At 49, Chapel Hill activist Daniel Coleman is a relatively soft-spoken man, whose intonations place his childhood firmly in New York state. At a recent reading of his new novel, The Anarchist, Coleman sat with his legs crossed, in jeans and a cobalt blue button-down shirt, having settled into a chair amid the audience at […]
Clancy Nolan
Posted inNews
Patriotic Pride
Things will look a little different this weekend at the 16th annual North Carolina Gay Pride festival. Leading the parade, ahead of the rainbow-colored float sporting this year’s theme, “Embrace Diversity,” will be a float commemorating gay and lesbian military veterans. Created originally for a Fourth of July parade, the float will remain mostly red, […]
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Organizing Principles
If you drive by Michelle Lee’s house in Durham at night, you will see Jesus through the trees. To the left of the trampoline in the front yard and above the scattered Big Wheels, his profile is reflected in the window of her sunroom–the product of a small white porcelain lamp sitting on a ledge […]
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Book Binding
There is a small black plastic box on Roberta Tilden’s desk marked Desiderata. Tilden, collection-development librarian for Durham’s public libraries, says that she has always used the Latin word she learned in library school to refer to a “wish list.” That changed when the state–grappling with an $800 million shortfall–withheld tax reimbursements for Durham County […]
Posted inGuides
The Personal is Political
Artist Felix Gonzales-Torres once said that he wanted his pieces about homosexual desire to be inclusive. “Every time someone sees a clock or a stack of papers or a curtain, I want them to think twice. Everything has a sexual mission, the walls, the pavement, everything,” he said. Torres is an artist that elin o”Hara […]
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Fount of Dreams
Standing in the rain outside Stone Brothers and Byrd nursery in Durham, my friend Kay and I debate the merits of one large stone fountain: Rebecca with Urn. The virginal statue stands about four feet tall and holds an urn above her left shoulder. In the rain we get a pretty good idea of how […]
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A little respect
Five years ago, Cliff Chafin was seeking a break from academic life. So he left a Ph.D. program in physics and began working at the American Social Health Association (ASHA), a local nonprofit that runs the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National AIDS Hotline. For Chafin, answering phones at the Research Triangle-based hotline […]
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Kids at risk
At the entrance to the Wright School in Durham, a sign reads, “Wright Refuge.” For the 24 children who live and study there, that’s exactly what it is: A refuge from often unstable homes and a place where teachers are also counselors, trained to help kids with behavioral and emotional disabilities. The nationally recognized school […]
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Soy to the World
I have thought of myself as a vegetarian for about seven years now. After having dinner last week with Dilip Barman–president of the Triangle Vegetarian Society–I am no longer sure. I eat fish on occasion, and although I have heard the term pesco-vegetarian tossed around, I was dubious about whether I would be considered a […]
Posted inArt
A Missing History
Amber Hollibaugh is an ex-hooker, incest survivor, biracial radical feminist, high-femme lesbian, working-class, white-trash organizer and AIDS activist–her range of perspective is enough to make you dizzy. Born in rural southern California to a Gypsy father and an Irish mother, Hollibaugh suffered through her father’s advances, her mother’s physical abuse and relentless poverty to emerge […]
