YES! Weekly - March 10, 2021

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THE HOMETOWN SINGER/SONGWRITER CONQUERS HOLLYWOOD

YOUR ENTERTAINMENT SOURCE

PIECES OF A WOMAN

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MARCH 10-16, 2021 VOLUME 17, NUMBER 10

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PARIS “PJ” JONES has found her element and is thriving on the road to success, as she not only conquers Hollywood but her own self-doubts. The Greensboro native remembers music always being a part of her life and credits her mother with her love of Hip Hop, broad taste in music, and career choice. She graduated with a degree in music business and commercial songwriting.

EDITORIAL Editor CHANEL DAVIS chanel@yesweekly.com YES! Writers IAN MCDOWELL MARK BURGER KATEI CRANFORD

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The Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth is partnering with the Forsyth County Health Department to provide MUSIC AT THE FAIRGROUNDS COVID-19 VACCINATION SITE from 9:00 -11:00 on the mornings of March 8-31.

Performers will receive honoraria from The Arts Council’s Artist Relief Fund.

5 The much-talked-about opening sequence in PIECES OF A WOMAN involves its protagonist, Martha Weiss (Vanessa Kirby), about to give birth at home. Aided by her partner Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and Eva (Molly Parker), a last-minute replacement for Martha’s intended midwife, the event is dramatized in a single take remarkable for its bravura cinematic technique. It runs the gamut from hope to heartbreak.

6 These were the words of Betty Friedan in her debut publication “The Feminist Mystique” in 1963. By being one of many pioneer feminist writers to define toxic masculinity, Friedman DARED FEMALES TO RESIST the toxic societal psyche, reducing both genders’ value through oversimplification and restriction.

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I’m not a big fan of lists, mainly because the person or organization that compiles them does so subjectively. For example, I don’t care how many Super Bowls Tom Brady wins. I still think Peyton Manning is a better quarterback. Nevertheless, this issue is about WOMEN WHO HAVE LEFT THEIR MARK ON THE TRIAD, so here (in alphabetical order) is my own top ten list.

12 Poet, essayist, memoirist, activist, screenwriter, and dancer MAYA ANGELOU was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, and died in Winston-Salem on May 28, 2018. She achieved worldwide fame with the 1969 publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first of her seven autobiographies, which dealt with her life up to the age of 17.

It was the first nonfiction bestseller by an African-American woman.

14 LAUREN LIGHT continues basking in her role as a dark pop girl boss, looking to shine with a licensing agency, podcast, and her latest album, “You’re Not My Boyfriend,” out now via streaming platforms.

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DISTRIBUTION JANICE GANTT KYLE MUNRO SHANE MERRIMAN ANDREW WOMACK We at YES! Weekly realize that the interest of our readers goes well beyond the boundaries of the Piedmont Triad. Therefore we are dedicated to informing and entertaining with thought-provoking, debate-spurring, in-depth investigative news stories and features of local, national and international scope, and opinion grounded in reason, as well as providing the most comprehensive entertainment and arts coverage in the Triad. YES! Weekly welcomes submissions of all kinds. Efforts will be made to return those with a self-addressed stamped envelope; however YES! Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. YES! Weekly is published every Wednesday by Womack Newspapers, Inc. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. Copyright 2021 Womack Newspapers, Inc.

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[SPOTLIGHT]

BE KIND, BE BRAVE, BE YOU - BLUE JEAN BOUTIQUE GRACES THE TRIAD WITH UPLIFTING MESSAGES

BY HABIN HWANG

When single mom Amanda Benedict found herself out of work in a world of turmoil last year, she chose to face her fears within the new virtual setting, launching a business at an extremely uncertain time for most individuals across the country.

In addition to her extensive retail work background, she quickly became inspired to provide comfort, fashion, and a ray of positivity in women’s lives across the Triad.

Through the launch of her small business, Blue Jean Boutique, she was finally able to live her dream of designing, merchandising, and marketing her designs-- something that she considers a blessing.

“I had been designing T-shirts for the company I had worked for,” Benedict stated. “I had all of these designs I had been working on, so I decided to bite the bullet and launch my own line [and] store.”

Using a building at the back of her house as a home design studio, she began working on her designs in the summer of 2020, balancing her life as a mother of two and a budding businesswoman. Her self-designed line of shirts, stickers, and jewelry, revolving around fashionable comfort, was born here, each spreading its message of female empowerment or positivity. Over time, she began carrying products from other female-owned small businesses and showing support for fellow local female entrepreneurs.

On Aug. 1, 2020, she launched the website for Blue Jean Boutique. Though she began expanding through pop-up

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markets 2-3 times a month, she set up inside a shop in Asheboro on Black Friday. Initially carrying her self-designed merchandise and locally screen-printed Tshirts, she expanded to partner with other women entrepreneurs, such as launching a bracelet line with nursing students in South Carolina. This, she comments, helps add variety to the products within her store and helps showcase other women’s creativity.

“There’s a lot of women who are creative and create beautiful products but don’t always get the exposure,” she commented.

“I think a big part of being a small business is that you have to support other people and cheer on other people.”

Revolving around her mantra “be kind, be brave, be you,” each of Blue Jean Boutique’s products has its own individually empowering message from Benedict’s personal life experiences.

Being kind, Benedict states is especially crucial during this time where it can be scarce. Many of her stickers, T-shirts, and accessories revolve around messages of kindness, including her “Sweet Sayings” sticker line that encapsulates simple expressions that can bring a bit of positivity into others’ lives.

Additionally, Blue Jean Boutique spreads goodness by giving back to the community, including special T-shirts whose profits are donated to charities such as the National Breast Cancer Foundation and the Coral Reef Alliance. Purchasing from Blue Jean also helps them give back to other foundations, such as Headbands for Hope.

With every purchase made at Blue Jean, a headband is donated to a child who may have lost their hair due to an illness. On headBAND Together weeks, 10% of the sales from all purchases are donated.

Another of Blue Jean Boutique’s initiatives is a jewelry line called the “Blue Jean Gives Back Collection,” which features pieces inspired by different virtues, such as Hope, Love, Joy, Faith, and Grace. Ten percent of all sales from this collection are donated to The Hunger Project; a global, woman-centered nonprofit organization focused on sustainably ending poverty.

BYTAVI is another organization Blue Jean collaborates with and is a Cambodian program where seamstresses who are paid fair wages in a country frequently struck with poverty produce pieces. Products in the online store followed by the tag “By Tavi” indicate the piece was designed and produced through the program.

Blue Jean also partners with the Never Lose Hope Designs line, a Christian foun-

dation that creates handcrafted jewelry featuring mantras of hope and motivation. A portion of sales goes towards helping children in need, especially in Haiti’s orphanages and surrounding communities.

Being brave is another large part of Blue Jean’s motto, which Benedict remarked was something she practiced by opening a business during a period of national economic instability.

“Opening up a business during COVID [was] kind of scary,” she said. “A lot of stuff can be scary in life, and sometimes you just need to have a little bit of courage and a little bit of faith.”

Most importantly, Blue Jean Boutique challenges women to be themselves and highlight their strengths and qualities for self-empowerment. Many of Blue Jean Boutique’s products highlight who Benedict is, including her faith and family.

Many of her products even feature her handwriting as the font design, adding a personal touch.

Benedict’s Blue Jean Boutique can still be found in many pop-up markets around

the Triad, as well as on many women who’ve purchased apparel from the boutique. As an uplifting ray of sunshine during a time of turmoil, it is easy to see how far one woman’s positivity and ambition can travel. !

