Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill August 3, 2022
r, e l by Gel a Len
How a local mother and entrepreneur is helping teens learn skills for financial self-sufficiency
Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill VOL. 39 NO. 31
Owen performs at Motorco Thursday, Aug 4, p. 17 PHOTO COURTESY OF MOTORCO
CONTENTS NEWS 4 6 7 8
Durham entrepreneur Destiny Alexander is helping teens learn skills for financial self sufficiency. BY LENA GELLER North Carolinians are spreading the word that voter rights have been restored for those serving felony sentences. BY CARYL ESPINOZA JAEN Durham Public Schools' new bell schedule is causing families to scramble for afterschool care. BY SEVANA WENN Business owners in Hayti are worried about the impacts of a large, outof-state developer's project on their enterprises. BY THOMASI MCDONALD
ARTS & CULTURE 10 Talking with Chris Vitiello, poetry fox laureate of the Triangle. BY SEVANA WENN
12 For Secret Monkey Music, making jangle-pop magic is a family affair. BY JORDAN LAWRENCE
14 Abortion Stories USA at Lump Gallery is a powerful affirmation of reproductive rights. BY SARAH EDWARDS 16 Our critic reviews two movies: Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song (four stars) and I Love My Dad (two stars). BY GLENN MCDONALD
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Last week, we republished a story by Ana Young from The 9th Street Journal that delves into Durham’s new program for trapping, neutering, vaccinating, and returning “community cats,” effectively outlawing euthanasia of stray or feral felines. As the story noted, bird lovers were none too pleased about this new policy development. Neither was reader Joe English, whose colorful letter on the topic we’re excerpting below.
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“… I applaud the comments of one of the Audubon leaders et al that stated the bogusness of the claims re how this was such a good thing and has worked so well in other counties. I will state outright I am an ANTI-PETA person, these feral (aka any non indoor kittens as all cats in my world are kittens as all dogs are puppies) beings have wreaked more destruction on species and fully destroyed with gusto entire ecosystems than any other force since we began walking around (minus now global warming & maybe plastics & oil-related tasty delicacies such as forever chemicals & their derivatives), and also proud owner of two of the coolest kittens on Earth. Plus even love them more since recently watching the recent Netflix show The Secret Lives of Pets. The way cool hiking kitten, among other pets portrayed, is obviously very much loyal to his buddy hiker that this kitten happens to allow [to] live with him (in my humble opinion). If in another scenario of life lived, I would have stood up (in of course polite language because I would not want to be arrested) [and said] WTF are you wasting time when this world is literally burning hotter every month. Some things I might have gently shared, if you are fortunate enough to have time to come out and speak at this public hearing ... what about caring for the poorest [in] Durham, or advocate for sustainable development that both promotes some aspect of sustainability and helping the lives of those that can barely afford now in the Triangle. And so forth. And if I could in one moment (and was omnipotent) [I] would wave a magic wand and kill every last feral domesticate-related feline ever more. Now this may be too little too late. But it would take one less intense ongoing stressor upon Earth. Plastics might just ultimately via science or mutations of bacteria be mostly taken off the list (minus plastics so nanoscopic now that nuttin going to get them or those delectable forever chemicals) ....” Our readers contain multitudes. WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN BOLD?
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THE SUBJECT
Raleigh
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15 MINUTES Tricia Hilliard, 47 Fitness instructor at Life Time Gym and CorePower Yoga who leads “Pride Ride” cycling classes during June BY HANNAH KAUFMAN backtalk@indyweek.com
What classes do you teach? Currently, I teach a cycling class, I teach barbell, and then also I teach a hot yoga sculpt class.
Tell me about the cycle classes you led during Pride month. For Pride, for years now, I’ve probably done four or five Pride classes at different places where I’ve worked because it’s part of who I am, I’m a strong ally. So I did a Pride Ride at Life Time for the first time, and I just wanted to make sure that I was highlighting LGBT artists and also LGBT icons within the ride. It’s just something that I’ve tried to promote as an ally—you don’t have to be a part of a community to support and respect that community.
Why do you think it’s important to have LGBTQIA+ representation in the gym? For me, it’s an expression of who I am. When you teach, it’s not just [a] barbell [class], it’s an expression of who you are, the music that you select, the exercises that you select. For me, it’s important to just express who I am and what I enjoy and what I support.
How will you continue pushing for representation going forward? At CorePower, I also did a Pride yoga sculpt, a community-based donation class, so no one had to pay, but we asked that they donated to the Trevor Project. At the beginning of that class, I talked about how it’s great during Pride Month where businesses have flags that are outside and you know that they are LGBT friendly, but [on] July 1, that stuff comes down. We really need to
think about who we are supporting year-round, and as a Black, straight, cisgender female, I understand how I walk into spaces sometimes— in group fitness spaces—and I am the only one. You’re always wondering, “Who is for me? Who is against me?” So, you know, I just talked about that at the beginning of that particular class, how the flags indicate support and respect— but what happens on July 1 and the rest of the year?
What are your favorite moments from your Pride Rides? For Pride, [one of] my favorite moments is “Kill the Lights”—I love that song. I’ve seen one of my favorite drag queens perform it in Pittsburgh, Lola LeCroix. I love that song because it reminds me of the performance I saw with her, but then also it’s an [LGBTQIA] artist. And then one of our local drag queens, Emory Starr, actually came to class and I played one of her songs, too. So those are my two favorite moments, besides the energy and the love that was coming out of the class, but just purposely putting this playlist together that features a lot of trans artists, which I know that there’s a lot of discrimination against trans people.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about these classes and the work that you do? I’ve been doing this for well over 10 years, and I just love to see the transformation that happens with people in class. You can come in and have a shitty day, and I feel like by the time you leave class, it’s the best decision you’ve made that day for yourself. W INDYweek.com
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Durham
Brightening Futures How a Durham mother and entrepreneur is helping teens learn skills for financial self-sufficiency BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com
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n a small retail space at an East Durham strip mall, 25 teens are pretending to celebrate their 100th birthdays. “I never expected to live this long,” says My’dia, a 13-year-old with glasses and long crimson braids. She’s standing at the front of the room, delivering her birthday speech to her fellow pseudo-centenarians. In her youth, she says, she was shy, friendless, and unproductive with her free time, squandering valuable hours by binge-watching TikToks and sleeping. But when she turned 13, she enrolled in a summer program called POOF that changed the trajectory of her life; she discovered a passion for modeling during a field trip to a fashion conference, she says, and went on to graduate from fashion school and earn $20 million a year modeling for Gucci and Balenciaga. At 40, after marrying and having two kids, she switched career paths and became a therapist. “The legacy I left behind was being a fashionista, a diva, a good mother, and a therapist that helps others,” My’dia concludes. Leaving behind a legacy is a core theme here at POOF, a teen training center tucked between a beauty supply store and a Family Dollar on North Miami Boulevard. POOF—which launched in May as a summer camp but will soon begin operating as an after-school program—aims to provide a safe, stimulating space for East Durham teens to hone their entrepreneurial skills, learn financial self-sufficiency, and start thinking about career paths. The program’s name, a double acronym that stands for both “Planning Our Own 4
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Future” and “Planning Our Own Funeral,” speaks in part to the set of choices that face teenagers coming of age in East Durham. East Durham’s violent crime rate is 42 percent higher than the citywide average—which, notably, is 73 percent higher than the national average—and in some East Durham neighborhoods, as many as 82 percent of children live in poverty, according to the 2021 Durham Community Gang Assessment. POOF founder Destiny Alexander, who was born and raised in East Durham, says many of the kids in the summer program were friends with the teenage girl who was killed in the nearby Wedgewood neighborhood shooting in June. “This is the reality,” Alexander says. But the idea of “planning our own funeral” can also be seen in a more positive light, she says. “Dying is inevitable, but we have control over our own legacy,” Alexander says. “Planning your own funeral is another way to say ‘planning what you’re going to be remembered for.’” While Alexander’s mission is long term, POOF is most distinct in its focus on enacting immediate change. The program asks teenagers to pick one of more than 25 different trades, or “pathways,” to study over the course of three months—options include cell phone repair, photo booth operation, window tinting, and T-shirt design, among others—all of which require no license or degree and thus enable teens to start making money expeditiously. (Because POOF is staffed by just three
