LIFE DURING WARTIME Historical novels can founder when history blooms from invention and sentiment rather than vice versa. But with care and erudition, they bring the past to life with more immediacy than nonfiction. A new young author with strong North Carolina connections knows how it’s done. With her preternaturally mature debut THE STORY OF […]
Brian Howe
Posted inCulture
Movie review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles elevates the art of cinema to new heights
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ★★ Now playing Kidding! Yeah, it’s not great—but it’s not as awful as you’ve heard. In this reboot of a long-running, media-crossing action/comedy franchise, New York TV news reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) discovers that her childhood pet turtles have mutated into a quartet of anthropomorphic sewer-dwelling vigilantes, trained in ninjutsu […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Space romp Guardians of the Galaxy is the best, funniest Marvel movie yet
Guardians of the galaxy Opening Friday As the global threat of superhero movie fatigue rises, here comes GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY to save the day. The rare summer blockbuster with a wry smile and a light step, it pushes the borders of the Marvel universe into the deepest cosmos with a rollicking tale that’s part […]
Posted inMusic
Live: Richard Buckner makes it rain in Duke Garden
Richard Buckner Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham Wednesday, July 9, 2014 The last time I saw the enigmatic singer-songwriter Richard Buckner in Durham, it was a misty night. This time, it was misty again, which was even more noticeable in the outdoor setting of Duke Gardens than in the close confines of The Pinhook. As […]
Posted inBooks
The theremin’s story is stranger than fiction
Sean Michaels with Dave Yarwood Letters Bookshop, Durham June 29, 2 p.m., free A tattoo of a circuit diagram encircles my forearm. It’s from an electronic instrument I built from a kita theremin, which is played by moving your hands around a pair of antennas. Even if the instrument’s name is unfamiliar, its eerie whistling […]
Posted inCulture
Audio: The sounds of summer on the day before the solstice
Last Third Friday, June 20, I attended the first Audio Under the Stars event at SPECTRE Arts, a small gallery near Golden Belt. In a preview in the INDY, I had described it as “The Moth, but prerecorded.” But with ambient sounds and music mixed in, it wound up feeling more like a bite-sized This […]
Posted inCulture
Nine pieces of UNC-Chapel Hill art history for sale
Want to own a piece of UNC-Chapel Hill history? An upcoming exhibit at Raleigh’s Lee Hansley Gallery is your chance. The nationally noted sculptor Robert Howard taught at UNC from 1951 to 1988. In the early ’60s, he was commissioned to make a relief to cover the wall of the sandwich and coffee shop in […]
Posted inFilm & Television
Smyth twins bring monthly abstract film to N.C.
Unexposed June 15, 7:30 p.m. The Perch @ 1011 Burch Avenue, Durham Free durhamunexposed.tumblr.com Strange Beauty only happens once a year, leaving experimental film screenings scarce in the Triangle otherwise. But Unexposed, a new monthly series for local and touring filmmakers, is filling that gap. This Sunday, its fourth installment, themed “Women with Knives,” showcases […]
Posted inCulture
Reading: Helen Pruden Kaufmann on growing up in Edenton during the end of Jim Crow
Helen Pruden Kaufmann’s memoir WHITE GLOVES AND COLLARDS (HPK Press) has been out for half a year but may have slipped under your radar, being self-published (though very professionally done). If you’re interested in intimate, humble, sharp-edged reports on Southern life during the Civil Rights Movement, don’t let it. The book mainly covers the author’s […]
Posted inCulture
Theater review: Tarantino’s Yellow Speedo
Tarantino’s Yellow Speedo ★★★ Little Green Pig at Manbites Dog Theater Through June 7 May was a big month for Durham’s Monica Byrne. On May 20, Crown Publishing Group issued her speculative fiction novel The Girl in the Road, which came armed with big-time blurbs by the likes of Neil Gaiman. (See our review.) Just […]