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Arts Council partnering with Forsyth County to bring arts to COVID vaccination site

inston-Salem, NC ( March 8, 2021) – The Arts Council of WinstonSalem & Forsyth is partnering with the Forsyth County Health Department to provide music at the Fairgrounds COVID-19 vaccination site from 9 to 11 a.m. on the mornings of March 8-31. Performers will receive honoraria from The Arts Council’s Artist Relief Fund.

Chase Law, who joined The Arts Council as President and CEO in December, said this collaboration signals increased community engagement by The Council for months and years to come. “We want the arts in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County to touch every resident, and, to do that, we have to develop new venues close to where people live, work and play.

We are talking to residents and community leaders and scouting additional sites where we can reach new audiences,” said Law. The Arts Council is already a partner with the County of Forsyth in the summer parks series which, until COVID hit, was sponsoring five concerts in county parks each summer. Plans are underway for resuming the Summer Concerts in the Parks this year, provided the COVID pandemic sufficiently subsides by midsummer.

Joshua Swift, Forsyth County Health Director, said having musicians perform at the County’s vaccination site has dual benefits. “Actually, getting the COVID vaccination itself is simple and painless, but for some people the process is stressful. Having music on site, we hope, will creative a welcoming environment

while also giving local musicians a place to perform.” Forsyth County musicians have had few opportunities to perform since the onset of the COVID virus a year ago, creating severe economic hardship.

As the chief advocate of the arts and cultural sector in Winston-Salem and

Forsyth County, The Arts Council’s goal is to serve as a leader in lifting up, creating awareness and providing support to grow and sustain the arts and cultural offerings throughout our region, ultimately bringing our community together and making it a great place to live, work

and play. Winston-Salem and Forsyth County offers 800,000 art experiences annually, and 31,000 students in WS/ FCS receive arts enrichment. The arts have a $156.8 million annual impact in Forsyth County and account for 5,559 equivalent full-time jobs. !

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Picking up the Pieces

T

he muchtalkedabout opening sequence in Pieces of a Woman involves its protagonist, Martha Weiss (Vanessa Kirby), about to give Mark Burger birth at home. Aided by her partner Sean Contributor (Shia LaBeouf) and Eva (Molly Parker), a last-minute replacement for Martha’s intended midwife, the event is dramatized in a single take remarkable for its bravura cinematic technique. It runs the gamut from hope to heartbreak.

Tragically, the infant – a daughter – dies shortly after birth, understandably throwing Martha and Sean into an emotional tailspin of grief, guilt, and trauma. In addition, a civil suit is filed against Eva, primarily at the behest of Martha’s mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), who clearly harbors resentment toward Martha that she insisted on home birth and just as clearly harbors a long-simmering dislike of Sean.

Later, there is another impressive sequence at a family dinner, in which the characters lay bare their feelings and resentments while the camera observe dispassionately. The mood veers from awkward to uncomfortable and ultimately dispiriting. Here is where Martha and Elizabeth unleash their fury, which has been pent-up for much too long. It’s electrifying and extremely well-acted. Kirby is superb, and Burstyn, as always, is a force to be reckoned with.

Pieces of a Woman is based on a 2016 play by director Kornel Mundruczo and writer Kata Weber, which was in turn inspired by the death of their own infant under similar circumstances. They certainly bring a unique insight into the situation, which is handled in a tasteful fashion. The film’s mood also recalls the brooding tone of Ingmar Bergman, a master of expressing the emotional states of his characters in an almost silent and frequently eloquent manner.

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The winter of discontent depicted in the film is bleak, indeed. However, the filmmakers often appear to step back as if waiting for the audience to process what they’re seeing. Such (over) emphasis is unnecessary and frequently slows the narrative momentum. This is a story overwhelmed by despair, with barely a glimmer of hope. A return to normalcy doesn’t seem feasible, given what has transpired.

In addition, we never get a palpable sense of what brought Martha and Sean together in the first place, much less what has kept them together. Martha’s family is affluent, whereas Sean is quintessential blue-collar. He’s working on the construction of a bridge, and the progress of that construction, which bookends each segment of the film, is a symbolism of the most obvious sort, although it is nicely shot — as is the rest of the film — by cinematographer Benjamin Loeb.

Sean is a recovering alcoholic, and it’s giving nothing away to divulge that the loss of the baby sends him on a downward spiral. The tension that builds between him and Martha is entirely credible, although the recent legal accusations against LaBeouf lend a slightly queasy undertone.

LaBeouf’s performance certainly isn’t bad, but it’s sometimes difficult to observe his turn in an entirely objective manner.

The supporting cast includes Iliza Shlesinger as Martha’s sister, although their relationship is ill-defined. Sarah Snook plays Martha’s cousin, an attorney representing her in the civil suit, and she has a few secrets of her own, although we don’t get to know her particularly well, either.

Parker, as the guilt-riddled midwife, manages to make something out of a character with limited time onscreen. She appears at the beginning (obviously) and again at the end, but nothing in-between. It’s this sense of incompleteness that further hinders what is clearly a heartfelt and wellintentioned effort.

- Pieces of a Woman is streaming on Netflix. !

See MARK BURGER’s reviews of current movies on Burgervideo.com. © 2021, Mark Burger.

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Toxic Femininity: The under-addressed gender calamity

BY HABIN HWANG

Men weren’t really the enemy.

They were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily adequate when there were no bears to kill.”

These were the words of Betty Friedan in her debut publication “The Feminist Mystique” in 1963. By being one of many pioneer feminist writers to define toxic masculinity, Friedman dared females to resist the toxic societal psyche, reducing both genders’ value through oversimplification and restriction.

Brown University defines toxic masculinity as the “rigid definitions of masculinity [that] are toxic to men’s health.” Including discouragement of both emotional expression and dismissal of aggressive behavior, results of these engrained mindsets may include the formation of internal misogyny, aggression, homophobia, and excessive forceful domination. Throughout the decades following the debut of this term, toxic

masculinity became the subject of literature, screenplay, and character analysis.

However, its counterpart went noticeably neglected: toxic femininity.

To address toxic femininity in the same light as toxic masculinity, viewing the inflexible definition of femininity enforced through societal expectations is necessary. Pushing females toward submissive roles, dismissing male aggression, and overemphasizing appearance are some of the many ways in which society forces women to meet more “feminine” expectations. Results of such practices may include the development of mental illnesses, discouragement in pursuing power positions, passive personality traits, and reinforcement of toxic masculine beliefs to one’s children. However, its results may also occur in a more sinister manner— male hatred, self-undervaluation, and over-sexualization.

Male hatred stems from the misdirected battle against patriarchal society, which many feminists view as solely a collection of fights against individual men who committed heinous crimes,

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Male hatred stems from the misdirected battle against patriarchal society, which many feminists view as solely a collection of fights against individual men who committed heinous crimes, such as sexual assault. such as sexual assault. However, a concentrated battle against toxic societal expectations, combined with these individual initiatives, may create a healthier alternative, deterring future misdemeanors. Within this battle is halting the reinforcement of both negative female and male societal expectations. Beginning for many feminists with the awareness and correction of their mindsets caused by a toxic feminine society, a great number of avid feminists would be surprised to know that their version of feminism frequently contributes greatly to patriarchal norms like the objectification of women.

Although the body positivity portion of the feminist movement initially emerged through women rewriting traditional beauty standards, many women limit their self-value to their physical appearance on the grounds of being “body positive,” frequently objectifying and undermining their value in the process.

