. When I said I was talking to you,

Gilbert Gottfried PHOTO BY ARLENE GOTTFRIED my friends got excited and immediately bought up things like Iago, the Problem Child movies, and the Cyberchase cartoon on PBS. I always say my career walks the tightrope between voicing children’s programming and hardcore porn. And it has! Some people remember me from Aladdin and a bunch of other cartoons, and others remember things like The Aristocrats. It’s so random. Problem Child, no one had any expectations while we were making it, and somehow it became a huge hit, and people come up to me about it almost every day. The Adventures of Ford Fairlane was a major flop when it came out, and now it has this huge cult. You never can tell.

No one would have anticipated the Problem Child screenwriters doing a series of Oscar-favorite biopics like Ed Wood.

And one of them told me that, when he saw Problem Child, it wasn’t at all the film he’d wanted it to be, and he broke down crying

while he watched it, and he thought his career was over. And look at him now!

I’m always curious about what comedians who’ve been in the game for a while think about new forms of media and how they’ve affected their ability to display their range or promote themselves.

Listen, every time I think I’ve got social media figured out, it changes. I think these days, we need agents and managers who are five years old, because those people have it figured out! The other thing that depresses me is that movie theaters seem to be going away. They’re like Vaudeville.

You can stream everything, but you lose that communal experience of watching films together with an audience, being really focused on them, talking about them afterwards, because they’d all seen the exact same show. It’s become something almost old-fashioned. arts@indyweek.com

GILBERT GOTTFRIED

Friday, Feb. 8 & Saturday, Feb. 9, $22 | Raleigh Improv, Cary | www.improv.com/raleigh

stage Real Talk

SONNY KELLY’S SOLO SHOW EXPOSES THE DANGERS OF GROWING UP BLACK BY BYRON WOODS Sonny Kelly in The Talk

I

PHOTO BY HUTHPHOTO

t’s hard to pull upon a single thread in the broad tapestry of African-American experiences without drawing every other fiber with it. Playwright and performer Sonny Kelly faced this overwhelming truth in 2015 while driving his oldest son, Sterling, to elementary school. The radio had news of the Baltimore riots after Freddie Gray died a violent death while in police custody, and Kelly realized that, in order to protect his vulnerable child, it was time to tell him why.

But in the opening scenes of The Talk— a direct, compelling solo show that closes its Durham run at The Fruit this weekend before moving to Chapel Hill’s Historic PlayMakers Theatre for a four-night stand next week—Kelly’s autobiographical character repeatedly freezes in his attempts to start this difficult conversation. His dilemma becomes apparent as he guides us through a potentially endless series of memories and reflections. They propel him back and forth through time, across America, and into his and his family’s past experiences.

Gray’s unjust death evokes the murder of Emmett Till, which beckons across the decades to Trayvon Martin and many others. Kelly notes that all of their parents must have had what we’ve come to know as “the talk.” As one character says, this necessity is a persistent reminder that, for an African American regarded as “infrahuman” by white culture, his “value, his meaning, his humanity, his very life depends in any given

moment upon a constellation of factors that far exceed his own reach.”

In this coproduction by Bulldog Ensemble Theater and StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, directed by Joseph Megel, Kelly, a gifted actor and mimic, revisits these and other tales of injustice. He embodies more than a dozen people, and his painstaking characterizations vividly convey the grief of Mamie Till, the fears of a doting grandmother (in a passage quoted from Howard Craft), the smug racism of white supremacist Julian Carr, and Kelly’s son’s joys and confusions. These, and a brief, crisp cameo as Barack Obama, convey Kelly’s impressive range.

But nothing is more shocking than Kelly’s unmasked terror when his son jostles an arcade claw machine that has taken his money at a movie theater. Kelly forcefully grabs his son for a moment before releasing him, gripped by the fear that the management might call the police on “this unruly black boy … vandalizing their machine.”

As Kelly’s character processes family narratives and historical tropes, his brief admonition about how to behave in the presence of the police exponentially expands, because a young African-American male today has to know so much more in order to survive.

In this prismatic and reflexive work, a racist culture gets a talking-to of its own, one it desperately needs to hear. arts@indyweek.com

COMING MARCH 6TH!

SUMMER CAMP GUIDE

THE TALK ★★★★ Through Sunday, Feb. 17 The Fruit, Durham | Historic PlayMakers Theatre, Chapel Hill www.bulldogdurham.org

Helping our readers plan their summer activities!

Contact your Marketing Executive or advertising@indyweek.com INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 23

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12

JOHN MAUS

In 2014, the avant-pop musician John Maus published his University of Hawaii Ph.D. political science dissertation, titled “Communication and Control.” The dense musicological and cultural analysis of power touched on everything from the marketing of Five Hour Energy supplements to the structure of the 1986 jingle “Street Machine,” to the message of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. This sort of voracious dotconnecting also makes Maus a compelling and confounding musician. With muscled descending bass lines, cinematic synths, and a foreboding baritone reminiscent of Peter Murphy, Maus’s songs are as darkly catchy as anything by the polarizing pop savant Ariel Pink, whom Maus met in college and subsequently toured with as part of Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. But Maus resists easy analysis, instead citing a long line of histories that makes up the emotional and musical tone of his songs. “When people say my record sounds eighties, what they’re really homing in on is this harmonic backbone that comes from midRenaissance and medieval pieces,” he said in a 2011 interview. —Josephine McRobbie MOTORCO MUSIC HALL, DURHAM 8 p.m., $18–$22, www.motorcomusic.com

John Maus PHOTO BY SHAWN BRACKBILL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9

LITTLE CORNER READING SERIES

The poetry of Rachel Zucker zigzags breathlessly between ampersands and competing demands—those of motherhood, art, and work, to name just a few—as if the poems were jotted down between bus stops and the buzzing of different Apple products. Real people and voices often surface in her work, clamoring for attention as she charts the distance between cosmic overexposure and moments of “great sincerity & pleasure.” Such apparent ease is sleight of hand, though: Anxious tenderness is textured between a series of assured formal tricks. All this is to say that these preoccupations make Zucker, who teaches poetry at NYU and is the author of nine books, a natural addition to the second installment of the Duke University English Departments’ Little Corner Reading Series, which this year takes on the theme of “Excess Women.” Zucker is joined by the poets Lauren Hunter, a Durham-based educator and editor; Laura Jaramillo, a doctoral candidate in literature at Duke; and series co-organizer Hannah VanderHart, who is also at Duke, writing a dissertation on collaborative poetry in the Renaissance. —Sarah Edwards DUKE COFFEEHOUSE, DURHAM 8 p.m., free, www.theinvisiblebear.com 24 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8 & SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9

TALKING WITH STRANGERS

In his native Toronto, choreographer David Norsworthy has spent years investigating artists’ relationships with, and responsibilities to, their communities. Using dance for collective good involves continually questioning its relevance: “Why does it matter, both to me and the community?” Norsworthy has pursued this question in a three-week residency in Saxapahaw with Culture Mill, facilitating a series of conversations with people both within and outside of our region’s dance community.

Those talks have been seasoned by the “interventions” of local social activists in theater, literature, and dance. “It’s very easy, even seductive, for an artist to think only within their own perspective,” Norsworthy says. “I’m just trying to get out of the bubble of my own head.”