Becaus will be he start the time,” she to mean few are d After a everyone with foldi and gray small gal say thing fection” a need to b At this put on a I’m there, on topics “Who d Alexande “Us,” th “Why is “Becau they say. The mo low-up wr ited, for i called “W POOF founder Destiny Alexander PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA gest” and speeches. her speec instructors, including Alexander, the proWhile the program is listed at $30 a Teens t gram brings in volunteer mentors to coach week, Alexander says she’s never going tostudying students on their pathways.) turn someone away if they can’t afford it;literacy, g A teen’s chosen pathway may evolve into the main obstacle to entering the programmunity se a side hustle or a career, or it might sim- is the waitlist of more than 100 teens. After A ply provide them with a model for financial (Durham Public Schools is also experienc-rattle off self-sufficiency, Alexander says. ing outsized demand for its after-schoolthey’ve b Financial literacy is a core element of care program; see story on page 7.) For thedonated POOF’s programming: teenagers are encour- time being, each segment will be cappedworked a aged to open bank accounts, and they also at 25 students—Alexander says she wantsand help receive daily courses on things like budget- to ensure each student receives individu-asks them ing and building credit. al attention—though with more funding “To sta “We teach them how to make this money, and a larger space, programs could growand other so we also need to make sure they don’t in the future. people.” “ blow it,” Alexander says. Toward the end of each 90-day seg-“Because Alexander is a reputable source on ment, teens will set up booths for theirfeel safe. this topic; she has single-handedly fund- chosen pathways in the POOF space—Jordan, is ed POOF using the profits from her own phone and computer repair stations, gar- Then, o photo booth business and rents out the ment displays, and the like—and open theAlexande center as an event space on the weekends doors to the public. “Why d to pay the bills. “We want them to show us that they canDestiny?” POOF’s forthcoming after-school pro- regurgitate what they learned,” Alexanderto do this gram will look a lot like its summer camp, says. “Then we’ll cap it off.” The gr with a condensed daily timeline that don’t kno incorporates time slots for tutoring and n the morning I visit POOF, I walkstarts tal doing schoolwork. The program will be through the front doors and imme- She dro offered in 90-day segments with activ- diately find myself in the middle of a dancepregnant ities that run from two thirty to seven circle. A Migos song is blasting and theshe had h p.m. each day. tenced to teens are letting loose.
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Because it’s summertime and the group will be here until six p.m., Alexander likes to start the day with a few hours of “lounge time,” she says. For most teens, this seems to mean getting their ya-yas out, though a few are dozing on a couch. After a few minutes, Alexander gathers everyone in POOF’s central space, a room with folding banquet tables, plastic chairs, and gray walls that are empty except for a small gallery of inspirational posters that say things like “Strive for progress, not perfection” and “You are exactly where you need to be.” At this point, Alexander would usually put on an educational video, but because I’m there, she decides to quiz the students on topics from previous films. “Who does the pipeline to prison affect?” Alexander asks the room. “Us,” the teens reply in unison. “Why is that?” Alexander asks. “Because of the color of our skin,” they say. The morning video usually informs a follow-up writing exercise; the day before I visited, for instance, students watched a film called “Why Japanese People Live the Longest” and then wrote their 100th-birthday speeches. (Alexander asks My’dia to present her speech while I’m there.) Teens typically spend the rest of the day studying their pathways, learning financial literacy, going on field trips, and doing community service. After Alexander prompts students to rattle off their record of volunteer work— they’ve brought food to unhoused people, donated to a blood drive, picked up trash, worked at the Durham Rescue Mission, and helped out at a senior center—she asks them why they come to POOF. “To stay off the streets,” one teen says, and others chime in: “To communicate with people.” “So I don’t have to be at home.” “Because you and your daughter make me feel safe.” (Alexander’s teenage daughter, Jordan, is enrolled in the program.) Then, one student flips the question on Alexander. “Why do you come here every day, Ms. Destiny?” he asks. “What made you want to do this?” The group falls silent—most of them don’t know her backstory—and Alexander starts talking. She dropped out of high school and got pregnant at 19, she says. One month before she had her baby boy, his father was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
“I knew that my son would have three things going against him coming into this world,” Alexander says. “He was Black, he was a boy, and his father was going to prison.” To support her son—and her daughter, a few years later—she started working three jobs and got her GED, then went on to get a bachelor’s degree in social work and a master’s in public administration. While she was in college, she was still working three jobs, so her professors would come out to her car to make sure she was awake and coming to class, she says. It wasn’t the kind of life she wanted for her children. “I didn’t want my kids to ever have to work for nobody unless they wanted to,” Alexander says. “I wanted them to learn an entrepreneurship mind-set.” She enrolled her son in the YMCA’s afterschool program and ensured that he had strong reading, writing, and financial literacy skills. Her son spent his last two years of high school at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, she says, and is now at UNC-Chapel Hill on a full scholarship. “I made sure he stayed out of the streets,” Alexander says. “He didn’t have any free time. I wanted to give you guys what the YMCA gave my son.” After several years of working as a social worker, Alexander started her own photo booth business and saved up enough money to launch POOF, aiming to help students plan their futures and also keep them safe. She’s been losing friends to gun violence since she was an eighth grader in East Durham, she says. “I understood what planning my own funeral was because I had lost so many people in a tragic way, but I also understood a funeral doesn’t have to be tragic,” Alexander says. “We have a story, but what do we do with our story?” Later in the day, Alexander tells me that she doesn’t usually disclose her life history so quickly—Bill Gates and Oprah didn’t share their stories until after they succeeded, she notes—but, in this scenario, she felt that opening up was key to building her students’ trust. “In the same way, it was important to me to not get super dressed up for you,” Alexander says. She’s wearing a T-shirt that reads “BLACK. BEAUTIFUL. PROUD. I AM QUEEN,” plus sandals and capris. “Because I need to be my authentic self with them.” W
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Raleigh The Rev. William J. Barber II speaks at the Unlock Our Vote event last week PHOTO BY JENNY WARBURG
Rights Restored North Carolinians celebrate expanded voter rights for residents serving felony sentences. BY CARYL ESPINOZA JAEN backtalk@indyweek.com
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or almost seven years since being released from prison in 2004, Dennis Gaddy was unable to vote. Because North Carolina law prohibited voting rights for people serving felony parole or probation, Gaddy was among 56,000 North Carolinians who could not participate in various local, state, and federal elections. “I come from a very civic-minded family,” Gaddy tells the INDY. “So I was crushed when I couldn’t vote for the first African American president in 2008.” But that changed on July 27, after the victory of several plaintiffs who argued in a lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court that it was unconstitutional for North Carolinians on felony parole or probation to be denied voting access until they were “unconditionally discharged.” The case was Community Success Initiative v. Moore. The plaintiffs, backed by various social justice organizations including the North Carolina NAACP, Justice Served NC, and Community Success Initiative (CSI), said denial of voting rights to these North Carolinians violates the state 6
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constitution, and in many cases, the inability to pay court fees was the only thing preventing thousands of North Carolinians from voting, because paying those fees is often a requirement of being “unconditionally discharged.” “In some instances, North Carolinians convicted of felonies are placed under community suspension sentences by the court without incarceration; while they are economically contributing to society, North Carolina law bars them from voting for the entirety of the probation period,” the complaint reads. “It is unfair, discriminatory, and wrong.” Following the ruling, several plaintiffs, advocates, and social justice groups held an outdoor celebration in Raleigh’s Halifax Mall with public speakers, free food, live DJs, and multiple voter registration booths. Many of the speakers noted the significance of the event’s location, as Halifax Mall is located near various government office buildings including one housing the North Carolina State Board of Elections, which was named as a defendant in CSI v. Moore.
