The streets of downtown Durham were nearly empty on Thursday morning, the day after Christmas, and I felt sure there would be no people to photograph. Then this man sauntered down the street, burdened with two bulging backpacks. That’s what caught my eye, the backpacks. I shot just one picture and moved on. Only after […]
Lisa Sorg
Bio: Lisa Sorg is the editor of INDY Week.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/lisasorg
Posted inSoapboxer
The Salvation Army’s holiday tree about human trafficking
The day after Christmas, the streets of Durham were nearly vacant (except, apparently, the parking attendants who tagged me with a ticket). A friend and I wandered down to the American Tobacco Campus lawn to see the 20 or so holiday trees decorated by local charities including the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, Eno River Association, […]
Posted inNews
Find your inner peace
When Durham police unleashed teargas on protesters last week, I wondered if I had been transported to the streets of Oakland, Calif.; Cairo, Egypt; or Nusaybin, Turkey. Durham doesn’t gas its people, right? Well, yes it does. The blame for this fiasco lies at the feet of both Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez and the […]
Posted inSoapboxer
Away in a manger, it’s both sentimental and surreal
For the past week I’ve walked by this Nativity scene, which is part of an elaborate tableau at a house in Durham’s Morehead Hill neighborhood. The sentimentalist in me was struck by the earnestness of the lights and decorations; the cynic in me found it surreal. I had seen the Nativity only during the day. […]
Posted inSoapboxer
Flag-nado!
It was 72 degrees this morning—not April 22, but Dec. 22, if you awoke thinking you must have hibernated all winter. Winds were brisk. The atmosphere felt unstable, soupy, and the light filtered through the clouds in narrow shafts. At City Hall Plaza in downtown Durham, the U.S. and North Carolina flags had descended their […]
Posted inSoapboxer
Man vs. nature. Tree vs. parking deck. Who wins?
The spiral ramp of the 658-space Corcoran Street parking garage is something to behold. Enter through the back off Ramseur Street, and the weight of all that concrete—buttressed by a few seemingly spindly poles—makes you feel like the garage could collapse at any moment. Since I rarely drive to work, I walk by here almost […]
Posted inNews
A first-person account of the clash between Durham police and protesters
Serena Sebring sent the INDY this account of her experience at the Dec. 19 protest during which demonstrators clashed with Durham police. Officers dressed in riot gear threw tear gas into the demonstration. I’m a resident of Durham, a mother of three, and I work with an organization called Southerners on New Ground (SONG). On […]
Posted inNews
Durham PD Chief Lopez to address Thursday night violence
After Durham Police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of 200 protesters downtown Thursday night, Chief Jose Lopez is scheduled to address the public today at 10:30 a.m. The demonstration was the second in a month to demand information about the death of 17-year-old Jesus Huerta, who allegedly shot himself in the back of […]
Posted inSoapboxer
Cardboard guitar blues
Down the street, I heard a man singing. Not particularly well, but that seemed beside the point. It sounded earnest. Besides, he was singing a cappella, and that’s difficult. This is Zack and his dog, Lela (pronounced LEE-la). Zack lives in Durham and he was playing air guitar, strumming invisible strings, listening to music only […]
Posted inNews
Low-hanging fruit
Forest Hills Park is one of my favorite places in Durham, where bands of grass are worn down by pickup soccer games and women’s football practices, and the branches of the magnolia trees radiate like the hair of Medusa. Last year, someone hung holiday ornaments from several trees on the west side of the park. […]