According to Tommy Noonan, co-director of Culture Mill, at the end of the twenty-one-day residency, we won’t see a finished product. Instead, we’ll see the immediacy of a performative process with an artist still engaged in the raw business of interrogating his findings. —Byron Woods ADF’S SCRIPPS STUDIOS, DURHAM 8 p.m., $15, www.culturemill.org

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9

RENZO ORTEGA: DISPLACEMENT POTLUCK

Renzo Ortega’s paintings are splashy and larger than life, charged with bold, colorful brushstrokes that seem to vault off the canvas. The approach matches the heft of the considerations he undertakes: Ortega, who immigrated from Peru at the turn of the millennium, is interested in the relationship between migration and material culture. What I Left, And What I Brought, his site-specific installation at Duke University’s Power Plant Gallery, is a sprawling tribute to those considerations. A series of accompanying events not only highlights the exhibit, but also introduces new perspectives. Ortega’s “Displacement Potluck” asks participants to bring a dish that relates to their experience of dislocation or immigration (examples given: a batch of cookies baked prior to an eviction, a pasta dish made before a move between states). This culling of personal history is an intimate invitation to break bread, experience art up close, and reframe narratives around belonging. Next up is a night of music relating to displacement on February 15, the day before the exhibit closes. —Sarah Edwards POWER PLANT GALLERY, DURHAM 2 p.m., free, powerplantgallery.org

2.6– 2.13

2/6 DRIVIN N CRYIN W/ LAUREN MORROW 2/7 FRED ARMISEN

SOLD OUT

2/9 PETER MURPHY 40 YEARS OF BAUHAUS CELEBRATION LD FEATURING DAVID J SO OUT 2/12 JOHN MAUS W/NICK NICELY (PRESENTED BY CAT'S CRADLE AND MOTORCO) 2/14 SPAFFORD W/ PSYLO JOE ($17.50/$20) 2/15 COPELAND W/ FROM INDIAN LAKES, MANY ROOMS 2/16 MATT NATHANSON LD W/ BLU SANDERS SO OUT 2/23 HOUNDMOUTH W/ BEN KWELLER, MODERN LOVE CHILD 2/26 JUKEBOX THE GHOST, THE MOWGLI'S W/ARRESTED YOUTH ($22/$25) 2/27 WET, KILO KISH W/ HANA VU ($25/$28)

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I DO?

GILBERT GOTTFRIED AT RALEIGH IMPROV (P. 22), BEN HAMBURGER AT THE ARTSCENTER (P. 20), DAMARIS HILL AT FLYLEAF BOOKS (P. 30), MANUAL CINEMA AT DUKE’S REYNOLDS THEATER (P. 31), THE CROSSING AT DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM (P. 18), SOME TWILIGHT LAND AT ONEONEONE (P. 29), THE TALK AT THE FRUIT (P. 23), TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG AT THE RUBY (P. 32)

6/27 PARACHUTE W/ BILLY RAFFOUL ($20/$23) 8/27 ELECTRIC HOT TUNA W/ ROB ICKES & TREY HENSLEY ($45/$50)

TH 2/7 @THE RITZ (RALEIGH)

DRIVE-BYTRUCKERS AND LUCINDAWILLIAMS 4/15 BAYONNE W/PALM DAZE ($12/$14) 4/16 THIS WILD LIFE ($16/$18) 4/17 THE WILD REEDS ($14/$16) 4/18 TELEKINESIS W/ SONTALK ($13/$15)

CAT'S CRADLE BACK ROOM 2/6 THE LIL SMOKIES W/ MICHIGAN RATTLERS

4/21 VALLEY MAKER ($12) 4/22 KOLARS ($12/$15)

5/1 STEVE GUNN ($15/$17)

3/4 WATSKY W/ BEAU YOUNG PRINCE

2/10 CAROLINA WAVES SHOWCASE & OPEN MIC ($5)

3/6 COLD CAVE W/ ADULT AND VOWWS

2/12 EYELIDS W/ WILD FUR AND HEAT PREACHER ($10/$12)

3/7 STRFKR W/ SHY BOYS ($25)

2/14 DANILEIGH

3/8 CHELSEA CUTLER LD W/ ANTHONY RUSSO SO OUT

2/15 HANK, PATTIE & THE CURRENT W/ GRAVY BOYS

3/19 TREVOR HALL W/ DIRTWIRE, WILL EVANS ($22/$25)

2/16 THE PARROTS / MOZES AND THE FIRSTBORN ($12)

3/21 ANDREA GIBSON W/ ASHLEE HAZE ($20/$22)

2/20 DEAD HORSES & THE BROTHER BROTHERS ($12/$14)

4/4 BETTER OBLIVION LD COMMUNITY CENTER SO OUT

PNC ARENA, RALEIGH Various times, $65+, www.thepncarena.com

6/9 THE LEMONHEADS, TOMMY STINSON ($25/$28; ON SALE 2/8)

2/9 BRONZE RADIO RETURN W/ SONTALK

3/31 THE MIDNIGHT ($20/$22)

In A Happy Death, Albert Camus contemplated the unlikely possibility of the title. In its 2005 production, Corteo, Cirque du Soleil explore a similar riddle: What sort of funeral befits a famous fool? The show mixes intimacy and a delicate sense of gravitas with Cirque’s trademark spectacle and comedy. At the start, an Italian clown is ushered in on a bier in the solemn procession referenced in the show’s title. Soon enough, though, we realize that he is still very much this side of the boneyard, dreaming absurd, grandiose, and poignant dreams of his last engagement. Surreal, acrobatic imagery includes aerial dance beneath whirling chandeliers, trampoline acts, and enigmatic, snowy angels, intermingled with mortal pratfalls, including a twisted take on Romeo and Juliet. Catapults, comedy, and the music of the spheres collide in a work where a clown reaches toward heaven—and we see what, if anything, reaches back. —Byron Woods

5/14 PUP W/ RATBOYS 5/24 THE JAPANESE HOUSE ($18/$20)

2/8 NICOLAY & THE HOT AT NIGHTS

3/30 CARBON LEAF ($20/$25)

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL: CORTEO

5/13 THE DRUMS W/ TANUKICHAN

3/2 COLE ESCOLA W/ HELP! I’M STUCK! ($20)

3/29 SLUGWIFE TAKEOVER TOUR ($20/$25)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7–SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10

JOHN MAUS

4/25 ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE W/ YAMANTAKA, SONIC TITAN

3/25 ADHOC PRESENTS: HOMESHAKE W/ YVES JARVIS

PHOTO COURTESY OF CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

DRIVIN N CRYIN

2/25 TOO MANY ZOOZ ($17/$19)

3/22 NOVO AMOR W/ GIA MARGARET

Cirque du Soleil: Corteo

TU 2/12

WE 2/6

4/5 ELLIS DYSON & THE SHAMBLES ALBUM RELEASE PARTY FT THE TAN & SOBER GENTLEMEN, CRYSTAL BRIGHT & THE SILVER HANDS ($12/$15)

2/21 BAY LEDGES 2/22 WORK CLOTHES / DOVE LEGS AND TEGULCIGALPAN 2/23 LOWLAND HUM W/ ANNA TIVEL 2/24 THE ACES

SOLD OUT

2/25 LILY & MADELEINE W/ BROTHER BIRD 2/26 WILLIAM RYAN KEY W/ SELFISH THINGS AND CORY WELLS ($15) 2/27 RED HERRING REUNION ($15/ $18) 3/1 WILLIAM TYLER W/ JAKE XERXES FUSSELL ($15) 3/2 FUTURE THIEVES

5/2 JULIA JACKLIN W/ BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT ($14/$16) 5/6 PEDRO THE LION W/JOHN VANDERSLICE ($20) 5/7 MURS W/ LOCKSMITH ($15/$17) 5/15 THE SUITCASE JUNKET ($10) 5/21 SHAME ($14) 5/23 MARTI JONES & DON DIXON 6/14 EILEN JEWELL ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO)

2/20 JONATHAN RICHMAN FT TOMMY LARKINS ON THE DRUMS 4/29 JOY WILLIAMS (OF THE CIVIL WARS) W/ ANTHONY DA COSTA LOCAL 506 (CHAPEL HILL)

3/11 MASKED INTRUDER CAROLINA THEATRE (DUR)

9/26 JOSH RITTER & THE ROYAL CITY BAND W/ SPECIAL GUEST AMANDA SHIRES MOTORCO (DUR)

2/24 MIKE DOUGHTY PLAYS SOUL COUGHING’S "RUBY VROOM" 25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR

4/8 RIVAL SONS W/ SHEEPDOGS

3/7 SEAN MCCONNELL W/CALEB ELLIOT

3/24 ALL THEM WITCHES ($15)

4/9 OF MONTREAL W/ YIP DECEIVER ($17)

3/8 MIKE KROL, SPIDER BAGS ($10/$12)