“Every district attorney, every judge, every state legislator, all these people in these buildings surrounded by here, they gotta listen to us now,” Daryl Atkinson, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, told the audience during the event. Judge John M. Dunlow sided with the plaintiffs in part because the voter restriction law had a disparaging effect on African Americans, according to the ruling. While 21 percent of North Carolina’s voting-age population is African American, over 40 percent of those denied voting rights due to felony probation, parole, or post-release supervision are African American. “We were able to prove at trial that this law was no mistake; it was intentionally put into place to undermine the political power of Black people in this state,” Atkinson said during the event. “And it’s having that same effect today. Forty-two percent of the people impacted by these laws? African Americans.” Rev. William J. Barber II, a leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, said the victory was one of the largest voter expansions and civil rights victories in North Carolina since the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “This victory is about reading the constitution right, daring to pick it up and dust it off and test every law under the microscope of what is written on paper, not people’s opinions,” Barber said during the event. “Nowhere does it say that we should be forever locked out of the Democratic Party process, even after a person has paid their debt to society, because to do this would be a form of voter enslavement. Not just disenfranchisement.” Activists said many of the organizations involved in the case and the Unlock Our Vote event at Halifax Mall plan to tour the state to reach the 56,000 North Carolinians who are now eligible to vote. “What we’re about to do is awaken a sleeping giant,” Kerwin Pittman with Emancipate NC said during the event. “These 56,000 people—my people, justice-impacted, justice-involved individuals who for years these legislators did not want to see them vote—let their voices be heard for years.” In an interview with the INDY, Atkinson, who was incarcerated for felony drug trafficking before later going to law school, said every race in the November election matters, especially local elections, which could have a more direct impact on the lives of North Carolinians. “It feels better for my people, my folks, because now they’ll have a voice in this body politic,” Atkinson tells the INDY. “All these races are going to be important, everything from district attorneys to sheriffs and judges to who is senator and congressman.” W
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Durham
Early Birds With DPS’s new bell schedule, schools scramble to meet afterschool needs. BY SEVANA WENN backtalk@indyweek.com
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urham high schoolers might gain a precious extra hour of sleep this year, but it’s come at a cost to hundreds of younger students. This month, the Durham Public Schools Board of Education approved a new district-wide bell schedule for the 2022–23 school year. It standardizes start times in a three-tier system: elementary schools will now begin at 7:45 a.m., middle schools at 8:30 a.m., and high schools at 9:15 a.m. Though older students stand to benefit most from this change, it’s had unintended consequences. With elementary schools ending at 2:15 p.m.—early for many working families—more than 700 students have been left without reliable after-school childcare. The board first began researching later start times for adolescents in 2015, said school board member Natalie Beyer. The scientific evidence is robust; both the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Pediatrics Association have found that, due to biological changes that occur during puberty, teenagers perform best when school starts at 8:30 or later. Districts across the country have also begun making the switch. For instance, in 2019, California became the first state to legislate later start times. “We had high schools and middle schools starting as early as 7:25 in Durham and knew that that wasn’t really in keeping with adolescent sleep,” said Beyer, whose three children attended DPS schools.
According to a July 14 press release, the new schedule will also increase the efficiency of bus routes. However, it has created an overflowing demand for childcare. The new schedule has worsened a critical staffing shortage that first arose during the pandemic. With 42 staff vacancies for after-school caregiver positions, DPS lacks the personnel to attend to nearly 900 currently enrolled students. And that figure doesn’t even account for the 721 students on the waitlist. To accommodate them, the district must recruit an additional 55 employees. Scott Capouch, a father of two, is one of many parents left in limbo by the schedule change. He fears that with start times before eight a.m., his sons will get less sleep and have a poorer quality of education when they enter kindergarten and third grade at E.K. Powe Elementary School this fall. “It just feels like a lot of these decisions aren’t made in the best interest of young children,” Capouch said. He and his wife, who both work full-time, had previously relied on E.K. Powe’s program for after-school childcare. This year, only one of their sons made it off the waitlist. “I just think that the most vulnerable portion of the school system is the one getting the short straw right now.” So far, hiring efforts have largely focused on retirees and college students. But with wages at $16 an hour, the district hasn’t been successful, even with an added $2,000 bonus. At one of two July
“I just think that the most vulnerable portion of the school system is the one getting the short straw right now.”
PHOTO BY AARON BURDEN ON UNSPLASH
25 town hall meetings, about two dozen parents gathered to discuss the employee shortage and brainstorm solutions. The sessions took place at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. that Monday. That morning, parents and administrators broke into groups to exchange and share ideas. Participants suggested ramping up targeted advertisements, providing clear-cut pathways for career advancement within the school system, and guaranteeing flexible employment hours. Capouch, who attended the evening meeting, feels that the burden of filling staff vacancies shouldn’t fall on parents. “Shouldn’t you be the ones who know how to handle this?” he said the following day. “Why are you looking to us? I work as a home inspector—am I the one that should be trying to figure out how to recruit afterschool care employees?” Tracey Super-Edwards, director of community education for the school system, said after the meeting that increased childcare needs were “taken into consideration” when determining the new bell schedule. But until the district can hire the necessary staff, families on the waitlist can look to resources outside the school district, she said. “On our website, we have a list of other providers in the community that families can reach out to, such as the Child Care Services Association,” she said. The asso-
ciation offers referrals to various programs in the area and also provides information about funding resources for families. Super-Edwards also encouraged parents to spread the word about the open positions, calling them the district’s “biggest advocates” in staff recruitment. “We hear [the parents], we’re empathetic,” she said. “But we’re doing our best to try to find staff because we want them to be in our programs.” District leadership will continue active recruitment efforts, drawing on suggestions from Monday’s meetings. Super-Edwards said DPS hopes to bolster its employee referral program (offering $200 to staff members who successfully recruit workers), facilitate connections with local universities, and involve community partners such as the YMCA and Durham Parks and Recreation. The district may also increase the frequency of bonuses for after-school workers. As the summer draws to a close, parents must race against the clock to find care for their little ones. High schoolers, on the other hand, will be able to hit snooze one last time before the first bell. W This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and The 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. INDYweek.com
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Durham
Replacement in Reverse Hayti business leaders worry that out-of-state developers could shut down their enterprises. BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com
The formerly closed (and since reopened) Family Dollar at Heritage Square PHOTO BRETT VILLENA
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hen the Heritage Square shopping center was built along the southern crest of downtown Durham in 1985 by the nonprofit Hayti Development Corporation (HDC), with assistance from the City of Durham, the initiative represented an opportunity for city leaders to make good on the broken promises of urban renewal by developing one of the remaining land tracts from the urban renewal period more than a half century earlier. It was a hopeful moment. The HDC, according to a 2004 Herald-Sun newspaper story, “won broad support from the City Council and even garnered nationwide recognition.” City officials assisted the now-inactive HDC with building the shopping center. What emerged after construction was a modest mix of national chains like Family Dollar, Subway, and Winn-Dixie grocery, along with a hodgepodge of locally grown enterprises that included a printing company and a fledgling hardware store that offered shares to neighborhood residents. Some community leaders and residents envisioned the shopping center as a catalyst for the revitalization of Hayti. But the shopping center failed, even though the city rented office space there at above-marketrate prices. In 2006, the shopping center was sold to Andrew Rothschild, a Man8
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hattan physician turned private developer who also owns property in Hayti’s original business district on East Pettigrew Street. Rothschild’s purchase of the shopping center was reported in the real estate section of The New York Times. The Times noted that Rothschild gave up his medical practice in 2000 when he moved to Durham with his wife and founded Scientific Properties. By the time Rothschild purchased the 10-acre site where the shopping center sits, “only a handful of businesses” were open in the 70,000 square feet of retail space, the Times reported. The paper also noted that during Jim Crow, Durham had two downtowns: white folks did their business on Main Street, and Black people did the same on adjoining Parrish Street, which became known as “Black Wall Street.” “In its place, Mr. Rothschild plans to build Heritage Square, a $130 million, sixblock, multistory district that will reconnect underneath the freeway the streets between downtown and Hayti, where many people who worked on Parrish Street once lived,” the Times reported. The impressive plans never came to pass. Today, only three businesses—neighborhood mainstay Pelican’s SnoBalls, a Food World grocery, and a Family Dollar—remain open at Heritage Square.
