INDY Week 4.1.20

Page 1

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill April 1, 2020

Our New Normal (ISN’T NORMAL)

Life in the shadow of a pandemic


PRESEN

INDY WEEK CORPORATE PRESS CLUB

T

ED

BY

Final ballot voting starts 4/3! VISIT INDYWEEK.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION

VOTING PERIOD

April 3 – May 3 Every year the Triangle votes on its favorites, from coffee shops to orthodontists. The top nominees in each category make it to the final ballot for voting from April 3 – May 3.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for updates and mentions. 2

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

These companies and institutions proudly support free, independent local journalism in the Triangle. Please support our mission—and our community—by supporting them.

The ArtsCenter Arts NC State Carolina Theatre of Durham Carolina Performing Arts Cat’s Cradle Duke Performances Dr. Jodi Foy, DDS, PA GoRaleigh Haven Medical Kane Realty Corporation Kenan Institute of Ethics MotorCo Music Hall Nasher Museum NC Museum of Art Peace Street Playmakers Repertory Company Quail Ridge Books & Music The Regulator Bookshop Teaser’s Men’s Club Unscripted Hotel Contact advertising@indyweek.com today to learn how you can become a member of the INDY Corporate Press Club.


Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill VOL. 37 NO. 14

T

FEATURES A portrait of Raleigh as a ghost town.

BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN

Since then, COVID-19 has invaded the U.S., infected more than 165,000, and killed more people than 9/11. Schools and businesses closed and the economy crashed and millions filed for unemployment and everyone’s retirement evaporated and we’ve all been ordered to stay home. Fun has been canceled.

Two weeks in isolation, at least four more to go.

An April Fool’s issue would be a spectacularly bad idea. So scratch that.

BY WILL CHOI

8

Our new normal isn’t normal at all.

9

BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN

10 North Carolina’s COVID-19 peak is three weeks away. Dr. Cameron Wolfe is waiting. BY LEIGH TAUSS

11

For residents of McDougald Terrace, this is the second public-health crisis of 2020.

12

A stay-at-home order means that domestic-violence survivors could be stuck with their abusers.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD

BY SARAH EDWARDS

15 Religious visions meet UFO sightings in the scholarship of David Halperin. BY GLENN MCDONALD

16 Farmers markets face the COVID-19 crisis. BY SARAH EDWARDS

17

his was supposed to be an April Fool’s issue.

When I say “supposed to be,” I mean Brian Howe and I had two or three conversations and half-developed a funny (to us) and somewhat elaborate idea that we may or may not have actually pulled off. But that was two months and one Horseman of the Apocalypse ago.

CONTENTS 5

The INDY, Ever y Ot her Week

As I’ve mentioned before, the economic freefall has closed all of the events, concerts, nightclubs, restaurants, and bars that we depend on for advertising revenue, which has produced more than a little anxiety around here. But in more ways than you can imagine, we’ve been sustained through these dark hours by the support and generosity of our INDY Press Club members. In March, we added 277 new members, including nearly 200 monthly contributors. If you’re able, we’d love for you to join us, too. Without much ad revenue to speak of—you’ll notice this is a 20-page newspaper, words that hurt me to type—we can use all the help we can get. Go to KeepItINDY.com today. You can contribute $5 a month, $10 a month, $20 a month, $10 million a month, whatever feels comfortable to you, Jeff Bezos. Your support will help keep the lights on (even though we’re all working from home) and our journalists cranking out stories that matter until this weird moment sorts itself out. That brings me to an announcement: The stay-at-home order not only means that we’ve lost ad dollars, but it also means there aren’t many people out and about to pick up our paper. Printing is the second-most-expensive thing we do, behind payroll, and publishing a paper consumes a lot of time and headspace. So for the next two months, we’re going to try something different: We’ll publish a newspaper every other week— today, April 15, April 29, May 13, and May 27. Then we’ll return to our normal schedule on June 3, with our Best of the Triangle issue on June 10. We’re also moving our Food & Drink Almanac to July 29 to give bars and restaurants time to reopen and regroup.

Tab-One grows up, Ronnie Flash goes in, and more new music. BY BRIAN HOWE

DEPARTMENTS

We’ll save some money, put our energy into breaking news and telling stories online, and strategize for the post-COVID future. And rest assured, come June 3, the INDY will be back in print every week.

4 Soapboxer 6 Quickbait 7 A Week in the Life

—Jeffrey C. Billman (jbillman@indyweek.com) P.S.: Our publication is free. Making it isn’t. Go to KeepItINDY.com today.

COVER Design by Jon Fuller

WE M A DE THIS PUBLIS H ER Susan Harper

Staff Writer Thomasi McDonald

EDITOR I AL

Digital Content Manager Sara Pequeño

Editor in Chief Jeffrey C. Billman Arts + Culture Editor Brian Howe Raleigh News Editor Leigh Tauss Deputy A+C Editor Sarah Edwards

Editorial Assistant Cole Villena Contributing Food Editor Nick Williams Theater+Dance Critic Byron Woods Voices Columnists T. Greg Doucette, Chika Gujarathi, Alexis Pauline

Gumbs, Courtney Napier, Barry Saunders, Jonathan Weiler Contributors Jim Allen, Jameela F. Dallis, Michaela Dwyer, Lena Geller, Spencer Griffith, Howard Hardee, Laura Jaramillo, Kyesha Jennings, Glenn McDonald, Josephine McRobbie, Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, Neil Morris, James Michael Nichols, Marta Nuñez Pouzols, Bryan C. Reed, Dan Ruccia, David Ford Smith, Eric Tullis, Michael VenutoloMantovani, Chris Vitiello, Ryan Vu, Patrick Wall

Interns Sindhoor Ambati, Will Atkinson, Kate Davis, Elena Durvas, Hanah Miao

C RE ATI V E Creative Director

Annie Maynard Graphic Designer

Jon Fuller

ADVERTISING

INDY Week | indyweek.com

A D V E R T I S I N G SA L E S

Director of Sales John Hurld

P.O. Box 1772 • Durham, N.C. 27702 Durham: 320 East Chapel Hill Street, #200 Durham, N.C. 27701 | 919-286-1972

advertising@indyweek.com Raleigh 919-832-8774 Durham 919-286-1972 Classifieds 919-286-6642

Raleigh Sales Manager MaryAnn Kearns Account Executive Magnolia Wang Classifieds Account Executive Amanda Blanchard

Raleigh: 227 Fayetteville Street, #105 Raleigh, N.C. 27601 | 919-832-8774

E M A I L A D D R E SS E S first initial[no space]last name@indyweek.com

Contents © 2020 INDY Week All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission.

Staff Photographer

Jade Wilson

C I R C U L AT I O N Berry Media Group

KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

3


BACK TA L K

You know how they say to never read the comments? Approximately

87

percent

of the time, that is excellent advice. But every so often, you find a diamond in the coal.