4/11 RUBBLEBUCKET W/ MIKAELA DAVIS

3/9 MATT KEREKES W/ JETTY BONES, JACOB SIGMAN

5/14 THANK YOU SCIENTIST W/KINDO AND IN THE PRESENCE OF WOLVES ($16.50/ $20) FLETCHER OPERA THEATER (RAL)

4/13 DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS W/ DIVINO NINO ($15)

3/10 HOT FLASH HEAT WAVE W/ VACATIONS ($13/$15)

2/6 VALERIE JUNE (SOLO) W/ THAD

4/15 BLACK LIPS W/QUINTRON & MISS PUSSYCAT ($15/$17) 4/16 AND 4/17 MITSKI LD W/ JAY SOM SO OUT 4/18 TOM ODELL W/ LUCIE SILVAS 4/19 THE CHURCH ($25/$28) 4/25 LAURA JANE GRACE & THE DEVOURING MOTHERS W/ MERCY UNION AND CONTROL TOP ($20 / $23) 5/2 FOXING & NOW, NOW ($18/$20) 5/5 JAPANESE BREAKFAST W/ EX HEX AND ETERNAL SUMMERS ($23/$25) 5/6 RIVERSIDE ($20/$25) 5/7 ELI "PAPERBOY" REED ($15/$18)

3/11 MEN I TRUST W/ MICHAEL SEYER

4/3 GRAHAM NASH

3/12 SEAN MCCONNELL ($10/$12)

RED HAT AMPHITHEATER (RAL)

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4/27 RAINBOW KITTEN SURPRISE THE RITZ (R AL)

2/7 DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS AND LUCINDA WILLIAMS W/ ERIKA WENNERSTROM 2/8 CODY KO AND NOEL MILLER SOLD OUT

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3/18 TEENAGE FANCLUB W/ ERIC BACHMANN AND THE LOVE LANGUAGE ($25/$28) 3/31 PATTY GRIFFIN W/ SCOTT MILLER ($35) 5/3 THE JAYHAWKS 5/9 SON VOLT ($25/$28;)

CATSCRADLE.COM  919.967.9053  300 E. MAIN STREET  CARRBORO INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 25

2/7 2/8 2/9 2/10 2/16 2/17 3/1 3/2

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music 2.6–2.13

RICHIE RICHIE RAMONE RAMONE

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FRI

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7/1 LOOK HOMEWARD / THE MIDATLANTIC

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TUE2/7 7/5 Crank It Loud: NOTHING / CULTURE ABUSE THU The Sweet Spot - Durham: WAILIN STORMS / HUNDREDFTFACES

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The Art of Noise #Durham MON 7/11 Regulator Bookstore presents MON 7/11 Regulator Bookstore presents HEATHER HAVRILESKY: Ask Polly Live HEATHER HAVRILESKY: Ask Polly Live FRI 2/8 TUE 7/12 DANNY SCHMIDT / REBECCA NEWTON with WES COLLINS TUE 7/12 DANNY SCHMIDT / REBECCA NEWTON with WES COLLINS W/BLUE CACTUS THU 7/14 Storymakers: Durham, Community Listening Event THU2/97/14Metal Storymakers: Durham, Community Listening Event SAT Pole Mayhem SAT2/107/16 PINKERTON RAID / ST. ANTHONY & THE MYSTERY TRAIN SUN SAT 7/16Motorco PINKERTON RAID / ST. Madness: A ANTHONY Benefit& THEforMYSTERY PoweTRAIN SUNAlley JUL 17 with The Beast, Nancy Middleton, SUN JUL 17 @ 8:00 PM THE RAGBIRDS Seventeen plus Poetry Fox @ 8:00 PM THE RAGBIRDS $12/$15 $12/$15 MON 2/11 Flash Chorus sings California Dreamin

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deep dive EAT • DRINK • SHOP • PLAY

The INDY’s monthly neighborhood guide to all things Triangle Coming February 20:

DOWNTOWN DURHAM For advertising opportunities, contact your ad rep or advertising@indyweek.com 26 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

The Beast gives E.K. Powe Elementary a boost on Sunday.

PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER

The Threshold & The Hearth The Threshold & The Hearth

TeasersMensClub

$10 $10 advance advance // $12 $12 day day of of

WED, FEB 6

THU, FEB 7

CAT’S CRADLE: Drivin N Cryin, Lauren Morrow; $15-$18. 8 p.m.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: The Bennys; 7 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM: The Lil Smokies, with The Michigan Rattlers; $15-17. 8 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE:

FLETCHER OPERA THEATER: Valerie June; 6 p.m.

MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: G3 2018: Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, Phil Collen; 7 p.m.

MOTORCO: Justin Nozuka, Craig Cardiff; $23-$27. 8 p.m.

THE PINHOOK: Secretary Pool, Velvet Sky; $7. 7 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Billy Gilmore & Friends, Serene Green; $10-12. 9 p.m.

Fred Armisen: Comedy for Musicians, But Everyone Is Welcome [$25/8:30 P.M.]

Fred Armisen is on tour, and he’s bringing a drum set. On Portlandia and Saturday Night Live, Armisen built up a roster of musical-related acts and impersonations, ranging from absurdity to pitch-perfect

parody (as with his multiple turns as Prince). He says they’re jokes for musicians, but if you’ve ever cringed at onstage antics a concert, you’ll be in on the joke, too.

—Elizabeth Szypulski THE CAVE: Woolbright, Indoor Cats, Cold Comfort, Black Surfer; 9 p.m.

KINGS:

Brooks Hubbard Band [$8–$10/9 P.M.]

Nashville’s Brooks Hubbard Band plies similar territory to its pal Stephen Kellogg with heartfelt ballads and soaring anthems of heartland rock. On

knack for rich, poetic imagery and meticulously depicted characters. Heartless Bastards leader Erika Wennerstrom’s solo material reflects on mental health and selfdiscovery.

—Spencer Griffith SLIM’S: Thunderchief, WitchTit, Crystal Spiders; $7. 9 p.m.

FRI, FEB 8 THE ARTSCENTER:

Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands [$28/8 P.M.]

The acclaimed bluegrass fiddler and vocalist Laurie Lewis cut her teeth as a founding member of the Good Ol’ Persons and the Grant Street String Band, and has a long-running musical partnership with the mandolinist Tom Rozum. As a bandleader and educator, she’s a deft and passionate ambassador for the genre, typically instructing at several bluegrass camps each summer.

Most recently, Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands garnered a Grammy nomination for their album-length tribute to Alice Gerrard and Hazel Dickens.

—Josephine McRobbie CAT’S CRADLE:

Nicolay and the Hot At Nights [$15–$17/9 P.M.]

Drive-By Truckers headline The Ritz in Raleigh Thursday night.

2017’s American Story, Hubbard combines his background touring the country and studying political science to write songs that examine history through the lens of today, as on “We Won’t Tolerate It,” which connects the Dakota Access Pipeline protests with past injustices. In between, he offers familiar fare of starryeyed romance. Adam Tierney and David Binanay open.

—Spencer Griffith LINCOLN THEATRE: TAUK, People’s Blues of Richmond; $12. 9 p.m.

LOCAL 506:

Welles

[$10/9 P.M.] “Rock ’n’ roll doesn’t eat,” Jesse Welles sings on “Rock

N Roll,” the slow-burning grunge-pop centerpiece to last year’s Red Trees and White Trashes. “And rock ’n’ roll doesn’t sleep/Rock ’n’ roll does drugs/Rock ’n’ roll just shrugs.” Clearly, the twenty-year-old Arkansan has digested the basic language of rock ’n’ roll—the grammar of Nirvana, the syntax of Stone Temple Pilots—and formed some sort of pidgin patois that passes as palatable. But like someone who’s learned to speak a language phonetically, he’s merely mimicking the sounds without grasping anything about their meaning or really saying anything. With Exit Mice. —Patrick Wall

PHOTO COURTESY OF HIGH ROAD TOURING

NEPTUNES PARLOUR:

Xylem and Pholem Sound Journey Dance Party [$10/9:30 P.M.]

