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O.Henry 7
October 2021 DEPARTMENTS 13 The Nature of Things By Ashley Wahl
17 Simple Life
FEATURES
By Jim Dodson
55 Advice on Nighttime Caregiving
20 Short Stories 22 Tea Leaf Astrologer
56 A Nude Attitude
By Zora Stellanova
24 Life’s Funny
By Maria Johnson
26 The Creators of N.C. By Wiley Cash
31 The Omnivorous Reader By Anne Blythe
35 Scuppernong Bookshelf 39 Home by Design By Cynthia Adams
43 Food for Thought By Maria Johnson
47 Batwatch
By Susan Campbell
49 Wandering Billy By Billy Eye
Poetry by Benjamin Cutler
By Billy Warden After lockdown, the instinct to bare all is on the rise
62 Georgia O’Keeffe and Friends
By Jim Moriarty A new exhibit welcomes a modernist master
68 The Witching Hour
By Maria Johnson Tanger Center’s first Broadway show, Wicked, is here
74 His Father’s Son
By Cynthia Adams Learning large lessons from a small cabin
81 Almanac
By Ashley Wahl
83 Events Calendar 96 O.Henry Ending By Jennifer Bringle
Cover photograph by Joan Marcus provided by Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts
8 O.Henry
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M A G A Z I N E
Volume 11, No. 10 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.” 336.617.0090 111 Bain Street, Suite 334, Greensboro, NC 27406 www.ohenrymag.com PUBLISHER
David Woronoff Ashley Wahl, Editor awahl@ohenrymag.com Jim Dodson, Roadmaster-at-Large Andie Rose, Creative Director andie@thepilot.com Lauren M. Coffey, Art Director Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer
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The Nature of Things
The Moth
An unexpected wink from the cosmos
By Ashley Wahl
Has nature ever stopped you in your tracks? I mean, in such a way that you’re sure you’re receiving a direct message?
The other day, Alan surprised me after work by suggesting that we take an evening hike. Although we typically save woodland treks for spacious weekends, I couldn’t say no to spontaneous adventure. We leashed up the dog and took off for one of our favorite local nature trails. Beneath a canopy of hardwoods, cool and growing darker with each step, the final thrum of summer enveloped us. Chorus frogs shrieked beyond the nearby marsh and cicadas clicked in unison, their deafening trills like the steady, mechanical breath of the forest. With our wedding just a few weeks away, we were sharing our excitement, our hopes and our curiosity about where life might guide us next. We also shared our fears — mostly imagined scenarios we had no way of controlling anyhow. What kind of future would we like to create? And given our divided world and the deep uncertainty of our collective future, is the life we envision even possible? We were getting ahead of ourselves — a very human thing to do — until we remembered to slow down and return to the present moment. Our breath. Our footsteps on the earth. The golden leaves scattered across the forest floor. It started to feel pretty good — and better and better with each step. Basking in blissful silence, we came upon our favorite stretch of the trail, a fern carpeted clearing that looks like a page from a fairy The Art & Soul of Greensboro
tale. I happened to gaze out across the glade and, despite the fading light, noticed what resembled two large, green leaves arranged like wings on a distant tree trunk. How, I wondered, could those leaves be positioned so perfectly that they looked — from over 30 yards away — like some kind of giant, mystical butterfly? “Hold Durga,” I said, passing the leash to Alan. Making my way toward the tree, I realized that I was, in fact, approaching a luna moth, which might have fit in my palms if I held them side by side. Slowing down for fear of spooking it, I stopped a few feet away to admire the luna’s ghostly white body and bewitching sea-foam wings from afar. I’d never actually seen a real one. Those of you who have never been in the presence of one of these nocturnal beauties may think I’m overreacting. It’s just a moth, after all. But if you, too, have been close enough to study the intricate eyespots on this giant silk moth’s pixie-like wings, then you likely understand how this sighting felt like a wink from the Universe. Because they only live for one week in their winged form, the luna moth is considered a symbol of transformation and transience — a silent reminder to fully embrace the present moment. How perfect, I thought, turning back toward the trail. “If we were looking for some kind of sign,” I said to Alan, “I’d say we found one.” As if part of a cosmic script, a downy white feather appeared on the earth between us. We picked it up, studying its soft fringe in the last blush of muted light. Suddenly, laughter swelled from the darkening forest. Owls, we realized. The dog furrowed her brow, and as we walked — a bit faster now — we, too, started laughing. OH Contact editor Ashley Wahl at awahl@ohenrymag.com. O.Henry 13
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Simple Life
The Last Ride
A legendary car, two old dogs and the end of the road in sight
By Jim Dodson
PHOTOGRAPH BY LYNN DONOVAN
I knew this day would eventually come.
In recent years, I’ve pushed the thought to the back of my mind that it might be time to say goodbye and hand her off to someone who can restore her to her glory. But every time I take her for a spin, by Jove, The Pearl works her automotive magic on me, riding like a dream, cruising the world on eight cylinders and a Corvette engine. With her roomy leather seats and patented “Dynaride” suspension system, she’s still like driving in your living room. We’ve been together a dozen years, almost half The Pearl’s life and almost one-sixth of mine. We survived the Great Recession, the end of cassette players and four teenagers. My dog Mulligan has spent most of her long life riding shotgun in The Pearl. Oh, the places we’ve been together up and down the highway! The Pearl is a 1996 Buick Roadmaster estate station wagon, reportedly the last true production wagon that General Motors made before switching to prissy little SUVs. The mighty Roadmaster is an American automotive icon, introduced in 1936 as the nation began to crawl out from under the Great Depression. Its creators had this nutty idea that Americans getting back on their feet might want to take the family on a road trip to see the land of the free and the home of the brave. With its oversized windows, sleek lines, wide chassis, faux wooden siding, “vista roof” and proverbial third seat facing backwards, the versatile Roadmaster wagon was just the ticket for seeing America from ground level. The end of the Roadmaster line came in 1996 when 22,989 models rolled off the assembly line for the last time. Mine entered the life of a nice gentleman from New Jersey who loved the car so much he kept the dashboard covered with protective felt and put only 60,000 miles on its odometer over 12 years. Fate and quiet desperation brought us together when my children
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
began stealing the Volvos and Subarus to go off to college. I wrote a newspaper column joking that I was shopping for a car like the one my old man drove when I was a kid — a gas-guzzling monster of the American highway that no enlightened, environmentally-minded Millennial would be caught dead riding in around town. It turns out, that car was a Buick Roadmaster wagon. Not two days after the column appeared, a woman phoned to say, “Mr. Dodson, I am here to make you a happy man.” Her father and mother were residents of a local senior living community. They owned a 1996 Buick Roadmaster station wagon that the daughter had fooled her father into giving up, lest he injure himself or someone else due to his declining driving habits. “My father bought the car new and absolutely adores it,” she explained. “We all loved it. It took me off to college and helped me move several times. She has a few dings but still runs like a dream. But it has to go.” She explained that a vintage car buff out West was interested in buying it — Roadmasters were apparently big with car collectors — but if I wanted to check it out at a local garage, she would consider selling it to me. “If you don’t buy this car,” said the mechanic, handing me the keys for a test drive, “I probably will. They don’t make cars like this anymore.” I purchased it an hour later. My wife laughed when she saw it pull into the driveway. “Oh my,” she said. “That really is your father’s Buick.” No. 1 son — the Subaru thief — asked if he could take the car off to college. Not a chance, I told him. No. 2 son pointed out that my Roadmaster model was ranked No. 7 on the “official list of Best Cars to Own in the Event of a Zombie Apocalypse.” He wondered if he could take it for a spin. “Maybe after the zombie apocalypse,” I said. O.Henry 17
Simple Life I had, after all, my own big plans for this oversized jewel of the 20th Century American highway. For many years — decades, actually — I’d dreamed of finding and traveling the Great Wagon Road of Colonial America, the famous backcountry highway that brought thousands of Scots-Irish, German and other European immigrants to the American South during the 18th century, including my own English and Scottish forebears. Historians and old road experts had recently determined the Great Road’s original path from Philadelphia to Augusta, Georgia — an 850-mile land route that passed through some of the most historic battlefields, towns and sacred landscapes of early America. Dan’l Boone and his family traveled it from Pennsylvania to the banks of the Yadkin River. The most pivotal battles of the Revolutionary War were fought along the highway, including engagements at Cowpens, Kings Mountain and Guilford Courthouse, leading to the British surrender at Yorktown. America’s first immigrant highway also bisected the killing fields of the American Civil War at Antietam and Gettysburg, where Abraham Lincoln — whose grandfather lived on the Great Road in Virginia — gave the Gettysburg Address on a hill just above the highway. By my count, in fact, no less than seven U.S. presidents were either born directly on or traveled the Great Wagon Road most of their lives. The Scots-Irish brought their balladry, fiddle music and God-given talent for fighting (and making corn whiskey) down the road, giving birth to Bluegrass in the hollers of Appalachia. Four summers ago, after years of research and planning, my dog FIND ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Mulligan and I set off along the road in our own Great Wagon, which a colleague at work nicknamed The Pearl, hoping to travel the entire route in two or three weeks. Silly me. It took a month just to get out of Pennsylvania. The abundance of great stories and memorable people we met along the road turned an 800-mile road trip into a three-year, 3,000-mile odyssey of discovery that recently drew to a close, including a year of travel lost due to COVID. Though she is showing her age and is more dinged up than ever, The Pearl managed to make the entire journey and then some. She brought us home with an engine that still runs like a dream. Along the way, she provided absolute strangers with fond memories of their own childhood. “My father had a car just like that,” they would say with a note of pure wonder. “It was my favorite family car.” A man in the parking lot at Gettysburg actually offered to buy The Pearl. “How much do you want for her?” he asked. “Nothing,” I replied. “But I might someday give her to the right person.” He handed me a card, which I promptly lost. Since finishing the road last autumn, The Pearl has mostly been my gardening car, hauling shrubs and mulch, though Miss Mulligan and I go out for a spin every now and then. Mully is now 16, The Pearl is pushing 25. The last ride can’t be far away. But what a time we’ve had, what a sweet journey it’s been. OH Jim Dodson is O.Henry’s founding editor and ambassador-at-large.
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O.Henry 19
Follow the Red Balloons
No, they won’t lead you to the Emerald City, per se. But they will guide you around the Greater Greensboro area for the 23rd annual Artstock Artists Studio Tour. This year, over 20 participating artists (eight of them new to the tour) will open their studio doors to the public on Saturday, October 9 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m.) and Sunday, October 10 (1–5 p.m.). Within, you’ll find pottery, oil on canvas and linen, sculpture (like iron man Jim Gallucci’s sculptures and gates), photography, wood and lino art prints, epoxy-resin art, high-fired stoneware (Bill Johnston’s clay foxes might be the cutest things you’ve ever seen) and Oz only knows what else. While you’re following the red balloons, check out acrylic/mixed-media artist Crystal Eadie Miller’s artwork at The Studio House in Summerfield, a 1929 cottage that now functions as an Airbnb and mini art gallery. Tour is free and open to the public. For a complete list of artists and gallery/studio locations (including 205 Collaborative and Sternberger Artists Center), visit artstocktour.com.
As Seen in O.Hey . . .
I Am Woman
This month at WAM, don’t miss the October 9 opening of Splinters of a Secret Sky by Falk Visiting Artist Angela Fraleigh which is, in a word, empowering. Once portrayed as “docile objects for the male gaze only,” Fraleigh’s female subjects have been awakened from the canvases of Victorian paintings and lovingly invited into “dreamlike scenes where they exist for one another instead.” For this exhibit, the visiting artist also draws inspiration from the legacy of sisters Claribel and Etta Cone, whose trove of bold and vibrant artworks (including many by their friends Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso) helped establish WAM’s collection. Fraleigh is an associate professor of art at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Catch her Artist Talk on Thursday, October 21, at 7 p.m. Get ready for a fresh perspective. Exhibit on display until December 11. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org.
20 O.Henry
Do you read O.Hey, the (let’s call it shameless) weekly newsletter created by some of the self-proclaimed “genius young minds” on the staff of this magazine? Recently, a couple of said genii had the opportunity to join foodobsessed YouTuber Loon K. Do on his Greensboro food tour, featuring a total of eight local eateries. Move over, Stanley Tucci and Guy Fieri: you’ve been chopped. Search for Loon’s “Greensboro N.C. Food Tour 2021 Vlog #2” to catch the vid with some of your new favorite locals. And to have the best of GSO food, news and events dropped into your inbox every week, subscribe at oheygreensboro.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
IMAGE LEFT: ANGELA FRALEIGH, "SPLINTERS OF A SECRET SKY", 2021 (DETAIL). OIL ON CANVAS, INDIVIDUAL PAINTING FROM LARGER INSTALLATION, 96 X 72 IN. © ANGELA FRALEIGH
Short Stories
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE SCHOOL OF DANCE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA GREENSBORO
Ogi Sez Ogi Overman
Dance on Screen
If the phrase “screen dance” evokes images of Tom Cruise sliding round in skivvies and tube socks, go ahead and try to shake that. On October 30, the Greensboro Dance Film Festival will demonstrate how screen dance (which is kind of what it sounds like, although you’ve really got to experience it to understand) has pushed the boundaries of choreography and movement beyond what’s possible onstage. “Dance has been at the center of cinema since its inception,” says festival founder Robin Gee. And yet, using the moving body to tell a story on screen somehow feels revolutionary. “It’s a new, old way of communicating,” says Gee. Now in its seventh year, this boutique festival features dance films from around the globe by students and established filmmakers alike. “It’s bringing the world to Greensboro,” says event coordinator B.J. Sullivan (memorialized as O.Henry’s Muse of Dance in the June 2021 issue). Organized like a progressive party, free screenings will be held at downtown venues, including GPS (aka Greensboro Project Space, located at 111 E. February One Place). Festival goers are encouraged to float about casually, mingle with others, engage in conversation, explore downtown and experience what Gee describes as “something unlike performance or film.” For more information and complete schedule, including an opening performance and party, visit www.greensborodancefilms.org.