Here is one such diamond, from PATRICK WALLACE, remarking on our March 18 issue: “I want to praise the INDY staff for putting together such an excellent issue in the face of everything changing in one week. Excellent and relevant articles, great suggestions for what we can do to support our communities, the ‘Everything You Need to Know About the Coronavirus’ article, and all put out with high journalistic standards and excellent editing. Keep up the great work!” Our hearts just skipped a beat. Last week, we broke a story about Wayne Johnson, an owner of Johnson Family Barbecue in Durham, responding to a one-star Facebook review by calling the reviewer a “fucking [N-word] cunt.” BETTY found the fact that we censored the N-word but not the swear words—in keeping with our style guidelines—“interesting”: “Pretty obvious what group of people doesn’t matter to the writer.” JACK was upset that we mentioned that Johnson’s pro-Trump and pro-guns posts and memes: “Why does this matter? It paints a bad picture of people that care about their constitutional rights. Not every Trump lover or gun owner is a racist like this dude, and painting a picture like that is messed up, disingenuous, and harmful.” “True,” responds ROSCOE, “Not every Trump lover is a racist. However, it does seem like all the racists these days are right-wing trump lovers. Weird, right?” Speaking of conservatives on Facebook, we also dove into the deep thoughts of NCGOP lieutenant governor candidate Mark Robinson on the globalist coronavirus conspiracy and the devil-worshipping child molesters behind the LGBTQ agenda. “This idiot is hilarious!” JEREMY LOFTIS writes. “Do people pay attention to him and/or take him seriously? He seems like an Alex Jones sort of character that is so absurd as to become a parody of his own self.” “Go to his website and see that, yes, his supporters lap up every word,” KAREN SWARTZ replies. “He is a scary man, and he does have the ability to win. The ultra-conservatives are a strong voting block, and Robinson says exactly what they want to hear.”

WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN BOLD?

indyweek.com backtalk@indyweek.com @IndependentWeekly @indyweek 4

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

SOA P BOXE R

Sorry, Gramps. The Market Needs You to Die. What stage of capitalism is this? BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN jbillman@indyweek.com

T

he day we learned the American job market had lost 3.3 million jobs in a week, the Dow gained 1,300 points on news that the Senate had reached a deal on a $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package. Sure, the stock market isn’t the economy. But the dissonance is jarring. As large as it is, the bill Congress passed last week probably won’t avoid a recession. The hole is that deep— and it’s compounded by the fact that the U.S. is the only developed country where health care access is largely tied to employment, and millions of people are now unemployed amid a fast-spreading, increasingly deadly pandemic. On Thursday, the U.S. eclipsed 1,000 coronavirus deaths. On Friday, just eight days after documenting coronavirus case 10,000, we became the first country to log number 100,000. On Saturday, we exceeded 2,000 deaths. The government’s foremost infectious-disease expert said on Sunday that he expects between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths. (Trump, who a month ago promised to quickly eradicate the coronavirus, said that would mean he’d done a “very good job.” Goalposts, moved.) Keeping fatalities at even that level will require measures at odds with the president’s other goal: restarting the economy as quickly as possible. Last week, he floated relaxing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social-distancing guidelines to “reopen” the country by Easter Sunday, April 12. Three days after that, according to a new model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the coronavirus crisis will peak nationwide, with nearly 2,300 deaths projected on April 15 alone. (This model pre-

dicts 82,141 deaths through July 15, assuming that the country maintains strict social-distancing practices until the summer.) Perhaps with that peak in mind, Trump reconsidered. He announced on Sunday that he’d keep the current guidelines in place through April 30. The president’s desire to kickstart the economy is understandable. Nothing snuffs out reelection campaigns quite like a recession. As good as Trump’s recent polls have been— 48 percent approval in Fox News and Washington Post/ABC News surveys, 45 percent in a Pew Research Center poll, all personal bests—maintaining that perch will become more difficult the longer this morass drags on. This push-pull tension between economic health and public health has created two overlapping phenomena, both taking their cues from Trump’s primal impulse to downplay the latter to boost the former. The first is denial—a spectrum of COVID-19 Truthers, from Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, who overrode local stay-at-home orders by declaring nearly all businesses “essential,” and who says his critics “don’t like the fact that I’m a conservative and I’m willing to pray;” to a contingent of Trump supporters who attack scientists and deny the crisis is all that bad, alleging that it’s instead part of a media-hyped deep-state conspiracy to bring down the president. The second is a sort of free-market nihilism—the people who say that, sure, COVID-19 might kill a lot of people, but that’s the price of a flourishing economy. The most prominent is Texas’s lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who told Tucker Carlson last Monday that he would gladly die for capitalism, and he expected that most other 70-somethings would do likewise: “No

one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?’ And if that is the exchange, I’m all in.” Patrick was pilloried (by everyone except Brit Hume, that is). But his real crime was saying the subtext aloud. There’s always a tradeoff between capitalism and public health, and capitalism usually wins. (We still have coal-fired power plants, for example.) Capitalism’s benefits tend to be immediate (cheap energy!), while the problems it causes are more abstract (how do we know climate change made last year’s hurricanes worse?). But the coronavirus is different. We know it could kill 100,000 people if we do everything right, and many times that if we don’t. We also know that by doing the hard part now, we can spare ourselves much more pain down the road. Knowing that and nonetheless advocating that we cast aside measures that will save the lives of not only our grandparents but of our friends with diabetes and our coworkers with high blood pressure and our neighbors who are cancer survivors to boost our fortunes and our 401Ks or to win an election—that takes a special kind of callousness. Dan Patrick, after all, had drawn inspiration directly from Donald Trump, who’d tweeted earlier that day: “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” Trump, it seems, had only been restrained by the bad optics of relaxing restrictions and cheering on American commerce while hospitals were overflowing with corpses. So please tell me: What stage of capitalism is this? W


Gh o s t To w n

Raleigh, Quiet PHOTOS BY WILL CHOI

Clockwise from top left: Transfer Co. Food Hall, Whiskey Kitchen, Brewery Bhavana, Capital Club 16, Heirloom Brewshop

With every passing year, downtown Raleigh has become more: more housing, more commerce, more restaurants, more bars, more nightlife, more events, more offices, more people, more everything. Until, that is, the middle of March, when everything suddenly stopped. Bars and most restaurants closed. Festivals and concerts canceled. People worked from home. The city became eerily empty. Photographer Will Choi set out to capture this peculiar, haunting quiet. —Jeffrey C. Billman

KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

5


QUICKBAIT

Coronavirus Cases, By County (as of March 30)

March Was a Hell of a Year

I

We are here

t’s crazy to think that just a month ago, North Carolina didn’t have any coronavirus cases, let alone closed schools, shuttered restaurants, stay-at-home orders, and a spiraling economy. Back then—unless you were part of Richard Burr’s Friends and Donors Club—an entire political party assured us that the U.S. was prepared for the pandemic, and the president promised that the then-handful of COVID-19 cases would be “close to zero” within a few days. Obviously, that prediction didn’t quite pan out. As of March 30, there were 164,253 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S., including 1,373 in North Carolina.

27

Gaston

40

382

180

Mecklenburg

Wake

118

44

38

Durham

Guilford

Union

30

Forsyth

Orange

38

30

Cabarrus

New Hanover

1400 KEY 1300

New cases Cumulative cases

1200 An Onslow County resident becomes the first person in N.C. to die of COVID-19, though it’s not confirmed as the cause until March 30.

1100

Number of COVID-19 Cases

1000

Coronavirus Cases, By the Numbers (March 1–March 30)

900

Cases, Worldwide:

800

90,300–785,979 Deaths, Worldwide:

700

3,050–37,810

600

Wake closes more businesses and public playgrounds.

Cases, U.S.:

75–164,253

500

Deaths, U.S.:

1–3,167

400

Cases, North Carolina:

Deaths, North Carolina:

200

0–7

100

Sources: Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Worldometers, Tableau Public

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Trump declares a national state of emergency. Durham declares a state of emergency.

Cooper declares a state of emergency. Duke cancels on-campus classes.

0–1,373

300

0

Durham issues a stay-athome order.

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Cooper closes bars and dine-in restaurants.

16

17

18

19

Cooper closes schools until May 15. Mecklenburg County issues stay-at-home order.

20

21

22

23

Day in March The first coronavirus case appears in Wake.

UNC System cancels on-campus classes.

First Durham case. Cooper closes schools for two weeks.

Sources: Tableau Public. N.C. death total excludes a Virginia resident who died while traveling through North Carolina.

6

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

Durham closes gyms, theaters, and health clubs.