The dollar store just reopened this week following a series of break-ins last month, starting with the holiday weekend. Thick, rectangular sheets of plywood cover the doors after a thief broke the windows and stole alcohol, cigarettes, baby clothes, shirts, and white socks. “We didn’t reorder tobacco and alcohol, so when he broke in the third time, he stole dog food,” said a store employee who wanted to remain anonymous. Rothschild could not be reached for comment. In late June, Sterling Bay, a Chicago-based development firm with deep pockets, announced a joint venture with another Chicago firm and a New York developer to purchase the declining commercial space that sits between the 600 block of Fayetteville Street and the 400 block of East Lakewood Avenue. Sterling Bay did not respond to requests for comment from the INDY before press time. Call it the replacement theory in reverse. Some longtime Hayti residents who are witnessing the ongoing developments contemplate a not-so-distant future in which they will have little if any say, no place to live, and no business to own in the Bull City’s most celebrated Black community, whose name was inspired by the Haitian Revolution.
During her first “State of the City” address, Mayor Elaine O’Neal said she was “struck by the fact that there are two Main Streets in Durham.” The city’s first Black woman mayor said that “on one end of Main Street, you see the high-rises, the shops, and the amenities that illustrate the leaps toward prosperity that many in Durham have experienced over the last few years. On the other end of Main Street, you see a community that has not kept up with the prosperity.” Larry Hester has co-owned the Phoenix Square and Phoenix Crossing shopping centers with his wife Denise for more than 30 years. Phoenix Square, with the city’s assistance, housed four businesses that were located in a nondescript area known as Tin City, where the now-closed Carolina Times sits on Old Fayetteville Street. “Those businesses were supposed to be there [temporarily] for eight months,” Hester says. “They were there for 19 years.” Hester says there are currently about 100 Black-owned businesses along the Hayti District’s Fayetteville Street corridor that stretches from NC 147 to Cornwallis Road. The current number of businesses is a far cry from the nearly 500, along with 4,000 homes, that were razed during the ill-named urban renewal program more
than a half century ago. Still, Hester says the current businesses along the corridor south of downtown make up the “the new Hayti.” “It appears that it’s going to end up just like the old Hayti if the city doesn’t do more to ensure its survival,” Hester told the INDY this week. But William “Bill” Bell, the city’s longest serving mayor, whose 17-year tenure began in 2001 and ended in 2017, thinks Hayti’s doomsday-sayers should slow their roll. “Black people are there now,” Bell told the INDY this week. “I don’t see why we won’t be there in the future.” Hester, who owned and operated shoe repair shops for years at malls in Durham and Chapel Hill before purchasing Phoenix Square in 1987, points to a couple of commercial and affordable housing developments announced this year that may push Black people out of the community. In addition to the Chicago developer’s purchase of Heritage Square, Durham Housing Authority (DHA) officials announced in January that the agency had selected a partner from outside the community to spearhead a 770-unit affordable housing development in Fayette Place, a long-fallow 20-acre parcel of land in the heart of Hayti. Henry McKoy—an NC Central University professor who spearheaded Hayti Reborn, which envisioned Fayette Place as the hub of a hybrid residential, business, and educational complex—warns that DHA’s approach to redeveloping Hayti will only reinforce the gentrification already taking place throughout the district. Hester says he and other members of the area’s business community haven’t heard from Sterling Bay officials. Nor have local folk whose businesses would be most impacted by a new development in the Hayti District reviewed site plans or laid eyes on any community benefits agreements that would bolster the community for supporting the coming private development projects in the neighborhood. In 2006, Hester opposed Rothschild’s proposed development of Heritage Square. Hester caught flak in some quarters from critics who said his real motive for opposing the development in 2006 was the competition posed by the threat of a bigger, more modern retail outlet just across the street from the two shopping centers he owns with his wife. But Hester says his opposition was about the impacts such a mammoth development would have on the area’s traffic infrastructure, along
with water and sewer. “[Rothschild] had a one-million-squarefoot project,” Hester explains. “The present project is supposed to cover two million square feet. So yeah, I’m concerned about the impact. If you look at the volume of traffic on Fayetteville Street at nine o’clock in the morning, the [city] planning department couldn’t determine if the intersections wouldn’t fail with the traffic volume two million square feet will entail.” Hester adds that during urban renewal, authorities did not create water and sewer systems. “Because there wasn’t any concern to bring Hayti back,” he says. “When we built Phoenix Square we got our water and sewer from Old Fayetteville Street. Where’s the water and sewer gonna come from, and does Durham have the capacity to do that for two million square feet?’ Fast-forward to today and Hester is once again concerned about the same issues, along with the tax impact Sterling Bay’s new multiuse development will have on the 40 businesses at the two shopping centers he owns. “With the development of Heritage Square, the tax valuation will be dramatically bigger for us,” he explains. “That means small businesses will have to increase rent, and it may have a detrimental effect …. We are still here, but there are some impacts that may overtake us.” Hester says the historic community would have been better positioned against the threat of gentrification and displacement if city leaders had adopted a master plan created by 200 Hayti property owners, who submitted the sweeping, 139page document to city council members in August 2005. “When we submitted the plan years ago, the idea behind it was to naturally grow in the area without a lot of pressure,” Hester explains. “So that when the pressure came, we would have been better positioned. The city has positioned us to have a tough road.” Hester says city leaders “took a different direction.” “They took the plan and improved every corridor [near downtown] except Fayetteville Street,” he says. “I’m not sure if it was because they never wanted Hayti to come back, but that was the effect,” Hester says while pointing to improvements that took place along Driver Street, in Old North Durham, and in the West End. Hester showed the INDY a late 2005
letter he had written to former city manager Patrick Baker that noted Bell, during a city council work session, said he “could not support [the plan] at this time.” “[Bell] also remarked that the City did not have the funds to commit to the Fayetteville Street Plan before abruptly closing the meeting without allowing members of our group to respond,” Hester wrote to Baker. Bell told the INDY this week that he does not recall city staffers recommending the funding of the Fayetteville Street group’s master plan. Bell added that while the group may have met with council members, they never met with him, nor was he aware of the meetings. “You would think that if someone had wanted my thoughts, they would have asked to meet with me, especially since he implies that the project didn’t get funded because of me,” Bell says. “The decisions are up to the majority of the council, not the mayor alone.” The Rolling Hills subdivision, a townhouse neighborhood developed by the Hesters, sat just across the street from Heritage Square on another prime parcel of real estate overlooking the city’s proudest attractions, including the American Tobacco Campus, the performing arts center, and the baseball stadium. By 2009, the subdivision had deteriorated and became, in Bell’s words, “a ghetto hidden in plain sight.” The city purchased the land and spearheaded the Lofts at Southside, a mixed-income community with a significant Black population that will be complemented soon by the city’s Southside Revitalization. A casual drive through the shopping center parking lot today features an area riddled with forlorn, boarded-up storefronts, where some of the city’s most marginalized residents sleep in front of long-abandoned entrances of prime real estate. At the beginning, middle, and end of the day, the quietly determined Hester says it’s all about that shared prosperity often touted by the city’s elected leaders. “The Fayette Place developers are going to take that money home with them, out of the Hayti community. The Heritage Square developers are going to take that money home. All the money that should be turning over in our community is now going somewhere else,” Hester says. “We want Fayetteville Street to be a cultural destination. And with Durham being such a prosperous city, we want our people to spend their money in our community.” W INDYweek.com