Animal House PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE NORTH CAROLINA ZOO
Boo at the Zoo — yep, daytime Halloween fun among creatures great and small — invites the kiddos outdoors to celebrate punkin season October 16–24. Trick-or-treat along the pathways of Africa, embark upon the Spooky Treehouse trek, wiggle to live music and discover which animals like to play with (aka smash and devour) their pumpkins. Experience “Boo at the Zoo” on weekends from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wristbands may be purchased at the admission gates and at Junction Plaza. Face paint optional. Face masks required indoors. NC Zoo, 4401 Zoo Parkway, Asheboro. Info: nczoo.org
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Ah, October, not only my favorite month of the year but also the most colorful. The reds and yellows of the leaves, the orange of the pumpkins, the multihued majesty of the sunsets, the black cloaks of the Halloween witches and the white blur of goblins, not to mention the every-color-under-the-sun of college football Saturdays. Indeed, it’s a beautiful time of year. And adding to the grandeur, the stages are once again lit as touring acts are gratefully crisscrossing the country. Here are a few that will be stopping in the green of the ’boro.
• October 1, Cone Denim Entertainment
Center: Here’s hoping you picked up your copy of O.Henry early, because Blues Traveler wastes not a day kicking off the month. For three decades now, John Popper has been acclaimed by many as the finest blues harp player on the planet. They released their 14th album July 30 and are touring behind it. Travel on, my brother.
• October 2, Tanger Center: As I recall, Josh
Groban was slated to christen the new Tanger Center last March, but . . . well, you know. I’m betting it was well worth the wait. That perfect combination of power, tone, control and dynamics make him arguably the finest male vocalist of his generation.
• October 15, Carolina Theatre: I’ve seen at least five Beatles tribute bands, and it is fitting that 1964 now uses “The Tribute” as part of their moniker. They are the best among many good ones. Suspend disbelief and let your eyes and ears take you back. They’ve got the ticket to ride. • October 23, Ramkat: Yes, I know the Ramkat is not in Greensboro, but when Buddy Guy is in the vicinity, you make an exception. Ask any blues guitarist to list their heroes, and Buddy Guy makes the list every time. He played the White House in 2012 and persuaded President Obama to join him on “Sweet Home Chicago.” Now that’s some serious influence. • October 29, Blind Tiger: Speaking of blues guitar legends, Greensboro’s favorite son, Eric Gales, is well on his way to becoming one. Except for one thing — he’s also becoming a rock, jazz, funk and metal legend. His virtuosity in so many genres is amplified by the fact that he is naturally right-handed, yet plays left-handed without reversing the strings. Come down to the BT, wish him a happy birthday and prepare to be dazzled. O.Henry 21
Tea Leaf Astrologer
Libra (September 23 – October 22)
When a Libra hangs the moon, they don’t care if you notice. They just want you to take note of how perfectly it’s situated in the night sky — how it’s never looked bigger or brighter — and don’t the stars look dreamier than usual, too? Ruled by Venus, Libras are sometimes accused of living in a bit of a fantasy world. But here’s what this quixotic air sign needs to remember: Mood lighting will only get you so far.
Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you: Scorpio (October 23 – November 21) Remember the children’s game, Telephone? How “Go fly a kite” could become “Let’s leave tonight” in an instant? Don’t let this happen in real life. Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21) You’re feeling red hot this month. In other words: It’s time to ditch the sweatpants. Capricorn (December 22 – January 19) Someone wants to be your friend. Try letting your guard down. Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) What does a flower need to grow? I bet you know. Now, pretend you’re the flower. Pisces (February 19 – March 20) Before you dip your toes into the tempting waters of someone else’s drama, ask yourself if it’s worth swimming upstream. Aries (March 21 – April 19) Your sensitive side is showing. See what happens when you don’t cover it up.
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Taurus (April 20 – May 20) Expanding your horizons doesn’t always mean leaving the couch. But it’s probably a good idea. Gemini (May 21 – June 20) There are two sides to every story. But for you, it’s more like a prism. Cancer (June 21 – July 22) In a world of this-isms and that-isms, choose peace. Leo (July 23 – August 22) Three words: pancakes for breakfast. You know what I’m talking about. Virgo (August 23 – September 22) Let’s just say Venus is on your side this month. OH
Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla.
22 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Life's Funny
A Fear of Flying (Monkeys) But that was the old story
By Maria Johnson
Of all the stories I knew as a kid, one stands out as being the most terrifying to me: the movie version of The Wizard of Oz.
Specifically, the scenes with the flying monkeys. The Wicked Witch of the West was bad enough, always spying on Dorothy and Toto with her crystal ball, a sort of early security camera. But the flying monkeys sent me over the edge, especially when the WWOW dispatched them to capture Dorothy and Toto. “Now fly, fly,” she commands, and the sky outside her window fills with a squadron of her flapping minions in their little bellhop jackets. So one minute, little Dorothy is kicking it with her newfound friends and her very cool pup, and the next minute the monkeys literary drop out of the sky, scoop up her and Toto and tear the stuffing out of her best pal, the Scarecrow. (And yes, I sort of had a thing for him. Love is love, OK?) Anyway, I bolted straight into the lap of my dad — who always sat in “his chair” to watch this classic movie when it came on TV once a year — and buried my face in his chest while he held me and assured me that everything would turn out OK for Dorothy, Toto and the Scarecrow, though in hindsight I wonder if my dad
24 O.Henry
was troubled by the fact that I was drawn to a straw man without a brain. I found him comforting. My dad, I mean. But even now, the thought of those freakin’ monkeys is enough to raise my blood pressure. So, when I heard a traveling production of Wicked — the Broadway-born backstory of the witches in The Wizard of Oz — was coming to town this month, I decide it was high time to confront what made me uncomfortable — or, as my editor and I have taken to calling it, “face the monkey.” And that’s how I ended up calling Travante Baker, who plays Chistery, the main flying monkey in Wicked. I was hoping that Travante could help me get over my childhood fear of airborne apes who work for a witch and dress like bellhops. Call it a niche phobia. Anyway, I asked him if he’d ever seen the movie — he’s 28, so you never know — and he said yes. And I asked him if he was unhinged by the flying monkeys, and he said no, but in a nice way. “They weren’t at the forefront of my Wizard of Oz experience,” is how he put it. How sweet is that? But he confided that the movie’s music upset him, specifically the menacing music that plays when the crabby schoolteacher (who The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Life's Funny turns into The WWOW in Dorothy’s dream), rides her bike to Dorothy’s house to stir up trouble. “You mean the music that goes, “Da-da-da-da-DAH-DAH, da-dada-da-DAH-DAH?” I asked. And Travante said, “Yes!” And we bonded in laughter and terror. Travante shared a little about himself: how he grew up in Miami Gardens, Florida; how his mom dragged him to an audition for a performing arts magnet program in middle school; how he got in, and was like, “Wait a minute. This is . . . fun.” His first role, aptly enough, was in a production of The Wiz, a Harlem-set Broadway musical based on the wizard story. “It’s sort of come full circle,” he says. After two years at Syracuse University, Travante joined an international touring production of West Side Story and spent three summers at Flat Rock Playhouse, the official state theater of North Carolina. “I love the Flat Rock Playhouse,” Travante says. There he worked with choreographer Chase Brock, a Flat Rock native. Back in New York, he was helping Brock choreograph another show when he landed the physically demanding role of Chistery in Wicked. Chistery, who works for the dastardly Wizard of Oz, appears in the first act, wheeling, lunging and climbing all over the stage. He sprouts wings — Travante pulls on a cord sewn into his cos-
tume — when Elphaba, a magically-gifted green girl who becomes the WWOW later in life, unknowingly casts a spell that benefits the wizard. Later, Elphaba bargains with the wizard to win the monkeys, who’ve lost their voices, and she sets them free. Fancy that: the future WWOW as an animal rights activist. Obviously, the flying monkeys in Wicked are very different from the flying monkeys in the movie. The don’t do the dirty work of a wicked witch. They look more bat-like, less bell-hoppy. They’re also more sympathetic creatures, themselves the victims of oppression, just as they are in the original 1900 book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The movie left that part out. Wicked restores that thread, as well as the voice of Chistery, who eventually makes gestures of good will toward humans. Some audiences clap when that happens. “There’s this relationship between humans and animals being repaired,” says Travante. “There’s a trust being mended.” Travante and I wish each other well, and I tell him I hope to see him and the other flying monkeys on stage in Greensboro. Somehow, when the story is told this way, the idea doesn’t faze me at all. OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.
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O.Henry 25
The Creators of N.C.
Time Capsule in Jazz
Whether you know him as Dr. Martinez or Marty Most, you know The Big Easy is alive in his heart and his photos
By Wiley Cash • Photographs by Mallory Cash
Nestled in a patch of pine woods just
south of Wilmington, Dr. Maurice Martinez, New Orleans’ first beat poet, is sitting in a favorite chair in his sunlight-flooded living room. At his feet are several crates of black-and-white photographs, carefully encased in plastic sleeves. He bends down to pick up an image, staring at it for a moment before gesturing toward the subject — a Black man in a suit playing a soprano saxophone. The man’s eyes are closed in concentration.
“John Coltrane was the most serious musician I’ve ever met,” says Martinez. He looks back down at the photograph with such intensity it’s as if he’s traveling back in time, peeling back the years and the stories that led him from a childhood in New Orleans to
26 O.Henry
the halls of American academia by way of a barnstorming concert tour across Brazil. Photograph in hand, Martinez’s mind and memory are focused on the string of shows Coltrane played when he came to New Orleans in 1963. Martinez and his camera were there to capture it. He presented a composite of several of the photos he took to the jazz musician. “When he saw it, he got warm and opened up,” Martinez says. “He could see that I was serious about music, too.” Maurice Martinez has been serious about many things over the course of his life — music, education, social justice, documentary filmmaking, plus Creole heritage and history — but jazz and photography have been lifelong staples. His two passions have recently come together in A Time Capsule in Jazz, an exhibit on display at the Genesis Block Gallery in downtown Wilmington until October 20. Martinez was a college student at Xavier University in Louisiana when he first began to take photography seriously. His early steps were tentative, but experimental. “It was a little black box, and it only had one speed on the The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Creators of N.C.
shutter,” he says. “But it also had a way that you could do a time exposure by disengaging the automatic shutter.” And so he did just that, then put the camera on the desk. “It came out like a Rembrandt.” He soon moved on to Instamatics and 35mm cameras, experimenting with various lenses before graduating to better and more advanced equipment. After starting a wedding photography business with a buddy, he soon learned that the best photographs came at what he calls “the peak moment of joy,” such as when the newlyweds are seated in the limousine and the wedding and all its fuss is behind them. Only then do you see the couple relax, he says. Martinez saw that those moments of joy were also evident in the jazz musicians who brought their soulful music to New Orleans in the 1960s. Music had always been a passion for Martinez, and his parents recognized his talent when he was young. A local university offered a junior school of music, so Martinez began piano classes there when he was 9 years old with his buddy Ellis Marsalis. Martinez would eventually step away from the piano and pick up the bass, purchasing what was reportedly the first electric bass played in New Orleans. Along with his photography business, he founded a jazz quartet that played gigs for fraternities at Tulane. When he finished college at Xavier, one of his professors encouraged him to apply to graduate school at the University of Michigan. While segregation ensured that state universities in Louisiana were closed to people of color, $750 grants were available to Black students who sought degrees outside the state. But by The Art & Soul of Greensboro
the time Martinez had been granted admission to Michigan, the December deadline to apply for the Louisiana grant had passed. His father, who had made a career as a master bricklayer and stonemason, reached out to one of his wealthy patrons, and the $750 needed to enroll at Michigan was secured. Martinez packed up his camera and headed north, bringing his love for jazz with him. At Michigan, he found himself as the music curator for a creative arts festival, and while many of the students wanted to invite The Who and other rock’n’roll bands, Martinez invited Miles Davis. After finishing his M.A. in education at Michigan, Martinez returned to New Orleans and followed in the footsteps of his mother by teaching math in the local public schools for six years. His mother taught in the local schools before opening a private school that first catered to Creole children and educated some of the city’s most exceptional Black citizens, including Wynton Marsalis, a former mayor and a former chief of police. But Martinez felt himself floundering after returning home. People encouraged him to leave the city and make a name for himself, so he returned to the University of Michigan for a doctorate in education. It was there, while studying Portuguese, that he discovered a Ford Foundation grant that was sending students on internships in Latin America. After landing a grant, he lived in Brazil for two years, studying the ways in which tradition and modernity affect life in urban and rural cities. He was also taking photographs and playing jazz. Along with another American and three Brazilians, he formed a quintet called Grupo Calmalma de O.Henry 27
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The Creators of N.C. Jazz Livre, and they went on to play a 14-city tour sponsored by the U.S. Embassy. It was after returning to Michigan to complete his Ph. D. that Martinez met Marjorie, the woman who would become his wife of 48 years. After graduating, the couple moved to New York City, where Martinez spent 24 years teaching in the education department at Hunter College, taking students and professors into some of the city’s most challenging schools in order to gain a clear perspective on the profession that he was preparing students to pursue. The experience was fraught with issues of race, class and caste, but coming-of-age in New Orleans assured that he was familiar navigating that terrain. By the early ’90s, Martinez had grown weary of life in New York, and when he was invited to join the faculty in the UNC-Wilmington’s Watson College of Education as a visiting professor, he jumped at the chance. He joined the full-time faculty the following year, spending 20 years as a professor in the Department of Instructional Technology, Foundations and Secondary Education.
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But no matter where he has lived, New Orleans has always been alive in his heart. After all, he is known as Marty Most, Jazz Poet and credited as the first person to put the words “The Big Easy” in print: Have you ever been to an old time jazz man’s funeral in my hometown? Put on your imagination, baby, and come on down To an old time jazz man’s funeral in my hometown. It’s called the Big Easy, way, way down. What’s the biggest difference he sees between Wilmington and the Big Easy? “Wilmington was settled by the British,” he says. “So we have the Azalea Festival. But things would be different if it had been settled by the French.” He leans forward, a smile playing across his face, a light twinkling in his eye. “Because then we’d have Mardi Gras.” OH Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, was released last month.