With plus-size artists reclaiming power over their sexuality and music, modern feminism emphasizes women of every body type to engage in sexual expression.

Though beauty can be found in everybody, it is undeniable how a woman’s body and features are not the full extents of her value — many women flaunt impressive academic degrees, creative potential, soft skills, intelligence, and overall strength that is as, if not more, valuable than the physical aspects of a woman. The movement on breaking beauty standards has taken over a large portion of the feminist movement; greatly boiling down women’s value to what features they do and do not have.

Instead, recognizing the tremendous transformative potential of women and emphasizing intellect, creativity, strength, and kindness as much as we do sexuality can even further help recognize

women’s true value in our society.

Feminism is frequently characterized by men as a loud, intimidating movement that focuses on attacking men for their wrongdoings, though it initially emerged as a fight for gender equality. The aforementioned male hatred rooted in the hyperfocus of individual cases, though crucial in fighting for justice for individual women, may do more harm than good if not expanded upon. It begins with recognizing how toxic gender roles are present and active for both genders and moving forth by combating society’s collective issues causing toxic traits together rather than apart.

As more flaws can be recognized, such as the shortcomings of the body positivity movement rooted in patriarchal influences and toxic feminine society, both men and women will be able to change their mindsets to combat these terrible societal issues. This may open the doors to the beginning of correcting toxic masculinity as well, encouraging men to have as much of a free voice to express themselves emotionally.

Modern feminism includes fighting towards fair trial and protection against sexual harassment cases, representation in STEM careers, menstrual products, maternity leave, and equal valuation in a professional setting. However, incorporating issues for male equality into the feminist battle, such as encouragement of men to engage in healthy emotional expression or fair judicial representation in family courts, could help not only correct toxic masculine traits but also further encourage men to open up to the idea that feminism is not an attack on masculinity, but rather an attack on unhealthy societal roles.

Only when we can say that we have fought for both genders can we truly argue the point of gender equality. In her 2017 book, “Why I am Not a Feminist,” Jessa Crispin rhetorically questioned this point as one of her criticisms towards modern feminism.

“Has feminism created the space for men to take on traditionally feminine traits at the same level it has created the space for women to take on traditionally masculine traits? And lastly: If we say that we want a better world for women, are the current goals and ideas of feminism likely to create that world?” !

HABIN HWANG is a 16-year-old Guilford County Schools Early College student at Guilford College.

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Ten significant women of the Triad

I

’m not a big fan of lists, mainly because the person or organization that compiles them does so subjectively. For example, I don’t care how many Super Bowls Jim Longworth Tom Brady wins. I still think Peyton Manning is a better Longworth quarterback. I cringe at Large every time someone publishes a list of the “Ten Best Films of all Time” because I usually disagree with all ten. And I think I’ll scream if I see one more list that ranks the greatest American Presidents because their rankings should be reflective of the era in which they lived, not how many “likes” they got this week. Nevertheless, this issue is about women who have left their mark on the Triad, so here (in alphabetical order) is my own top ten list.

Vivian Burke … I could write a term paper full of reasons why Ms. Burke had a significant impact on our area, but I’ll try and offer just a few. For starters, she was a long-time member of the Winston-Salem City Council whose voice was respected by people of all races and political persuasions. She was also a big proponent of public education and an advocate for the Urban League, where she once arranged to have a building donated that would house job-training services. Vivian passed away last year, but her impact on the Triad is still felt.

Avery Crump … After winning a historic election in 2018, Avery was sworn in as Guilford County’s first African American (and first female) district attorney.

Crump had spent the previous 20 years in the justice system, including nine years as the County’s assistant D.A. Mr. Biden, if you’re listening, Ms. Crump would also be a great federal judge.

Chanel Davis …One advantage of approaching 70 years on earth is that you don’t have to suck up to anyone anymore, so I’m not including Chanel on this list because she is my boss. She’s in my top ten because since becoming the first woman of color to be named editor of YES! Weekly, Chanel has demonstrated a passion for the printed word and a calm, mature professionalism in her management style, as she balances the editorial and economic priorities of the publication.

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Dr. Mary Griffith … In the 1950s, the late Dr. Griffith supervised medical students at Baptist Hospital in WinstonSalem and was one of the first women to be named to the medical school faculty.

She was highly respected and still fondly remembered by the male doctors who she trained. She also delivered my sorry little butt 67 years ago, so if you don’t like my column or television programs, then blame Doc Griffith.

Evva Hanes … At age five, little Evva was helping her mother bake cookies for Christmas. Now over 60 years later, she is President Emeritus of Mrs. Hanes Moravian Cookies in Clemmons. While actively running the business, Evva made her cookies famous all over the world.

Today the company ships to all 50 States and 30 countries.

Loretta Lynch… In 2015, Loretta, a native of Greensboro, was appointed United States Attorney General by President Barack Obama. She was the first woman of color to serve in that post, and, with the exception of meeting privately with Bill Clinton while the Justice Department was investigating Hillary, Lynch made few missteps. She was America’s top cop and a damn good one at that.

Kim Record … It is no longer unusual for a woman to lead a university athletic department, but Kim has done it with great success while navigating a major recession, a near depression, and an unprecedented pandemic, all in the span of her first ten years at UNCG. She oversees 17 sports, 230 student-athletes, and 70 employees. As an alumnus, I’m naturally a fan of Spartan sports, but I’m an even bigger fan of Kim Record.

Catrina Thompson … a 26 year veteran of the Winston-Salem Police Department, Catrina became Chief in 2018, and today, oversees 549 sworn officers, 170 civilian employees, and an annual budget of nearly 80 million dollars. She is tough but empathetic, and while upholding the strict letter of the law, she is also capable of seeing shades of gray.

Nancy Vaughan … First elected Mayor of Greensboro in 2013, Nancy came to the office with experience in a variety of fields, including education, transportation, and wastewater treatment. In 2016 she successfully lobbied for the City to borrow $126 million that would be used for economic and community development, as well as for other projects. Nancy gets things done because she works well with others, and that’s a trait that is missing in most politicians today.

Pam Cook … In my haste, I mentioned

that YES! Weekly Editor Chanel Davis is my boss. I am now using this paragraph to clarify that statement and, in the process, save my marriage. In point of fact, Pam Cook Longworth is my real boss.

More importantly, she runs a successful public relations business. In doing so, she helps a number of nonprofit organizations raise awareness for their mission and raise funds to support it. Pam is

smart, funny, and always sees the glass as half full while making sure I don’t do things halfway.

Congratulations to all the great women of the Triad! We men don’t deserve you, but we sure need you. !

JIM LONGWORTH is the host of Triad Today, airing on Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. on ABC45 (cable channel 7) and Sundays at 11 a.m. on WMYV (cable channel 15).

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[NEWS OF THE WEIRD] WAIT, WHAT?

On Feb. 23, Siriporn Niamrin, 49, discovered a large, waxy, oval-shaped lump that smelled of fish and weighed about 15 pounds along the beach near her home in Nakhon Si ThamChuck Shepherd marat province, Thailand, and was excited to learn it may be a rare substance called ambergris, or vomit produced by sperm whales. The Mirror reported ambergris is highly prized in making perfume, and it might be worth as much as $260,000. “If I really have the genuine ambergris, I can help my community once I find a buyer for it,” Niamrin said. “I’m keeping it safe in my house” as she waits for expert confirmation of its authenticity.