August 3, 2022
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The Secret of the Fox The Poetry Fox speaks: Chris Vitiello on costumes, street poetry, and shared humanity. BY SEVANA WENN backtalk@indyweek.com
Chris Vitiello, aka the Poetry Fox, spins poems on demand at the Durham Farmers Market PHOTO BY ANA YOUNG
S
ince before he knew what a typewriter was, Chris Vitiello had a way with words. As a child, the poet and communications strategist dictated poems to his parents aloud. Perhaps it was destiny that he would stumble upon a giant fox suit and grapple with the question posed by a 2013 viral video: What does the fox say? Apparently, quite a lot. Vitiello handed out his 35,000th poem as the Poetry Fox this April. When he dons the vulpine costume—a gift from a relative, who gave it to him as a joke 11 years ago instead of tossing it into a dumpster—he tackles themes of love, change, politics, and even mortality. On a recent Saturday, Vitiello sat behind a typewriter at the Durham Farmers’ Market. Barefoot in the dewy morning grass, perhaps to cool down from the heat of the fuzzy fox suit, he waited expectantly for poetry-seekers. Within a few minutes, curiosity had drawn a father and his two young sons to the stand. The sons presented the Fox with a single word. After chatting with the patrons, Vitiello pulled the costume over his head, entering what he calls “the smallest studio space in the world.” The keys clattered loudly beneath the Fox’s fingers, which poked out from amber-colored sleeves. Roughly 45 seconds later, he presented a complete poem. In his trademark style, the lines were “cut up all over the page,” deviating from standard structures such as sonnets or limericks. The 10
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brothers beamed as their father dropped a donation into his jar (labeled “TIPS in $$$ or live chickens”). In his years as the Fox, Vitiello has heard prompts ranging from “pickle” and “sunrise” to “gun” and “change.” Though the words he receives vary, his role as the Fox is the same whether he’s booked at a charity event, a birthday party, or a wedding. With a vintage typewriter by his side, he creates custom poetry on demand that has reached people from all walks of life. When he’s not in costume, the only thing that gives away Vitiello’s alter ego is the fox tattoo inked on his left forearm. The DC native is a published author and editor (“I have three books as a human, not as a fox,” he clarified). He has also ventured into other forms of street poetry and, most recently, screenwriting and filmmaking. He’s a father of two young adult children. “It’s always fun when you have a family member who does something kind of weird,” he said with a smile. “My kids have grown up with me being the Poetry Fox. So this is just what we do.” Vitiello, 53, had been an active member of Durham’s arts community for several years when the idea came to him. It was a weekend night at the Space, a downtown gathering place for creatives including writers, performers, and filmmakers. “We’d have somebody playing some music and we’d be screening a film and we’d have some kind of activity. And this
was just a night of several strange things going on,” he said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, well, I’ll write and I can put [the fox costume] on and do it.’ You know, it was just sort of a very just spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous kind of decision.” The Poetry Fox was born. As early shows gained traction, audience members began asking him to perform at other gatherings. He now appears at upward of 150 community events per year. Chris Tonelli, author and founding editor of the independent poetry press Birds, LLC, attended some of the Fox’s first gigs without knowing the identity of the largerthan-life canine at the typewriter. He was excited to find out that the Fox was also the author of Irresponsibility, a book he’d recently devoured. The two connected through the Triangle’s poetry community and now work alongside each other in the library department at North Carolina State University. Tonelli described his colleague as “the model arts community citizen.” “[Vitiello is] always saying yes, always trying new collaborations, always open to crazy ideas that will really be interesting to the community and will help the community. Very, very selfless in that way,” he said. For instance, Vitiello created “The Cabinet” last year in the midst of the pandemic, inspired by Victorian fortune-telling cabinets. When he sits inside the seven-foot mahogany wardrobe, he is concealed com-
pletely from view. This sense of anonymity, he says, can foster meaningful connection. Passersby fill out cards with their fears, hopes, memories, or secrets and enter them into a slot. From inside, Vitiello types and returns a poetic, personal response. The Fox is selfless, Tonelli noted. He gives away his work rather than adding to his own repertoire. And then there’s the sheer volume of poetry Vitiello has written as the Fox. An average poetry book, Tonelli said, is around 100 poems; the Fox has produced the equivalent of 350 books. Some of his poems confront contemporary political issues, such as climate change, gun control, and abortion rights. When he gives them away, he hopes that those who don’t see eye to eye with him find them thought-provoking, “both fulfilling and undermining expectations.” Though he has received some criticism for his political writing, he doesn’t take it to heart. “I usually just write back saying, ‘It looks like we disagree on this.’ I’m not going to attack somebody as the Fox,” he laughed. To Vitiello, the most memorable moments as the Fox are when he’s able to connect with his patrons beyond the surface level. He recalled a recent event where an attendee shared a deeply personal experience. “He sat down and told me that his father had just recently passed away and he didn’t have anything else to say,” Vitiello said. “So I wrote him the poem and it was … I couldn’t tell you exactly what the poem was, but it
was a really moving experience.” He paused. “That’s a poem that connects me and him now for a long period of time. So, those are the memorable ones. It’s the interaction that’s memorable, not the poem.” Vitiello plans on continuing his work as the Fox indefinitely, illuminating his patrons’ most defining moments. He composes lines about births and deaths, weddings and divorces, hopeful beginnings, and bittersweet endings. Vitiello sees certain common threads running through the human experience. It’s of no importance to him whether the recipient of his poems is a kindergartener or a grandmother. “Everybody eats, everybody puts on clothes,” he said. “Everybody goes to sleep and wakes up. Everybody likes trees and birds. Everybody looks at the sky. There’s a huge number of shared experiences and … the Fox’s writings draw upon that strongly.” At the market on Saturday, he was presented with the word “reflection.” He wrote: choppy waters don’t show you your face waves whipped into froth by storms overpower your name and your thoughts but soon the winds die down the sky clears and the water becomes a mirror so you can see your reflection at last and know more about who you are wait all night until the calm of morning and then look long into the water This story was published through a partnership between the INDY and The 9th Street Journal, which is produced by journalism students at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. W INDYweek.com