O.Henry 29
Omnivorous Reader
Weddings and Wit
Learning about love on a deadline By Anne Blythe
If you’re someone who likes to
soak in every detail from The New York Times Vows section — and even if you’re not — Cate Doty just might have a book for you to tuck into your beach bag or snuggle up with beside a late fall or early winter fire. Her first book, Mergers and Acquisitions: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages, published in May, builds on her experiences as a wedding announcement reporter for the Times. She likes that her memoir has been described as a breezy beach read, but it’s much more.
It’s a sprightly written coming-of-age story that gives readers a peek into how the Vows columns and marriage announcements get onto the newspaper’s pages while also revealing a young reporter questioning those traditions and institutions. Don’t expect a tell-all about those couples whose carefully crafted wedding resumes include first dates after a Harvard debate club meeting, or mentions of grandparents or parents with penthouse apartments overlooking Central Park. This is a love story, an account from a witty, self-deprecating author who readily acknowledges the irony of poking fun at people who go to great lengths to get their wedding announcements into the Times, then having the news of her own marriage published there, too. On a hot August morning on the stone steps of Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, Cate Doty — born in Raleigh and raised in Fayetteville — was sitting with her husband, Michael, watching students rush along the campus sidewalks between classes. Nearly two decades ago, Doty was one of those students herself, unsure of the path she would chart from those brick walkways. During freshman orientation, she wandered into the offices of The Daily Tar Heel, a feisty student newspaper that has launched many a storied journalism career. An eventual North Carolina writer began to take shape. Now, she’s back on campus, a published author, teaching in the journalism school and reminiscing about what compelled her to share The Art & Soul of Greensboro
her own wedding story after getting her feet wet writing for The New York Times wedding section. Doty takes her readers on a journey from her student days and a steamy romance on the cusp of adulthood in Chapel Hill to the nation’s capital and then New York, a city that woos its young arrivals while also putting them through their paces. Along the way, she gives glimpses of Fayetteville, the Cumberland County city where she got a taste of the country club life, cotillions and what it was like to live on the edge of privilege in a complicated South while also questioning whether she was one of the advantaged or someone on the outside looking in. There are snippets from Swansboro, where her mother lives now, and peeks inside one of the largest newspapers in the world, where she worked as a researcher, news assistant and eventually editor. Through the trials and tribulations of falling in and out of love while writing wedding announcements, Doty falls head over heels for a city, a profession and a fellow journalist — the same guy sitting with her below the marble columns of Wilson Library. It’s a book that makes you think about the nature of weddings, the institution of marriage, the stories behind the unions, and why anybody needs to read about the floral arrangements, dress designs and guests at the ceremony. “What’s in a wedding announcement? After all, weddings will (and do) happen without one,” Doty writes. “In fact, most American nuptials, successful or not, go unnoticed by news organizations and unannounced, except on social media, and the occasional church bulletin. But the weddings we wrote about for the Times — they were different. They were, generally speaking, wildly expensive — far beyond the average American expenditure of $44,000. But they were more than the sum of their gilded parts. They were mergers of families and bank accounts, of aspirations and hubris. And these announcements were battle plans, and business plans, of class and warfare. They were incredibly difficult to obtain, which meant that they were worth far O.Henry 31
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Omnivorous Reader more than the soy ink they were made of.” Doty transports readers through the Times offices to the desk of the wedding section editor, who quickly opens her eyes even wider to a world of haves and have-nots, and an exclusive club of brides and grooms who can be demanding, difficult, defiant and on occasion downright devoid of decency. The New York Social Register played a part in which of the 200, or more, wedding announcements submitted each week would land in the 40 to 45 available slots that readers of the Times print pages lingered over on Sundays. Lineage back to the Mayflower mattered, as did social and financial connections to Newport, Palm Beach, the Hamptons and the Upper East Side. There’s a revealing story about one senator, “a craven, attention-hungry man,” who slammed down the phone on Doty in outrage as she asked him the same kind of fact-checking questions put to all who expect their nuptial announcements to appear in the Times. Doty, who’s now 42, started writing for the wedding desk in 2004 and did so off and on for six years. The first three seasons she chronicles in her memoir are so descriptive that you can almost hear the phone messages blaring on Monday mornings after an aggrieved newlywed calls to complain about something put in — or left out of — their special announcement. Following the counsel of her legal team, Doty changed the names of editors, colleagues, brides and grooms she worked with and reported on in her book. One name was unchanged, however, that of her husband, Michael. He worked at the Times, too, starting there as a news clerk and ending on the politics desk in 2016 after the primaries and general election. They both took buyouts that year when facing new demands of parenthood and changes at the newspaper. In Doty’s memoir, readers see the confusion she wrestles with after Michael, her friend and lunch partner, invites her to a play in which he’s a character running wild in the bayou on a New York stage, completely naked and covered with mud. “The lighting was artfully done so that you couldn’t see everything, but I saw nearly everything,” Doty wrote. “My face burned The Art & Soul of Greensboro
like lava. It trickled down my neck and my body, and I thought, Well then.” She delivered her blunt critique of the play at lunch, blurting out a question they still playfully debate today, just as they do in the pages of the book. “‘You didn’t tell me you were going to be completely naked,’ I said over my turkey cheeseburger at the Westway. He looked startled, and then angry. ‘Yes, I did,’ he said prickly. ‘I wouldn’t have not told you that.’” They eventually had their first kiss on the steps of the New York Public Library between Patience and Fortitude, the marble lions that flank them. Though it’s a city they’ve left behind for their home in Raleigh where they’re raising their first-grader and their dog, New York still occupies a huge space in their hearts. “We were learning how to be ourselves,” Michael says about the book and the city he describes as a prominent character in it. “We were learning how to be together. We were learning how to live in the city. We were learning how to navigate a career path at the Times together.” They were both Southerners in their City of Dreams, he the child of divorce with a nomadic sense of place, and she from a line of North Carolina women who, among other things, insisted that you don’t put family silver in the dishwasher for fear of damaging the patina. They challenged each other on their traditions and roots. North Carolinians may recognize a bit of themselves in the family and characters that come alive through Doty’s funny, warm and introspective words. They might question why a woman seemingly so critical of wedding announcements and the carefully crafted displays of stations in life that go along with them ends up writing a book about her own wedding story. “I’m not above the fray,” Doty added. “But I also think it’s important, as someone who comes from this background, to talk about it. To poke holes in it.” OH Anne Blythe has been a reporter in North Carolina for more than three decades. She has covered city halls, higher education, the courts, crime, hurricanes, ice storms, droughts, floods, college sports, health care and the wonderful characters who make this state such an interesting place.
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34 O.Henry
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Scuppernong Bookshelf
Spine Tinglers
Our favorite Halloween candy? Books, of course
Compiled by Shannon Purdy Jones
October is finally here, and we’re ready
for jack-o-lanterns, jeans and maybe even a little pumpkin spice. Halloween will bring all things ghoulish and ghastly. Accordingly, we’ve compiled a collection of spine-tingling, gutclenching, shadows-under-the-stairs-creepy new releases. And we’ve got something for everyone: From chainsaw-wielding horror vets to those who just want to watch Practical Magic on repeat for the entire month. No tricks here, just deliciously readable treats that go perfectly with spiced cider. My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (Gallery/ Saga Press, $26.99) Seventeen-year-old outcast Jade Daniels lives in her own world. Half Blackfoot Indian, she was born to an abusive father and an absent mother, and yet she finds solace from an unlikely source: slasher flicks. Jade amuses herself by narrating the quirky history of her town, Proofrock, as if it, too, were a horror movie. But when blood actually begins to spill into the waters
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, predicting exactly how the plot will unfold. Think Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th but with a triumphant twist. The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix (Berkley, $26) In horror movies, the “final girls” are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives . . . but what happens after? Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening and wickedly humorous thriller about six girls in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. From chain-saw massacres to summer camp slayers, this novel pays tribute to some of our favorite horror films — and cleverly subverts them. Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay (William Morrow & Co, $9.99) In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has an incubation period of an hour or less. Hospitals are inundated with the sick and dying while quarantines are put in place. Dr. Ramola “Rams” Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician in her mid-30s, receives a frantic phone call from Natalie, a friend who is eight months pregnant. Having been bitten by the same infected neighbor who bit and killed her husband, the clock is ticking for her and her unborn child. Natalie’s fight for life becomes O.Henry 35
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Scuppernong Bookshelf a desperate odyssey as she and Rams make their way through a hostile and chaotic landscape filled with dangers beyond their worst nightmares. Dream Girl by Laura Lippman (William Morrow, $28.99) Injured after a freak fall, novelist Gerry Andersen is confined to a hospital bed in his glamorous high-rise apartment, dependent on two women he barely knows: his indifferent young assistant, and a dull, slow-witted night nurse. Late one night, the phone rings. The caller claims to be the “real” Aubrey, the alluring but absolutely fictitious title character from his most successful novel, Dream Girl. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry’s life? And why does no one believe that the call even happened? Isolated from the world and drowsy from medication, Gerry slips between reality and a dreamlike state in which he is haunted by his own past. Chilling and compulsively readable, Dream Girl touches on timely issues including power, agency, appropriation and creation. The result is a superb blend of psychological suspense and horror that reveals the mind and soul of a writer. Witch Please by Ann Aguirre (Sourcebooks Casablanca, $15.99) One bisexual virgin baker with a curse? Check. A witch who avoids romantic entanglements at all costs? Check. Enough
chemistry between them to cause literal sparks? Check, check. Danica Waterhouse, co-owner of Fix-It Witches, is a fully modern witch. After a messy breakup that involved way too much family feedback, Danica and her cousin make a pact to keep their romantic affairs hidden from the overly opinionated Waterhouse matriarchs. Three blocks down from Fix-It Witches lives Titus Winnaker, owner of Sugar Daddy’s bakery. Sure, business is sweet, but he can’t seem to shake the romantic curse that’s left him past 30 and still a virgin. He’s decided he’s doomed to be forever alone. That is, until he meets Danica Waterhouse. The sparks are instant, their attraction irresistible. For him, she’s the one. For her, he’s a firebomb thrown into the middle of a family war. Can a modern witch find love with an old-fashioned mundane who refuses to settle for anything less than forever? This adorably witchy rom com is like Practical Magic meets Gilmore Girls. Other notable Halloween reads: Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar (Gallery Books $28); A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers (Unnamed Press, $17); The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (Tor Nightfire, $27.99). OH Shannon Purdy Jones is store manager and children’s book buyer at Scuppernong Books.
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Whispers of Sharon Through her worldly possessions, a sister spills her secrets from beyond the veil
By Cynthia Adams
My nieces had set to work after Christ-
mas, mulling over what to keep, what to press into siblings’ hands and what to donate. My sister Sharon, six years my senior, died suddenly after Thanksgiving. Someone had to empty the wallet, the purse, the closets and drawers — each corner of her life.
A month earlier, I stood before mourners at a funeral home with a frozen smile on my face. Writers are often asked to write obituaries and eulogies for the loved ones of friends. I should have been better at this when it came to my sister. When a beloved boss died, I attempted a funny story about my first week on the job, but I was too anxious and the humor too strained. Mourners tittered politely. A wiser person would have learned from that experience. My nieces had stressed that they wanted an upbeat service. Happy, they said. So there I was, trying to wring humor from sorrow as my elderly mother listened, riven with grief. Her black eyes shone with tears. She, too, would be dead within the year. I talked about my sister’s courage when we were farm kids. She had been a fierce cowgirl, I said, with red boots and dark pigtails that swished as we played Crack the Whip with neighborhood kids. The
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genuinely laughable thing was how little courage I possessed by comparison. When Bessie, our milk cow, stood grinding on Sharon’s foot, did she scream? No, she just ordered me to pull the old cow away. If her horse Mable bucked her, Sharon dusted dirt off her bottom and threw a booted foot back over the saddle. Me? I was prone to dismount in histrionics when my pony twitched at a fly. Not how the Lone Ranger would act, Sharon frowned. Get back on. I was the scrawny one, an instigator of neighborhood kerfuffles. Sharon broke her collar bone defending me in a fight I foolishly started with the neighborhood bully. She lay on a pallet in our room for weeks until the bones knitted back. In the darkness, while I sniffled at ghosts if the winds howled, she would snigger. Now I reluctantly followed my nieces through my sister’s house, so empty our steps echoed. Buck up, I told myself. Gingerly, I touched Sharon’s worldly possessions. I spied our grandmother’s beloved cookie jar and her porcelain tea set, crackled with webs. My cowgirl sister, it turned out, was a hoarder of finery: pale pink crystal, so delicate a tooth could crack the rim. Ornate silver — trays, coffee sets and serving pieces from an era when people entertained in a way Sharon never had. Upstairs, I tiptoed into her inner sanctum. Sharon’s closet was echo empty apart from our great aunt’s monogrammed mink. I gaped. O.Henry 39
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40 O.Henry
Where had she worn that? Then a mass of jewelry. And purses — an astonishing number. My niece opened a drawer. “And this,” she said in a flat voice. “I don’t know what to do about this.” Inside lay a snub-nosed revolver. Sharon, the fearless, kept a revolver? Atop her nightstand: The Happiness Project, the book she was reading before a heart attack sent her to the ER. I peeked at thumbed down pages. On top of a stack of greeting cards was a sympathy card she’d written to someone, unaddressed. “She had a special way that warmed the hearts of everyone who knew her,” Sharon had written in consolation. I took in her words, desperately wanting to know who this last message was intended for, and noting the irony of how they could be applied to my warm-hearted sister. Suddenly, I felt awkward. Intrusive. And very alone after my nieces went their separate ways. My own bedside reading and trove of valuables might yield a few surprises. But no minks. No red cowgirl boots. No pistols. All at once, I was overcome with an aching sense of loss. Rain began to fall and the house seemed to close in on me. Locking the door behind me, emotions I could not name swelled to the surface. Outside, I avoided looking toward the forlorn garbage can, brimming with objects reluctantly discarded. Droplets shimmered in the fading light, almost electric on the leafless trees. I placed two boxes in the trunk of my car — totems of my sister’s life. My grandfather’s broken Philco radio, books, the empty cookie jar (once filled with Dixie cookies from the A&P) and two wigs (one of which I bought Sharon during her fight with cancer). I set off into the cold, accompanied by a Sunday-night dolorous concerto on the radio, pondering unbearable mysteries. Rolling over a neighborhood speed bump, the cookie jar rattled ominously. The sound made me curse and cry at the same time. Get back on, I whispered. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 41
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42 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Food for Thought
Hostess Hacks
Shortcuts for re-emerging entertainers
By Maria Johnson
It’s no surprise that Barbara Part-
PHOTOGRAPH BY LYNN DONOVAN
low — who organizes events for the Greensboro Newcomers Club — ranks as a party pro, given the hundreds of soirees, bashes, showers and get-togethers that she’s hosted over the years.