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Cooper declares a statewide stay-at-home order. Orange and Wake Counties issue stay-at-home orders.


The Good, The Bad & The Awful

A WE E K IN THE L IFE

3/24 3/26

MAYOR STEVE SCHEWEL announced a stay-at-home order for the city of Durham. Duke Health announced that it had joined a national study of the potential COVID-19 drug REMDESIVIR, which showed promise with SARS and MERS, diseases linked to other coronaviruses. ADRIAN GRUBBS, who worked in Raleigh’s Solid Waste Services for 17 years, died of COVID-19. STATE TREASURER DALE FOLWELL—who traveled in mid-March despite the whole world agreeing that traveling is a terrible idea right now—announced that he’d been diagnosed with COVID-19.

The state Commerce Department said that since Governor Cooper’s March 16 order closing dine-in restaurants and bars, 195,661 PEOPLE have filed for unemployment in North Carolina, more than the number who filed all of last year. ORANGE AND WAKE COUNTIES issued stay-at-home orders. DUKE HEALTH researchers announced that they had found a way to decontaminate and reuse in-demand N95 masks. State representative and former Durham County commissioner MARYANN BLACK died at the age of 76. According to new Census Bureau population estimates, WAKE COUNTY became the largest in North Carolina last year, surpassing Mecklenburg by roughly 1,400 people.

3/27

Citing a steep rise in the demand for gun permits, WAKE COUNTY SHERIFF GERALD BAKER said his office would not process applications until May. According to a poll, 50 percent of North Carolina voters believe SENATOR RICHARD BURR should resign over his controversial sale of up to $1.7 million in stock just before the market crashed, and Senator Thom Tillis has just a 26 percent approval rating headed into his reelection campaign.

3/25

(Here’s what’s happened since the INDY went to press last week)

GOVERNOR COOPER issued a stay-at-home order for all of North Carolina, effective on Monday afternoon. An internal document obtained by the Triangle Business Journal showed that WAKE COUNTY has a severe shortage of hospital beds and ventilators.

d goo

As hard as the coronavirus shutdown has hit bars and restaurants, nightclubs and concert halls, it’s hit musicians and artists, too. They now find themselves without venues in which to perform and, often, means by which to get paid. But as the INDY’s Brian Howe has documented over the last week, lots of them have taken to livestreaming their performances, often raising money for themselves or worthy causes: Phil Cook, Blue Cactus, the Carolina Ballet, Curtis Eller’s American Circus, the Jewish Authors Book Festival, The Mountain Goats, Django Haskins, the North Carolina Opera, author Jessica Q. Stark, C. Albert Blomquist, Juliana Finch, and many others we don’t have space to name. Oh, and Hiss Golden Messenger dropped an entire live album to benefit the Durham Public Schools Foundation, which is amazing.

bad

ul

3/29 3/30

New projections from the University of Washington’s INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION forecast that North Carolina will see its highest death toll on April 22, when 80 people will die. The IHME estimates that more than 2,500 North Carolinians will die of COVID-19 before mid-July.

3/31

f aw CNN reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice have opened a probe into RICHARD BURR’S stock sale.

MARCH 2020, the longest month in recorded history, comes to an end. Let us never speak of it again.

The Local Artists Creating a New Performance Archive

Mark Keith Robinson The Republican primary for lieutenant governor had a crowded field with some big names, and no one expected any of them to cross the 30 percent threshold to avoid a runoff. But someone did—Mark Keith Robinson, a gun-rights activist best known for a viral speech he made at a Greensboro City Council meeting in 2018, who, if elected, would become the state’s first black LG. (His Dem opponent is black, too.) The problem is that no one had bothered to vet him, or even to read his Facebook page, which is full of the kinds of unhinged shit that would have been considered disqualifying not so long ago: COVID-19 conspiracy theories (the “globalist” did it!), gay-bashing, trans-bashing, more gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, and so on. He says gay rights will lead to “PEDOPHILLA” [sic] and “the END of civilization.” He thinks the LGBTQ community is full of “devil worshiping child molesters.” He laments that black people enjoyed Black Panther, which was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist … to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets.” We could go on, but you get the idea.

Wayne Johnson On March 18, a Postmates delivery driver posted on Facebook her account of an exchange with Allison Johnson, a co-owner of Johnson Family Barbecue in Durham, in which Johnson snapped at the driver because Johnson had asked Postmates to take her restaurant off the site, telling the driver to leave the store, then following her outside and saying, “Bitch, fuck you, what you gonna do?” Two days later, another Facebook user, Noonie Jay, who had seen this post, left a (now-deleted) one-star review on Johnson Family Barbecue’s website. Wayne Johnson—Allison’s husband and a co-owner—responded in perhaps the worst way possible: “Noonie Jay you a a [sic] fucking [N-word] cunt.” He wasn’t done. When someone criticized his staff for being rude, he replied, “Blow me.” Another time: “How about sucking my dick.” In a private message, he threatened to sue the Postmates driver and kept messaging her after she asked him to stop. Just an all-around winner, that guy. KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

7


Our New Normal (ISN’T NORMAL) Life in the shadow of a pandemic

O

ur word of the week, dear readers, is ennui. Following two weeks of social distancing, and staring down at least four more of a statewide stay-at-home order, the novelty of working at home, eating at home, and barely leaving home has worn off. We watched that weird tiger doc on Netflix. We actually read Anna Karenina instead of just telling people we had. We didn’t shower or shave for days at a time. (No lie: I am writing this on Monday night in the same pajamas I wore when I woke up Monday morning, and I would not admit that if I didn’t think most of you had done the same thing at least once.) We are bored. We are restless. We are Over It. And we have (at least) another month to go.

8

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

But if this is how we live now, we might as well explore it. So in our third collection of coronavirus stories, you’ll find us (loosely) circling this idea of ennui: from living in quarantine while battling COVID19, to doctors waiting for the storm to come, to McDougald Terrace residents facing their second public health crisis this year, to help for domestic violence survivors now isolated with their abusers. Because we’re not total bummers, we’ll also help you break through the tedium with stories about new music releases and a local author who studies the relationship between religious experiences and UFO encounters. The economic collapse is hurting a lot of our friends and neighbors, and those of us lucky

enough to have steady paychecks should look out for them. This forced isolation is exacting a psychological toll on almost everyone, but especially those who experience anxiety, depression, and other forms of mental illness. And the longer this drags on, the heavier that toll will be. Our new normal isn’t normal at all, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. So it’s important that we be there for each other. Check in on your friends and your family; send a quick email or a text to someone you haven’t seen in a while. Like it or not, we’re all going to be here for some time, and we’re all in this together. (BTW, I didn’t actually read Anna Karenina.) W —Jeffrey C. Billman


In Quarantine He had COVID-19. She might have, too. They weren’t going anywhere. BY JEFFREY C. BILLMAN jbillman@indyweek.com

