Hopscotch Design Festival Sept. 3 and 4 Raleigh-wide If you’re a hardcore design head—architectural or digital, graphic or urban—then the new Hopscotch Design Festival, a collaboration between Hopscotch Music and Raleigh design firm New Kind, is a no-brainer. Following the music festival’s example, it brings more than 25 events with 36 local and national design […]
Brian Howe
Our guide to local arts and culture this autumn
Driven by development, the Triangle is changing, which is keenly felt in the arts. CONTENTS DANCE COMEDY THEATER BOOKS FOOTBALL SOCCER HOCKEY FILM VISUAL ART MUSIC New spaces are opening as old ones are closing. Emerging organizations are helping artists and audiences navigate this unsteady terrain, while long-running mainstays are adapting their missions to stay […]
Historical fiction par excellence in The Story of Land and Sea; Proustian overdrive in Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]