Xylem has prepared a devotional stripped-down violin and piano set for this evening of soulful electronic excursions. Pholem picks up the pace a bit with gnarled Deep Forest beats rooted in cross-continental psychedelia. Their joint dance party also features Kids Downtown, a spirited local jazz/hip-hop outfit helmed by rapper Tre Mars. With local psychers The Augurs.

—David Ford Smith

POUR HOUSE: Local Band Local Beer: Ta Na Ja, Brassious Monk, Blakk Trell, SK the Novel; $5. 9 p.m.

THE RITZ:

Drive-By Truckers, Lucinda Williams [$28/7:30 P.M.]

This showcase of masterful Americana songwriting is finer than any you’re likely to find touring clubs this size.

Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley have a long track record of thoughtfully examining Southern complexities backed by roaring guitars, but American Band is Drive-By Truckers at its most political and pissed off. Even they can match Lucinda Williams’s

CURRENT ARTSPACE + STUDIO: Wild Up: We the People; $27. 8 p.m.

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER: Durham Public Schools: An Evening of Entertainment; $13-$35. 7 p.m.

THE KRAKEN: Born Again Heathens, Over the Wire; 9 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE: Cosmic Charlie: Dark Side of the Dead; $15.

9 p.m.

LOCAL 506: Elise Davis, Rachel Kiel; $10-$12. 9 p.m.

THE MAYWOOD: Piece of Time, Bloody Sabbath; $10. 9 p.m.

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL:

NC Symphony: Valentine’s Romantic Classics [$18–$60/8 P.M.]

Taking a sweetheart to the symphony is traditionally a pretty romantic thing to do—but if you aren’t that familiar with classical music, choosing the right concert for a big date can be intimidating.

For Valentine’s Day, the North Carolina Symphony has made it easy for you with a lineup inspired by dance.

The program includes Ravel’s lilting, energetic La Valse and selections from Tchaikovsky’s dreamlike Swan Lake. With Dovid Friedlander, violinist, as the featured soloist.

—Elizabeth Szypulski MOTORCO: H.C. McEntire, Blue Cactus; $15-$18. 9 p.m.

Raleigh traverses Scandinavian culture via Dutch producer Nicolay, also one half of The Foreign Exchange, who has recently beefed up his early-aughts chillout affinities by recruiting the live band muscle of Raleigh jazz trio The Hot At Nights. Last year’s Glaciers was a fine document of their collaboration, a late-night cruiser recalling at once the proggy excesses of Paul Hardcastle and the humid West Coast neo-funk of someone like Dam-Funk.

Label it electronica or hold music for now. When the aughties revival rains down, don’t be surprised when this style starts making the rounds again. —David Ford Smith

THE PINHOOK:

THE CAVE: Nathan Arizona and the New Mexicans, Nannerhead; 9 p.m.

SHARP NINE GALLERY: JIm Ketch Swingtet; 8 p.m.

CITY LIMITS SALOON: Wade Bowen; $15-$21. 9 p.m.

SLIM’S: The Oblations, Azulz, Obsidian Darling; $5. 9 p.m.

The Conjure [$7/10 P.M.]

We’re just over a month in, and 2019 has already been a mess.

The Conjure might just be one of the best places to dance it off. Over the past few years, the all-inclusive dance party has established itself as a safe space to “celebrate black femmes and the people who love them.” This year, that celebration kicks off with sets by DJ SPK, DJ LEX, and Gemynii, plus a live performance

by Jamee Cornelia.

—Elizabeth Szypulski POUR HOUSE: Dr. Bacon, Maj Deeka; $8-$10. 9 p.m.

REGULATOR BOOKSHOP: Ellen Ciompi Quartet; $20. 7 p.m.

INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 27

POUR HOUSE: Phooey’s Fans Benefit; 2 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Big Daddy Love, The Kind Thieves; $10-$12. 9 p.m.

RHYTHMS LIVE: The Fabulous Thunderbirds; $35. 7 p.m.

THE RITZ:

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness [$30/8 P.M.]

Andrew McMahon once ruled over lonely young hearts with his moody, piano-driven songs as Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin. Since more recently leaving behind the latter moniker, McMahon has leaned more toward glossy pop. Songs like “Ohio” have an even-tempered and uplifting outlook, making a pleasantly sunny shift for McMahon. Flor and Grizfolk open.

—Allison Hussey

Andrew McMahon performs Sunday night in Raleigh.

SAT, FEB 9

KINGS:

BLUE NOTE GRILL: Tom Merrigan’s Hot Racoons Album Release with Curtis Eller’s American Circus; $8. 8 p.m.

BOXCAR BAR + ARCADE: The Yardarm; 9 p.m.

CAROLINA THEATRE: The Fab Four; $40-$60. 8 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM: Bronze Radio Return, SONTALK; $15. 8 p.m.

THE CAVE: Erie Choir, Porch Light Apothecary, Dead Sea Sparrows; 9 p.m.

THE COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHAPEL HILL UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST: The Seldom Scene; $25-$35. 8 p.m.

DUKE’S BALDWIN AUDITORIUM: THE CROSSING: The Little Match Girl Passion; $10-$25. 8 p.m. See page 18.

DURHAM PERFORMING ARTS CENTER: Disney Dcappella; 7 p.m.

PHOTO BY BRENDAN WALTER

THE MAYWOOD:

Noah Cross

Valentine Vixenfest

Noah Cross may be emo at heart, but the melodic strength and instrumental flashes of Everything Imagined Was All The Same prove the Raleigh trio is hardly that straightforward. Falsetto vocals float atop gauzy bits of shoegaze and post-rock on “Once Remembered, Lost in a Dream,” while spiky riffs and busy bass mark the urgent “Constant.”

Meanwhile, the power-pop charms of “The Town Has Left, But We’re Still Here” imagine The Rentals swapping synthesizers for mathy guitar. Ghostt Bllonde and 300 Dog Night open.

—Spencer Griffith

Returning for its third year in the Triangle is the Valentine Vixenfest featuring “six bands, six genres, six badass female vocalists.” Given this play on the devil’s favorite number, you’d be right to assume that this concert is heavy on the goth and alternative. Obsidian Darling, Blackwater Drowning, Break the Skyline, LaureNicole, Clever Measures, and Nikol all hail from the Triangle and the eastern part of the state, and Obsidian Darling vocalist Logan Christopher serves as host for the evening.

—Josephine McRobbie

[$8/9:30 P.M.]

LINCOLN THEATRE: Jupiter Coyote & The Blue Dogs, Old Habits; $20-$30. 7 p.m.

LOCAL 506: Pretty Things Peepshow; $10-$12. 9 p.m.

[$10/7:30 P.M.]

MEYMANDI CONCERT HALL: N.C. SYMPHONY: Valentine’s Romantic Classics; 8 p.m.

NIGHTLIGHT: DRIFT: Gallimaufry, Lady Fingers, Sponge Bath, Vitamin G; 10 p.m.

NEPTUNES PARLOUR:

Resonancy: Aleatorics, Ian McColm [$10/8:30 P.M.]

Neptunes’ avant-percussion series Resonancy explores free and composed percussion music tonight. Aleatoric music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance; ostensibly, the group Aleatorics bends toward that whim. Ian McColm is a Richmond musician who flits between free-jazz drumming and harsh synthesizer noise— perhaps his solo set here will combine the two. The University of North CarolinaGreensboro Percussion Ensemble is on the bill, too, performing Steve Reich’s “Drumming” in its entirety.

—Patrick Wall

SLIM’S: Safe Word, Infinity Fortress, Lords & Liars; $5. 9 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Day Party: Clap Monkey, Regina Hexaphone, Marc E Smith & J Chris Smith; $5. 2 p.m.

Sun, Feb 10

POUR HOUSE: Ginny, Catriona Sturton Band; $8-$10. 8 p.m.

THE ARTSCENTER: Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas; $27. 8 p.m.

BLUE NOTE GRILL: LeRoy Savage, Fiddlin’ Al McCanless, Stan Brown, Jim Watson, and Tommy Goldsmith; 5 p.m.

MOTORCO:

E.K. Powe Benefit: The Beast [$15/2 P.M.]