B

efore the rest of us were ordered to stay at home, Fanny Laufters and Dylan Boan had already spent two weeks in isolation. For Laufters, a 27-year-old senior field-marketing manager at Pendo and consummate extrovert, it wasn’t an easy adjustment. She missed walking around the office and seeing people. She missed human interactions. She missed being able to leave their Raleigh home. For Boan, her 28-year-old fiancé and a UNC law student, it wasn’t that difficult. After all, he didn’t really have a choice. Most of the time, he couldn’t get out of bed if he wanted to. Laufters had a work conference in Dublin in March that coincided with Boan’s spring break. Laufters says that, with the coronavirus threat looming, her job didn’t pressure her to go, but she didn’t think traveling would be dangerous. They arrived on March 6. Nothing in Dublin seemed out of the ordinary, they say—no social distancing, no stay-at-home order, no business closures. Until Thursday, March 12, the day before they were supposed to return. The night before, President Trump had given an Oval Office address announcing a ban on travel from most European countries. Laufters and Boan awoke to a slew of frantic missed calls and texts, including from Boan’s mom, telling them to leave right away. They didn’t. Getting a flight home a day early would have cost them more than a thousand bucks each, they discovered. Besides, the UK was exempted from the ban, and as American citizens, so were they. The flight back on Friday was uneventful—a layover in Toronto, then to RDU, no hassle getting through customs. By the time they got home, Boan had a cough—a persistent, dry cough. Then he started to feel bad, that malaise that so often accompanies the flu, but worse. A fever set in. He tried to sleep it off. When he awoke the next morning, he knew something was really, really wrong. He’d had the flu before, he says. “This was on another level. I felt like I’d been beaten up—like my body weighed another 60 pounds.” For the next two days, his fever stayed above 101 degrees. The cough wouldn’t stop and couldn’t be controlled. He couldn’t get out of bed. On Saturday morning, he called UNC Health’s hotline. They told him he was in the queue. On Sunday, he called the state Department of Health and Human Services; they asked if he’d been to one of the three countries then on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list or knew anyone who’d been diagnosed with COVID-19. He hadn’t. The DHHS suggested urgent care. At urgent care, he tested negative for strep and the flu. The doctor told Boan he’d love to get him tested for COVID-19, but there weren’t any tests available. He suggested the ER. Too expensive, Boan thought. He’d keep plugging away at the hotline. On Tuesday, he finally got clearance to get tested at an outpatient center on New Bern Avenue. He was told it would be a three-day turnaround. On Friday, he called. Sorry—delays. Finally, on Monday morning, he learned that he did, in fact, have COVID-19. He was to quarantine himself for 15 days from the first symptom or three days from the last, whichever was later. Beyond that, there wasn’t much guidance, he says. “The first three to four days, you’re bed-bound, your body hurts, you have a fever, you’re lethargic, you don’t do much of anything,” Boan says. After about 72 hours, his fever broke with Tylenol, and then the body aches started to fade. He was tired for a week. As of Friday, he was just beginning to feel like himself again—and to recover his senses of taste and smell, another coronavirus symptom. He still has a cough. They think Laufters has it, too, though she didn’t get tested; if she does have COVID-19, she’s less symptomatic. Last Monday, the day Boan learned he was positive, Laufters—who’d spent the previous week caring for him—developed a dry cough, congestion, and lost her sense of smell. She called the DHHS hotline, which referred her to the UNC hotline. A nurse on the UNC hotline told her she probably had a cold.

Fanny Laufters and Dylan Boan

PHOTO COURTESY OF FANNY LAUFTERS

“Did you get the fact that I live with someone who is positive?” Laufters responded. That changes things, the nurse replied, promising that someone would call her that day. By Friday, no one had called. That afternoon, after they’d already spent two weeks in quarantine, Governor Cooper announced a stay-at-home order that would last until April 30. “I do think people are adapting differently,” Boan says. “We’re here for each other. But others definitely have a lot of free time. Other people are struggling to maintain their sense of focus, connection—feeling very isolated by it. I’m staying in touch with family members more than I otherwise would. A big thing is maintaining so much interaction.” Simple things like walking the dog alleviated the restlessness of staying in the house nonstop, Boan says. For Laufters, keeping a semi-normal routine—things like working out at home—and connecting with people on Facetime, both friends and those she hasn’t spoken to as much as she’d like, help her get by. “The feeling that we’re feeling is grief,” she says. Isolated people can get sad, so it’s important to check up on your friends. As a social creature, she admits that she’s found the solitary life a hard adjustment. But she thinks it’s a necessary one. “I think one of the things—it’s good knowing that, as cliché as it sounds, you can be a hero by staying at home,” she says. “Literally, that is so true. It’s not just about taking care of yourself. Some people are very asymptomatic. If it wasn’t for Dylan, I could think, oh, this is just a cold. That makes me feel like staying at home isn’t all that bad.” W

Did you get the fact that I live with someone who is positive?

KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

9


Before the Storm A doctor on the front lines of the coronavirus fight waits for the Triangle’s war to begin in earnest BY LEIGH TAUSS ltauss@indyweek.com

T

hrough goggles and a facemask, Dr. Cameron Wolfe watches as the patient lying in Duke Hospital’s intensive care unit struggles to breathe. Feverish for days, the patient is exhausted from coughing—a relentless, dry cough—and breathless. Like other patients Wolfe has seen, this one is starting to deteriorate as the virus attacks the lungs and progresses to pneumonia. There’s no approved treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and doctors like Wolfe are traversing uncharted territory. There are treatments they think might work, things that have worked on other diseases, but there’s no data indicating how effective they are against COVID-19. (Last week, Duke Health announced that it had joined a national study of remdesivir, a drug that’s has proven effective in combating MERS and SARS, diseases caused by other coronaviruses.) There’s a lot they don’t know. “I don’t use the word ‘experimental,’” Wolfe says in a thick Australian accent. “Many of [the treatments] are well-studied, but not studied for this scenario or well-studied in a lab or on people who are healthy, not in an intensive-care situation. The reality is you are facing an illness that has no real treatment.” For this patient, he prescribes an antiviral infusion. Wolfe is not just a doctor. He’s also a scientist who’s spent his career studying infectious diseases, including HIV. Since early January, when the first reports of a fast-spreading respiratory illness surfaced in China, the hospital has been mobilizing for the public health crisis to come. Wolfe says Duke has seen more than 100 positive cases, but most patients are well enough to recover from home. So far, it’s been a steady trickle. He’s not sure what will happen if and when it becomes a flood. The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that North Carolina’s coronavirus crisis will peak on April 22. On that day, the 10

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

An ambulance and an EMS vehicle wait outside of Duke Hospital’s emergency department.

IHME estimates, the state will be 862 hospital beds, 625 ICU beds, and 954 ventilators short of what it needs. “Our biggest fear isn’t that we can’t handle the number of patients, but that we can’t handle them all in one week,” Wolfe says. Social-distancing measures to “flatten the curve” are designed to prevent just such an overload. Wolfe leaves the ICU wing and methodically peels off his protective gear. “As you repeat it over and over again, it becomes your safety blanket,” Wolfe says. He moves with precision to avoid cross-contamination: He removes his gown, then his gloves. He washes his hands. He puts on a new pair of gloves and removes the goggles or the visor shielding his eyes, then his surgical face mask, then a head hood called a powered air-purifying respirator, or PAPR. He thinks very carefully about each step. He says he’s not too worried; after all, his team designed the safety protocol. If he gets sick, there’s a plan. He’d recover in isolation, as most patients do. Back home, his two young children are probably bouncing around the house, “vastly oblivious,” as his wife, also a doctor, works remotely. He takes his gloves off again and washes his hands, scrubbing vigorously. He snaps on a third pair of gloves, this one clean. He takes a short walk to clear his head. His office is in the hospital command center, a separate building about 10 minutes away from the patient ward. He starts to decompress, but questions flood his mind. Normally, he’d be thinking about basketball. Now he can’t remember the last time he watched a game. One question dogs him: How do we know we’re winning?

PHOTO BY JADE WILSON

Our biggest fear isn’t that we can’t handle the number of patients, but that we can’t handle them all in one week.

