Photo by Sarah Shatz Emma Straub’s decision to do a signing for her debut novel Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures (Riverhead Books, $26.95) at Flyleaf Books at 7 p.m. tonight was sealed earlier this year when she casually stepped into the bookshop while in town for a show with the Magnetic Fields. “The most amazing […]
Zack Smith
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Posted inCulture
Get a Life, the surreal Chris Elliott TV series, comes to DVD
The neologism “man-child” has in recent years come to refer to the types typically played on screen by Seth Rogen, Vince Vaughn and other gentlemen aged roughly 21-40 who partake in video games, alcohol, pot-smoking and varied instances of gay panic, foul language and confusion/consternation with the opposite sex and the realities of adulthood. Those […]
Posted inGuides
Originals, revivals, blockbusters … and War Horse
This fall’s theater offerings seem to abide by the old adage of “everything old is new again”or, more accurately, that everything new comes from something old. Whether it’s revivals, updates or just examining history from a new perspective, the past weighs heavily in local theater, and plenty of it is worth reliving. Here are some […]
Posted inCulture
The Amazing Kreskin gets into your head at ArtsCenter tonight
Decades after he rose to prominence in the 1970s, the Amazing Kreskin remains a pop culture touchstone and a busy performer whose touring takes him to the Carrboro ArtsCenter tonight. For many, his name is synonymous with hypnosis, predictions and finding the check for his appearance in the audience. In a call from his home […]
Posted inCulture
Boneshaker author Cherie Priest talks steampunk at ConTemporal in Chapel Hill
Photo by Libby BulloffCherie Priest Why should you head to ConTemporal, the Chapel Hill-based science fiction convention that focuses heavily on the retro-futuristic concept of steampunk? We’ll let the con’s literary guest of honor Cherie Priest tell you why. Steampunk, for those not in the know, is a branch of science fiction that postulates what […]
Posted inArt
Themes of repressed homosexuality in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Theatre in the Park Through June 24 It’s a bit of fortuitous timing to have Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof produced in the Triangle so soon after the passing of Amendment 1. The play’s themes of repressed homosexuality in the Deep South, already inflammatory upon its […]
Posted inCulture
On reading, but not quite meeting, Ray Bradbury
In a way, I’ll always regret that I never got a chance to tell Ray Bradbury what his work meant to my life. On the other hand, the reason I never got to do this was that the lines to meet him were always too long. A rather bizarre Sunkist commercial from the 1960s where […]
Posted inCulture
Love never dies, but many terrible musicals have: Sitting through Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom sequel.
This past Christmas, I received two books on the history of Broadway flops, Not Since Carrie and Second Act Trouble. They’re fascinating reads, both illuminating some hidden treasures of the theater and in recounting the brazen excesses that doom many a Broadway flop to its fate. A review of the adaptation of Carrie, the musical […]
Posted inCulture
Last weekend in review: No Shame Theatre in Carrboro
YouTubeToby Huss’ character of Artie ,the Strongest Man in the World, was created in a No Shame performance. It’s almost 10 p.m. on a recent Saturday night at the Carrboro ArtsCenter, and people are scattered in the lobby rehearsing their scripts. They’ll have them to refer to for their coming performances, but they still want […]
Posted inCulture
Baby steps: Learning to love anime at Animazement
File photo by Jeremy M. LangeThe scene at the 2010 Animazement convention Stuck in the doorway outside the Raleigh Convention Center on a rainy Sunday, I’m at least treated to the spectacle of a small army of middle school-to-college-aged individuals communing in makeup, corsets and the odd Pokemon hat. It’s the last day of Animazement, […]