And when we say she “hosts,” we don’t mean she dials up a caterer and waits for the doorbell to ring while she lolls on a chaise and files her nails — which, by the by, were a kicking shade of green on the day we visited her. We mean she makes most of the food, decorations and favors. Perhaps most important, she emits a playful vibe that sets the table for good times In short, Barbara, who moved to Greensboro three years ago, is the party. She can talk about dang near anything, having been a telephone operator, a pediatric nurse, a cattle rancher, a stained-glass sculptor, a basket weaver and a leather-bound motorcycle mama; she bossed a Honda Shadow 500 if you must know. Oh, and she used to host a Christmas cookie-and-ornament exchange party that was once featured in Southern Living magazine.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Trust us. We cannot make up this kind of life. Once divorced and twice widowed, Barbara is also the mother of two grown sons, both ex-Marines, and one quick-to-lick dachshund, Wee, short for Kenweeken. The pup’s name alludes to how Barbara’s second husband eventually allowed her to get a dog. “Ken weakened,” she says, dissolving into contagious giggles. If you can’t have a good time with this woman, you’d best stay home. With a recent uptick in social dos, especially among the vaccinati, we thought it would be a good time to pick Barbara’s brain for some tried-and-true entertainment pointers. Here are some of her basics: *Figure out the food a couple of weeks ahead of time. If there’s a theme, let the chow reflect it, but don’t go gourmet on everything. “Sometimes, the simplest is the best,” says Barbara, who deals cheese, crackers, fruit and baked hummus with the best of them. “A little shrimp goes a long way,” she adds. Ditto cucumber fans (see recipe below). For meatier chow, she makes big batches ahead of time, freezes manageable portions, then thaws and heats as needed. *Easy on the equipment. Barbara uses white, king-size flat sheets as tablecloths. You can fold them to any size, she says, and jazz them up with runners of inexpensive fabric-store yardage. To O.Henry 43
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* Music? If you must do audio, keep it low. You’re at a party, not a concert. The goal is to get people talking to each other. “The best parties, to me, are when you hear a lot of chatter and a lot of laughter,” she says. Finally, take it easy on yourself if you’re hosting. Set up your serving area beforehand. Clean the house, but don’t go nuts. If you forget something “critical,” shush. Most people won’t know about it, and the ones who do know probably won’t care. “They’re there to have a good time,” Barbara says.
CUCUMBER FANS
A week before your party, take several slices of firm bread, such as wheat or rye, and remove crusts. Cut into 2-inch rounds with a biscuit cutter. Absent a cutter, slice crustless bread into 2-inch squares. Store in a bag. Two days before your gathering, slice a cucumber as thinly as possible. Lay the rounds on paper towels, on a flat dish or pan. Salt lightly. Cover with more paper towels, refrigerate overnight. The next day, spread the bread generously with herbed cheese spread. Barbara likes the Alouette brand. Fetch the cuke rounds. Fold them gently in half, then again into quarters. Stick three or four of the cuke fans, pointed ends first, into the center of the cheese-covered bread. “As they’re sitting there, they’ll unfold,” says Barbara. “They’re visually impressive.” Place the finished fans in a food container, cover with a damp paper towel, seal, refrigerate. The next day, serve at your party. OH
Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Contact her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.
44 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 45
ANTA S FOR SENIORS PROGRAM
This program provides Christmas gifts to older adults throughout Guilford County who participate in Senior Resources of Guilford’s Meals on Wheels, Community Nutrition, Refugee Outreach and Case Assistance Programs.
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Donations of canned foods, toiletry items, puzzle books, blankets, hats, scarves and gloves can be dropped off at Senior Resources of Guilford’s main office at 1401 Benjamin Parkway in Greensboro. Donations will be accepted until December 17th. 1401 Benjamin Parkway Greensboro, NC 27408 336-373-4816 Fax: 336-373-4922
921 Eastchester Dr. Suite 1230 High Point, NC 27262 336-883-3586 Fax: 336-883-3179
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Senior Resources of Guilford is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization eligible to receive tax deductible donations. Your support enables the agency to respond to requests for information and services that will assist seniors to continue to live independently..
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A Friday afternoon miscellany of curated stories, whimsies, curiosities and blithe entertainments
ohenrymag.com/sazerac/ 46 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Batwatch
Going Batty Flying friends of the night
By Susan Campbell
Fall is not only migration time for a large percentage of the bird species found across our state, it’s also when another group of fancy fliers are winging their way southward: bats!
Although we are rarely aware of it, each evening individuals or small groups of these little creatures leave their daytime roosts and, after a short period foraging, move out, headed to warmer — and hence buggier — surroundings for the cooler months. For individuals of certain hardier species, such as red, big brown, hoary and evening bats, central North Carolina may be their winter home. Bats represent one-quarter of all mammal species worldwide. Like us, they give birth to live young. Bats are relatively long-lived mammals and can survive 20 to 30 years in the wild. Of the 17 bat species that occur in North Carolina, three are listed as federally endangered, and one is listed as federally threatened. Bats are primarily nocturnal, though they also forage in the early evening and early morning hours. Although most bats have relatively good eyesight, they primarily use echolocation to navigate and locate prey. Their maneuverability is phenomenal — bats can avoid objects as small as a string in total darkness. Bats mate in the spring or fall and usually produce one pup per year. Many species form maternity colonies in the summer to raise their young, while others are solitary roosters. Some bat species migrate south for the winter, and others find local hibernation areas, called hibernacula. Bats prefer caves or mines for hibernacula, though they have also been known to use buildings and bridges, and they usually return to the same site every year. By educating the public, monitoring populations and protecting bat habitat, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) is working to sustain bat populations in our state. Bats are integral to ecosystems worldwide. Tropical bats disperse large amounts of seed and pollen, enabling plant reproduction and forest regrowth, and are especially important in the pollination of cocoa, mango and the agave plant, which is used The Art & Soul of Greensboro
to produce tequila. North American bats have a major impact on controlling insect populations that are considered agricultural pests. They save the corn industry over $1 billion annually in pest control. A nursing female bat may consume almost her entire body weight in insects in one night. Recently a protein found in vampire bat saliva has been used to develop clot-busting medication to aid stroke victims. Many bat populations in the United States have declined in recent years. Pesticides, persecution, and human disturbance of hibernacula and maternity colonies may have contributed to this decline. Furthermore, an emergent fungal disease called whitenose syndrome (WNS) has killed more than 5.7 million bats since its discovery in New York in 2006. This disease spread to North Carolina in 2011 and continues to spread to new states each winter. It is now found in 30 states. To determine bat distribution and hibernation sites in North Carolina, track the spread of WNS and estimate population trends for certain species, our state biologists conduct intensive monitoring across the state. Through a variety of methods (including mist netting, trapping, banding, acoustic recording, roost monitoring and radio telemetry), NCWRC biologists, in cooperation with several partners, have surveyed and banded thousands of bats in North Carolina. All of this work helps to inform management and, in turn, conservation priorities. There are several things you can do for bats on your property. An ever more popular endeavor is installing a bat box or two. Also plant native plants that attract insects that bats (as well as the birds) eat. It is very important to limit the use of insecticides and herbicides whenever possible. Also avoid disturbing bat hibernation areas and maternity colonies. And you might want to consider joining a conservation organization to remain updated on bat conservation efforts such as Bat Conservation International (www.batcon.org). Last, but not least, educate others regarding the importance of bats and why they are so beneficial. OH Susan Campbell would love to hear from you. Feel free to send questions or wildlife observations to susan@ncaves.com. O.Henry 47
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48 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Wandering Billy
Give Me All Your Candy . . . Or else
By Billy Eye A mask tells us more than a face. — Oscar Wilde
Imagine an all-but-ex-
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ELLEN EASON
tinct Halloween tradition that involves hundreds of unsupervised, masked juveniles. Unleashed like wild beasts into otherwise peaceful neighborhoods in a door-to-door insurgency, roving gangs would coerce acquaintances and strangers alike into forking over loot . . . or else.
Trick-or-treating is a lost art. Let’s face it, this was, essentially, a kid-pro-quo/blackmail scheme. For those poor souls who refused to participate in Junior’s socialist asset forfeiture, the “or else” came in the shank of the evening when packs of older boys would exact revenge on the noncompliant. Wearing shirts (one imagines) as brown as the leaves that crunched beneath their Keds, the herd would pelt dark, uninviting houses with eggs or, worse yet, “kudzu” trees with rolls of toilet paper (the pulpy white remnants lingering in limbs for months). Baby Boomers’ first successful extortion racket. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it? A century ago, Halloween was strictly a family affair with getups made from feed sacks, rags and assorted scraps, faces hidden beneath papier-mâché punkin heads with ghastly disfigurements and horrific skin conditions. This was mostly for photos and fun around the house; when your closest neighbors are miles away, forget about going door-to-door in search of sweets. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
With urbanization in the 1950s came an explosion of mass-produced, cheap Halloween costumes based on TV shows, horror movies and pop culture figures, retailing for around a dollar at Woolworths or over at the Big Bear, aka, “The Friendliest Stores in Town!” From the enterprising folks at Ben Cooper and Collegeville came rows upon rows of molded plastic masks — in vivid colors — with lopsided holes for eyes and lips. Meant to be worn together, included were flimsy vinyl smocks adorned with character names and images of who or what the kids were supposed to resemble (although they rarely did). Those cheap outfits allowed little ones in the 1960s to imagine themselves as Minnie Mouse, Snow White, Bambi, Wolfman, Green Hornet, the creature from the Black Lagoon, Huckleberry Hound, a character from The Munsters, a Raggedy someone, a Ditko-era SpiderMan or whichever Beatle they’d like. As much fun as ringing in those sweet sheaves could be, it was the anonymity the night afforded that thrilled me most, stepping into a new identity if only for a few hours. Consistent with my lazy nature, once I’d outgrown the kiddie costumes I just threw on some of my father’s ill-fitting clothes, dirtied up my face with coal dust and meandered around Latham Park dressed like a bum, my brown paper sack open for an outpouring of Atomic Fireballs, Pixy Stix, BB Bats, Nik-L-Nips, DumDums, Mary Janes, Chick-O-Sticks, Smarties, Lemonheads and, my fave, tiny boxes of Red Hot Imperials (lightly fused together by the humidity). Destined to languish at the bottom of my bag: candy corn, butter-flavored Werther’s and Necco Wafers. Oh how I despised those chalky Neccos! Dear ol’ Dad kinda resented the implication when, the very O.Henry 49
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Wandering Billy next year, I again dressed like a bum from his wardrobe, only this time with a Ben Cooper Nixon mask. That was 1969, my favorite October 31 of all time. Conditions were right that year for a perfect Halloween night. It was a Friday, for one thing, and the streets were illuminated by a waning moon with temperatures in the mid-50s. In an effort supported by the school district, our “woke” elementary students chirped, “Trickor-treat for UNICEF,” and coins clanged into metal containers for the benefit of impoverished children around the world. What I was really looking forward to, after amassing my sugary lucre, was the WSJS (now WXII) Halloween Spooktacular. Host Bob Gordon and the Channel 12 news anchors were made up to represent filmland’s famous monsters, who then formed a roundtable “fright-together” for live segments airing between four of Universal’s greatest noir classics: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy and Son of Frankenstein. Bob Gordon (real name Robert Gordon Van Horn) was the type of all-purpose broadcaster that modern television has no use for any longer, with an uncanny ability to effortlessly fill screen time with no script and no ego. On those boring Saturday and Sunday afternoons from the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s — before live televised sporting events became practical — there was Bob Gordon Theatre on Channel 12, a 4 to 5-hour mish-mash of former primetime sitcoms and dramas, often with a sci-fi bent. Between the reruns with just a table and two chairs for a set, amiable Bob interviewed local oddballs like Clay Kimble, a grown adult comic book collector (such a person existed?!?) who visibly winced when Bob bent the spine on his pristine copy of Captain America No. 1. As for the Spooktacular, the whole idea of a gory orgy with three of the four greatest monster movies of the early talkies era — substitute The Invisible Man for The Mummy and it would be a home run — excited this 13-year-old to no end. Had it ever been done on television or in theaters before? Not around here. I watched until the Spooktacular, along with the station, was ushered off the air by the Star-Spangled Banner around 1 a.m. While my eyes were glued to the tube, teenagers were flocking to the South Drive-In on Highway 29 for a dusk-to-dawn schlock fest featuring I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and Werewolf. Meanwhile, at the Golden Gate (in the likewise named shopping center), $1.50 was the price of admittance for their midnight double feature of The Witch’s Horror and The Living Head. At no additional charge, you could even interact with The Living Head — “Alive for centuries without a body!” — in person. As patrons entered the darkened lobby, ushers handed out free “fright pills” so the weak at heart could handle the terrible suspense. They should have had some of those chill pills on hand at the Carolina Theatre’s late-night screening when skirmishes broke out among the 750 guys and ghouls in attendance. One 19-year-old (you know who you are) was even arrested for “disorderly conduct.” Quelle horreur! (Those of a hipper persuasion were no doubt attending the Jerry The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Volunteer Center of the Triad presents
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NOVEMBER 6TH SATURDAY - 6PM
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O.Henry 51
Wandering Billy
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Butler concert at the Coliseum, where The Delfonics and The Intruders were the opening acts.) Trick-or-treating had grown so popular by 1969 that somehow, sans digital connectivity, kids from miles away knew exactly which houses were handing out full-sized candy bars or rare treats like candied apples. They would arrive by the carload, then vanish like Claude Rains. As parents ran out of treats and raced to the market for more, there were none to be had. That would never happen again. Around 1970, reports of a dubious nature surfaced: razor blades secreted in candy, Ex-lax substituted for chocolate, needles embedded in Wax Lips, Jujubes laced with arsenic. Medical centers began offering to X-ray candy bags for foreign objects. As it turned out, those fears were largely urban myths but became so deeply rooted in Halloween lore that, by the 1980s, parents were accompanying their young ones up to familiar doors, family and friends only, with no chance of Stranger Danger. One could argue that trick-or-treat is just another carefree aspect of American youth that Boomers squandered before screwing it up for everybody else. But I can still enjoy those Universal monster movies on a crisp October night. OH Billy Eye, who wrote a bi-monthly column covering the East L.A. music scene from 1980–83 (the source for his book, PUNK), is OG — Original Greensboro.