MULTITASKING

Northern California plastic surgeon Scott Green surprised officials in Sacramento Superior Court on Feb. 25 when he appeared for a traffic trial via videoconference from what appeared to be an operating room, the Sacramento Bee reported. As clicks

and whirs of medical equipment and suctions could be heard in the background, a courtroom clerk questioned his whereabouts, and Green, dressed in hospital scrubs, admitted, “Yes, I’m in an operating room right now. I’m available for trial. Go right ahead.” Despite Green’s repeated assurances, Court Commissioner Gary Link was skeptical: “I do not feel comfortable for the welfare of a patient if you’re in the process of operating ... I don’t think that’s appropriate.” The trial was rescheduled for later in March. California’s Medical Board said in a statement it was investigating the incident.

CRIME REPORT

Sharon Carr of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was arrested by officers responding to a residential burglary call on Feb. 26 when she stepped from the shadows in front of the victim’s house. Investigators found a window screen removed and a window open, where they allege Carr entered the home but quickly left, leaving behind an empty Cheetos bag and a water bottle.

Cheetos residue on Carr’s teeth linked her to the crime, reported KTUL-TV, along with testimony from the victim. Carr was charged with first-degree burglary.

THE FOREIGN PRESS

Diplomats and their families from the Russian embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea, worked around extreme COVIDinduced travel restrictions by pushing themselves across the border in a rail trolley to reach their home country on Feb. 25, the BBC reported. The group of eight, including children, traveled 32 hours by train and two hours by bus to reach the Russian border, but trains and wagons cannot enter or leave North Korea, so the embassy’s third secretary, Vladislav Sorokin, completed the last half-mile of the journey by pushing the trolley filled with the group and their baggage on train tracks over the Tumen River, where they were met by Russian officials at the border station.

ANIMAL ANTICS

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Mates Jackson Perry and Noah Palmer of Mandurah, Western Australia, planned a leisurely float offshore, drinking beer on a blowup air mattress on Feb. 27, but they wound up stranded in the Indian Ocean for nearly three hours after the wind blew them out to sea. “We couldn’t paddle against the wind, and we just kept going further and further out,” Perry told 7News, but they did manage to call a friend, who reached them on his jet ski just before their cellphones died. “We were kind of getting worried at that point,” Perry said, but the beers helped with the anxiety.

MYSTERY

Police in Hertfordshire, England, received about 100 complaints over a three-day period from people parked at a Tesco store in Royston who reported their car alarms inexplicably went off, and they couldn’t use their key fobs to lock or unlock their vehicles. Communications watchdog company Ofcom told the BBC in March 1 its investigators checked the area for signs of interference, but found nothing. No cars have been reported stolen, and police said they were not treating the incidents as malicious.

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EuroWeekly reported that on Feb. 24, a routine Sudanese Tarco airline flight from Khartoum to Doha, Qatar, was forced to turn around about a half-hour after takeoff when a stowaway cat caused a midair emergency. The cat gained entry to the cockpit and became aggressive, attacking the crew, who were unable to restrain it, prompting the pilot to return to the airport. Officials believe the cat got onto the airplane while it was parked overnight in a hangar in Khartoum.

Natasha Harris of Lillian, Alabama, called the Baldwin County Sheriff ’s office on Feb. 28 after her granddaughter’s pet goat, Billy the Kid, returned home from one of his frequent adventures around their rural neighborhood painted from head to toe. Harris told Fox 10 News she suspected local teens had stolen and abused the goat, but investigators followed the goat’s trail to Erica Farmer, who was visiting relatives nearby, and arrested her for theft of property and animal cruelty. Farmer has since apologized for dying the goat with colored shampoo and food coloring, and Harris now wants the charges dropped, telling the district attorney’s office, “I’m really sorry for wasting your time.”

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rooster was removed to a poultry farm nearby.

In late February, Thangulla Satish, 45, was killed in Telangana state in southern India when the rooster he was preparing for an illegal cockfight panicked and slashed him with the 3-inch blade strapped to its leg. Police inspector B. Jeevan said Satish was “hit by the rooster’s knife in his groin and started bleeding heavily,” the Associated Press reported.

He died on the way to the hospital. The

Amazon released a new icon for its shopping app in January with what was supposed to look like a jagged piece of tape on a package above Amazon’s smiling arrow logo but instead reminded some viewers of Adolf Hitler’s mustache, CBS News reported. After Twitter users commented on the resemblance, Amazon tweaked the art and rolled out a more squared-off version in late February.

CLICHE COME TO LIFE

Wendi Dale Hird, 56, was arrested at her home in Largo, Florida, late on Feb. 28 after throwing her cat in her 73-year-old male roommate’s face, causing the cat to scratch him, according to arrest records.

Police say she then struck the man in the face. Hird was charged with domestic battery on a person over the age of 65, reported The Smoking Gun. (Bonus: Hird was arrested in 2018 for allegedly battering the same man, described in court documents as a platonic roommate, but was not prosecuted.) !

© 2021 Chuck Shepherd. Universal Press Syndicate.

Send your weird news items with subject line WEIRD NEWS to WeirdNewsTips@amuniversal.com.

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March 10-16, 2021

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feature

In Her Element: The hometown singer/songwriter conquers Hollywood

P

aris “PJ” Jones has found her element and is thriving on the road to success, as she not only conquers Hollywood but her own self-doubts. The Chanel Davis Greensboro native remembers music Editor always being a part of her life and credits her mother with her love of Hip Hop, broad taste in music, and career choice.

She graduated with a degree in music business and commercial songwriting.

“My mom was always playing music, but she never played like the older stuff.

It was something I dived into when I was in high school. And then when it came time for college, I thought I wanted to be an audio engineer and went to school for that,” she said.

Not finding an internship in Nashville is what ultimately catapulted her career and set her on the path to Los Angeles in 2015.

“It just really wasn’t diverse, and it was really hard for me to get an internship.

So right before I was going to graduate, I came to L.A. to this program called ASCAP, caught the attention of some people here, and basically ended up signing as a songwriter,” she said. “My first song I wrote was for Meek Mill.”

The 30-year-old singer/songwriter has a diverse, impressive writing discography that restores the old adage of whether the pen is mightier than the sword. Thus far, PJ’s pen is deadly and has helped some of the industry’s most prominent artists kill the game when it comes to the music industry.

She’s written dozens of hits, including “Left Right Left” for Charlie Puth, “I Don’t Know” (feat. Paloma Ford) for Meek Mill, “All In a Day’s Work” by Danity Kane, “True Color” (feat. Nicki Minaj) for Wiz Khalifa, “Excuse Me” for Kevin Gates, “Finale” and “Guard Down” for Ty Dolla $ign, “Nothing to Me” for G-Eazy, “I’m Still Here” for the soundtrack of Jem and the Holograms, “Ride Out” for the soundtrack of Furious 7, “Deliver” for Lupe Fiasco, “No Time for It” YES! WEEKLY

MARCH 10-16, 2021

for Fantasia, and “Rivals” (feat. Future) for Usher.

When it comes to her writing for rappers, PJ said that it used to bother her, but she’s come to accept that shows that her songs and songwriting skills have range.

“It was something that used to really bug me because as a writer, you know, most of the time females write for females,” she said. “It’s not like you can’t.

But, you know, I feel like I wrote hundreds of thousands of female songs, and for some reason, I couldn’t get a lot of people to cut it. Which, to me, just proved that I needed to be an artist. I have a tone in my voice that is not easily duplicated. It used to get me down, but then I was just really appreciated the fact that rappers were the first ones to fuck with me.”