Durham’s E.K. Powe Elementary School is like a lot of public elementary schools across the country: Its coffers could use a little more cash. Hence this familyfriendly Sunday afternoon gig headlined by The Beast, the Durham ensemble that pushes the creative boundaries of jazz and hiphop (and that features two Powe alumni). Songwriter Nancy Middleton and Alley Seventeen also perform.

Proceeds benefit Powe, and the affair also features an appearance by the Poetry Fox. —Patrick Wall

MON, FEB 11 THE CAVE: Radical Operations, Mumz; 9 p.m.

LINCOLN THEATRE: Alan Doyle Band; $20-$25. 8 p.m.

POUR HOUSE: Drag Sounds, Paint Fumes, TKO Faith Healer; $5-$7. 9 p.m.

page with raw and dirty trap and a decent following considering his live show resume. YSL’s sound needs some time to develop, but his passion for the art shines through when he raps.

—Charles Morse LOCAL 506: Rickolus, Table Tennis Dreamer; $8. 9 p.m.

THE RITZ:

Yung Gravy [$22/8 P.M.]

The initial impression of Yung Gravy is that he’s yet another white internet rapper mimicking modern trap aesthetics for a check, but underneath the veneer of lazy appropriation is clever satire that pokes fun of everything his image embodies. He raps about hot soccer moms and skinhead haters, accompanying his singles with hilarious videos that feature the former as his dancers. It’s the kind of humor that your little brother tricked you into laughing at. Bbno$ and tiiiiiiiiiip open.

—Charles Morse SHARP NINE GALLERY: Double Date with Tierney and Kate; 7 p.m.

WED, FEB 13 THE CAVE: The Basic Unit; 8 p.m.

DUKE’S SPECIAL COLLECTIONS GALLERY: Allan Waret; Free. Noon.

TUE, FEB 12

THE NIGHT RIDER: The Ugly Architect; 8 p.m.

CAT’S CRADLE: John Maus, Nick Nicely; $18-$22. 8 p.m. See page 24.

CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM: Eyelids, Wild Fur, Heat Preacher; $10-$12. 8 p.m.

Ciera MacKenzie

THE CAVE:

Rap-A-Ganza: YSL Sell [DONATIONS/9 P.M.]

It seems as though The Cave is giving local startup rappers a place to dig in their cleats now that Deep South is gone.

It presents a great opportunity for Durham’s YSL Sell, who is virtually unknown in the local circuit, but boasts a Soundcloud

POUR HOUSE: [$5–$8/9 P.M.]

Though Ciera MacKenzie has yet to turn eighteen, the talented country singer and songwriter has already opened for the likes of Joe Diffie and LeAnn Rimes. Released last fall, her debut single “Weeping Willow” is a stirring comingof-age tale with dramatic Nashville production, a sharp contrast from her fiery originals like “Rowdy” and “Georgia.”

—Spencer Griffith SLIM’S: Car Crash Star, Aneurysm, Shadows; $7. 9 p.m.

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR INDYWEEK.COM 28 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

art 2.6–2.13

submit! Got something for our calendar? Submit the details at:

https://indyweek.com/submit#cals DEADLINE: 5 p.m. each Wednesday for the following Wednesday’s issue.

OPENING Calvin Brett: General Labor: Trash agglomerations.

Reception: Feb 8, 6-9 p.m.

Feb 8-Mar 16. Lump, Raleigh. lumpprojects.org.

Carrboro Town Hall Group Exhibition: Paintings, mixed media, and glass mosaics from local artists Chrystal Hardt, Robert Votta, and Kim Campbell. Thru March.

Feb 8-Mar 23. Carrboro Town Hall, Carrboro. townofcarrboro.org.

Joseph Cave: Paintings and prints. Reception: Feb 9, 6-8 p.m. Feb 9-23. Adam Cave Fine Art, Raleigh. adamcavefineart.com.

Dorrie Casey: I He(art) Art: Feb 9-TBA. The Chatham Arts Council, Pittsboro. chathamartscouncil.org.

Ben Hamburger: Medicine Cabinet: Paintings and mixed media. Reception: Feb 8, 6-8 p.m. Feb 3-28.

The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. artscenterlive.org.

I AM A MAN: Civil Rights Photographs, 1960-1970: Reception: Feb 8, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Feb 8-May 31. Center for the Study of the American South, Chapel Hill. south.unc. edu.

Murmurations: Melinda M. Fine, Kiki Farish, and Ross Ford. Feb 3-24. Horace Williams House, Chapel Hill.

Susan Harbage Page: Borderlands: Documentary photos and found objects from the US-Mexico border.

Reception: Feb 7, 6 p.m. Feb 7-Jul 28. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh. gregg. arts.ncsu.edu.

SENTINELS [l]: INFILTRATE: Amy Sacksteder, Christopher Martin, Eli Gfell, Emily Swanberg, Everything Is Collective, Marc Mitchell, Prerna, and Rebecca Steele.

Reception: Feb 8, 6-9 p.m.

Feb 8-Mar 16. Lump, Raleigh. lumpprojects.org.

Christina Lorena Weisner: Explorations: Science sculptures. Reception: Feb 7, 6 p.m. Feb 7-Jul 28. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh. gregg.arts.ncsu.edu.

ONGOING Across County Lines: Contemporary Photography from the Piedmont: Thru Feb 10. Nasher Museum of Art, Durham. nasher.duke.edu.

All the Pop: Thru Jun 2. Nasher Museum of Art, Durham. nasher.duke.edu.

Marie Arondeau: HagerSmith: Photos. Thru Feb 28. VAE Raleigh, Raleigh. vaeraleigh.org. bauhaus.photo: Photos. Thru Feb 15. NCSU Campus: Brooks Hall Gallery, Raleigh. design.ncsu.edu.

The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal: Thru Apr 7. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill. ackland.org.

John Bechtold: BEIRUT: Photos. Thru Feb 22. Horse & Buggy Press and Friends, Durham. horseandbuggypress. com.

Bert Beirne: Paintings. Thru Feb 12. Gallery C, Raleigh. galleryc.net.

Color and Light: Susan Filley, Sasha Bakaric, Sudie Rakusin, and Peg Bachenheimer. Thru Apr 6. FRANK Gallery, Chapel Hill.

Scott Eagle: Lost in the Liminal See: Thru Mar 9.

Durham Arts Council, Durham. durhamartguild.org.

Arsis Fruritch: Thru Feb 28.

United Arts Council of Raleigh & Wake County, Raleigh. vaeraleigh.org.

Ian Griffin: Sutured Compositions: Thru Mar 9.

Durham Arts Council, Durham. durhamartguild.org.

Hermes Illana: Hanging at MoMA: Thru Feb 11.

Warehouse Artist Studios @ Golden Belt, Durham. durhamartguild.org.

Elizabeth Keckley: It’s All About the Story: Reception: Feb 10, 3 p.m. Thru Feb 20.

Hillsborough Arts Council Gallery, Hillsborough.

Left-Handed Liberty: Multiple artists. Thu Jun 23. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh. gregg.arts.ncsu.edu.

Marlowe: DIMENSIONALIA: Mixed media. Thru Mar 1.

Gallery C, Raleigh. galleryc.net.

MEGAGRAPHIC: Drawings.

Thru Feb 28. Durham Arts Council, Durham. durhamarts.org.

National Print Invitational: Curated by Bill Fick and Judy Jones. Thru Apr 6.

Artspace, Raleigh.

No Citation Needed: Jessica Burke, Melinda Fine, Rene Galvan, Denise Holland, Bridget Leslie, and Cara Smelter. Thru Mar 23. VAE Raleigh, Raleigh. vaeraleigh.org.

Odili Donald Odita Murals: Thru Jul 28. Nasher Museum of Art, Durham. nasher.duke.edu.

Renzo Ortega: What I Left and What I Brought: Paintings. Thru Feb 16. Power Plant Gallery, Durham. powerplantgallery.com.

Hobson Pittman and His Contemporaries: End date TBA. Lee Hansley, Raleigh.