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52 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
We would like to thank all of our clients for allowing us the opportunity to help you pursue your financial goals. Seated (left to right): Allen Hammonds, Vice President/Investments; Chip Pegram, First Vice President/Investments. Standing (left to right): Christopher T. Barbee, CFP®, Vice President/Investments; Robert B. Mitchell, Jr., Senior Vice President/Investments; John G. Scott, Jr. CFP®, Senior Vice President/Investments; Jacqueline T. Wieland, AIF®, First Vice President/Investments; Paul A. Vidovich, CFP®, First Vice President/Investments, Branch Manager; Gregory E. Gonzales, Senior Vice President/Investments; Phillip H. Joyce, Vice President/Investments
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O.Henry 53
Showcasing New Residential Construction Saturday & Sunday • October 9-10 & 16-17
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54 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
October 2021
Advice on Nighttime Caregiving Know the bulk of night will be sleepless and embrace it with the weariest part of yourself. Nothing but bitter tea will do, steeped too long as you pour another glass of water another mouth will drink, as you console another crying child who values sleep on different terms, as you — deep in the black hour when familiar constellations wend into a strange topography — walk the dog who will thank you without language: she who eats white clover by night, sniffling through dark grass sweetened with dew. Now sleep or wake — let go of what you hold. The untouched tea is as cool as morning.
— Benjamin Cutler
Benjamin Cutler is the recipient of the Susan Laughter Meyers Poets Fellowship and the author of The Geese Who Might be Gods.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 55
Folks at Bar S Ranch.
56 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A Nude Attitude After lockdown, the instinct to bare all is on the rise By Billy Warden Photographs by Bryan Regan
O.Henry 57
D
wayne drives an 18-wheeler, often clad in nothing but his tattoos. “I slip off my shirt and shorts and go — but only at night,” he says. As we speak, he’s soaking up the sun sans shirt, shorts or anything else in a meadow near a busy patio pool. Nearby, folks hula hoop, au naturel. Dwayne describes himself as a devout churchgoer and former sheriff’s deputy turned long-haul trucker. He’s also a naturist, which is readily apparent. For the uninitiated, “naturist” is the preferred term for folks who enjoy the feel of a breeze without the intrusion of fabric, who like to bare all with, as the International Naturist Federation puts it, “the intention of encouraging self-respect, respect for others and for the environment.” Dwayne and his wife live in the mountains, but like nudists from all over the state — including a relatively recent surge from the Triangle and Triad — he’s a frequent visitor to the Bar S Ranch, a sprawling naturist resort tucked in the hills outside Reidsville. And while Dwayne’s non-textiled appearance this Saturday afternoon might shock some, the reason behind it will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with a common 21st century prescription: self-care. “In law enforcement, a lot of what I saw broke my heart. I’d come home and take off my clothes and just shed the world away,” he recounts. “Shed all my stress.” A similar impulse seemingly tied to the stresses of COVID-19 produced surging interest in nudism here and abroad. The Wall Street Journal, Vox and The Telegram all reported on the spike. In August 2020, Forbes declared that “nudism has become a thing.” Lynn, the no-nonsense manager at the Bar S Ranch, reports that
58 O.Henry
since 2014, membership has leapt by 150%. The rustic resort’s 26 cabins are rented year-round. Fueling much of the growth are people from Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem and Greensboro. “They’re some of our biggest population centers for members now,” says Lynn. “We get doctors, lawyers, teachers.” But after word goes out that a reporting team from the capital city would visit over the weekend, no Raleigh members show up. Coincidence? Or avoidance? Which raises a question: in an era that embraces exposure via social media and dating apps, that celebrates all sorts of things that used to be unacceptable, what is so taboo about being nude? Naturist resorts aren’t the only option for getting together in the all-together. Triangle Area Naturists (T.A.N.) has been hosting clothing-optional house parties since the mid-1980s. Longtime member Jay Shapiro, one of the few naturists who shared a last name, reports that during the pandemic, T.A.N. picked up 34 new members. “My theory,” he proposes in a radio-smooth baritone, “is that people have been staying home, not having to get dressed. Maybe they’re not wearing anything. And they think, this is nice. Plus, they like not doing laundry as much.” At T.A.N.’s first post-pandemic potluck in May, the great undraped mingle in the sunken living room and on the back deck (complete with a shielding wall of tall plants) of Jay’s modernist North Raleigh home. Asked to describe the allure of reveling in the raw, the 30 or so guests pop off the words “freedom” and “honesty” like fireworks at a Fourth of July bash. DiDi, unclad from the waist up, chalks up her interest in nudism to an American classic, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. “When I was eight, I read the chapter where Tom and Huck go skinny dipping The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“My theory is that people have been staying home, not having to get dressed. Maybe they’re not wearing anything. And they think, this is nice. Plus, they like not doing laundry as much.” — Jay Shapiro
T.A.N. member Jay Shapiro in his modernist home The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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This page: Attendees at the T.A.N. meeting. Opposite page: Scenes from Bar S Ranch.
and I thought, I want to do that!” she says. Growing up in a straightlaced home, DiDi didn’t get around to it until she graduated from Duke University and discovered a clothesfree swimming hole in Bahama, just north of Durham. “There were people without clothes in the water, on the rocks, under the trees,” she says. “I was struck by how natural it was; so free.” Visiting T.A.N. from Greenville, Kumar pipes up: “I like the positive auras and the friendly vibes. Also, the equality.” “When everyone is nude,” agrees Jason from Greensboro, “you don’t know if you’re talking to a banker or a janitor.” While class distinctions might vanish with the clothes, the parade of human shapes is eye popping. But once you see a whole brigade of bare bodies, you get comfortable with the full range of our physiques — much wider than what you see on cable. The pressure-free mood is “so good for your self-esteem,” says Jill, brushing aside auburn tresses, as if Lady Godiva had dismounted her steed in a suburban kitchen. Jill “grew up a prude” in a conservative house in a small town where the rules were “what dad said” and “the neighbors were always talking about each other.” “Life is hard; being nude helps,” she sighs. “This is freeing.” Yet, Jill doesn’t feel free enough to share news of her remedy for life’s jagged edges with her family. “I have grandkids,” she explains. And while she has no plans to go birthday suit-ing around them, she’s terrified the kids’ parents might get the wrong idea and end
their visits. The wrong idea has nothing to do with freedom or equality. Those things are as American as a bald (or otherwise undressed) eagle. Rather, nudists say, they’re bedeviled by the misguided buzz that their real preoccupation is, ahem, the birds and the bees. Whatever brings each naturist to shed clothes and convention, it is NOT, they say, the promise of sex. This is very nearly a mantra, from T.A.N. to the Bar S Ranch. Relaxing poolside at the resort, John, aka blogger “The Bearded Beerman,” declares, “There are no sexual undertones. There are no pretenses in the way here. You can’t be anything other than what you really are when you’re naked.” Sitting 4 feet away, and also starkers, I take John’s point. For this story, T.A.N. and the ranch have required that the reporting team be, as Jay Shapiro put it, “fully immersed in the experience of enjoying the company of other unwrapped humans.” Oh, we’re “fully immersed” all right — but is the experience “enjoyable”? I’ll attest that, initially, strolling completely exposed into an unfamiliar living room or hula hooping party is startling, even alarming. Within a quarter hour, though, the internal alarm bells ceased their shrieking and my raised eyebrows eased back down to their usual position. Having grown up on swim teams and being a die-hard gym rat myself, this is not all that different from being in a locker room — ex-
“When everyone is nude, you don’t know if you’re talking to a banker or a janitor.” — Jason
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cept with no tan lines and lots of members of the opposite sex, one of whom resembles my Aunt Loraine. The atmosphere is laid back; ULTRA-casual, you might say. Nothing like the charged air of a nightclub floating in flattering fabrics and flashing jewelry. The exposure reveals how vulnerable we all are. My bare foot lands in prickers. During an interview, I battle an exceedingly inappropriate mosquito brazenly buzzing near my inner thigh while a bubbly teacher from Winston-Salem gingerly shoos another one from my forehead. The teacher’s husband, eyes shaded by a Crocodile Dundee hat, is explaining why he wants to keep even their first names on the down low. Despite the world’s seismic shifts in what’s acceptable, “this is still the South,” he says, “still the Bible Belt.” Dwayne, the naked trucker and avid churchgoer, has a retort for that. Spreading his arms on a deck overlooking the pond (unfortunately inhabited by snapping turtles), he posits: “Did God not create Adam and Eve this way — and say it was good?” Then, hearing the splashing of a volleyball game in the nearby pool, he streaks off with a merry, “Oh, shoot! I gotta get in there.” OH Billy Warden is a Raleigh-based writer and producer as well as the lead singer of the alt-glam band The Floating Children. He is also the co-founder of the strategic communications firm GBW Strategies. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Georgia O’Keeffe, Cedar Tree with Lavender Hills (1937), promised gift of Barbara B. Millhouse. © 2021 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Georgia O’Keeffe and Friends A new exhibit welcomes a modernist master By Jim Moriarty
T
he Reynolda House Museum of American Art is throwing a welcoming party for a particularly interesting work by Georgia O’Keeffe, the renowned 20th century American modernist. The celebration, housed in two rooms, began on September 10 and continues until March 6. As if to make the iconic painter of flowers and skulls feel at home in her new home, she is accompanied by old friends, the artists she appeared alongside in famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s series of Manhattan galleries — 291, An Intimate Gallery and An American Place — and the ones she chose to surround herself with during the rest of her life in an exhibition titled “The O’Keeffe Circle: Artist as Gallerist and Collector.” “We wanted to welcome the painting to Reynolda with a splash,” says Phil Archer, the museum’s deputy director. The work, a promised gift from Barbara Babcock Millhouse, the founding president of the museum and its primary donor, is Cedar Tree with Lavender Hills, one of O’Keeffe’s works depicting her beloved New Mexico landscape, first exhibited at An American Place in 1937 and purchased by Millhouse 40 years later. “I have O’Keeffe’s letter to her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, about doing that painting,” says Archer. “She says, ‘I can set it by the window and when I look at the painting and I look out the window, I have actually captured the way my world looks.’” The painting will appear alongside another O’Keeffe work already in the museum’s collection, Pond in the Woods, Lake George. “It’s great for Reynolda because we’ll now have a painting from each of O’Keeffe’s main loci of inspiration,” says Archer. O’Keeffe is surrounded by a brace of her contemporaries, including John Marin, Arthur Dove, Alfred Maurer, Marsden Hartley, Max Weber, Abraham Walkowitz and Charles Demuth, a flock of artists more often described as the Stieglitz Circle but who are recognized here for their effect on, friendships with and passion for O’Keeffe. “Stieglitz was always declaiming who was the next artist and why people should appreciate them,” says Archer. “The exhibit is kind of a pocket-sized pantheon of the great, early moderns. They’ve all drunk from the well of French modernism. They’ve all read Kandinsky about the spiritual potential of art and abstraction. There’s this kind of reckoning. What will Americans make of the new artistic world in the teens and twenties? That’s what Stieglitz was calling for — what will modernism mean for us?” And, in Stieglitz’s mind, the abstract movement went hand-in-glove The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Abraham Walkowitz, Isadora Duncan (1916), colored crayon, watercolor, ink and graphite on paper, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hirshhorn in honor of Nancy Susan Reynolds O.Henry 63
John Marin, Downtown, New York, c. 1925, watercolor and graphite on paper mounted to board, Gift of Betsy Main Babcock, 1966.2.1 © 2021 Estate of John Marin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Max Weber, The Dancers (1948), oil on canvas, Gift of Dorothy F. and Maynard J. Weber, Reynolda House Museum of American Art with the elevation of photography as an art form all its own. Demuth was not originally in the Stieglitz stable, but in 1921, when he became “one of us,” as O’Keeffe described him, she enjoyed his company immensely. A friend of the poet William Carlos Williams, he was elegant and urbane, a gay artist with a lively sense of humor but frail health. Though he turned to oils later in his life, he was best known as a lively watercolorist. As a mark of his friendship with O’Keeffe, when he passed away in 1935, he left all his oil paintings to her. Marin was introduced to Stieglitz by his friend and fellow photographer Edward Steichen and became enough of a commercial success to buy his own small island in Maine, where he lived during the summer. O’Keeffe admired his work, including a blue crayon abstract drawing. In Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life, Roxana Robinson writes, “Its intimate scale and its clear aesthetic independence made it suddenly accessible to O’Keeffe: conceptually, this was very close to her own work. It occurred to her that if Marin could make a living selling this eccentric expression of a private aesthetic vision, then she might be able to do the same.” He was close enough to both Stieglitz and O’Keeffe to be a witness at their 1924 wedding. O’Keeffe’s first exposure to Dove at 291 was his painting Leaf Forms. After returning from Europe in 1909, Dove spent weeks camping alone in the woods. His abstract paintings “found a strong echo in Georgia’s developing aesthetic philosophy,” writes Robinson. “Dove’s work validated her own inclinations . . . she sensed the deep affinity between them.” Dove was equally enamored. “That girl is doing without effort what all we moderns have been trying to do,” he said to the The Art & Soul of Greensboro
poet Jean Toomer. Walkowitz worked so closely with Stieglitz at 291 that in 1912 and again in 1914 Stieglitz exhibited the work of the children Walkowitz was teaching in a Lower East Side settlement house. In this exhibit, Walkowitz is represented by one of his 5000-plus drawings of Isadora Duncan. “She had no laws. She did not dance according to the rules. She created,” Walkowitz said — words that he could have applied to O’Keeffe just as readily. Paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Paul Cézanne, and Auguste Rodin’s drawings were first shown in America at 291. Marin and Maurer appeared on their heels. Maurer, like O’Keeffe, had studied with William Merritt Chase. Maurer’s father created Currier and Ives lithographs and never approved of his son’s modernist leanings. Shortly after his father passed away at the age of 100, Maurer committed suicide. The mercurial Weber was responsible for Henri Rousseau’s first U.S. exhibit, and he helped introduce cubism to America, a thankless task in 1911. According to the art historian Milton Brown, he was rewarded with “one of the most merciless critical whippings that any artist has received in America.” And it was an exhibition of Hartley’s work that first brought O’Keeffe to the 291 gallery where she met Stieglitz. Soon they would be lovers. Though the works linked to O’Keeffe as a collector, or perhaps appreciator, in the exhibit are not the precise pieces she held in her collection, they are representative of those that were and of the relationships she enjoyed. Among the latter is her abiding friendship with Ansel Adams, who is represented by one of his prints of Yosemite Valley, a place O’Keeffe and Adams visited together. In a letter to Stieglitz, Adams wrote, O.Henry 65
Alfred Henry Maurer, Landscape: Provence (circa 1916), oil on paper, mounted on board, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Gift of Emily and Milton Rose