She’s not only lent her pen but her voice to “All I Know” for Boosie, “Love Star” (feat. Marsha Ambrosius), and “Unfamiliar” for Common.

At the same time, she was putting pen to pad for others, she found her own and inked her way to success.

“I always wanted to be a singer. I was really shy, and I had terrible stage fright. It was something that I just had to get over,” she said of transitioning to the forwardfacing part of the music. “I feel like I was waiting on somebody to approve me.”

After releasing Walking Around Pools and Rare in 2015 and 2016, respectively, PJ found herself on the way to becoming a household name. Her single, “Tell Me (Feat. Jevon Doe),” from the Rare LP racked up over 3.5 million Spotify streams.

That day arrived with just “One Missed Call.”

The upbeat, dedicated-to-an-ex 2019 single took the summer, and radio, by storm as PJ’s melodic vocals and raw lyrics danced over the beat with the recognizable “All I Do” Stevie Wonder sample.

With almost 2.5 million views on Youtube alone, the video is also a far cry from the industry norm. PJ’s locked hair, natural makeup, and wholesome clothing choices contribute to the melanated magic that she exudes while making you feel like she’s the girl next door telling you about the trifling boy toy she needs to drop like a bad habit.

Creating her own artistry and style by blending the sounds of pop, soul, and

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country, she would go on to tour with ELHAE and Pink Sweat$ for his 2019 Pink Beginnings 11-city tour run and performed as part of MTV’s influential PUSH Live concert series.

“My music is conscious R&B music in a way. There are so many young people in general who are uncomfortable in the spaces that they occupy, and they don’t feel like they can do this or don’t feel like they can push forward. I’m making the soundtrack for them,” she said of her sound dubbed “come up music.”

One would think that the lyrical genius has always been comfortable in this zone.

However, PJ makes it clear in her Waiting For Paris EP that she’s found her mojo, and nothing can stop her. Not even a pandemic.

“I’m just excited, I feel so happy, and I feel so blessed. I’ve had a lot of things change around me. There’s a lot of water that I’m navigating and landscape, you know, and there’s not a lot of outlets for female singers, or black female singers, to be seen,” she said. “You just have to trust in yourself and listen to your inner voice. I feel like I’m going to do what I wanna do, and I want to make the music that when they turn it off, they feel like that.”

PJ did what she does best while in quarantine - created (or, in this case, recreated) music. She debuted her widely-popular cover series, The Quarantine Tapes, streaming via SoundCloud, which include a version of Doja Cat’s “Say So”, Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now,” Justin Bieber’s “Intentions/Yummy,” “Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head)” by Powfu, and labelmate Roddy Ricch’s breakout single “High Fashion.” She shared day-to-day life with the Recording Academy for a recent installment of their ongoing Quarantine Diaries and is working with UPROXX on few projects, including Penned By PJ, an exclusive series breaking down the story WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

and craft behind her singles. She’s also teamed up with VICE and 76 gas station to “Day Trippin’ with PJ,” a three-part series that gives fans insight into PJ’s life as a songwriter, artist, and woman in the industry. In the series, she drives her car around L.A. to visit places that have inspired, influenced and impacted her since she’s been in the city of angels.

Her latest single, “Element,” is a bold reminder that she’s good at what she does, and you should respect it. The cockiness in the song’s verses adds certainty to her new level of success as if the song appearing on HBO’s award-winning television drama INSECURE Music Season 4, written and produced by Emmy-nominated Issa Rae, soundtrack. The companion visual premiered when the soundtrack was released. PJ recently joined fellow soundtrack artists and actors for the official INSECURE Soundtrack Music Panel, where they dived into discussions on the importance of black music, dating and relationships, and took over NPR Music in support of the release where PJ performed for their Tiny Desk Concert Series.

The evolution to screen shouldn’t be such a big surprise. With her single “Steps” appearing in the 2019 season finale of Being Mary Jane, “Element” appearing in HBO’s INSECURE and is featured on Common’s “Don’t Forget” which is featured on Netflix’s Bookmarks. The new series features celebrities and artists reading children’s books by African-American authors to spark conversations about empathy, equality, justice, self-love, and anti-racism. She admits that the purchase of a video camera in third grade, the love of film and television will probably lead her to the art of making music for sync.

“I’m learning so much from Common, and its super dope to learn from an artist living in both worlds,” she said. “When you get to make music for movies, you’re liter-

ally trying to experience something purely off of emotion. When you see a scene and the song captures it perfectly — that is amazing!”

Musically, the confidence-infused verses weaved in the Waiting For Paris LP make it clear that Paris has indeed arrived.

With collaborations from Gizzle, Symba, and fellow North Carolina native and Dreamville recording artist Lute, the sixsong EP is full of melodic instrumentals supported by a timely strings section with bold, cocky, and unabashed lyrics dancing among the beat. With track titles like “I’m Forreal” (feat. Lute), “Counterfeit,” “Smoke”, “Y’Oh” (feat. Symba), “Privately”, and “Price” (feat. Gizzle), the songstress has stayed true to her self-titled “come up music” style.

She’s partnered with Flo Milli to offer a remix to “Element” featured in HBO’s INSECURE. “In this new music I’m working on, it shows that there are so many issues that people are battling out here rather than the ‘my man cheated on me’ or ‘I don’t know if you love me or not’ or ‘you need to make a commitment.’ This new music that I’m working on is about making sure you’re happy.”

She recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon with Common and Black Thought performing “Say Peace” from Common’s recently released album A Beautiful Revolution Part 1. PJ is featured on four tracks and has songwriting credits for two songs on the album.

She’s also teamed up with Common to perform “Don’t Forget” on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”

During Election season, she participated in a nine-city Get Out to Vote Tour with Common from Oct. 22 - Nov. 2. hitting Philadelphia, Orlando, Miami, Charleston, Atlanta, Greensboro, Houston, Charlotte, and Tampa. She was even invited to

perform with him at Planet AFROPUNK, a digital space highlighting the black experience via different arts and media streams.

She’s also breaking barriers between the artists and fans. The songtress recently teamed up with the Voisey App to launch the #PrivatelyChallenge, inviting fans to remix the original track and win a feature on the original remix. Voisey winner Terria Chrischelle won the challenge and is featured on “Privately (Remix).”

Voisey is a mobile music creation app that provides users with access to instrumental backing tracks or beats, and vocal effects to make studio-quality recordings and videos, known as voiseys. Users can collaborate, share on social media platforms, send in messages, or download the files. According to a media release from Atlantic Records, this is the first time an artist signed to a major label has released a remix featuring a Voisey App winner.

Despite all of her career success, the songstress can still tell you she went to Lincoln Middle, lived on English Street, and went to the Peeler Center and Boys and Girls Club by Windsor and Peeler in Greensboro.

She’ll tell you that her parents met at N.C. A&T and one of her biggest goals is “to do homecoming just one time.”

PJ said she’s excited to see what comes next for her and encourages all women to just take a chance on their dream.

“I just want women to feel like they can do anything, and if it piques your interest, you should do it and try it out,” she said.

“The plan is to take over.”

But at the end of the day, she’s just PJ. For more information, visit https:// www.justpeej.com. !

CHANEL DAVIS is the current editor of YES! Weekly and graduated from N.C. A&T S.U. in 2011 with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communications. She’s worked at daily and weekly newspapers in the Triad region.

