When I was asked to contribute to a Pink Triangle issue focusing on the family, I immediately thought of looking into a topic that seemed to be roiling communities in other states, but had so far made little more than a ripple in North Carolina: gay marriage. How had a large, diverse state like North […]
Mark W. Hornburg
Posted inGuides
Lawfully wedded in North Carolina?
When might the Tar Heel State legally recognize same-sex unions, and how might that come about? “No time soon,” say Cheri Patrick and Sharon Thompson of the Sharon Thompson Law Group in Durham. Both specialize in legal issues facing gay men and lesbians. Thompson and Patrick illustrate the roadblocks to same-sex unions by comparing North […]
Posted inArt
Sensual healing
Writing about the Centre for Transgressive Behaviors’ show last Friday night at Trace Gallery in Raleigh is a no-win proposition. On the one hand, offering a watered down description of the unprecedented, avant-garde, multimedia event won’t do it justice. On the other hand, describing it accurately could get the group shut down: The success of […]
Posted inArt
Creative differences
Clare Aselin is seated at a long table in an upstairs conference room in Durham’s historic Armory building, grabbing a bite to eat before the dance begins. She performs this ritual every first and third Saturday evening of the month, when the organization she heads as president, the Triangle Swing Dance Society (TSDS), sponsors dances […]
Posted inArt
Soulless city
Soulless cityAs Vladimir Nabokov once remarked, a child to whom you read a story might ask: Is it true? And if not, the child would demand a true one. If somebody told you that he saw a spaceship with a little green operator inside, Nabokov allowed, you would want to know if it were true […]
Posted inGuides
The Saucer has landed
When I call the Texas home office for the Flying Saucer restaurant-pub chain in mid-February to check on the status of their new Raleigh location, a secretary informs me it will be opening in one more week. I had just driven up to their building on the corner of West Morgan and Harrington streets, parked […]
Posted inArt
Academic hangover
Scan the “Biographical Sketch” on Stuart Rojstaczer’s Web page and you’ll find that this Duke University professor of hydrology is “currently at work on a book on disaster prediction.” Read his recent book, Gone for Good: Tales of University Life after the Golden Age, and you may think he’s already written it. The book is […]
Posted inNews
Desperately seeking cigs
A heavy smoker experiencing nicotine withdrawal–and finding convenience store shelves barren–rivals for pathos a distraught mother hunting food for her starving baby. I don’t mean to belittle the smoker’s plight. Lack of food or electricity are minor annoyances by comparison. My friends aren’t yet over the dearth of cigarettes during the summer storms–and the lack […]
Posted inArt
The Bible and the barcode
Flannery O’Connor once characterized the South as “Christ-haunted,” and the same could be said of her fiction. Many Southern writers have followed in her footsteps, producing impressive works informed by an understanding of the importance of religion in Southern culture. In fact, it’s safe to say that Southern literature would be nowhere without God–so who […]
