the wakeup orders today: a hot chai with a teabag, a frappacino with a straw, two coffees, one with half and half. omg, don’t tell her what i said. dont tell him either. oh, go head, tell them. they’ll find out anyway. whatever, im so bored. later… im bummed about trey. i mean i like […]
John Valentine
Bio: John Valentine lives in Hillsborough, where he's written about life on and off the farm for more than two decades.Email: [email protected]
Posted inArt
The letter of the day is O
O is for Oxford American. Oxford American is so generous! Once again, their music issue rocks, bluegrasses, harmonizes, gives you the blues, and for a first … yodels. The 29-track CD frames the issue. Cut 20: the original “Piece of My Heart” Cut 6: Zora Neale Hurston, singing! Cut 27: a live, very alive Elvis […]
Posted inNews
Magic in the night
Folks are convulsing about the Stones’ visit in October. Graybeards are fumbling through tattered ticket stub collections talking about old favorites. But do you remember when Bruce came to Cameron on March 28, 1976? Now that was a night…. The show started at 8 that warm Sunday night, the fourth stop on his Chicken Scratch […]
Posted inNews
Making stuff
“Drawing Pete takes a lot of time, but really clears my mind,” says Carrboro’s Adam Hall, artist/writer/creator of the local zine The Incredible Pete. Issue No. 2 is just out. “It’s kind of meditative in that way. And telling the story is sort of my method of expulsion.” Looking up, he continues, “You know, I’d […]
Posted inArt
Nature–now
Just when you’ve been asked “Hot enough for you?” for the third time today comes the impulse to go outside and venture farther. Farther from the phones and pavement, farther from the turn signals and busy signals. These three books will get you out. Get you back out. Maybe not all the way back to […]
Posted inArt
Local adventures
“Excellent! I’d love to do a morning hike on Saturday. Want to meet at 9 in the parking lot at Occoneechee Mountain? It’s page 128. We can walk down to the Eno.” I’d invited Maia Dery to go hiking as a way of really getting into her new book. Her e-mail reply was just a […]
Posted inNews
Roofing-tin gardening
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. The not-well-known third verse to the children’s rhyme goes something like “and the itsy-bitsy weedlings took over the garden again.” We were feverishly and last-minutely packing for a week at the beach, throwing things at the car, the chairs, the coolers, the towels, etc. Where […]
Posted inNews
The gifts of summer dwell in The Believer
There are few better places to be than horizontal on the sand, lapping up a stack of magazines. ‘Tis the season of periodical-lite: fatter releases with fewer syllables per page. It’s white space bliss, turning pages with a tidal soundtrack. During the summer, most publishers slip in a double issue to give their editorial and […]
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Reading outside the dune
Beach Read Rule of Thumb No. 1 is the literary equivalent of a Rolling Stones’ riff: You can’t always read what you want. Whatever backpack of books you bring to the beach, the book that guy or girl on the next deck over is reading is the book you’ll really want. Happens all the time–you […]
Posted inNews
Deserted Moon
This is a sad zine story. Most of my columns are “feel good” DIY success stories, but this one isn’t. Our story begins in 1984, the heyday of copy center-produced magazines, before the Internet, e-zines, live journals and blogs. Every college town, every metro area had Xerox glory stories. Every garage band had a fan […]