MARCH 10-16, 2021 YES! WEEKLY

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Her Story: Historic Women of the Triad Maya angelou

Poet, essayist, memoirist, activist, screenwriter, and dancer Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, and died in Winston-Salem on May 28, 2018. She achieved worldwide fame with the 1969 publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first of her seven auIan McDowell tobiographies, which dealt with her life up to the age of 17. It was the first Contributor nonfiction bestseller by an AfricanAmerican woman.

Long before that work was published, she led an incredibly diverse life that is almost impossible to summarize in a short article. She would later write about being raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was seven and the murder of her rapist by her uncles, leading to her not speaking again until she was 12. Her self-imposed silence honed her listening, observing, and memorizing skills, and she became an omnivorous reader. At 14, she moved with her mother to California, where she became San Francisco’s Black female cable car conductor at 16. She would later write and speak with utter candor about working as a prostitute and a pimp.

In 1951, she started dancing professionally, first with the dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey, then solo and singing Calypso songs at the Beatnik club The Purple Onion, where she adopted the name Maya Angelou. In 1954-55, she toured Europe in a production of Porgy and Bess, and in 1957 recorded the album Miss Calypso, for which she wrote five of the songs.

In 1959, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writer’s Club, became increasingly politically active, met James Baldwin and Malcolm X, and was told “you’re going to be famous, but it won’t be for singing” by Billie Holiday.

In the early 1960s, she performed on Broadway and in Berlin in Jean Genet’s The Blacks, worked as an associate editor at the weekly English-language newspaper The Arab Observer in Cairo, and as an administrator at the University of Ghana. In 1965, she returned to the US to help Malcolm X form the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

In 1968, she attended a dinner party with James Baldwin, where Random House editor Robert Loomis encouraged her to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Besides six more volumes of autobiography, she would follow its phenomenal critical and commercial success with over a dozen collections of poetry, three volumes of personal essays, two cookbooks, seven children’s books, seven plays, 21 documentaries, several films, four spoken word albums, and a TV series. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. In 1993, she became the first poet since YES! WEEKLY

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Robert Frost to make an inaugural recitation when she recited her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton. She received over 50 honorary degrees and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2000 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. In 2006, the Association of Women in Sports Media (AWSM) renamed its Pioneer Award the Mary Garber Pioneer Award.

Mary ellen garber

Black LGBT Rights activist Mabel Hampton was born in Winston-Salem in 1902 and died in New York in 1989. She was a singer and dancer during the Harlem Renaissance who performed with such stars as Moms Mabley and Ethel Waters at the famous Garden of Joy nightclub. For most of her life, she lived openly as a self-described “butch lesbian” and, in her later years, regularly answered the question “when did you come out?” with “honey, I was never in!”

According to recordings that Hampton made for the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, her mother died when she was two months old, and her grandmother adopted her. When her grandmother died in 1909, the seven-year-old girl was shipped to Greenwich Village, where she lived with her aunt and uncle until the woman beat her and the man raped her. She fled and lived with a white family in New Jersey until she was 17.

In 1919, she was arrested at a woman-only party in Harlem and served 13 months in a correctional facility.

She was arrested and imprisoned again after a neighbor reported that she attended more women-only parties.

Still, she continued going after her second release and found employment as a performer in an all-women troupe in Coney Island.

The social circles of the Harlem Renaissance allowed her to meet not only other Black dancers, singers, writers, and artists, but the New York gay community of the Roaring Twenties and Depression, and she would become a valuable chronicler of the lesbian scene in Harlem, Greenwich Village, and the Bronx.

While waiting for a bus in 1932, Hampton met a woman she later described as “dressed like a duchess.” This was her lifelong partner Lillian Foster, of whom she said the following in 1976: “We haven’t been separated since in our whole life.

Death will separate us. Other than that, I don’t want it to end.” They referred to themselves as Mabel and Lillian Hampton and lived together at 639 E. 169th Street in the Bronx’s Morrisania section until Foster died in 1978.

From 1948 until her retirement in 1972, Hampton worked at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. In 1952, she briefly served as a domestic worker in the childhood home of Joan Nestle, the gay Jewish activist, and writer who would co-found the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974. In addition to helping Leslie found the organization, Hampton donated her collection of lesbian pulp fiction novels and held the banner in many Pride marches.

Hampton marched in the first national gay and lesbian civil rights march in Washington, D.C., and appeared in the films “Silent Pioneers” and “Before Stonewall.” In 1984, Hampton addressed the crowds at New York City’s

Mary Ellen Garber, who was born in New York in 1916 and died in WinstonSalem in 2008, was a pioneering woman sportswriter. In 1924, shortly after her family moved to Winston-Salem, she had already acquired the two passions that would rule her life.

Although only eight years old, she was already reading the Winston-Salem Journal’s sports page and playing tackle football with neighborhood boys. Because she never grew larger than five feet tall and 90 pounds, she soon gave up playing football but never stopped loving sports.

When Garber graduated from Hollins College in Roanoke in 1938, she set out to become a professional journalist. But as she later told the Winston-Salem Journal’s Frank Tursi, “I never considered anything else [but being a journalist], But never at any time did I think about being a sportswriter.” She knew it was not a job for which any editor would hire her.

Instead, she started her journalism career at Winston’s afternoon daily, The Twin City Sentinel. Then came World War II, and just as with other professions, women were hired to fill the positions vacated by men serving overseas. Garber switched to general assignment reporting.

In 1944, the paper’s high school sports reporter graduated and joined the army. Garber took over his slot until the end of the war when she switched back to general reporting. But she kept asking for sports assignments, and in 1946, both the Sentinel’s managing editor and sports editor gave in.

For 30 years, she was the only female sports reporter in the ACC Conference and one of the very few in the country. But that wasn’t the only way she stood out.

She began covering sports at Atkins and Carver High Schools and Winston-State University, all of which were Black only.

“There were two different worlds, black and white, and most news about black people ended up on the Sunday newspaper’s ‘colored page,’” said Winston-Salem State Hall of Fame basketball coach Clarence “Big House” Gaines in an interview for the Washington Press Club Foundation in 1990. “We had outstanding athletes here, and Mary came to write about them when no one else cared. Mary was always trying to help the underdog.”

Garber stayed with the Sentinel until it changed hands in 1985. She retired from the Journal in 1986 but continued working part-time until 2002.

In 1990, the Atlantic Coast Conference established the annual Mary Garber Award to honor the ACC’s top female athlete. In 1998, Garber received the Mel Greenberg Media Award, and in 2008, was inducted into the Hall of Fame

Mabel HaMpton

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Pride Parade. She said, “I, Mabel Hampton, have been a lesbian all my life, for 82 years, and I am proud of myself and my people. I would like all my people to be free in this country and all over the world, my gay people and my black people.”

After Lillian Foster’s death, Hampton remained actively involved in LGBT issues. She spent her final years helping to catalog the lives of Black lesbians in the 20th century with the Lesbian Herstory Archives and was an active member of Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE) until she died on October 26, 1989.

CLARA IONE COX

Clara Ione Cox, who was born in 1879 in Guilford County and died in 1940, was a Quaker pastor and community activist in High Point. As a minister of the Springfield Quaker Meeting for 21 years, she advocated for “Interracial Sundays,” an effort to celebrate inclusion within local churches, and served on the Interracial Relations Committee of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends.

Her activism, however, was not confined to her work within the church but was also performed separately to it. Because of this, church records contain little mention of it, but her correspondence reveals it was an equally important part of her life. She was very active in several secular anti-racist organizations from the 1920s until after World War II, including the Committee on Inter-racial Cooperation and the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL).