Portraying Power and Identity: A Global Perspective: Thru Mar 31. 21c Museum Hotel, Durham.

21cmuseumhotels.com.

Vernon Pratt: All The Possibilities of Sixteen: Neverbefore-seen posthumous exhibit. Thru Feb 10. Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh. gregg.arts.ncsu.edu. reNautilus: Thru Jul 31. 21c Museum Hotel: Durham.

21cmuseumhotels.com.

Signals: Photos. Thru Feb 28.

Atomic Fern, Durham. japenet.net.

Barbara Rohde: French Connections: Paintings. Thru Feb 28. Durham Arts Council, Durham.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8

SOME TWILIGHT LAND The Light + Art Design gallery in Chapel Hill disbanded at the end of November but the good folks of Sitzer-Spuria design studios (who also owned Light) have started a new gallery. Oneoneone, which sits adjacent to the old space (at Suite 111, hence the rebranding), aims to continue shining a spotlight on both emerging and established contemporary artists. The inaugural exhibit, Some Twilight Land, features Laura Charlton, Harrison Haynes, and Louis Watts, and runs through April 6 after this Second Friday reception and artist talk. The show explores the “seductive paranoia seen through three processheavy media”—in this case, a series of ominous, oversized charcoal drawings from the Burlington-based Watts; collographs from the Brooklyn-based Charlton, who was born in Chapel Hill; and archival pigment prints of Haynes’s mixed-media wasp installations.

Watch this space—there’s good stuff happening here. —Sarah Edwards

ONEONEONE, CHAPEL HILL | 6–8 p.m., free, www.oneoneone.gallery

“Untitled (New Sleep of Forgetfulness)” by Louis Watts PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

RUPTURE | RAPTURE | REVOLUTION: Community art show. Thru Feb 9. The Carrack Modern Art, Durham. thecarrack.org.

The Secret Ingredient: Thru Mar 31. Pleiades Gallery, Durham.

Some Twilight Land: Laura Charlton, Harrison Haynes, and Louis Watts Various media.

Thru Apr 6. Oneoneone, Chapel Hill. oneoneone.gallery.

Strictly NC: North Carolinabased printmakers. Thru Feb 23. Artspace, Raleigh. artspacenc.org.

SuperGraphic Print Lab: Thru Apr 6. Artspace, Raleigh. artspacenc.org.

Susie Silver: Paintings. Thru Apr 15. Aloft Hotel, Chapel Hill. vaeraleigh.org.

Allison Tierney: Glimpse: Mixed media. Thru Feb 7.

Durham Arts Council, Durham. durhamarts.org.

Telvin Wallace: Portraits.

Reception: Feb 8, 6-8 p.m.

Thru Feb 28. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. artscenterlive.org.

Jan-Ru Wan: The Noise We Make and the Shadow We Create: Mixed media. Thru Mar 24. Cary Arts Center, Cary. janruwan.com.

Jan-Ru Wan: Observing the Inner Voice: Artist talk and reception: Feb 7, 4:30 p.m.

Thru Mar 5. Meredith College:

Weems Gallery, Raleigh. meredith.edu.

Kim Wheaton: WILD RIDE: Paintings. Thru Feb 24. Pleiades Gallery, Durham. pleiadesartdurham.com.

Where We Find Ourselves: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum, 1897-1922: Thru May 19. Nasher Museum of Art, Durham. nasher.duke.edu.

Tom Willis: Journey: Paintings.

Thru Apr 12. Durham Convention Center, Durham. durhamarts.org.

Arnold Zann & Margo Taussig Pinkerton: New Orleans: Thru Feb 9.

Through This Lens, Durham.

INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 29

page

READINGS & SIGNINGS J.D. Allen: Skin Game: A Sin City Investigation. Fri, Feb 8, 7 p.m.

Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh. quailridgebooks.com.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7

DAMARIS B. HILL: A BOUND WOMAN IS A DANGEROUS THING

WEDDING GUIDE

“In the 1862nd year of our Lord, / there were 241 lynched / torn from wives’ arms and wedding chambers … All of this / done under the armor of white / supremacy,” poet DaMaris B. Hill writes The INDY’s guide for whomever, wherever, in a sprawling, multipart experimental work that however saying blurs the lines between verse, history lesson,“I andDo” means to you. statistical analysis. Such bold synthesis defines A Highlighting wedding possibilities around the Triangle Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing. Short bios and selected photos accompany poems about the literal, figurative, and cultural incarceration African-American women have faced for centuCONTACT YOUR REP OR have ADVERTISING@INDYWEEK.COM ries.

Of Sandra Bland, HillAD writes, “It could been me, a black woman / the color of Oklahoma clay; a policeman pretending to be / some cowboy.” Of writer and activist Sonia Sanchez, Hill PHOTO COURTESY OF DAMARISHILL.COM says, “She / shows the [military] recruiter that ‘freedom / can’t be paid for with my grandchildren’s / lives.’” Hill’s work is rife with under-told brutality and tragedy, but also rich with the humanity of the women she honors. —Corbie Hill

ISSUE: 3/13 • RESERVATIONS: 3/8

FLYLEAF BOOKS, CHAPEL HILL 7 p.m., free, www.flyleafbooks.com

Webb Hubbell: The Eighteenth Green. Sat, Feb 9, 2 p.m. McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro. fearrington.com/ mcintyres-books.

WEDDING GUIDE

Devi S. Laskar: The Atlas of Reds and Blues. Wed, Feb 13, 7 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. flyleafbooks.com.

Barry Bergey and Tom Pich: Documentary photography book Folk Masters: A Portrait of Kelly Starling Lyons: America. Wed, Feb 6, 6 p.m.

Interactive picture books, Ruby Lounge at Rubenstein wedding Highlighting crafts, and refreshments.

Arts Center. Durham.

Sat, Feb 9, 2 p.m. Borden possibilities around theRaleigh. artscenter.duke.edu.

Building, raleighnc.gov.

Tim Dorsey: No Triangle Sunscreen for the Dead. Mon, Feb 11, 7 p.m.

Mesha Maren: Sugar Run. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Thu, Feb 7, 7 p.m. Quail quailridgebooks.com.

Ridge Books, Raleigh.

RESERVATIONS: 3/8 quailridgebooks.com.

Adam Federman: Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Elizabeth CONTACT YOUR AD REP OR Trinkaus: Enough Food Writer Patience Gray. Sat, Already! Yes, You Are. Tue, ADVERTISING@INDYWEEK.COM Feb 9, 11 a.m. McIntyre’s Books, Feb 12, 7 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Pittsboro. fearrington.com/ Chapel Hill. mcintyres-books. flyleafbooks.com.

Frank Harmon: Native Places: Rachel Zucker, Lauren Drawing as a Way to See. Sun, Hunter, Laura Jaramillo, Feb 10, 2 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Hannah VanderHart: Poetry Chapel Hill. flyleafbooks.com. readings. Free. Sat, Feb 9, 8 p.m. Duke Coffeehouse, DaMaris Hill: Thu, Feb 7, Durham. p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. dukecoffeehouse.org. flyleafbooks.com.

ISSUE: 3/13

WEDDING GUIDE

LECTURES ETC. John Judis: The Nationalist Revival: Trade, Immigration, and the Revolt against Globalization: Thu, Feb 7, 5 p.m. UNC Campus: Wilson Special Collections Library, Chapel Hill. krasnoevents.com.

Pod Tours America: Sun, Feb 10, 7 p.m. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. dpacnc.com.

Ruby Friday: The Calla Campaign: The Art of SelfExploration: Fri, Feb 8, noon.

Ruby Lounge at Rubenstein Arts Center, Durham. artscenter.duke.edu.

Tell About the South: Lucy Britt & Tyler Steelman on Effects of Confederate Monuments on Political Attitudes and Behavior: Free. Light refreshments. Tue, Feb 12, noon. Center for the Study of the American South, Chapel Hill. south.unc.edu.