The statistics are grim. The government’s top infectious-disease experts have warned the U.S. death toll could reach 100,000 to 200,000 if we do everything right. Does victory look like professionals showing resilience in the most stressful and dire situations? Does it look like patients receiving quality care even from overwhelmed doctors and nurses? “How do I measure when I’ve been successful here or not?” he asks. “I don’t know how to do that. That’s hard. We’re all trying to learn.” W


Public Health Crisis No. 2 As Durham locks down, McDougald Terrace residents are coming home BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com

T

hroughout January and February, the Triangle was fixated on the unfolding public health crisis at McDougald Terrace. Durham’s oldest and largest public housing complex was the focus of indignation and protests following revelations of elevated levels of carbon monoxide, lead paint, sewage problems, asbestos, mold, and the still-unexplained deaths of three infants within two months. On January 3, the Durham Housing Authority began evacuating 288 Mac families to area hotels while officials began remediating the myriad issues plaguing the community. Nearly three months later, life for many of those families was just beginning to get back to normal—and then the COVID-19 crisis hit. On Wednesday, Mayor Steve Schewel issued a stay-at-home order restricting travel except for essential activities. On Friday, Governor Cooper followed with a similar statewide order. Last week, DHA executive director Anthony Scott announced that nearly 200 of those families had or soon would leave the hotels and return home: 118 had already come home to the Mac, 24 more moved to other DHA properties, two others left for other housing providers, and 42 more would come back in the near future. The remaining families are staying at 10 hotels. The DHA says that 139 of its units still need to be made safe. Scott says the repairs at McDougald Terrace haven’t been affected by the coronavirus. Because the city’s stay-at-home order exempts construction, “we can stay on pace to return all families home in early April.” The housing authority is still seeking donations for the residents who remain at the hotels, including bottled water, paper towels, tissue, cleaning supplies, non-perishable food, paper plates, plastic utensils,

along with school supplies and educational activities to occupy children who are out of school. As the coronavirus consumed the headlines, the plight of McDougald residents fell away. But the problems didn’t vanish, says retired chiropractor Allen Botnick, a housing advocate who helps residents navigate the Section 8 process. Botnick says he’s been in contact with McDougald residents nearly every day since they were evacuated. He’s heard from residents who returned to the Mac to find their TVs and PlayStations stolen and who complain about unqualified contractors making inadequate repairs. He points out that the pandemic poses a particular threat to public housing tenants. Many are elderly or don’t lead healthy lifestyles. They might be immunocompromised from living with mold, lead, asbestos, and elevated carbon monoxide levels. An outbreak could be devastating. Ali Byrd’s family is one of 34 DHA families who have stayed at the Hometowne Studios on N.C. Highway 55 for a month or longer. She doesn’t live in the Mac. Instead, Byrd says, she and her children became homeless last year after an administrative mistake cost them a Section 8 voucher. Now, Byrd says, she’s a week away from moving into the Valley Terrace Apartments on Chapel Hill Road. Like Botnick, she says she’s heard about McDougald Terrace families returning to find “incomplete houses” where they smell gas and mold. “They are throwing people back into the apartments,” she says. “I’m telling you something is going to happen. They are glad to be home, but don’t nobody want to blow up either. You got people that still smell gas. They doing it too fast.” She adds: “Can you imagine the PTSD that’s going to come from this?” W

Sonia A. Rapaport, MD Cindy Fraed, MD Haven Medical is now offering care through virtual medical consults for COVID-19. We will also offer antibody testing as part of the package. To learn more or to schedule an appointment please contact Christina by calling 919-969-1414 or reach us at info@havenmedicalnc.com ©2020 Haven Medical. All Rights Reserved.

KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

11


When You Can’t Stay Home Isolation exacerbates abuse. Crisis centers want survivors to know that help is still available. BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com

S

tay inside. Those words—the anthem of the COVID-19 pandemic—have been uttered with public health and safety in mind as a wave of stay-at-home orders has swept the world. But for survivors of domestic violence, that phrase resonates with particular difficulty: Abuse tends to peak during times of crisis. Social distancing cuts off victims from support networks. And, just as violence exacerbates isolation, isolation exacerbates violence. Across the Triangle, crisis centers are under new restrictions. They’re also scrambling to adjust their resources and meet new needs. On March 26, the Durham County District Attorney’s Office and the Durham Crisis Response Center put out a statement outlining signs of abuse as well as resources that victims can access during the stay-at-home order. “In pandemics such as COVID-19, isolation can be hard on anyone. It becomes particularly hard to be isolated with your abuser,” wrote DCRC executive director Kent Wallace-Meggs. “Abusers may tell survivors untruths about access to care, make them feel as if they have no way out or that no resources are open.” AnnMarie Breen, a spokesperson for the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, says that the number of abuse cases reported in Durham County has “held steady” the past few weeks, with no discernable increase. But Valerie Sauer, director of education programs for The Compass Center in Chapel Hill, points out that the number of reported cases does not always reflect the number of crises. Quarantine, she says, can place increased pressure on a victim’s ability to seek help. “This is the result of people being unable to [seek help] because it’s unsafe to leave their houses or it’s unsafe to leave to make phone calls from their houses,” Sauer says. “I think once some of those quarantine guidances are lifted, then that’s when we’re going to see an increase.” Both Italy and China have seen an escalation in domestic abuse since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline told Time that a growing number of callers in the U.S. report abusers wielding the coronavirus against them by withholding resources. According to the release from the Durham DA’s office, signs of the abuse that might emerge during the stay-at-home order might look like the abusers spreading misinformation or withholding resources such as disinfectants, insurance cards, or financial resources. Isolation and psychological stress also correlate with unemployment. Tasha Sullivan, senior director of domestic violence services at Wake County’s InterAct Family Safety and Empowerment Center, says that data from InterAct’s Lethality Assessment Program—a tool launched in 2012 to help Wake County law enforcement identify high-risk domestic violence situations—points to a relationship between unemployment and intimate-partner violence. “A workplace is where folks—everyone, I think—derive a bit of pride, where folks feel like they have a bit of power and control,” adds Sauer. “Losing that outlet and losing that space where folks may be able to exercise power and control raises red flags. Seeing unemployment rates skyrocketing is something that we’re paying attention to and being concerned about.” 12

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

Previous eras of unemployment or national trauma—9/11, the 2008 recession, Hurricane Katrina—have also been linked to spikes in violence in the home. But there’s reason for hope this time around. Digital resources have come a long way in the past two decades. In the Triangle, crisis centers— The Compass Center, InterAct, and the Durham Crisis Response Center, among others—emphasize 24/7 call lines as resources available to survivors. Many support groups have moved online. And it’s still possible to seek legal and police help and to file for protective orders. In Orange County, Sauer says that while staff members are currently unable to accompany survivors to court for Domestic Violence Protective Order hearings, they are available to support them over the phone. In addition, an e-filing system is available at The Compass Center. With this system, survivors can meet over video chat with the clerk of court and the judge to discuss their protective orders. Wake County has a crucial resource in InterAct’s Solace Center, a sexual-assault forensic examination center that opened in 2011. For rape and sexual-assault survivors who might feel anxious about going to an emergency room—both because of overcrowding and possible COVID19 exposure—the Solace Center, which has a full-time sexual-assault nurse examiner, is a safe option. The center is available to male and female survivors age 16 and older who have been assaulted within the past five days. Despite that progress, the dangers of abuse in a time of isolation are still very real. “We recognize that home is not always a safe place for everybody,” Tasha Sullivan says. “We’re doing our best to figure out how we can help. It’s changing every day. But we’re adapting.” W

In pandemics such as COVID-19, isolation can be hard on anyone. It becomes particularly hard to be isolated with your abuser.

RESOURCES INTERACT’S 24-HOUR CRISIS HOTLINE Domestic Violence: 919-828-7740 Rape/Sexual Assault: 919-828-3005 Solace Center: 919-828-3067 Spanish Crisis Hotline: 844-203-8896


INDYWEEK.COM

Your week. Every Wednesday. KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

13


He Bo

INDY

Schol sighti

ANI ALS M

BY GLEN

Bayleaf Veterinary Hospital has provided compassionate care to triangle pets since 1982. We are an AAHA accredited practice, adhering to the highest national standards of care.