August 3, 2022
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SECRET MONKEY WEEKEND
Sat., August 6, 8 p.m. | Berkeley Cafe, Raleigh
In Harmony With an adoptive father and two siblings at the fore, Durham pop-rock band Secret Monkey Weekend is a ragtag family affair. BY JORDAN LAWRENCE music@indyweek.com
Secret Monkey Weekend at their home rehearsal space in Durham
“F
ascist Blood Baby” neatly toes the line between good-natured silliness and bitter satire. The song arrives about halfway through All the Time in the World, the debut fulllength from Durham pop-rock band Secret Monkey Weekend. It is sung with sweet sibling harmonies by drummer Lila Brown Hart and bassist Ella Brown Hart, who lean into the swaying girl-group lilt they say was imparted by guest keyboardist Will Rigby, drummer for eighties indie rock institution The dB’s. The song giddily references the iconography of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer (“You’re not the Master you think you are”), begging mercy from the titular vampire before staking him with populist logic: “If we’re all dead, who’s he gonna eat?” It works equally well as an enjoyable, lightweight bop or as a means to process anxieties bred by recent insurrections and Starbucks union-busting. “All of this makes “Fascist Blood Baby” impressive—even more so given that it was written by a 10th grader (Lila) and a second-year college student (Ella).” Secret Monkey Weekend pairs the sisters with their stepdad, Jefferson Hart, a longtime local songwriter recently backed by The Ghosts of the Old North State (and previously by The Ruins). The band they’ve forged together is remarkable not just for how polished and 12
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potent it has become given the youth of two of its members, but also for the way it helped the trio grow as a family. Ten years ago, the girls lost their father, Matt Brown, to a heart attack at the age of 42. A musician, Brown had drummed for Chapel Hill country groups Two Dollar Pistols, and John Howie Jr. and the Rosewood Bluff. Jeff, who played with Brown when he filled in on drums for his Kinks cover band, became close with the family, teaching Ella to play bass and Lila to play drums and eventually marrying the girls’ mother, Laura, three years after Matt’s death. The lessons evolved into informal jams and the spark for a proper band. “We were just, you know, playing in the living room just for our own fun, playing Queen and White Stripes and Rolling Stones,” Jeff says. “That’s how it started.” They were invited to play at a Labor Day party and a birthday party attended by about 75 people, Jeff recalls, which then started a string of local performances, which culminated in an invitation to play in England a year later in 2018. The band has had some influential help along the way. In addition to Rigby, fellow dB’s member Peter Holsapple has also been in their corner. The girls’ father played with Holsapple in the children’s band Baron Von Rumblebuss, with Ella calling him a family friend since the girls were “itty bitty”; he, too, ended up playing
some keys on the new album. Don Dixon (co-producer of the landmark R.E.M. album Murmur and an essential architect of the jangle-pop sound that Secret Monkey Weekend occupies) took note after seeing the group play at a Chapel Hill book launch, likewise becoming a fan and advocate. He ended up producing All the Time in the World at the Fidelitorium (the lauded Kernersville studio operated by Murmur’s other co-producer, Mitch Easter). Ella says Secret Monkey Weekend has felt like a real band to her since that early birthday party performance, but she was still surprised by how smoothly things went while recording. “It’s a beautiful and professional studio,” she recounts. “I was kind of worried it was going to be stressful. I was worried we were gonna have to play the same songs like 5,000 times, and I would get sick of it. But we got almost everything done in one or two takes—the basic tracks like drums, bass, guitar—and it was just fun. It wasn’t stressful at all.” Jeff praises the pair for making it that way. “They showed a lot of poise and confidence, which I think probably surprised Don,” he says. “I don’t think he was expecting us to be that efficient.” Jeff wrote many of the songs that ended up on the album within two weeks. Its warm and jangly sound puts
PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA
it very much in line with the music of the band’s famous fans, and it benefits greatly from the contrast between its two main vocalists, Jeff and Lila. The former imparts winsome, nasally bleats, while the latter’s softly sung contributions come across as confident but winningly disaffected (as cool, in other words). The group continues to win more attention. This week’s Berkeley Cafe gig in Raleigh is a celebration for the vinyl release of the new album, which came out in March. The family traveled to South Carolina earlier this year to open for The Connells. In September, they’ll play festivals in Durham (CenterFest) and Sanford (Carolina Indie Fest). But while they’ve accomplished a lot for a family band with members in middle and high school, they say their ambition is best summed up by a quote Lila gave to the Herald-Sun at age 10, just after their first performance at the Carrboro Music Festival. “My mommy told me that the most important thing about playing music is having fun,” Jeff and Ella recite together as the soft-spoken Lila looks on bashfully. “I like playing for people,” Ella says. “I like seeing people enjoying our music. And the best thing in the world for me would be if we easily get shows and people easily turn up.” W
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August 3, 2022
13
SC R E E N
HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG | HHHH
I LOVE MY DAD | HH
Now playing in local theaters
Releases Friday, August 5
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SONY CLASSICS AND MAGNOLIA PICTURES
So Long, Dad
A jubilant documentary about Leonard Cohen and a cringe-inducing comedy about a catfishing father, reviewed.
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BY GLENN MCDONALD arts@indyweek.com
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or music nerds of sufficient intensity, there’s not much on this earth as fun as getting obsessed with a particular song. I recently spent an entire weekend digging into the Beatles’ B-side classic “Rain.” I consider it a weekend well spent. Thanks, Liverpool! Thanks, internet! If you enjoy rabbit-hole excavations like this, I enthusiastically recommend the new documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song, which is essentially an entire feature film dedicated to the history and unlikely triumph of one brilliant piece of songwriting. Leonard Cohen, the Canadian poet turned songwriter, didn’t start making music until he was well into his thirties, when he haunted the edges of mainstream success with songs like “Suzanne” and “Bird on the Wire.” The composition that would become his magnum opus, “Hallelujah,” was buried on a 1984 album that was initially rejected by his label. In fact, the song didn’t really blow up until it was later recorded by other artists, specifically John Cale and Jeff Buckley. “Hallelujah” has since become a new American standard, played at weddings, funerals, anniversaries, and TV singing competitions. In the new documentary, we learn that Cohen spent more than seven years crafting “Hallelujah,” cycling through almost 200 verses before whittling it down to the final version. It’s a gorgeous piece of work, a masterpiece of existential romanticism and spiritual longing. It’s also a little … hmm, “earthy” is perhaps the polite term. As one observer in the film notes, “Leonard’s whole career was the pull between holiness and horniness.” Directors Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine worked 14
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Cohen has been the subject of traditional documentaries before, including director Lian Lunson’s 2005 Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. With Hallelujah, the filmmakers take a different and effective tack, marveling out loud about the raw brilliance of a song that simply would not be suppressed.