“O’Keeffe is supremely happy and painting, as usual, supremely swell things. When she goes out riding with a blue shirt, black vest and black hat, she scampers around against the thunder clouds — I tell you, it’s something.” The exhibit includes a photograph of Adams and O’Keeffe taken by Adams’ assistant, Alan Ross. “Ansel Adams was the first professional photographer to capture her on camera and then in 1981, close to both of their deaths, she went back to Carmel, California, and, as she’s setting up, she’s sort of smiling, his assistant took a quick snapshot,” says Archer. Also included in this section of the exhibit is an Akari paper lantern by Isamu Noguchi similar to the one O’Keeffe alternately hung over her dining room table or her bed in her house in Abiquiu, New Mexico. There is a mobile by Alexander Calder — who designed the OK pin O’Keeffe wears in countless photos — that is analogous to the one O’Keeffe hung in her New Mexico home. A triptych of snow scenes done in the 1850s by Utagawa Hiroshige is also included as an homage to a similar threesome of Hiroshige woodblock prints from the same period that lived on the wall in O’Keeffe’s New Mexico home and are now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And, naturally, there is a Stieglitz print, one of his most famous, also a snow scene. “I suddenly saw the Flatiron Building as I had never seen it before,” Stieglitz said. “It looked, from where I stood, as if it were moving toward me like the bow of a monster ocean steamer, a picture of the new America which was in the making.” This intimate exhibition does not pretend to be, nor was it intended to be, an O’Keeffe retrospective. It does not deal with her complicated relationship with Stieglitz — who never ceased to promote O’Keeffe’s work — their lengthy affair before his divorce, their
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subsequent marriage and, later, his affair with his gallery director, Dorothy Norman. It doesn’t delve into her mental and physical breakdowns in the ’30s nor does it touch on the sexuality, male and female, that is often ascribed to O’Keeffe’s work and which she steadfastly refused to acknowledge. Like Stieglitz’s photo of the Flatiron Building, O’Keeffe saw grandeur in her subjects. “She wanted the small things in nature that she loved to be just as impressive as the new trains and new planes,” says Archer, “to stop you in your tracks like you were looking at a skyscraper.” The tightly knit exhibit, like the Ross photo, is a snapshot of the artist. “I hope people will leave with a fuller image of O’Keeffe’s engagement with the art of her time,” says Archer. “She developed a persona — helped by Stieglitz — of the remote, contemplative, detached doyenne of the desert. But she was keenly interested in her contemporaries’ work and unstinting with both praise and criticism.” OH Jim Moriarty is the editor of PineStraw magazine in Southern Pines. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Alfred Stieglitz, The Flatiron (1903), photogravure on tissue, courtesy of a private collection The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The
Witching Hour Tanger Center’s first Broadway show, Wicked, is here
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOAN MARCUS
By Maria Johnson
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOAN MARCUS
P The Art & Soul of Greensboro
arents, be careful about the music you play in your car. Eighteen years ago, when Allison Bailey was 11, she was riding around with her mom in Pensacola, Florida, listening to the cast recording of a brand-new Broadway musical called Wicked, the backstory of the witches in The Wizard of Oz. “This is what I want to do,” young Allison announced over the songs. “Maybe the show will still be around when I’m old enough to do it.” (Wave wand, sprinkle glitter, cue swooshing music.) This month, Bailey will play Glinda, the good witch, when a touring production of Wicked becomes the first Broadway show to take the stage at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts in Greensboro. The much-loved story, which is the second highest-grossing Broadway show behind only The Lion King, is scheduled to open October 6. “I’m so excited to be a part of this special day for the city,” Bailey says from Dallas, where the road-tested show resumed in August after a 16-month hiatus brought on by COVID. After a stop in Charlotte, the production will land in the Gate City and stay until October 24. “I know it’ll be magical,” says Bailey, true to the spirit of her character. “It’s wonderful to see an audience again. It feels like home.” Coming back from an extended break, Bailey admits that her costumes felt a little heavier and her heels lifted her a little higher than she remembered (her princess-like gown weighs about 25 pounds), but a pandemic fitness routine helped her stay stage-ready while she weathered the shutdown with her family in Pensacola. She bought a Peloton bicycle and walked the family’s poodle twice a day. She continued voice lessons, via FaceTime, with her teacher in New York City. She also hopped on Zoom with her own private students to help them polish audition material. She started online coaching during COVID; before, she taught in-person, in cities where the production took her. Often, mornings found her in dance studios, community theaters and high schools. “It was great to be able to meet the local people,” she says. Not that long ago, Bailey was one of those local youngsters, dreaming of big stages. There was no history of theater in her family. Her mom was a nurse for a major O.Henry 71
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this time with wicked good news: Bailey would hit the road as Glinda, a role she owned for six months until COVID arrived. Now, she’s back in the bubble — the mechanical bubble that lowers Glinda to the stage in her grand entrance, beginning a long flashback that sheds light on how the witches came to be who they are. Young Glinda is blithely clueless as a student at Shiz University where she first meets Elphaba, the bookish and idealistic green girl whom the world will later know as The Wicked Witch of the West. They come to loathe each other in comical and heart-rending ways. “I think everyone can sort of see themselves between both of the female characters,” says Bailey. “I think that everyone has felt like Elphaba at some point, lonely and isolated. Some have experienced bullying. For Glinda, she’s so shallow and self-centered, and everything is on a surface level. She learns so many hard lessons along the way, and I think we’ve all done that.” Bailey — who will turn 30 on October 21, while she’s in Greensboro — was quick to confirm that she’s good friends with Talia Suskauer, who plays Elphaba in the traveling show. “We hit it off in the beginning,” Bailey says. “I probably text her 20 times a day. No joke.” OH For more information and to snag tickets, visit tangercenter.com. Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOAN MARCUS
insurance company; her dad was a wine-and-spirits distributor; her brother grew up to be a pharmacist. Bailey wanted a higher profile. She was not long out of first grade when she landed her first role: an orphan in Oliver. “I had absolutely no lines,” she recalls. “I was just happy to be on stage and have an audience and lights.” She did musical theater throughout high school, supplementing it with other activities that required an audience: “I did debate. I was a huge mock trial nerd. We won state.” During her years at the Boston Conservatory, she appeared mostly as an ensemble player, singing and dancing in the background of various shows. “I think that prepared me,” she says. “It’s about being a team player.” She joined the Wicked touring ensemble in 2015 and became an understudy to the good witch. Her big break came unexpectedly in 2019. Her family was vacationing in Zion National Park when her agent called. Could she send an audition tape for the co-starring role in Wicked if he sent pre-recorded music? “I said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Bailey recalls. She sang in a hotel room while her mother recorded the numbers with a cell phone. They’d just gotten back to Pensacola when her agent called again,
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His Father’s Son Learning large lessons from a small cabin By Cynthia Adams • Photographs by Amy Freeman
“I
n my dad’s mind, this cabin is a rustic refuge in the woods,” says Triad architect Michael Clapp. But he recalls how his father, Larry Clapp, skeptical about Modern architecture, “was scared I’d drop a glass-clad box in the woods and say, ‘there’s your cabin.’” Larry was adamant: “I don’t want huge walls of glass.” But in the end, Daddy got exactly what he’d hoped for. An organic place, blending into nature. Understated. Rugged. Handsome. With a simple, wooden and stone-accented exterior in an untouched, heavily-wooded plot on the family farm near Whitsett, the cabin is small — 745 square feet. But it looms large to both father and son as a legacy project that ended up connecting three generations, all the way back to Michael’s grandfather and beyond. The Clapps, after all, settled in this area in the 1700s from Pennsylvania. Well before he began practicing architecture in 2007, Michael and his father, Larry Clapp, owner of the ad agency Austen, Li & Clapp Inc., had been talking about building a cabin. “Dad had been thinking about this for years, maybe decades. I would say we really got serious in 2012, 2013.” Michael, whose converted barn residence was featured in O.Henry in March of 2019, heard his father’s request about walls of windows. But no architect wants a cabin to seem dark and depressing. The challenge, of course, was accommodating natural lighting. “Light changes in the winter, when the leaves drop,” says Michael, who has a Bachelor’s in Architecture, summa cum laude, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a Master’s of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design. The building, he felt, must respond to the seasons, cool and dark in the heat of summer, and light and bright in the winter. After the cabin was strategically situated (more about that in a minute), the windows and glass were carefully placed — without creating the stark glass cube Larry Clapp feared. Initially, Michael said his father thought the windows were huge. But over time he realized they were correctly scaled to accommodate the roof’s deep overhang and tree cover. And so it was that father and son engaged in a process involving discussions, drawings, construction plans and, most of all, give-and-take. “It really was collaborative,” Michael says. A gravel drive winds through the woods to the cabin that slowly emerges into view. A front porch of stone and timber creates a soaring entranceway. Though small, the cabin is neither a kit house nor a log cabin. The open concept with only one bedroom and bath is done so deftly that the size is misleading. “The intention was to be efficient with space,” he says, “not so much to be small.” It has a cathedral-like expansiveness that pulls the eye straight through from the front door to the view beyond. Which brings us to another session of back-and-forth. A pond behind the cabin had been built 20 years earlier, where the family has long enjoyed kayaking, swimming and fishing. “There’s a beautiful stream that runs nearby and feeds the pond,” Michael says. The stream, the pond, the terrain — all needed to be taken into account when siting the cabin. When it was time to survey the space before breaking ground, Michael studied the space intensely, thinking of the access and path beyond to the pond. He was pleased with what he saw — except for one lone beech tree that, to him, threw things off. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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His father said, no way. That tree has to stay. “Over the years, my understanding has shifted,” says Michael just a touch ruefully. “I thought it [the cabin design] didn’t work if it was off its axis. But it was more successful if it accommodated nature.” “It is a beautiful beech tree,” he concedes. And the orientation of the cabin is fine: “There’s no denying, when you are in this place, you are in nature.” Standing outside on the shade-dappled porch at the back of the cabin, Michael excitedly points out the way the cabin is spatially sited on the forest floor, with an axis running through the structure. The siting of the house, Michael explains, was always vital. The sight line of what lay beyond the entry of the house was as significant as the cabin itself. His father agrees that the cabin is secondary to its surroundings: “It was always more of a vision of the surroundings than of an actual structure,” Larry Clapp says. “It was a labor of love that slowly started shaping a vision of being one with the environment.” For years, he says, “I would spend every free moment in the middle of 25 heavily wooded acres, clearing underbrush with nothing more than hand tools and a chain saw. It was an escape from the pace and stress of the advertising world.” His son honored that in his design. All important, he says, is the axis running all the way through the structure, and how the details, including the interior, flowed from that original intention. Trim details, for instance, like a beam and a steel lintel in the fireplace, were designed to reinforce that linear swath, serving like an arrow. This directs the eye through the cabin toward an exterior path that Larry
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had created that extends down to the pond beyond the cabin. But does the average person notice these details? Michael gets this question a lot. He explains that he envisions architecture as providing layers of meaning. Whether a visitor realizes it or not, they perceive design techniques that help define a space and absorb the space’s proportions. And unconsciously, he says softly, they intuit “This just feels right.” Michae’s credentials are impressive — “Smee Busby Architects [Knoxville] in ’07/’08, HGA Arhitektuur in Tallinn, Estonia, in 2008 while in school, then PNP Design Group in Greensboro, Duda/ Paine Architects in Durham between undergrad and grad.” But what he learned working hand-and-glove with his father were lessons that weren’t taught at Tennessee or at Harvard. Again, that word: “it was collaborative.” Then, “humbling.” “Conversations were important so my father didn’t feel I was taking the project and running with it,” he recalls. “I had to learn how to listen, and not just to words — but the emotions for the space, and his ambitions for it.” Their conversations were freighted with meaning. The process provided Michael a valuable tool, a chance to learn the vital give-and-take of client relations. Father and son communicated long distance after Michael left for Massachusetts. “I started producing the conceptual designs, then construction drawings in 2013 — moving into 2014. Construction started right when I left for grad school in October 2015. I was 31, older than many in my class. I was the old guy at Harvard College,” Michael grins. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Calls flew back and forth between Whitsett and Cambridge. Larry sent Michael images as the build progressed. Michael first visited the emerging cabin in 2015 at Thanksgiving — his first trip home from Cambridge in months. “It was so exciting to see it coming out of the ground.” “With very few adjustments we agreed on the plans for my cabin in the woods,” Larry recalls. All important, says Michael, was that “He had a clear vision of what he wanted it to be.” Now, Larry says, he’s quite pleased with his rustic cabin, though he adds, “The cabin is much more sophisticated than I ever imagined.” Still, “it fits into the surrounding environment seamlessly and provides the solitude I desire. It is very comfortable and virtually maintenance free.” Burlington builder Brian Alcorn was adamant about quality, Larry says. “The cabin was constructed by a superior craftsman very rare these days.” The place is still evolving six years on. Larry continues to work on the interior and exterior. Standing in the late summer light filtering through the windows that are just the right size, Michael points out the finishes his father recently added to the cabinets and walls. “The walls have a textured, faux-painting technique he felt was appropriate. The railings for the loft recently went in six months ago.” There is also a new rolling library ladder that accesses the loft. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Work on the outside fire pit has begun, the footing already poured. A new coffee/beverage station has been created. More cabinetry is underway. A barn door has been added on the front of the house, concealing a utility area. Michael has come up with a name for the cabin: “My Father’s Son.” Though it’s a tad bit eccentric, he is obviously pleased with it and is quick to point out that the “Son” does NOT refer to him — or the “Father” necessarily to Larry. When he named the cabin, Michael was thinking of his grandfather, Pa Paw, and how Michael’s dad has developed the same sort of gentle personality his own dad possessed, with similar mannerisms — which Michael values and emulates. The cabin and its name have come to personify for him the father/son relationship and how social skills and strengths are passed from one generation to the next, just as he learned through this small cabin enormous lessons in the gentle art of communication and compromise. “It’s hard not to be married to a point of view,” Michael says, standing outside where the new fire pit is emerging, reflecting on the spared beech tree that he has come to cherish. In the end, however, the little cabin his father now enjoys has become a metaphor for him about listening — and learning — and fatherly love. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O. Henry. O.Henry 79
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A L M A N A C
October By Ashley Wahl
O
ctober is the language of crows: playful, dark and mysterious. On a crisp, gray morning, swirls of golden leaves dance round like Sufi mystics and a plump squirrel quietly munches seeds beneath the swinging feeder. The air feels charged — electric — and from the silver abyss, a crow caws five times, the staccato rhythm stabbing the ether like a haunting, dissonant chord. Caw. Caw. Caw. Caw. Caw. In the crooked branches of a distant tree, a council of crows rattles back and forth as if casting their clicks and grumbles into an invisible cauldron. Their crude chatter grows louder and increasingly harsh, escalating until it reaches a roiling cackle. The coven has spoken. One by one, the black birds take wing, flashing across the sky in glorious and raucous splendor. Below, asters spell out messages on the leaf-littered lawn. Only the crows can read them. And when they chant the words aloud — their many raspy voices one — you are equal parts delighted and disturbed. Ca-caw! Ca-caw! A single crow descends upon the wrought iron fence, pivots round in three slow circles, then cocks its head in silence. The squirrel has scurried off. A flurry of leaves jumps as if spooked by wind. The crow tilts back its head and lets out three chilling squawks. Trick-or-treat?