MOSEY INTO

Barnes Supply

10009 Six Forks Rd, Raleigh (919) 848-1926

WITH YOUR FUR BABY TODAY!

LOCATED IN THE HISTORIC NINTH STREET SHOPPING DISTRICT SINCE 1947 Barnes has an eclectic selection of holistic and raw pet foods and treats as well as great selection of toys, leashes, litter and other fun pet supplies. We carry organic and locally milled feed options for your backyard chicken flock as well! Ask about our Frequent Buyer Programs!

774 Ninth St. • Durham • 919-286-7331 • barnessupplydurham.com

VOTE FOR

US!

ADVERTISE

HERE!

WHERE A DOG CAN BE A DOG.

®

We are a Full Service Hospital with Fear Free Certified Professionals AAFP Certified Cat Friendly Practice Grooming and Boarding Services Wellness Plans | Online Appointment Scheduling

advertising@indyweek.com 14

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

www.northpawanimalhospital.com 919-471-1471 5106 Guess Road, Durham, NC 27712

Free Day Camp with Boarding Stays All Day Play Snooze The Night Away®

Large Indoor & Outdoor Play Yards Live Web Cams Open 6:30am–7:30pm

Camp Bow Wow® North Durham 4310 Bennett Memorial Road | Durham, NC 27705 919-309-4959

S

ince in h obs sigh Halperin ture dep guy. A re ies at UN scholar w work in tinfoil ha In 201 sonal sto awe in Jo 1966, th Danny S terminall nascent Now, h Intimate (Stanford explorati and psyc air collis vivid sto some del Halper UFOs are are, and t a worn a house in the IND reading a over cor and elec naked Jo interview droppers pretend

INDY: UF sonal iss DAVID J the dilem ager, wat way that


Heavenly Bodies Scholar David Halperin’s combined interest in UFO sightings and religion isn’t as strange as it sounds BY GLENN MCDONALD arts@indyweek.com

S

ince early childhood, David Halperin has been interested in—or maybe obsessed with—stories about UFO sightings and alien abductions. But Halperin doesn’t match the typical pop-culture depiction of the crazy flying-saucer guy. A retired professor of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, he’s a respected scholar with several decades of published work in his field. He doesn’t even own a tinfoil hat. In 2018, Halperin fictionalized his personal story of family trauma and cosmic awe in Journal of a UFO Investigator. Set in 1966, the novel tells the story of teenager Danny Shapiro, a brainy kid caring for his terminally ill mother while exploring the nascent world of ufology. Now, he’s back on the bookshelves with Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO (Stanford University Press). A nonfiction exploration of UFO sightings as mythical and psychological phenomena, it’s a midair collision of rigorous academic writing, vivid storytelling, historical detail, and some delightfully strange conjecture. Halperin’s basic premise is that, while UFOs aren’t real, UFO sightings inarguably are, and that’s worth studying. Sinking into a worn armchair at Market Street Coffeehouse in Chapel Hill, Halperin spoke with the INDY—before his March 24 release reading at Flyleaf Books was postponed over coronavirus concerns—about aliens and elections, religious visions, and a naked John Lennon. By the end of the interview, he’d gathered several eavesdroppers who weren’t even bothering to pretend otherwise. INDY: UFO research is clearly such a personal issue for you. Why is that? DAVID J. HALPERIN: It’s bound up with the dilemma I found myself in as a teenager, watching my mother slowly die in a way that was unacknowledged. The UFOs

gave me a means of grappling with that. The images have haunted me all my life. Even when I was not admitting that I was a ufologist—like when I was applying for jobs in academia—the subjects that I was drawn to were connected to the themes of ufology: the idea of heavenly ascension and otherworldly journeys. The idea you advance in the book, this psychological or spiritual reading of UFO phenomena—how far back does that go? It goes back, first, to Carl Jung in the late 1950s. He published a book—the translation from German is Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. I don’t think that anyone, before Jung, was able to see UFOs as a myth. Jung was saying: “Wow, we’ve got this new myth here in the midst of us. We need to explore what it means for us all.” The second would be Jacques Vallée, in his book Passport to Magonia. Remember the French scientist in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? He was modeled after Vallée. He was the first to really see that UFOs are the culture’s encounters with a realm that’s beyond us. The numinous. It’s a favorite word of the Jungians.

see this disc-shaped object pass overhead. They take repeated photographs, which turn out to show nothing. In later years, almost every time Lennon or Pang are asked about this, they mention that they were naked as if that’s a crucial part of the story. And I think that it is. When is the last time that a naked human couple was confronted by a numinous presence? You see where I’m going? “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” Genesis 3:8. What I see in that story is something—and I’ll use the Jungian word—powerfully archetypal. I think for them, it was a completely unconscious reenactment of the Eden story.

There’s an interesting line of thought in the book that those who retell the story of a UFO sighting—even those who mock and ridicule the stories—are all part of the sighting. Right, the UFO believer and the UFO debunker are both part of the phenomenon. Everyone who engages with the idea of UFOs is, in one way or another, expressing unconscious thoughts, fears, and hopes. Have you heard the John Lennon story? In the summer of 1974, Lennon’s companion May Pang had just finished showering, and John was walking around the apartment naked. John calls to her, “Come look at this.” They go out on the balcony and

When you were still teaching, did you get any pushback, any people saying that these UFO ideas are just too kooky for academic scholarship? Yeah, I did get some nasty pushback. In the fall of 1995, I gave a paper on UFO abductions and heavenly ascensions. It was a big success. The next year, I submitted the paper to The Journal of the American Academy of Religion. I got a rejection, and the evaluator said, “I assume this paper is a joke. And if it’s serious, then the author should be prosecuted for criminal malpractice.” Now, as a good Freudian-slash-Jungian, I would say that this suggests I was onto

David Halperin

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

something. I had hit a nerve. He responded with such persecutory violence. There’s a definite phenomenon of people who are fanatically hostile to these ideas. Did you see the New York Times series on UFO sightings from Navy planes? Yes! You know, The New York Times has been consistently scornful about UFOs until December 2017, then there was this abrupt about-face. What do you think is behind that? This is just a wild guess, but I suspect it has to do with the 2016 election. Now, I admit that I’m biased, but if we’re willing to suppose that what UFOs represent is the alienness of death, then it makes sense that UFOs should start appearing again when the collective death of the whole species becomes a real possibility: global warming. I think up until the election of Trump, people thought, well, at least we have a handhold on this. At least the governments of the world are working together. With Trump’s election, all that was thrown into doubt. I think it was New York magazine that ran a very sympathetic article on UFOs that said every generation gets the UFO myth that it deserves. Ours is Donald Trump versus E.T. I would present evidence for that, but I don’t have any [laughs]. W KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

15


Stuck at home?

Slim Harvest

Follow @INDYWeek on

Quail Ridge BooksFacebook, is offering and Twitter, free shipping on books Instagram for breaking news. for the month of April. Please visit www.quailridgebooks.com and support your community bookstore!