This was more unusual than it may seem. Despite their church’s historical opposition to slavery, which included a pivotal role in establishing the Underground Railroad, after the failure of Reconstruction and the disenfranchisement of Blacks throughout the former Confederacy, Quaker ministers kept a low political profile in the Jim Crow South. From the 1914 revival of the KKK until the dawn of the Civil Rights Era, they rarely spoke out against racism. An interracial conference held in Greensboro in 1925 was attended by 16 Quakers from Philadelphia, but almost no few Southern Quakers attended or even showed interest in the event.

As chair of the state ASWPL, Clara maintained a lengthy correspondence with Jessie Daniel Ames, founder of the association and director of the women’s committee of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, leaving behind boxes of letters testifying to her activism.

This correspondence included letters she wrote and delivered to local sheriffs, in which she commended them for not allowing mobs to seize and lynch prisoners and entreating them and their deputies to read attached pamphlets from ASWPL. She also corresponded with local African American community leaders such as C.C. Spaulding, President of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company in Durham, N.C., America’s largest black-owned business.

Her correspondence also shows her support for the 1934 federal anti-lynching bill sponsored by Democratic senators Edward Costigan from Colorado and Robert Wagner from New York. President Roosevelt was leery of supporting the bill fearing it would cost him white voters in the South. Many sheriffs who publicly opposed lynching also opposed the bill, as it opened them to prosecution if they failed to protect prisoners from mobs. The bill ultimately failed, despite the many letters Cox wrote to sheriffs urging them to support it.

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Her 1940 eulogy delivered by Quaker minister Joseph H. Peele makes no mention of her anti-lynching activism but states ““her last official message was an earnest request that Interracial Sunday, which comes on the eleventh of this month, be properly observed.”

TABITHA ANN HOLTON

The first woman to be licensed as an attorney in North Carolina (or in any Southern state), Tabitha Ann Holton was born in Iredell County around 1854, graduated from Greensboro Academy in 1878, and practiced law in Surrey County until her death from tuberculosis in 1886.

She descended from Quakers and Moravians who migrated southward down the Great Wagon Road into central North Carolina, like many religious dissenters. Despite this ancestry, her father was a Methodist minister who risked his life by condemning slavery and was elected president of the North Carolina Conference for Methodist Preachers in 1863, which kept him away from his family for long periods.

When her mother died in 1871, Holton and her four siblings moved to Guilford County to be closer to their extended family. While attending Greensboro Academy, she and her brothers Samuel and A. E. Holton supplemented their education with legal books borrowed from friends and local lawyers.

A. E. also trained under Albion Winegar Tourgée, the former Union soldier who became a lawyer, writer, and Reconstruction politician after moving to North Carolina, where he founded Bennett College as a normal school for freedman. Exiled from the state when white supremacists regained political power, Tourgée became a pioneering civil rights activist and is credited with introducing the concept of “color-blind justice” into legal discourse. Unlike her brother, Tabitha never formally trained under him, but he advised her and lent her law books.

Tabitha Holton graduated from Greensboro Academy with a fierce determination to become a lawyer. On January 8, 1878, she and her brother and Samuel appeared before the NC Supreme Court in Raleigh to take the state bar exam. Samuel was given the exam, but Tabitha’s request was met with considerable consternation. After some debate, she was asked to return the following morning and argue her case to take the exam before the Court.

As she was not yet a licensed attorney, she could not make that argument herself but was represented by Albion Tourgée. Tourgée argued that the bar admission statute stated that “all persons who may apply for admission” rather than “all men.” Citing as precedent the five states that admitted women to the bar, Tourgée reminded the Court that Holton was not asking for favors but only requested a fair chance to be admitted to the bar. Upon brief deliberation, Holton was allowed to do so.

The Raleigh News reported that “Her answers to all the questions propounded were satisfactory and were given in such a manner as to show her acquaintance with the law. Not a single question was unanswered, and it

was stated that she passed the examination as well, if not better than any of the masculine applicants.”

Within 10 minutes, the N.C. Supreme Court ruled that Holton should be admitted to the North Carolina bar.

Tabitha Ann and Samuel Holton soon set up practice in Dobson. She practiced law in the small Surry County town from 1878 until she contracted tuberculosis eight years later. When she died at the age of 33, the entire town mourned, and civic leaders distributed a handbill honoring her life and accomplishments. She was buried in Springfield Meeting House cemetery in High Point.

ROSETTA CORA BALDWIN

Beloved High Point teacher Rosetta Cora Baldwin was born in Graham on February 14, 1902, and died in 2000 at 98.

During her lifetime, she educated and inspired thousands of children, first in other schools and then in the one she founded in the living room of her own home.

She first moved to High Point with her father, John Baldwin, when she was ten years old. In 1920, when she was 18, she helped him construct High Point’s first Seventh Day Adventist Church next door to their home on Olga Avenue. She graduated from High Point Normal and Industrial Institute (later known as William Penn High School) and continued her education at Oakwood College, a private, historically Black Seventh-day Adventist university in Huntsville, Alabama.

Her teaching career began in 1923 in La Grange, the small Lenoir County town in the inland coastal NC region that 21st-century developers have recently rebranded as the “Inner Banks.” For the next decade, Baldwin taught in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Wilmington, before teaching in Louisville, Ky, from 1934 until her High Point return in 1942.

That’s when she founded her private school in the living room of her family home on Olga Avenue. In 1981, a new Baldwin’s Chapel Seventh Day Adventist Church was built on Leonard Street, a block from the church’s original location, and Baldwin’s Chapel School moved to two classrooms in the lower level of the church. In 1998, a committee was formed to move the school to its own building next to the church. The new school, which included seven classrooms, an auditorium, and office space, was completed in less than a year.

“We worked hard because we were so fearful that she would leave us before we were finished,” her cousin Julius Clark told the News and Record in 2000. “We wanted to finish it so that she could see it with her own eyes and walk in it on her own feet. And she did it. It was an 18-year-old dream for her.”

Baldwin taught children in High Point for 54 years, retiring at 94. In 2001, the High Point Planning and Zoning Commission voted to rename Olga, the street where Baldwin grew up, and began her school, R.C. Baldwin Avenue.

That same year, former High Point Mayor Arnold Koonce proclaimed Nov. 29 Rosetta Cora Baldwin’s Day. !

IAN MCDOWELL is the author of two published novels, numerous anthologized short stories, and a whole lot of nonfiction and journalism, some of which he’s proud of and none of which he’s ashamed of.

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Lauren Light shines

auren Light continues basking in her role as a dark pop girl boss, looking to shine with a licensing agency, podcast, and her latest album, “You’re Not My Boyfriend,” out now via streaming platforms.

As a songwriter, Light walks the line of penning emotional pop music for her records while filling an array of sonic requests to write “sync” music for commercial and cinematic backgrounds.

While she relishes the variety in writing for sync, her passion comes through her brand of emotive pop. “I love writing music that makes people feel something,” she said. “If that’s sad, happy, or even nostalgic—I just like bringing people to that place.”

Her new record hits the mark, touching on notes for Kelly Clarkson’s fans or an electropopped Alanis Morissette.

In Top 40 fashion, “You’re Not My Boyfriend” follows lines of life after love. “This is definitely a breakup album,” Light said. “It explores the process for before, during, and after,” with the two latest singles, “BandAid” and “Text From My Ex, “outlining ends of that cycle.