There is a bird who by his coat, And by the hoarseness of his note, Might be supposed a crow.
Let’s Grow Together
Everyone who’s tried to grow them knows: Tulips are deer candy. But if you haven’t tried planting them alongside grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) — deer and rabbits don’t like them — there is hope for your spring garden yet. The ideal companion for tulips (and daffodils, which said critters also avoid), grape hyacinths protect and complement this bright and showy bloomer. Think about it: waves of vibrant purple flush against rows of red, orange and yellow blossoms. The treasure is the rainbow itself. Come spring, the deer can admire it from afar. And you, the deer. But it’s time to plant the bulbs now.
Autumnal Brew
The full Hunter’s Moon rises on Wednesday, October 20. Autumn has settled in. As you begin to do the same, here’s an herbal tea redolent with spices that could rid you forevermore of your pumpkin-spiced neurosis.
Star Anise Tea Ingredients: 1 cup water 1 bag green or black tea 2 pods star anise 1 stick cinnamon Honey or agave to sweeten (optional) To brew a cup, bring water to a boil. In a favorite mug, pour hot water over tea bag, star anise and cinnamon stick. Let steep for five minutes. Add sweetener or not. Enjoy the glory of autumn sip by sip. OH
— William Cowper The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
October 2021
Woods of Terror
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Fall Farm Fest
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1–31
Although conscientious effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, all events are subject to change and errors can occur! Please call to verify times, costs, status and location before planning or attending an event.
October 1–31 WOODS OF TERROR. Greensboro’s haunted thrill park features ten different spooky attractions. Tickets: $30–60. 5601 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: woodsofterror.com. SPOOKYWOODS. Voted the “scariest haunted attraction” in North Carolina, this year features new sets and the first train ride of its kind, The Sudden Death Express, plus escape rooms, axe throwing and a nighttime zip-line tour. Tickets: Info: spookywoods.com. TWEETSIE GHOST TRAIN. Ride the Ghost Train Halloween Festival at Tweetsie Railroad every Friday and Saturday evening. Advance tickets required. 300 Tweetsie Railroad Lane, Blowing Rock. Info: tweetsie. com. NIGHTMARES AROUND ELM STREET. Join tour guides for a 90-minute candle-lit stroll through Greensboro featuring stories of local history and haunts. Tickets: $15/adults. Discounts for children. Reservations required. Melvin Municipal Building, 300 W. Washington St., Greensboro. Info: carolinahistoryandhaunts.com. PUMPKIN FEST. Each weekend is a chance to indulge in everything you love about fall: crisp weather, The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Trunk or Treat
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pumpkins and hayrides, petting zoos and more! Tickets: $12; reservations required. McLaurin Farms, 5601 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: mclaurinfarms.com.
October 1 WASTE-LESS LIVING. Noon–1 p.m. Masey DeMoss, waste reduction and recycling educator, teaches participants how to take low-waste living to the next level. Free; registration required. Kathleen Clay Library, 1420 Price Park Rd., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. DRUM ROLL, PLEASE! 6:30–9:30 p.m. Join Healing Earth Rhythms for a community drum circle every first Friday of the month. No drum? No problem! Free. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Food truck line-up and info: greensborodowntownparks.org/ calendar MARVEL MOVIE NIGHT. 7:30 p.m. Bring a blanket and get cozy under the stars as you enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy on the farm, with Ghassan’s Food Truck, plus popcorn and refreshments available (no outside food or beverage). Tickets: $30–45. Summerfield Farms, 3203 Pleasant Ridge Rd., Summerfield. Info: summerfieldfarms.com/events. SEVEN MASTERS. 4 p.m. The How Do I Look series features UNCG faculty members James Anderson (History) and Chiaki Takagi (Japanese and Asian Studies) discussing 20th-century Japanese Woodblock Prints. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: weatherspoonart.org.
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ELSEWHERE RESIDENTS. 6–9 p.m. Meet artistsin-residence and discover what they’ve been up to. The group opening features new installations, live performances and a celebration of completed projects. Suggested donation: $5. Elsewhere Museum, 606 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: elsewheremuseum.org.
October 1–2 SCANDALICIOUS. Enjoy the British five-act “comedy of manners” School for Scandal. Free; tickets required. Gail Brower Huggins Performance Center, Odell Place, Greensboro. Info: greensboro.edu/theatre.
October 1–10 CAROLINA CLASSIC. The Carolina (formerly Dixie) Classic Fair is back featuring new rides and all of your favorite foods along with music, spectacles and competitions. Advance adult tickets: $8; $10 otherwise. 2825 University Parkway, Winston-Salem. Info: carolinaclassicfair.com.
October 2 STOP, DROP, AND ROLL 5K. 9 a.m. Proceeds from race registration benefit the N.C. Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Registration: $10/fun run; $25/race. Summerfield Fire Department, 7400 Summerfield Rd., Summerfield. Info: runsignup.com/race/nc/ summerfield/stopdropandroll5k. VIEWPOINTS. 10 a.m.–1 p.m. An Actor Awareness & Discovery through Movement class for adults and
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shops • service • food • farms Calendar high school students seeking to build ensemble and individual performance skills. Tuition: $38. LTWS Classroom, 419 N. Spruce St., Winston-Salem. Info: ltofws.org.
HALLOWEEN READY. 1–4 p.m. In a three-hour costume design workshop, children ages 12–18 explore costume design and create a Halloween mask or hat. Tuition: $45. LTWS Workshop, 2900 Indiana Ave., Winston-Salem. Info: ltofws.org. TWENTY FOR TWENTY. 1–6 p.m. Celebrate 20 years of day-health-program services for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities with food trucks, live music and activities. Free admission; donations accepted. 501 S. Mendenhall St., Greensboro. Info: www.aftergateway.org LIVING LEGENDZ. 7 p.m. The Feed the Streetz Tour features Rick Ross, Jeezy, Gucci Mane and 2 Chainz, along with special guests Fabulous, Lil Kim and Boosie Badazz. Tickets: $39+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events. YOU RAISE ME UP. 8 p.m. Singer, songwriter and actor Josh Groban entertains with his electrifying vocals in this rescheduled show. Tickets: $61+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter. com/events.
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October 2–November 6 LOVE MACHINE: THE MUSICAL. Groovy tunes celebrate the sounds of Motown and Soul from the ’60s and ’70s. The Barn Dinner Theatre, 120 Stage Coach Trail, Greensboro. Tickets: barndinner.com.
October 2–3 TIM BURTON ESCAPE. 10 a.m.–Noon & 3–6 p.m. (10/2); 2–6 p.m. (10/3). Children grades 6–12 are invited to test their wits in escape rooms inspired by popular Tim Burton films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. Free; registration required. Glenn McNairy Library, 4860 Lake Jeanette Rd., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. KILN OPENING. 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Enjoy freshly made turkey jerky at this event celebrating 30 years of pottery, family and friends in Seagrove. From the Ground Up Pottery, 172 Crestwood Rd., Robbins. Free admission. Info: fromthegrounduppots.com.
October 3 ART IN THE ARBORETUM. Noon–5 p.m. Come to the Arboretum to see artists, entertainment on three separate stages, honey-bee-and-butterfly exhibits, and family-friendly activities. Free admission. Greensboro Arboretum, 402 Ashland Dr., Greensboro. Info: greensborobeautiful.org/event.
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FIGHT SONGS. 3–4 p.m. Author Ed Southern discusses his newest novel, Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event. COMMUNITY TABLE. 4:30–9:30 p.m. Join in Triad Local First’s evening full of food, drinks and entertainment. Tickets: $150/person (nonmember). Summerfield Farms, 3203 Pleasant Ridge Rd., Summerfield. Info: triadlocalfirst.org/community-table.
October 5 ALUMNI PANEL. 4–5 p.m. UNCG alumni-artists Ivana Beck, Carmen Neely and Sherrill Roland share their creative processes. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: weatherspoonart.org.
October 6
RETROSPECTIVE REBECCA. 5:30–6:30 p.m. Rebecca Fagg discusses her art on the Hill. Free. Green Hill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org/two-retrospectives.
October 7 TEDXGREENSBORO. 9 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Local speakers discuss what comes NEXT in everything from science and medicine to their own personal lives.
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Boxed lunch and refreshments provided. Tickets: $50–80. VanDyke Performance Space, Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: tedxgreensboro.com.
October 7–24 WICKED. A lot happened before Dorothy dropped into the Land of Oz. Now, the untold story of the Witches of Oz is dropping in on the Triad. Tickets: $48+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.
October 8 NATURE JOURNALING. Noon–1:30 p.m. Artist and educator Alma Stott guides participants through drawing and writing techniques in Price Park. Bring a journal, pencil and an outdoor chair. Kathleen Clay Library, 1420 Price Park Rd., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. TRIAD BEER & HISTORY. 5:30–7:30 p.m. The High Point Historical Society hosts the authors of North Carolina Triad Beer: A History, Erin Lawrimore and Richard Cox. Enjoy a custom brew and food from Lobster Dogs Food Truck. Free. Paddled South Brewing Company, 602 N. Main St., High Point. Info: highpointnc.gov/calendar. SPHINX VIRTUOSI. 8 p.m. Experience the nation’s most dynamic, exhilarating professional chamber orchestra, dedicated to increasing racial and ethnic diversity in classical music. Adults: $43. Student discount available. Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu. SEE HER IN THE CROWN. 7 p.m. Country artist Carly Burruss delivers comedy alongside heartbreaking ballads. Casey Noel opens. Tickets: $12/advance; $15. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com.
October 8–10 HOME AGAIN. 10 a.m.–8 p.m. (10/8 &10/9); 11 a.m.–5 p.m. (10/10). The Triad’s premier home and garden event.Tickets: $5–10 depending on time and date. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum. com/events.
October 9 NO TRI, ONLY DU. 9 a.m. & 2:30 p.m. The Nat Greene’s Revenge On-Road Triathlon and Duathlon take place in the morning, followed by an afternoon Trail Triathlon. Registration: $40–120; virtual options available. Lake Brandt Marina, 5945 Lake Brandt Rd., Greensboro. Info: triviumracing.com/event/ motusnatgreen2021.
October 9 SPOKES & VOTES. 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Join in a familyfriendly celebration of the revolutionary impact of the
86 O.Henry
bicycle on women and women’s suffrage. Free admission. Greensboro History Museum, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: greensborohistory.org/events.