directly with the Cohen estate on the film, which gave them access to never-before-seen archival footage and private photographs. Otherwise, the filmmakers stick to the traditional music-documentary approach of talking-head interviews. Several famous people are recruited to say nice things, including Judy Collins, Clive Davis, Brandi Carlile, and Cohen’s late-career collaborator Sharon Robinson. Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor has the best line about contemplating Leonard Cohen’s work: “It’s like an instruction manual on how to be in this world.” Cohen lived a famously interesting life, and one of the best passages details the time he went to visit the Zen monastery on Mount Baldy outside Los Angeles. He stayed for six years. “If you’re sitting in a meditation hall for eight hours a day, you get straight with yourself,” Cohen says. “It’s not religion, it’s more like science.” Spirituality was central to Cohen’s life and work, and as his Zen adventure suggests, he was no dilettante. An interview with his rabbi reveals that Cohen was a lifelong seeker among the world’s wisdom traditions. Irish musician Glen Hansard offers some insight into how, with his greatest song, Cohen created a kind of modern humanist hymn: “He brought the word ‘Hallelujah’ out of the sky and made it OK to use down here among us mortals.” In the final scenes, we see the elegant 70-something singer on his final world tour, performing his masterpiece at the Glastonbury and Coachella festivals and in Ireland, Belgium, Paris, Hungary, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Finland, and Israel.
n the other end of the brilliance spectrum this week, we have the unfortunate indie film I Love My Dad, which pioneers new levels of cringe comedy—and not in a good way. Comedian/actor Patton Oswalt headlines the film as Chuck, a sad-sack father and compulsive liar trying to reconcile with his teenage son Franklin (James Morosini). Chuck’s absent-dad bullshit has finally driven Franklin to ghost his father—blocking his number and shutting him out on social media. In response, Chuck comes up with a colossally bad idea: He creates an online alter ego, stealing the name and photos of an attractive young waitress, and then proceeds to inadvertently catfish his own son. Naturally, things spin out of control. Soon, Franklin is falling in love—and eventually sexting—with a young woman who doesn’t exist. It’s a cruel thing to do. The idea, which the film desperately hopes we accept, is that Chuck is acting with good intentions. The truly uncomfortable part is that we more or less have to accept this premise because it really happened. The film is based on the real-life experience of Morosini, who is also the writer and director. The onscreen gimmick is that Chuck’s online persona, Becca, appears in the virtual love scenes as a figment of Franklin’s imagination (played by actress Claudia Sulewski) so the awfulness isn’t as awful as it could be. But it’s still pretty awful. The film’s wild toggling between cringe comedy and earnest family drama induces a kind of narrative motion sickness. Look, I don’t enjoy dragging movies, especially underdog independent films like this. But I must dutifully report that watching this movie made me physically uncomfortable. I don’t know if there’s an actual cringe muscle in the upper GI tract somewhere, but if there is, I think I sprained it. W
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August 3, 2022
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ABORTION STORIES USA
Through Sun., August 28 | Lump Gallery, Raleigh | lumpprojects.org
Looking Ahead An exhibit at Lump Gallery affirms reproductive rights with powerful multimedia art and story-sharing. BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com
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t the corner of East Cabarrus Street and South Blount Street in Raleigh, past the neighborhood barbershop and Baptist church, you’ll find Lump Gallery’s modest gray storefront. Enter the gallery this month (ducking in, perhaps, to escape the heat) and you’ll also encounter more than a dozen pieces of multimedia art curated by the New York artist, activist, and curator Rebecca Goyette. Their theme: abortion stories. A pink-and-green flag by Shireen Liane hanging in the back of the gallery marks that theme most directly, spelling out the words “Abortion Without Apology.” It sets a bright, affirming tone for an exhibit that is just that. There is also “Mother’s Right” by Michelle Hartney, an installation of 100 handmade hospital gowns on a rack (the gowns are borrowed from a larger display of 1,200, one for every person who died from a pregnancy-related cause in the year 2013); Viva Ruiz’s jubilant music video “Thank God for Abortion Anthem”; and watercolors by Goyette that reference her ancestor, also named Rebecca, who was hanged as a witch in the Salem witch trials. The exhibit also has ties to Abortion Stories 2022, an interactive art and storytelling project founded by Cassandra Neyenesch and Carolina Franco that invites stories, per its event description, from “absolutely anyone who wants to share their experience with abortion, regardless of whether they have been pregnant or not.” On July 22, at the exhibit opening, about 30 people gathered at Lump for a listening session facilitated by Neyenesch, a New York–based artist. Near the close of the exhibit, on August 17, Goyette will host a Zoom artist panel and abortion story-sharing session. “The positive effects of [sharing abortion stories] are manifold,” Neyenesch says. “There’s the release of stigma when you tell your story. There’s the testifying and being heard. Especially for the pre-Roe people, there’s the recording of their experience for history, because it’s really been forgotten.” That kind of sharing opportunity feels both obvious and rare. Though one in four women will get an abortion by age 45, making abortion one of the more common medical procedures, it’s uncommon to hear it talked about outside of hush-hush tones. In the days after the Dobbs decision, this paradigm briefly shifted on my social 16
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“Abortion Without Apology Flag,” 2022, by Shireen Liane media feeds, which surged with personal stories—one or two from cisgender men, otherwise entirely from birthing people—about abortion and the ways it had changed, and in some cases saved, lives. But Instagram stories have an air of ephemerality, disappearing after 24 hours, and even an Instagram post is designed by algorithms to be pushed below the recesses of sponsored reels about hair gels and fat-burning creams. Beyond those late June weeks, broad public pushback against the decision and its many future repercussions has quieted. Marches on the street have stilled for now and so have the Instagram stories and infographics. There’s an element of burnout to this ebbing (climate change disasters and mass shootings have been quick on the heels of abortion news) and also anxiety, as it’s become evident that digital surveillance can collect and sell your story, even when—perhaps, especially when—you yourself aren’t ready to share it. Reproductive rights may have broad support in North Carolina—a recent Meredith Poll in the state found that 52.6% of poll respondents support Roe’s provisions, compared to 40% of respondents who want to restrict acccess—but even in an abundant age of content, representation of those rights feels increasingly fraught. Goyette and Neyenesch, for their parts, both saw the writing on the wall long before Politico leaked the Supreme Court draft opinion. Neyenesch began organizing the first Abortion Stories 2022 event after State Bill 8 passed in Texas in May 2021, and it was only coincidence that this year’s Abortion Stories 2022 festival, on May 6 in New York Tompkins Square Park, fell four days after the Dobbs leak. Goyette, who has been making Salem witch trials artwork since Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in, exhibited that artwork at the event.
PHOTO COURTESY OF LUMP GALLERY
“Meeting these women and hearing these stories really amped up my sense of urgency,” Goyette says. “Now Roe v. Wade is overturned. The Supreme Court justices are in office for God knows how long, but that doesn’t mean to give up. This is the time to keep fighting.” At that festival, Goyette met and began her collaboration with Neyenesch and was inspired to curate a show about abortion. “When we get to see the variety of stories—which also includes things like ectopic pregnancies, complications, economic reasons; there are so, so many reasons why people get abortions—it really makes you double back on the idea that it doesn’t matter what the story is, you should have the right to make your own decision,” she says. Films have paid some recent storytelling dues: there’s been, for instance, a spate of road-tripping-to-accessan-abortion indie films. Documentary The Janes, currently streaming on HBO, tells the story of an underground network that, beginning in 1969, helped women access more than 11,000 clandestine abortions. And then there’s body-horror thriller Happening, playing in select theaters, which brings to life Annie Ernaux’s memoir about her violent struggle to access abortion care. These films are important though I’ve found that watching a documentary alone in bed offers limited catharsis. We’ve been conditioned to experience reproductive health and abortion (and their concurrent griefs) as private, lonely topics. The quiet of a gallery offers something more meditative and emotionally generative, and though Lump doesn’t see much foot traffic in the summer, sitting in public and being surrounded by stories feels communal. During a time when North Carolina’s reproductive rights hang in the balance, Abortion Stories USA is an invitation to sit still and listen—and, if you feel so moved, to speak up. W
CULTURE CALENDAR
Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.