The former, an R&B pop ballad released in December, explores the middle of an imploding relationship—one where Light found herself, “holding onto someone that had already let go,” she said, “and wishing if they were going to break my heart, they would just rip it off like a band-aid.” A remix featuring a rap-verse from William Nesmith closes the record. “He surprised me on TikTok when I originally released Band-Aid,” Light explained. “I told him he needed to track it ASAP for the album!”

But the album doesn’t hinge solely on heartbreak. In “Text From My Ex,” Light becomes whole in the danceable track, she added at the last minute, inspired by a reallife titular scenario. “I had just finalized all the tracks for the album that day and got a random text from my ex,” she explained.

“It was the first time I felt like I had really moved on.” And instead of replying, “I deleted their number and wrote a fun, sarcastic song about it with my friend Steve,” she added. “It felt like a wrap-up of everything I had gone through and how I came out stronger in the end. I hope others can hear this anthem and claim it as their own.”

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Anthems and emotions follow the shades of Light’s brand of “dark pop,” which she discerns from the bubblegum variety using “darker elements and sounds, with a splash of R&B and Soul in the mix.”

Exploring the bounds of genres is an element bridging her work from personal to commercial.

“I get to do a little bit of everything when writing for a specific scene in a show or a brand’s commercial,” she said of developing sync material. “I’ve always loved writing and singing multiple genres of music, so it’s the perfect space for me to go wild.”

Light distinguishes ends of that space through a handful of project-identities: LUX AURI is for cinematic trailers, Lightminded is her “sassy trap” duo with LA-based artist Soulplusmind, “FVB” is for full upbeat ambient ad music, and “everything else” falls under ABSTRCT, a production team she maintains with friends.

“These all have new songs coming out all the time,” she noted of her continuous stream of commercial material, boasting a 200-plus song catalog searchable on her website. “I’ve spent my quarantine writing a lot of music,” she said.

The various identities work under twoOHsix music’s umbrella, a Los Angeles-based licensing-agency she co-founded with Alex Helton, Chelsey Coy, and Megan Mohyla.

“It’s crazy being three-hours ahead of everyone you work with daily,” Light said of juggling life across the coasts, listing a few of her favorite placements landing in shows like Marvel’s Runaways; and in ads for Walmart and Hailstorm.

Although she can’t name brands (or the

film) she’s currently working with, Light is excited about upcoming placements.

“That’s the thing with sync. Your song can land a spot sometimes up to six months before anyone else can know or see it,” she said.

A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, Light parleys her experience over “The EnLightened Musician,” a weekly podcast, now in its second year that focuses on building business within the music industry.

Each episode features guests “from every part of the industry and worldwide,” discussing topics central to the music business.

“The goal is to have as many different backgrounds as possible,” she explained, “so we all can learn from each other and grow as a music community.” Upcoming episodes will cover landing sponsorships and a Q&A on sync music.

While Light basks in her songwriting work, she’s looking forward to a return of live performance. “Being on stage is truly the one thing I’ve missed the most,” she said, reflecting on her recent appearance at Oden Brewing Company for their Women’s Day pop-up and dates currently filling her calendar.

Light’s next appearance will be at Grove Winery on March 27. “The EnLightened Musician” streams weekly on Tuesdays, and her latest album, “You’re Not My Boyfriend,” is out now. !

KATEI CRANFORD is a Triad music nerd who hosts “Katei’s Thursday Triad Report,” a weekly radio show spotlighting area artists and events, Thurs. 5:30-7 p.m. on WUAG 103.1FM. #ksttr

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[THE ADVICE GODDESS] love • sex • dating • marriage • questions

OLD IS THE NEW BLACK

What are your thoughts on women who are involved with much younger men? A friend who’s my age, 58, is dating a 23-year-old guy.

She started seeing Amy Alkon him when he was 18 and refers to him Advice as her “husband.”

Goddess I went on a day trip with the two of them, and it honestly felt like we had a child in tow.

He whines and pouts to get his way, feels a need to one-up everybody in conversation, and says and does weirdly inappropriate things (like skipping through a graveyard and talking openly about his sexual prowess). They profess their love to each other often, and I guess if it’s working, it’s fine, but I just don’t get it. —Baffled Dating somebody 40 years younger can make for awkward silences at dinner parties, like when somebody asks one’s boyfriend, “What were you doing on 9/11?” and he says, “Um, teething?”

Of course, there are some constants in life, and one of them is how men, no matter how old and geezery, are most attracted to women in their early 20s.

(Think Hooters hiring pool and 70-something grandpas with self-inflicted whiplash.) Women, on the other hand, tend to go for slightly older men throughout their lives, until they’re in their 70s, when

they dip down a bit — though typically a handful of years, not four decades.

However, within every “men tend to” or “women tend to,” there are individual differences; for example, a woman bumping up against 60 who’s dating a guy who probably remembers preschool like it was yesterday — because it kinda pretty much was.

Older women who date downward in age eight or more years (or try to) get called “cougars,” sneering slang for sexually hungry older women hunting for younger man prey. The term is said to trace back to the Vancouver Canucks hockey team in the ‘80s: the players’ label for older, single, hetero female groupies who frequented their games and tried to score sex with them. However, “cougar” didn’t go wide till 2003, when Demi Moore, at 40, started dating the 15-years-her-junior Ashton Kutcher, then 25, whom she later married and divorced.

There are now cougar reality shows, dating sites, blogs, and books, and there have even been cougar beauty pageants.

This makes it sound like there are hungry cougar-inas lurking around every corner. However, an analysis of census data by public policy researchers Zoe Lawton and Paul Callister in 2010 suggests the extent of this is “exaggerated by the media.” They likewise suspect (and more recent survey data bears out) that the number of these older woman/ much-younger man couplings that turn into long?term relationships is “considerably smaller” than those that wind up as short-term flings.

Younger men are sometimes a workaround for older women experiencing

a man famine: a shortage of men close to their age, who tend to date younger women. But a younger man can be (or turn into) a preference — maybe because he’s more fun and makes an older woman feel young again and probably because he’s a sex machine that does not require pharmaceuticals or batteries. A much-younger boyfriend is also a status symbol of sorts, showily breaking the mold of being a sexually ignored aging woman. And maybe, just maybe, there’s sometimes a connection that makes the guy’s age and any related incompatibilities unimportant — sometimes because an older woman is secure and happy enough on her own that she doesn’t require a man to be a human Costco to fill her every need.

Though people point and laugh at older woman/younger man couples, the joke might be on the jokers. Social psychologist Justin Lehmiller surveyed around 200 heterosexual women in relationships: women with male partners close to their age, women significantly younger than their male partners, and women significantly older than their male partners (22 years older on average). He found

that women 10 or more years older than their male mate were the happiest: the most satisfied with their relationships and committed to their partners.

The fact that your friend’s been with this guy for five years suggests this is more than a Boytoys R Us phase. Ask her what she sees in him, and listen with an open mind. You might find your way to a little more compassion and understanding. That said, it’s probably best to avoid being around the two of them and instead see her alone, because, well, adulthood can be overrated — except when you want to have a conversation.

Even if you never quite get what the attraction is, you might just resolve to be happy that she’s happy. She’s having fun; she’s in love at nearly age 60; and sex for her is smokin’ — and not because her partner’s pacemaker catches fire midway through. !

GOT A PROBLEM? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave., #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email AdviceAmy@ aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com). Follow her on Twitter @amyalkon. Order her latest “science-help” book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence. ©2021 Amy Alkon. Distributed by Creators.Com.

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