Sarah Dessen is “missing North Carolina, desperately” while on the phone from New York, where she’s promoting the launch of her fourteenth published novel, Once and for All, at BookCon, BookExpo, and a series of signings. “I live out in the country, so this many days in Midtown Manhattan, I’m getting nostalgic for the grass […]
Zack Smith
Link: http://zacksmithwriter.wordpress.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/thezacksmith
Posted inCulture
Meow Hear This: Author and Super Troopers Director Jay Chandrasekhar Looks Back on a Long Comedy Career
Jay Chandrasekhar stand-upApril 20–22 Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh Jay Chandrasekhar: Mustache ShenanigansSaturday, April 22 Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh Jay Chandrasekhar recalls the experience of directing Super Troopers—the 2001 cult comedy about a group of lazy highway patrollers prone to chugging syrup and pranking those they pull over by randomly inserting “meow” into their conversation—with his […]
Posted inCulture
Movie Review: Is Disney’s Live-Action Beauty the Beast They Could Do?
Beauty and the Beast ★★★ An absolutely classic live-action version of the Beauty and the Beast story served as the basis for the 1991 animated blockbuster—it’s the 1946 Jean Cocteau film, which too many fans of the Disney film still do not know about. The new live-action version pays tribute to this source, complete with […]
Posted inArt
Our Picks for the NC Comedy Arts Festival: The Funny Side of Interracial Marriage, Henson Gone Wild, and a Madcap Musical
NC COMEDY ARTS FESTIVAL Wednesday, February 15–Sunday, February 26 Various venues, Chapel Hill www.nccomedyarts.com The seventeenth NC Comedy Arts Festival, which brings a wide variety of events to DSI Comedy Theater, The ArtsCenter, and Local 506 over the next twelve days, has a simple slogan: “Because you need to laugh again.” Lord knows that’s true […]
Posted inArt
Superhero Industry Overkill and Franklin Street Development Kayo a Triangle Institution, Chapel Hill Comics
Andrew Neal was at a Run the Jewels show at the Ritz when he heard that Chapel Hill Comics was closing. “I pulled out my phone to look at the time and saw that I had received a ton of texts and Facebook messagespeople who had shopped at the store, fellow comic retailers,” Neal says. […]
Posted inCulture
NC Comicon and Oak City Comicon Consolidate Brands as New Competition From Florida Looms
Basking in the success of November’s annual NC Comicon in Durham and its Raleigh-based spinoff, Oak City Comicon, the conventions’ owners recently announced plans to consolidate their brands. The Oak City show on March 18 and 19 is now called “NC Comicon: Oak City” and the traditional Durham Convention Center show planned for November is […]
Posted inArt
Detoxing with Warren Ellis, Whose Near-Future Vision of Digital Exhaustion is Probably Already Here
WARREN ELLIS: NORMAL Friday, Dec. 2, 7 p.m., $15 (book purchase) Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill www.flyleafbooks.com Despairing of the future since the election? You’ll find little comfort in Warren Ellis’s new prose novella, Normal (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), which he’ll read from and sign at Flyleaf Books on Dec. 2. Inspired by Ellis’s experiences at […]
Posted inArt
Before Serial, There Was Criminal, a Local Podcast About the Darker Side of Human Nature
CRIMINAL Thursday, Oct. 27, 8 p.m., $22 The Carolina Theatre, Durham In an ordinary recording studio at WUNC, a group of very nice, soft-spoken people report on the darkest, strangest parts of human nature. Criminal, the podcast that recently celebrated its fiftieth episode, has garnered a sizeable following since its launch in early 2014. Through […]
Posted inArt
Jonathan Lethem’s A Gambler’s Anatomy Is Just Your Everyday Tale of a Telepathic Backgammon Hustler
JONATHAN LETHEM: A GAMBLER’S ANATOMY Tuesday, October 18, 7 p.m., free Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill Jonathan Lethem has one of the most eclectic literary careers around, ranging from science fiction to realismand sometimes, both at onceand from long-form nonfiction to comic books. He’s netted numerous honors, including the MacArthur “genius” grant. His new novel, A […]
Posted inArt
Heather Havrilesky, a Former Durhamite Turned New York Advice Columnist, Comes Home to Fix Your Life
HEATHER HAVRILESKY: ASK POLLY LIVE Monday, July 11, 7 p.m., free Motorco Music Hall, Durham Heather Havrilesky made her name with her critiques of books and TV, but she’s found a new level of success critiquing people’s lives. The former Durhamite comes home on Monday, July 11, for a live version of Ask Polly, the […]
