A long time ago (circa 1977), in a galaxy far, far awaythat would be CaliforniaGeorge Lucas created a text crawl so iconic that newspaper writers would forever be powerless to resist appropriating it in Star Wars-related articles. Does any pop culture phenomenon require less explanation? Light sabers and the Force are entrenched in the lingua […]
Brian Howe
Posted inArt
The secret history of the vocoder
How to Wreck a Nice Beach By Dave Tompkins Stop Smiling Books/ Melville House; 335 pp. The room contains two turntables and a microphone. Hulking consoles line the walls, covered in dials and gauges and blinking lights, like the bridge of vintage TV spaceship. The whole scene suggests the fusion of a hip-hop recording studio […]
Posted inMusic
Now in its third year, TRKfest draws from a deep fund of good vibes and goodwill
Megafaun, Lost in the Trees, Hammer No More the Fingers, Embarrassing Fruits, Midtown Dickens, Veelee, Butterflies, Ryan Gustafson, Yardwork, Ezekiel Graves and Vibrant Green play TRKfest at Piedmont Biofuels in Pittsboro Saturday, June 26. Music starts at 2 p.m. For the last two years, TRKfest, a small music festival on the edge of Pittsboro, has […]
Posted inArt
A group show at Lump Gallery grapples with words
Text as Image Lump Gallery Through May 22 This week, two special events at Lump provide additional opportunities to see “Text as Image” Tuesday, May 11, 8 p.m. “Paper Songs”—all visitors are invited to read writing, either their own or someone else’s Thursday, May 13, 8 p.m. “Protocol 101″—a performance project by Ken Rumble, Megan […]
Posted inMusic
Andrew Weathers’ A Great Southern City
As Pacific Before Tiger, the Greensboro-based musician and minimalist composer Andrew Weathers made music that ranged from severe to subliminal, filtering scraps of keyboard and guitar into long-form drones. His 2008 LP, Anchors, never wavered in its commitment to nebulous bliss, so it was likely a head-scratcher for audiences without a little Max Richter or […]
Posted inFilm & Television
The Strange Beauty Film Festival brings new (old) ways of seeing to Durham
Strange Beauty Film Festival Manbites Dog Theater Jan. 22-23 Now that Avatar in 3-D has blown out our sensory grids, we could all probably use some aesthetic recalibration. The Strange Beauty Film Festival, which takes over Manbites Dog Theater in Durham this Friday and Saturday, arrives in the nick of time, with an international lineup […]
Posted inArt
elin o’Hara slavick’s Hiroshima: After Aftermath
Hiroshima: After Aftermath elin o’Hara slavick Golden Belt, Room 100 Gallery Through Jan. 10, 2010 In Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartography, her book of radiant drawings and paintings, elin o’Hara slavick, a professor of art at UNC-Chapel Hill, examined the consequences of aerial bombardment. Her current show in Golden Belt’s central gallery, Hiroshima: After […]
Posted inArt
Full interview with Terrence Holt
⇒ Read the edited interview and see photos INDEPENDENT WEEKLY: Your bio line says that you gave up a promising career as a writer, until the publication of In the Valley of the Kings, for a career in medicine. What does that actually mean? TERRENCE HOLT: A lot of what comes out around a book, […]
Posted inArt
Terrence Holt dispels the dark spaces in his fiction
In the Valley of the Kings By Terrence Holt W.W. Norton & Company; 224 pp. Terrence Holt teaches and practices geriatric medicine at UNC. He was late starting as a doctor, only entering medical school after he turned 40 and decided to quit teaching. To Holt’s own surprise, after he became a physician he resumed […]
Posted inMusic
At 42, Carrboro’s merriest prankster, Billy Sugarfix, is growing up
Read our review of Summer Tempests At some point, you’ve likely walked into a local club for a rock show and found on the stage a man who looked much like an elf from the classic stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoon. Maybe he was jumping on a pogo stick. Maybe he was playing the […]