BILL BURTON ISSUE: 3/13

2.7

Mesha Maren - ’Sugar Run’ 7pm

2.8

J.D. Allen, Skin Game: A Sin City Investigation 7pm

2.9

Under the Tree Storytime 10:30am

2.10

Writers Coffeehouse Discussion Group 2pm

2.11

Tim Dorsey, No Sunscreen for the Dead 7pm

RESERVATIONS: 3/8

RECYCLE THIS PAPER

WEDDING GUIDE

Open Discussion Project,

Highlighting possibilities around the Triangle Melting Pot or Civil War?: wedding A Son of Immigrants Makes

2.13

the Case Against Open Borders 7pm UPCOMING: North Carolina Book Festival, February 21-24.

Visit www.ncbookfestival.com for more info www.quailridgebooks.com • 919.828.1588 • North Hills 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road, Raleigh, NC 27609 CONTACT ADw/Jason REP OR ADVERTISING@INDYWEEK.COM CHECK OUT OUR NEWYOUR PODCAST: BOOKIN’ Jefferies

ISSUE: 3/13 • RESERVATIONS: 3/8

WEDDING GUIDE

The INDY’s guide for whomever, wherever, however saying “I Do” means to you.

Highlighting wedding possibilities around the Triangle

ISSUE: 3/13 • RESERVATIONS: 3/8

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stage Mike Super: Magic. Fri, Feb 8, 7 p.m. Seby B Jones Performing Arts Center, Louisburg. jpacarts.com.

Cody Ko & Noel Miller: Fri, Feb 8, 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh. ritzraleigh.com.

OPENING A Life in the Theatre: $19-$27.

Feb 8-24. Theatre In The Park, Raleigh.

Annie Get Your Gun: Feb 13-17. Meredith College: Jones Auditorium, Raleigh.

Cary Players: Men Always Leave: Wed, Feb 13, 3 p.m.

The Cary Theater, Cary. thecarytheater.com.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Feb 12-17. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. dpacnc.com.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8 & SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9

Cirque du Soleil: Corteo: Feb 7-10. PNC Arena, Raleigh. thepncarena.com.

Most theatricals are as adamant about what they want to show the audience as they are about what they want to conceal. Technical riders specify the length of curtains, the necessary cables and effects, and the minimum space actors need to go unobserved in the wings. But rare groups like Chicago’s Manual Cinema believe theatrical magic is reinforced by fully disclosing exactly how it’s done. The group’s twist on shadow puppetry, ADA/AVA, is an atmospheric, evening-length homage to silent film. It places performers, musicians, and the audience on the same side of the projection scrim. We watch as artists manipulate transparencies and paper cutouts across a series of overhead projectors, while two actors cast shadows in costumes, wigs, and headgear that changes the contours of their faces. When the results are projected on a stage-length screen above the performers, a gothic tale unfolds of two New England sisters separated by death, and then strangely reunited when a traveling carnival visits. (Catch a free public conversation with the creators at The Pinhook on Friday at noon.) —Byron Woods

Culture Mill: Talking with Strangers: Dance. $15. Feb 8-9. ADF Samuel H. Scripps Studios, Durham. culturemill.org.

MANUAL CINEMA: ADA/AVA

REYNOLDS INDUSTRIES THEATER, DURHAM 8 p.m., $10–$25, www.dukeperformances.com

Manual Cinema PHOTO BY YI ZHAO

Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues: Proceeds benefit InterAct of Wake County and the international V-Day campaign. Feb 11-12.

North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, Raleigh. nract.org.

Krystyna Hutchinson and Corinne Fisher: Comedy.

Feb 7-9. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. goodnightscomedy.com.

Sonny Kelly: The Talk: One-man show. Thru Feb 10. Durham Fruit Company, Durham. bulldogdurham.org.

Bert Kreischer: Comedy. Thu, Feb 7, 7 p.m and 9:30 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham carolinatheatre.org.

Lady Bits Open Mic: Five minute sets from female and female identifying comics.

Free. Sat, Feb 9, 6 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Lil Duval: Comedy and music.

Thu, Feb 7, 8 p.m. Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham. dpacnc.com.

Mamma Mia: Feb 12-17. Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

Manual Cinema: Ada/Ava: $10-$25. Sat, Feb 9, 8 p.m.

Duke Campus: Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham. dukeperformances.duke.edu.

Men On Boats: $10-$22. Feb 8-24. Umstead Park United Church of Christ, Raleigh. thejusticetheaterproject.org.

Metal Pole Mayhem: $20$35. Sat, Feb 9, 9 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham. motorcomusic.com.

Mettlesome: Wit: Wed, Feb 13, 7 p.m. Fullsteam, Durham. obligatorywebsite.com.

The Sweet Spot Durham: Level Up: Burlesque. $20$40. Thu, Feb 7, 7 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham. motorcomusic.com.

Zeros: Improv serial drama.

Sat, Feb 9, 6 p.m. The Peoples Improv Theater-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill. thepit-chapelhill.com.

ONGOING Burning Coal: Ashe in Johannesburg: World premiere. $5-25. Thru Feb 10. Burning Coal Theatre at the Murphey School, Raleigh. burningcoal.org.

Carolina Ballet: Love in the Times of the Day: Thru Feb 17. Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh. dukeenergycenterraleigh.com.

The Dangling Loafer: Comedy. With Mimi J Benfield, Jesse Jones, Brian Penn, Lew Morgante, Louis Bishop, Will Purpura, and hosts Shane Smith and Sam Mazany. $7. Fri, Feb 8, 8 p.m.

Kings, Raleigh. kingsraleigh.com.

Honest Pint: The Herd: $15-20. Thru Feb 10.

North Raleigh Arts & Creative Theatre, Raleigh. honestpinttheatre.org.

The House of Coxx Drag Show: $10. Sat, Feb 9, 9 p.m.

The Pinhook, Durham.

The Second City: $35. Fri, Feb 8, 8 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. carolinatheatre.org.

Jump: Thru Feb 10.

PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill. playmakersrep.org.

The Smokin’ Mic: Now Here or Nowhere: Music and comedy with host John Lee. Wed, Feb 13, 8 p.m. The Peoples Improv TheaterChapel Hill, Chapel Hill. thepit-chapelhill.com.

The Sunday Show: Comedy.

With Lauren Faber, Tank Smith, Deb Aronin, Josh Rosenstein, and host Jeremy Alder. Free. Sun, Feb 10, 7 p.m.

King Street Bar, Hillsborough kingsraleigh.com.

INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 31

screen SPECIAL SHOWINGS 2019 Oscar-Nominated Short Films: Full list of films available online. Fri, Feb 8, 2 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. carolinatheatre.org.

Free Solo: Free. Wed, Feb 6, 7 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. carolinatheatre.org.

The Hate U Give: Free.

Mon, Feb 11, 6 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary. thecarytheater.com.

In the Heat of the Night: Sat, Feb 9, 3 p.m.

Orange County Main Library, Hillsborough. hillsboroughclassicfilms. com.

King Kong (1933): $7.

Wed, Feb 13, 7 p.m.

Carolina Theatre, Durham. carolinatheatre.org.

Makala: Tue, Feb 12, 6 p.m.

NCSU Campus: DH Hill Library, Raleigh. lib.ncsu.edu.

Too Late to Die Young: Thu, Feb 7, 7 p.m. Rubenstein Arts Center - Film Theater, Durham. ami.duke.edu.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: Sat, Feb 9, 2 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse, Raleigh. drafthouse.com/raleigh.

The Young Victoria: Sun, Feb 10, 2 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse, Raleigh. drafthouse.com/raleigh.

OPENING

Cold Pursuit—Liam Neeson’s quiet family life is uprooted when his son dies; revenge follows. Rated R. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part—Everything is no longer awesome for this star-studded cast of small plastic toys. Rated PG. The Prodigy—Supernatural evil forces seem to have taken over another small blonde child. Rated R.

Malcom X: Thu, Feb 7, 7 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse, Raleigh. drafthouse.com/ raleigh.

What Men What—A remake of the Nancy Meyer film, this time starringTaraji P. Henson. Yes! Rated R.

Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity: $10. Fri, Feb 8, 7 p.m. Carolina Theatre, Durham. carolinatheatre.org.