Bad Bad Hats performs at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room on Thursday, August 4. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT’S CRADLE
art What’s in the Box? Wed, Aug. 3, 10 a.m. NCMA, Raleigh. Teen Sketching Meetup Sat, Aug. 6, 12 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh. What’s That Sculpture? Sat, Aug. 6, 10:30 a.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
stage Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird $35+. Aug. 2-7, various times. DPAC, Durham. City of Angels $30+. Aug. 3-14, various times. Theatre Raleigh, Raleigh. Read the Room: A Chill Variety Show Wed, Aug. 3, 7:30 p.m. Durty Bull Brewing Co, Durham.
music Bill MacKay & Nathan Bowles Wed, Aug. 3, 7:30 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham. Blends with Friends (Open Decks) Wed, Aug. 3, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Wed, Aug. 3, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. Stephen Day $15. Wed, Aug. 3, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Bad Bad Hats $15. Thurs, Aug. 4, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Broken Vow $12. Thurs, Aug. 4, 7:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Friendship $12. Thurs, Aug. 4, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. LANY: Summer Forever Tour $20+. Thurs, Aug. 4, 6:30 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh. Mellow Swells Thurs, Aug. 4, 7:30 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill. Owen $20. Thurs, Aug. 4, 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham. Attracting the Fall $12. Fri, Aug. 5, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill. Blue Cactus / Libby Rodenbough $15. Fri, Aug. 5, 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.
Ceremony $15. Fri, Aug. 5, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. Cosmic Charlie $17. Fri, Aug. 5, 9 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh. Five for Fighting SOLD OUT. Fri, Aug. 5, 8 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh. Nightblooms Fri, Aug. 5, 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham. Gino and the Goons Sat, Aug. 6, 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham. Judy Collins $45+. Sat, Aug. 6, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. Late Notice $10. Sat, Aug. 6, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Medium Well in Hell Festival VI $40. Sat, Aug. 6, 3 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.
Chronophage $10. Mon, Aug. 8, 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.
Taylor Fest $20. Sat, Aug. 6, 9 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.
Live Jazz with Danny Grewen & Griffanzo Mon, Aug. 8, 6 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.
A Giant Dog $15. Sun, Aug. 7, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Mean Habit $10. Sun, Aug. 7, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. Only Us Media and Wonderpuff present: Ladies of Wonder $10. Sun, Aug. 7, 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham. 723 $10. Mon, Aug. 8, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.
Daryl Hall and the Daryl’s House Band $59+. Tues, Aug. 9, 7:30 p.m. DPAC, Durham. Fenton Live! Tues, Aug. 9, 6 p.m. Fenton, Cary. Live Jazz with the Brian Horton Trio Tues, Aug. 9, 9 p.m. Kingfisher, Durham. Mysti Mayhem Tues, Aug. 9, 7 p.m. The Oak House, Durham. Stan Comer Tues, Aug. 9, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.
screen Bodies Bodies Bodies with Q&A $13. Wed, Aug. 3, 8 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh. Godzilla 1984: The Return of Godzilla $8. Wed, Aug. 3, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
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RuPaul’s Drag Race World Tour $20+. Wed, Aug. 3, 8 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh. Daphnique Springs $20. Thurs, Aug. 4, 8 p.m. Goodnights & Factory Restaurant, Raleigh. Comedy Showcase Fri, Aug. 5, 8 p.m. Glass Jug Beer Lab, Durham.
Natalie Lloyd: Hummingbird Fri, Aug. 5, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. Emma Skurnick: Becoming a Local Tues, Aug. 9, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. Sarah Grunder Ruiz: Luck and Last Resorts Tues, Aug. 9, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.
Nightmare Alley screens at NCMA’s outdoor theater on Saturday, August 6. PHOTO COURTESY OF NCMA
Movies under the Stars: Annie Thurs, Aug. 4, 8 p.m. The Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill.
The Dark Crystal Brunch $11. Aug. 6-7, 11:30 a.m. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.
Suspiria and Eyes of Fire $10. Fri, Aug. 5, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.
Outdoor Film Series: Nightmare Alley $8. Sat, Aug. 6, 8:30 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.
FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR: INDYWEEK.COM INDYweek.com
August 3, 2022
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P U Z Z L ES
T OUN DISC FREE C LU B A L L FOR ORS & E CAT EDU LTH CAR S A HE KER WO R
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In-Store Shopping Curbside Pick Up www.regulatorbookshop.com 720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705 Hours: Monday–Friday 10–7 | Saturday & Sunday 10–6
su | do | ku
this week’s puzzle level:
© Puzzles by Pappocom
There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.
If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages.” Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com solution to last week’s puzzle
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August 3, 2022
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8.03.22 INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com
C L AS S I F I E D S HEALTH & WELL BEING
EMPLOYMENT Lead Business Solutions Developer Lead Business Solutions Developer sought by NC Health Affiliates, LLC in Durham, NC. Provide consultative and expert support in discovery and fact finding for the full understanding and execution of assignments. Telecommuting permitted. Apply @ www.jobpostingtoday.com #76216.
919-416-0675
Construction Management Senior Manager Construction Management Senior Manager sought by Jacobs Project Management Company, Cary, NC: Manage projects. Dev/lead project plans. Supervise employees. Travel/relocate in U.S. Resumes to: Miriam Garcia at 818 Town and Country Blvd, Ste 500, Houston, TX 77024. Job Code: 0722CM.
www.harmonygate.com NOTICES HEIR ALERT Descendants of M. R. LEEDY are sought as potential heirs of real estate located in Wytheville, Virginia and owned by M. R. Leedy in 1909. A legal suit has been filed claiming ownership of a residential lot at 435 East Jefferson Street, Wytheville, VA 24382. If you are a descendant or a sibling or descendant of a sibling of DAN STERCHI STREET who died on February 11, 2021 and lived at 1114 Manchester St., Apt. 104, Raleigh, NC 27609 and wish to make a claim related to this real property, you may contact the Circuit Court Clerk of Wythe County at: JERIMIAH MUSSER, CLERK OF CIRCUIT COURT 105 Courthouse 225 S. 4th Street Wytheville, VA 24382 You must respond in writing on or prior to August 10, 2022 and include your name, address and information about your relationship to DAN STERCHI STREET by identifying your ancestors that were children or other descendants of DAN STERCHI STREET. The litigation information is:
LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE
To advertise or feature a petIN for adoption, VIRGINIA: THE CIRCUIT COURT OF WYTHE COUNTY please contact NANCY GAIL CROCKETT, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action: CL 22-491 advertising@indyweek.com Heirs of M. R. LEEDY, Addresses Unknown, Defendants
ture a pet for adoption, ertising@indyweek.com
EMPLOYMENT Haw River Learning Celebration Assistant Coordinator This is a six week contract position from September 6th - October 14th, 2022 working with our team of staff and volunteers to organize and implement our 3 week river education program for schools on the banks of the Haw River at 3 consecutive sites in Chatham, Alamance, and Rockingham counties. First Aid Certification is required prior to the start date. The Assistant Coordinator will be camping (with meals provided) for three weeks with our crew as part of the job. The six week contract is for $5,500. Applications due August 8. Resume and Cover Letters can be sent to Kyleene Rooks at krooks@hawriver.org Read the full job description at https://hawriver.org/projects/learning-celebration/ INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com
To advertise or feature a pet for adoption, please contact advertising@indyweek.com INDYweek.com
August 3, 2022
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