Triangle farmers markets reckon with if and how to keep providing essential fresh food during a public-health crisis BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com

www.quailridgebooks.com • 919.828.1588 • North Hills 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road, Raleigh, NC 27609 CHECK OUT OUR PODCAST: BOOKIN’ w/Jason Jefferies

A

Wake up with us. Sign up for Primer, our daily email newsletter indyweek.com/newsletter-signup

RECYCLE THIS PAPER

16

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

sparagus is in season right now. So are carrots and pea shoots. The sweet potatoes, says Durham Farmers Market manager Susan Sink, have been especially spectacular this season. “As sweet as I can ever remember for many years,” she says. “A perfect year for them.” In North Carolina, farmers markets, classified as essential “human service operations,” are allowed to stay open under Governor Roy Cooper’s stay-athome order. Farmers markets in Raleigh and Carrboro have seen thinner crowds and heavier restrictions, but have stayed open throughout the coronavirus pandemic. But Durham has imposed stricter measures, and for the past two weeks, the Durham Farmers Market has been closed as its managers work with the city to come up with a system that keeps the public safe while reckoning with local and federal regulations that change on a daily basis. While farmers markets are an essential source of fresh food and a part of the supply chain, they’re also an important communal space. If not for COVID19, the Durham Farmers Market would just be starting to hum with activity as customers made languid laps around the market, picking up produce and putting it back down. Shaking hands. Handing over cash. “This is not an easy problem,” Sink says. “This is real; this is life-threatening. And I take it that seriously, and every other market manager takes it that seriously. We don’t shut lightly.” The Durham Farmers Market hosts more than 65 vendors and has been a hallmark of downtown Durham since its founding in 1999. Sink says that many of the farmers who rely on weekly markets and local restaurants have pivot-

ed to pre-ordering, curbside pickup, and home-delivery models. It’s a challenging adjustment: Food that’s been grown for markets and restaurants isn’t necessarily tailored for CSAs. It’s also not a profitable pivot, Sink says—many farmers don’t have the staff and vehicles for delivery, and they’re cutting their losses. But they are getting food out of the field and into the hands of people. It’s not only about protecting customers: Many farmers are at an especially high risk of contracting COVID-19 because of their age. Nearly one-third of America’s farmers are over the age of 65, according to the USDA. Sink says that the vendor makeup at the Durham Farmers Market reflects this, and the elderly demographic makes her even more cautious when it comes to figuring out new protocols. Carrboro Farmers Market manager Maggie Funkhouser says that the town has been “extremely supportive” of keeping the market open, though not without necessary alterations. Vendors are now spaced 20 feet apart. All customers must walk in a specific enter-andexit flow; gone are the days of milling between booths. Food is pre-packaged to avoid unnecessary touching. Contactless payment and pre-ordering is preferred. There are no samples; a “get in, get out” attitude is encouraged. But even though market trips are often people’s one precious outing, Funkhouser says that customers have largely been supportive: They seem to want to stay safe and to keep farmers safe and in business. “It is a critical time for farmers and their crops, and farmers markets provide an extraordinary and invaluable link between producers and consumers,” Funkhouser says. “I truly believe that, in many ways, we are safer than grocery stores.”

“ I truly believe that, in many ways, we are safer than grocery stores.

” The Carrboro Farmers Market is encouraging turnout from low-income shoppers by offering “triple bucks” to EBT customers: $10 from an EBT card translates to $30 in fresh food. A cash match is also offered for EBT customers who are out of money on their cards. Sink says that the town of Durham has approved the market’s Emergency Operations Plan, and she hopes to have it operating safely again soon, although it will look a little different than it did before. “When customers come to the farmers market, we know, from surveying nationally, that they like that one-on-one relationship that they have with a farmer,” Sink says. “They’re going to go up and hug them and tell them they really missed them or that they really enjoyed what they bought last week. We have to remove that social piece from their behavior. Now, immediately. And that is a super-difficult thing to do.” To find fresh produce and support a local farm, you can visit local farmers market sites to find a list of vendors doing deliveries. The Carolina Farm Stewardship’s website also has a map of every on-farm pickup available in the state. W


esh

at, we

.

s encourshoppers customslates to h is also re out of

ham has y Operae it opergh it will before. e farmers nationalrelationmer,” Sink hug them them or y bought at social immediult thing

upport a mers marors doing Stewardof every tate. W

Can’t Stop the Music Tab-One grows up, Ronnie Flash goes in, and other stuff we overlooked while hoarding toilet paper BY BRIAN HOWE bhowe@indyweek.com

S

o there we were, just lining up music reviews and premieres like normal, when everything went topsy-turvy. Still, while artists scrambled to retool their live events for this Very Scary Quarantime of ours (we’re documenting them online in The Stream Warriors series), digital releases are a relatively undisturbed line of cultural production. As weird becomes the new normal— amazing, what humans can get used to— let’s catch up on some recent drops we missed while rushing out to hoard toilet paper and Amy’s frozen enchiladas. The last time we heard a solo showcase from TAB-ONE, on the album Sincerely, Tab in 2016, he came in hot with exactly the sort of boastful verbal floor routines we’d learned to expect from the Kooley High vet. So it’s quite a contrast that “Birthday,” which opens his new album, Balancing Act, finds Tab fussing over his pregnant wife and spinning elaborate encomiums to his unborn child. This is but the first act in a whole drama about the joys and struggles of balancing family life, bill-paying, and music. That’s right: The rascally Raleigh battle rapper has grown up. Let’s be honest. This kind of record can be a drag. But rather than descending into badly sung musings and sluggish music now that he’s the married father of two, Tab still has a strong grip on his restive, engaging flow. The production (by Tecknowledgy, The Other Guys, and others) drapes scintillating electric guitars, buttery soul vocals, and flares of piano and strings on the impeccable boom-bap scaffolding where Tab rivets in his syllables with his usual urgency and precision. He’s somehow made a record about settling down that sounds vibrant and hun-

gry—but then, hunger has always been his signature trait. Navigating playdates seldom sounded so hype. By the way, Balancing Act continues a strong run by the Kooley High crew, following Charlie Smarts’ We Had a Good Thing Going in January. Oh, and Rapsody made this thing called Eve? Last year, Durham label Raund Haus released a hallucinatory instrumental hip-hop jam called “Holy Shit” by local beat-music polymath RONNIE FLASH. Just recently, on March 20, as all hell broke loose, they dropped Flash’s self-titled album, and it enlarges on the mutant-house-music strains lurking in that slightly unhinged single. It’s a headphones record disguised in dancefloor dress, with familiar elements—metronomic bass booms, drum-tight claps, efflorescing soft-synth arpeggios—weaving in and out of eerie negative space. Drops arrive at strange moments or not at all; the beat might just shimmer apart into almost nothing and then slip back in through an unseen side door.

Not that it’s too cerebral—the fieldstripped “All in the Knees,” a loping early-album standout, would have no trouble moving the floor at a Motorco showcase (remember those?). But don’t miss the bangers stashed at the end. The glorious dance-pop climaxes of “7-Minute Hug” and “Dance Until You Cry” are worth waiting around for in and of themselves, and they put a surprisingly euphoric, emotional cap on what’s otherwise a more coolly angular record.

Also new: a maxi-single by GAPPA MIGHTY, aka Raund Haus’s own Nick Wallhauser. As you might expect, the instrumental hip-hop strains of “Roll One” and “OZM” are superbly dusted, but it’s the songful course and gleam of “Horvath’s Wish” that we’ve got on repeat. That bass line! And it sounds like Ghostface is about to start rapping any second. We’ve still got plenty of recent releases in the hopper, but let’s wrap up until next week with Do You Even Work Here?, the new EP by Durham electronic producer SSOFT. Following last year’s Air Maintenance EP, which we reviewed favorably while exploring its creator’s chillwave origins as Big Spider’s Back, it’s another sleepy-stoned acid-house mood ring—at least until the title track at the end, where loopy squeals evoke going gently insane during a laser-spattered dance party in the basement of The Fruit. But the tracks before that are all soft pastel colors and pulsating jellyfish shapes, perfect for that underwater shimmy that passes for dancing alone in your living room. W KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

17


C L AS S I F I E D S EMPLOYMENT Senior Main Circuit Engineer Needed Senior Main Circuit Engineer – Prep designs, specs, analysis, recommendations for new products; power elecs/ main circuit specs, simulations, design; test and verification tasks; product and sub-system BOM and change control in design discipline; design and component reviews; interface w func teams for devel and product release. Duties: system and sub-system level spec & main component dimensioning/selections; elec/power elec schematics design; elec/power elec circuitry design and verification; create/maintain docs (specs, simulations/designs, reviews); lead engr role in design disciplines/areas; oversee devel, building, and testing of prototypes. Reqd: BS in Elec Eng or Power Elec. 5 yrs exp w R&D for AC drives, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems, or other power conversion equipment. Must have perm US work auth. Contact L. Dyrbye, HR, Danfoss LLC, 12 TW Alexander Dr., Bldg 200 A Research Triangle Park, NC 27709. Must apply online: www.Danfoss. com. EO employer and VEVRAA Fed Contractor.