The INDY uses a five-star rating scale. Read reviews of these films at indyweek.com.

Motion for Pictures Screening Series: $3-$5.

Wed, Feb 6, 7 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary. thecarytheater.com.

Moulin Rouge: Fri, Feb 8, Alamo Drafthouse, Raleigh. drafthouse.com/raleigh.

My Bloody Valentine: Tue, Feb 12, 8 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse, Raleigh. drafthouse.com/raleigh.

Robocop (1987): Mon, Feb 11, 7 p.m. Schoolkids Records, Raleigh. schoolkidsrecords.com.

32 | 2.6.19 | INDYweek.com

N OW P L AY I N G

½ Aquaman—This ludicrous DC Comics film runs on seawater and flop sweat. Rated PG-13.  Destroyer— Karyn Kusama’s bleak, bludgeoning cop drama features Nicole Kidman in a mode we’ve never seen.

Rated R.  The Favourite— Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) infuses this lurid period melodrama with his unmistakable sensibility of cruelty and absurdity.

Rated R.

½ Glass—In the conclusion of Shyamalan’s sort-of superhero trilogy, the big reveal is that there was never much to reveal at all. Rated PG-13.  Green Book— There’s some rose-tinting at play in this cross-racial buddy comedy set in the Jim Crow South, but it’s nice to see the good guys get a rare win.

Rated PG-13.  Mary Poppins Returns—While charming, the new version of the beloved Disney film apes the original so much that it’s hard to see the point.

Rated PG. ½ Shoplifters— What makes a family?

That’s the wrenching question Hirokazu Koreeda asks in his latest film.

Rated R. ½ Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse—Not only is it a good SpiderMan story, this animated film introduces welcome diversity to the tale of Peter Parker. Rated PG.  Stan & Ollie—Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly do honor to the classic comedy duo’s physical slapstick and close relationship. Rated PG.  Vice—Christian Bale’s mimicry is the best thing in this cynical, shallow film about lizard-hearted former Vice President Dick Cheney. Rated R.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7

TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG The Ruby fills another cinematic gap in the Triangle with the local premiere of a major 2018 film we never got to see. Too Late to Die Young, winner of the best director award in the Locarno Film Festival. It’s a coming-of-age story set in an intentional community in Santiago, Chile, as the country rebuilds its democracy in the summer of 1990, after the fall of Pinochet’s far-right dictatorship. Dominga Sotomayor’s third feature has finally given the young filmmaker the recognition she deserves for her short but substantial career. In her films, she accurately portrays the dynamics of the Chilean middle-class and its attitudes toward gender, class, and national identity. With a deep affinity for how kids and teenagers experience the world, Sotomayor’s sharp observations are filled with reflective nostalgia, multilayered subtlety, and charm. Her voice is one of the most fascinating in current Latin-American cinema, and this one-time screening of her latest is a must for film lovers. —Marta Nuñez Pouzols

THE RUBENSTEIN ARTS CENTER, DURHAM 7 p.m., free, www.artscenter.duke.edu

Too Late to Die Young

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE FILMMAKERS

food & drink Displacement Potluck: With artist Renzo Ortega.

Attendees are asked to bring food related to their personal experience of displacement or immigration. Sat, Feb 9. 2 p.m.

Power Plant Gallery, Durham. powerplantgallery.com.

Farmhouse Cider & Wine Tasting: Saturdays, Sundays, 2-6 p.m. Sun, Feb 10. 2 p.m.

Botanist & Barrel, Cedar Grove. botanistandbarrel.com.

Feast of St. Valentine: Beer paired Valentine’s Day dinner.

Sun, Feb 10. 6 p.m.

Clouds Brewing, Durham.

Picnic’s 3rd Birthday Party: Cake, barbecue, beer, and live music.

Sat, Feb 9.

PICNIC, Durham. picnicdurham.com.

Museum of Life & Science’s Tinkering and Drinkering: Drinks and activities. 21+.

Wed, Feb 13. 6 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham. motorcomusic.com.

Pinhook Presents: Weekly Pop-Up Series: Jeddah’s Tea and The Purple Fence, guest vendors. 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

Thu-Sat. The Pinhook, Durham. thepinhook.com.

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FTCC INSTRUCTOR POSITIONS AVAILABLE Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following positions: Associate Degree Nursing Instructor - Barber Instructor - Dept. Chair Associate Degree Nursing Instructor - Industry Training Instructor (CATV) for Continuing Education Industry Training Instructor (Electrical Systems) for Continuing Education Practical Nursing Instructor (10-month contact) - Network/ Management CISCO CCNA Certified Instructor - Registered Medical Assistant Instructor for Continuing Education Senior Systems Administrator Technician. 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

HEALTHCARE CAREER TRAINING ONLINE Start a New Career in Medical Billing & Coding. Medical Administrative Assistant. To learn more, call Ultimate Medical Academy. 877-6259048 (AAN CAN)

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notices NOTICE All persons firms and corporations having claims against the Estate of Rowland M Shelley, deceased of Wake County NC, are notified to exhibit the same to the undersigned on or before February 25, 2019. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment. This 14 day of January 2019. Lourdes Shelley Executor 3708 Tree Side Court Raleigh NC 27607.

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services body • mind • spirit critters tech services AT&T INTERNET

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holistic health 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

medical services A PLACE FOR MOM

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COMING MARCH 6TH!

SUMMER CAMP GUIDE Helping our readers plan their summer activities!

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INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 33

Helping our readers plan their summer activities!

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5 7 6 1 4 3 2 8 9

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

7

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MEDIUM

# 54

© 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.

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2.6.19

solution to last week’s puzzle

# 23

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8 2 9| 3 6 4 1 7 5 34 | 2.6.19 INDYweek.com

# 56

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

7 8 6 5 4 and click 9“puzzle “Puzzle Pages.”

8 4 6 3 1 5 2 7 9 Best of luck, 1 2 and 8 4 5have 7 9 fun!

6 3 7 3 5 6 9 2 4 8 1 www.sudoku.com 4 6 9 1 8 3 5 2 7

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4 9 3 6 2 7

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CLASSY AT INDYWEEK DOT COM 30/10/2005

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CONTACT AMANDA: CLASSY@INDYWEEK.COM last week’s puzzle

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INDYweek.com | 2.6.19 | 35

CAROLINA CABOODLE

Men’s Carolina Cuddle Club, Triangle, NC http://www.meetup.com/Carolina-Cuddle-Club/

DANCE CLASSES IN LINDY HOP, SWING, BLUES

At Carrboro ArtsCenter. Private lessons available.

RICHARD BADU, 919-724-1421, rbadudance@gmail.com

BUSINESS EXPANSION (GUARANTEED) WWW.EASILYCREATIVE.COM

VALENTINES DAY CHOCOLATE TASTING PARTY Details - FB:specialtreatschapelhill

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Graduate Gemologist 919-260-3686 www.ncjewelryappraiser.com

LEARN TAI CHI IN 2019!

Improve balance, flexibility, strength.

New classes start in January and February throughout the Triangle.

Call 919-787-9600 or visit www.taoisttaichi.org for details.

SINGING, SPEAKING AND COMMUNICATION TRAINING WWW.LAURECEWESTSTUDIOS.COM

HISTORY TRIVIA: *On February 6, 1963, the General Assembly met for the first time in the Jones Street’s Legislative Building.

Previously, the Assembly had met in the historic State Capitol. *Menswear, furniture, and home goods designer Alexander Julian was born in Chapel Hill on February 8, 1948. Julian re-designed UNC Tar Heels men’s basketball uniforms for the 1991-92 season.

Courtesy of the Museum of Durham History

Durham’s Leading Art Supply Store & Classes Formerly known as HappymessART artpostnc.com 718 Iredell St. 919.286.9763

LINO CUTS FOR SAVE THE CHILDREN Artwork by Nicolo ArtForGoodness 100% of profits go to Save the Children www.etsy.com/shop/ArtForGoodness

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Two floors of records. High-end smoking goods.

OG Durham shirts. @hunkydorydurham

CECI N’EST PAS UNE PUBLICITÉ!

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