October 9–10 ARTSTOCK STUDIO TOUR. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. (10/9) & 1–5 p.m. (10/10). Twenty-one artists will show their work at fifteen sites over the greater Greensboro area. Free. Info: artstocktour.com. PBR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. The Top 30 bull riders in the world buck into the Coliseum. Tickets: $15+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/ events.
October 10 FINDING REFUGE. 2–3 p.m. Author Michelle Cassandra Johnson shares lessons from Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.
October 11–24 HYERS’ RESIDENCY. Creative Greensboro proudly presents a heartwarming comedy, Dr. Ranch vs. the Aliens! by Kernersville’s Scott Icenhower. Greensboro Cultural Center, Hyers Theatre, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Tickets: triadplaywrights@gmail.com or facebook.com/greatwriting.
October 12 HERE’S JOHNNY! 7 p.m. Watch Stanley Kubrick’s chilling adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining on the big screen. Tickets: $7. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com. BUSH LEAGUE. 7 p.m. Alternative music favorites Stone Temple Pilots, Bush and Devora rock on at the White Oak Amphitheater. Tickets: $52+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-7400 or greensborocoliseum.com/events.
October 13 FALL FARM FEST. Noon–3 p.m. Learn how to reduce household waste by composting. Featuring farm and craft vendors, live music, food trucks and a pumpkin patch. Free admission. Keeley Park, 4110 Keeley Rd., McLeansville. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. AFTERNOON WITH WILEY. 2–3 p.m. New York Times bestselling author Wiley Cash discusses his much anticipated novel When Ghosts Come Home, a tender and haunting story of a father and daughter, crime and forgiveness, plus race and memory. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event. POETRY CAFE. 6–8 p.m. Josephus Thompson III leads the Youth Cypher Series, a place where kids
and teens ages 10–18 can share poetry, music and performance via open mic. Free; registration required. Caldcleugh Multicultural Arts Center, 1700 Orchard St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. LIUZZO IN ACTION. 6:30–8:30 p.m. Artist Casandra Liuzzo invites the public to help her produce a Community Weaving Project. No weaving experience required. Free. Info: greensboro-nc.gov/departments/ creative-greensboro.
October 15 CREATIVE CLASS. 7–9 p.m. Enjoy an evening of guest artists and scholars discussing “art intersection: a conversation between visual and performing arts.” Free; virtual option available. UNCG Dance Theatre, 1408 Walker Ave., Greensboro. Info: dance.uncg.edu. MILLENIUM TOUR. 8 p.m. Are you ready for Omarian and Bow Wow, the Ying Yang Twins, Lloyd, Sammie, Pretty Ricky, Soulja Boy and special guest Ashanti? Tickets: $45.50+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.
October 15-17 & 21-24. THE JULIES. Six actors and one narrator take us through a meta-theatrical journey that asks an essential question of August Strindberg’s classic: who is Miss Julie? Rated PG-13. Tickets: $5-$15. Pam and David Sprinkle Theatre, 402 Tate St., Greensboro. Tickets: vpa.uncg.edu/theatre.
October 16 HIT THE BRIXX. 10K: 7:45 a.m. 5K: 9 a.m. GRC’s annual Halloween-themed 10K & 5K run. Wear a costume for a chance to win a special treat. All proceeds benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Registration: $30–60. Brixx Pizza, 1424 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: hitthebrixx.com. ADVENTURERS OF COLOR. 10–11 a.m. A monthly series exploring outdoor recreation, socialization and engagement. This month’s theme is cycling. Free; registration required. Kathleen Clay Library, 1420 Price Park Rd., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. FALL FARM FEST. Noon–3 p.m. Learn how to reduce household waste via composting demonstrations, plus farm and craft vendors, live music and food trucks. Free admission. Keeley Park, 4100 Keeley Rd., McLeansville. Info: tinyurl.com/gsofarmfest. DESIGNING PROPS. 1–4 p.m. Adults and high school students learn prop production and design and how to work with a director, creating a food prop they can take home. Tuition: $45. LTWS Workshop, 2900 Indiana Ave., Winston-Salem. Info: ltwsofws.org.
October 16 & 17; 23 & 24 BOO AT THE ZOO. 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Enjoy trick-ortreating stations, live music, Pumpkin Palooza, Spooky The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Treehouse, seasonal photo ops and more! Tickets: $11–15 (general admission) + $8 event wristband. The North Carolina Zoo, 4401 Zoo Parkway, Asheboro. Info: nczoo.org.
October 17 SINGER CREATIVE. 8 p.m. The Drifters, The Platters and Cornell Gunter’s Coasters—three legendary groups, live in concert. Tickets: $39 – 69. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com.
October 19 TRUNK OR TREAT. 6–8 p.m. A safe, family-and kid-friendly event with no tricks and all the treats: radio station personalities, cattle car rides, glitter tattoos, a costume contest, food trucks and more! Advance tickets required; $12/person. McLaurin Farms, 5601 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: mclaurinfarms.com.
October 21 CHAT WITH FRALEIGH. 7 p.m.
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Artist Angela Fraleigh discusses the breadth of research that goes into her paintings, as well as her specific study of WAM’s Cone Collection for her newest monumental project. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Free. Info: weatherspoonart.org.
October 22 CLOSING RECEPTION. 6–8 p.m. With Two Retrospectives wrapping up in November, the gallery bids farewell to artists Rebecca Fagg and Jack Stratton. Free. Green Hill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc. org/two-retrospectives.
October 22–23 CANNONBALL RACES. One of the longest-running endurance events in North Carolina adds the “Double Barrel” challenge. The 5k race moves to Friday evening so participants can run the 5k and either the half or full marathon on the following day. Registration: $35-$140. Info: junction311.com.
SPHINX VIRTUOSI OCTOBER 8
Arts & Culture
SHANA TUCKER OCTOBER 29
The Fall Show New Works by Kevin Rutan Friday Nov. 12 + saturday11-5Nov. 12 11-5 th
th
In Time for the Holidays
The 2021-2022 UCLS events are part of the University’s year-long collaboration She Can/We Can — a range of dynamic and diverse performances, discussions, and workshops reflect on the questions: What political advances and compromises resulted in the passage of the 19th Amendment, and how have these shaped issues of equity in our own time?
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Calendar October 23
October 25
October 28
FALL HARVEST CELEBRATION. 8–11 a.m. Featuring pumpkin-pecan and apple-cinnamon-spice pancakes via Cheesecakes by Alex, plus live music. Pancake plates: $10; +$2 for Neese’s sausage or bacon. Advance tickets recommended. Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville St., Greensboro. Info: gsofarmersmarket.org/events-feed/.
SILENT SERIES. 7 p.m. See the iconic silent movie, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, with live organ music played by Michael Britt. Tickets: $7. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com.
FOR KING + COUNTRY. 7 p.m. The popular Christian music duo stops at the Coliseum on their fall Relate tour. Tickets: $20+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.
FIBER ARTS FESTIVAL. 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Watch local artists spin, weave, embroider, braid, quilt and knit! Live alpacas will be on site, plus handmade crafts and supplies. Free admission. Mendenhall Homeplace, 603 W. Main St., Jamestown. Info: mendenhallhomeplace.com. WORSHIP FOREVER! 7:30 p.m. Awakening Events presents Michael W. Smith, award-winning Christian music artist. Tickets: $25–75. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com.
October 24
48-HR HORROR. 2 p.m. Enjoy a screening of North Carolina’s newest short films, all created within 48 hours by horror aficionados. Vote for your favorite. Tickets: $10. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com.
October 25–26 TREAT YOURSELF. 10 a.m.–Noon (8/25); 2–5 p.m. (8/26). Play the library’s life-sized version of Halloween Candy Land. Free; reservations required. Glenn McNairy Library, 4860 Lake Jeanette Rd., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov.
MUSIC OF MOTOWN. 8 pm. GSO presents Dancing in the Street, a Motown spectacular including songs by Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, The Temptations and others. Tickets: $35–80. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events or greensborosymphony.org.
October 26
October 29–31
RAIN. 7:30 p.m. In celebration of Abbey Road’s anniversary, “Come Together” with this Beatles’ tribute band. Tickets: $25+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.
October 27 GARY CLARK JR. 8 p.m. Grammy-winning R&B artist and Billboard chart topper Gary Clark Jr. performs live in downtown Greensboro. Tickets: $29.50+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.
GHOE AGGIES. NC A&T’s “Greatest Homecoming on Earth” welcomes alumni near and far to celebrate its current student body for one event-packed weekend. Full schedule: thegreatesthomecomingonearth.com.
October 29 ONE CITY, ONE BOOK. Noon–1 p.m. Join an outdoor discussion on the writings of Lauret Savoy, the Red Nation, Dina Gilio-Whitaker and others who portray historic and current attempts by indigenous people to protect and preserve our natural world. Free;
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Calendar registration required. Kathleen Clay Library, 1420 Price Park Rd., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov.
October 31–November 1.
CHAMBER SOUL. 8 p.m. Lyrical storyteller, cellist and dynamic singer-songwriter Shaka Tucker weaves together jazz, folk, acoustic pop and a touch of R&B. Adults: $43. Student discount available. Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu.
GHOEWEEN. 3 p.m.–2 a.m. Aggies and friends are invited to enjoy the All Day and Night Halloween Festival, hosted by DJ Cleve and DJ Drizzy. Tickets: Prices vary depending on time.Silo Entertainment Complex, 816 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: allevents.in/greensboro.
October 30–31.
MONDAYS
BEER AND FEAR BASH. 7 p.m.–2 a.m. Explore eleven Halloween-themed bars, clubs and party areas. Live music and entertainment, costume contests with cash prizes and more. Costumes required for entry. 21+ only. Parking: $10. Tickets: $34+. Castle McCulloch, 3925 Kivett Dr., Jamestown. Info: thecastlepresents.com.
MOVE & GROOVE. 6–7 p.m. Presented by Dance Project, everyone ages 13+ can get fit and musical by fusing street jazz with hip hop. All skill levels welcome. Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/ calendar.
October 31 FESTIVAL OF PRAISE. 6 p.m. This Gospel concert features Fred Hammond, Hezekiah Walker, Anthony Brown and Koryn Hawthorne, with a special performance by the N.C. A&T Gospel Choir. Tickets: $44.50+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.
TUESDAYS LIVE AFTER FIVE. 5–8 p.m. Come out after work to kick back and enjoy DJ Energizer laying down the tracks for fun in the park. Free. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.
jazz and wine tastings. What’s not to love? First come, first served. Double Oaks Bed and Breakfast, 204 N., Mendenhall St., Greensboro. Info: doubleoaks.com/wine-wednesday. JUST DANCE. 9–10 a.m. Join instructor Nia for a low-impact cardio dance class incorporating movements inspired by martial arts, yoga and various dance styles. Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/ calendar.
FRIDAYS FTF. 11 a.m.–2 p.m. Try a new food truck every Friday and enjoy live music during your lunch hour. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.
SATURDAYS RUN THE ’BORO. 7 a.m. The “all-paces field trip for runners” continues. Run or walk a new area of Greensboro each weekend. Free. Info: runnerdudesruntheboro.com
WEDNESDAYS WINE WEDNESDAY. 5–8 p.m. Open house, live
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1616 Battleground Ave, Greensboro, NC (336)306-2827 Order by email! easypeasydnd@gmail.com
O.Henry Ending
On a Roll
By Jennifer Bringle
I hung up my
Fisher-Price skates before I ever learned to use them, so at age 30, I decided to take roller skating lessons. Thinking I might have a child who would want to skate someday, I wanted to join them instead of staying parked at the snack bar.
Most rinks offer lessons for all levels of skaters. But for late bloomers like me? I was skeptical. Some summers ago, I called up a rink, and an enthusiastic woman assured me that, yes, adults take lessons all the time. Relieved, I plunked down $25 for my first class. As I laced my skates, I saw plenty of children orbiting about, but the adults were still in their wheel-free shoes. I’d been played big time by the lady on the phone. Skates on, I was a child again, gripped by a familiar panic. I knew I had to trust the wheels, but I was convinced that I would fall as soon as I tried to stand up. I wanted to rip off the skates and hang them up, but I didn’t. This was something I finally had to overcome. Inch by inch, I gingerly slid my way across the carpet to the rink’s edge, then gripped the railings as I took my first tentative step onto the polished wooden floor. Slowly and stiffly, I rolled one foot slightly in front of the other, shuffling a hairsbreadth at a time until I finally made it to the circle where my pint-sized classmates stood staring at me. First lesson: learning to fall. This was something I’d definitely mastered, I thought. But it wasn’t as simple as before. In skating, there is a proper way to fall — on your bottom, hands in the air — to prevent
96 O.Henry
broken wrists. Using your hands to break a fall is the human body’s natural, instinctive reaction. Hitting the floor repeatedly, I quickly realized why there weren’t other adults in this class. Kids nearly bounce back up. Let’s just say that I did not. Next lesson: technique. The key, our instructor explained, is to bend your knees slightly while leaning forward to maintain balance. She told us to pick up our feet and move forward, as if we were walking in the skates. As my seemingly fearless classmates left me in their dust, I found the courage I hadn’t had as a child and released my grip from the security of the metal bar. I teetered. I wobbled. I fell — over and over. It hurt. And worse, I felt like a fool as the parents of my classmates stifled laughter. My teacher, visibly concerned I’d break something, skated over after each of my spectacularly graceless falls, helping me to my feet. Again, I considered hanging up my skates and hobbling out the door, but the specter of my classmates whirling around the ring gleefully propelled me to get back up. In fact, I came back to class, week after week. And by the last class, it actually happened: I stopped wobbling, and my feet and body began working in sync. I was skating! For those few glorious moments, I felt free, joyous and empowered. The child in me was over the moon. In the years since that summer in the rink, I often think back to those challenging afternoons. My bruises and pride have healed, but there’s a permanent mark from skating that endures — a knowing: If I have the courage to get up each time I fall, I just might learn to fly. OH Jennifer Bringle is a Greensboro-based writer. And yes, she still knows how to skate. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
I bruised more than my ego, but I’m glad I finally learned how to skate
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