Technical Support Engineer II Needed - Cary Technical Support Engineer II wanted by a wireless & broadcast communications system provider in Cary, North Carolina. Responsible for evaluating & diagnosing in real time n/work alarms & associated trouble tickets using advanced knowl of RF principles, electrical theory, & DAS n/work dsgn. Apply RF engg principles & perform DAS site integration & neutral host commissioning, continuity & performance testing, passive plant troubleshooting, & network optimization (incl CDMA, EVDO, UMTS, HSPA & LTE). Review & read test reports, tech’l drawings, & design documentation for fiber optic & wireless n/ work components, such as RF line sweep tests & fiber optic OTDR reports. Reqs: Bach’s deg in Electrical Engg, Telecommunication, or a closely related science field + 5 yrs of progressive, postbaccalaureate exp as Sr. RF Engineer/RF Engineer in a tech’l support or RF systems support engg capacity. Reqs 5 yrs of exp w/ DAS n/work dsgn & commissioning, DAS technologies incl CDMA, EVDO, UMTS, HSPA, LTE, & VOLTE. Also reqs 2 yrs of exp (which can be gained concurrently) using RF test, JDSU, TEMS, WPS, PRAXSYM RF Transmitter, PRAXSYM CW Transmitters, Anritsu Spectrum Analyzer, Solutelia test eqpmt. Forward resume to: HR Dept., American Tower Corporation, 116 Huntington Ave, 11th Flr, Boston, MA 02116.

Book your ad Email Amanda: classy@indyweek.com

HEALTH & WELL BEING FTCC - Positions Available Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following positions: Department Chair for Mammography & Radiography. Department Chair Medical Laboratory Technology. 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 FTCC - Librarian Needed Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following position: Librarian. For detailed information and to apply, please visit our employment portal at: https:// faytechcc.peopleadmin. com/ Human Resources Office Phone: (910) 6787342 Internet: http://www. faytechcc.edu An Equal Opportunity Employer FTCC - Funeral Service Instructor Needed Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following position: Funeral Service Instructor. For detailed information and to apply, please visit our employment portal at: https://faytechcc.peopleadmin.com/ Human Resources Office. Phone: (910) 6787342 Internet: http://www. faytechcc.edu An Equal Opportunity Employer

SERVICES FINANCIAL Save Big on Home Insurance! Compare 20 A-rated insurances companies. Get a quote within minutes. Average savings of $444/year! Call 844-712-6153! (M-F 8am-8pm Central) (AAN CAN)

919-416-0675

www.harmonygate.com 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, 919-360-6419 or www.magictortoise.com Energy Healing Lynne C. Johnson, Ed.D. Red Hat Qi Gong Practitioner Lynnecjohnson.com 919.928.4100

MEDICAL SERVICES Attention Diabetics! Save money on your diabetic supplies! Convenient home shipping for monitors, test strips, insulin pumps, catheters and more! To learn more, call now! 855-667-9944

Arthritis, COPD, Joint Pain or Mobility Issues on the Stairs? **STOP STRUGGLING** Give Your Life A Lift! An Acorn Stairlift is a perfect solution! A BBB Rating. Call now for $250 OFF your purchase. FREE DVD & brochure. 1-888-329-4579 Dental Insurance from Physicians Mutual Insurance Company NOT just a discount plan, REAL coverage for 350 procedures. Call 1-844496-8601 for details. www.dental50plus.com/ ncpress 6118-0219

PRODUCTS

Struggling with your Private Student Loan Payment? New relief programs can reduce your payments. Learn your options. Good credit not necessary. Call the Helpline 888-670-5631 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm Eastern) (AAN CAN)

HOME IMPROVEMENT Eliminate gutter cleaning forever! LeafFilter, the most advanced debris-blocking gutter protection. Schedule a FREE LeafFilter estimate today. 15% off and 0% financing for those who qualify. PLUS Senior & Military Discounts. Call 1-877-649-1190

COMPUTER-NET SERVICES Earthlink High Speed Internet As Low As $14.95/month (for the first 3 months.) Reliable High Speed Fiber Optic Technology. Stream Videos, Music and More! Call Earthlink Today 1-866-887-0237

LEGAL Recently Diagnosed with LUNG CANCER and 60+ Years Old? Call now! You and your family may be entitled to a SIGNIFICANT CASH AWARD. Call 844-2691881 (AAN CAN) today. Free Consultation. No Risk.

SERVICES Looking for self storage units? We have them! Self Storage offers clean and affordable storage to fit any need. Reserve today! 1-855-617-0876 (AAN CAN)

LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

Stay in Your Home Longer With an American Standard Walk-In Bathtub. Receive up to $1,500 off, including a free toilet, and a lifetime warranty on the tub and installation! Call us at 1-855-393-3307 or visit www.walkintubquote.com/nc

MISC.

HOUSING

AUTO

M I S C.

Auto Insurance Starting at $49/Month! Call for your fee rate comparison to see how much you can save! Call: 855569-1909. (AAN CAN)

New Authors Wanted! Page Publishing will help you self-publish your own book. FREE author submission kit! Limited offer! Why wait? Call now: 888-910-2201

Life Alert 24/7. One press of a button sends help FAST! Medical, Fire, Burglar. Even if you can’t reach a phone! FREE Brochure. CALL 844-902-2362

Bolinwood Condominiums Affordability without compromise

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

www.bolinwoodcondos.com • 919-942-7806 18

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com


P U Z Z L ES

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.

su | do | ku

this week’s puzzle level:

© Puzzles by Pappocom

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages.” Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com 4.01.20

solution to last week’s puzzle

INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com

KeepItINDY.com

April 1, 2020

19


SUPPORT LOCAL

HISTORY TRIVIA: • On April 4, 1983, the NC State University Wolfpack defeated the University of Houston Cougars and won the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. • Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 5, 1968, thousands of people marched from Fayetteville Street to a peaceful demonstration at the Durham City Hall. Courtesy of the Museum of Durham History

919-286-1916 @hunkydorydurham We buy records. Now serving dank beer.

Need News Fast? Well, it’s not an ad, but you’re still reading it! Contact Amanda at classy@indyweek.com to place YOUR ad

Follow @INDYWeek on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for breaking news.

ADVERTISE WITH

Contact advertising@indyweek.com or John Hurld at 919-286-1972 20

April 1, 2020

INDYweek.com

businesses by purchasing gift cards, shopping online, donating, ordering takeout, and tipping more

Upcoming Special Issues May 6

Triangle Finds: DT. Raleigh/Hillsborough St.

May 13

Business Spotlight:Small Business

Jun 10

Best of the Triangle 2020

Jun 17

Best of the Triangle 2020 Follow-Up

back page

ADVERT I S I N G

WHAT IS THIS?

919-286-1916 @hunkydorydurham We buy records. Now serving dank beer.

Weekly deadline 4pm Friday

classy@indyweek.com


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.