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Hi! Happy weekend.
Hope you’re having a lovely week and enjoying the first (very slight!) windows-cracked-open signs of the weather cooling.
One of our most-read-stories this week was Andrea Richards’ feature on Recovering Debs, a new podcast from local writer Mary Lambeth Moore, that focuses on North Carolina’s shadowy, and somehow enduring, debutante culture—and, in particular, the statewide ball put on by the Raleigh social society, the Terpsichorean Club.
Shadowy is not an ad hoc description: You’ll find zilch about the Terpsichorean Club online, though its signature event wields considerable influence in the halls of power. Here’s how the piece begins:
Weird is a word that’s been getting a lot of mileage lately, but try this on for size: A Raleigh-based secret society comprising 21-to-35-year-old white men has unknown agents scouring the state of North Carolina every year to find young women from wealthy families. These women are then culled—using vague, largely legacy-based, criteria—into a selective invite list for an expensive ritual that involves a series of parties, a personalized stool, and a final induction ceremony.
I know very little about debutante culture (aside from, embarrassingly, watching the fluffy North Carolina-filmed beach show, The Summer I Turned Pretty) but Moore is a bit of an expert: She was a debutante herself, in the summer of 1977, an experience that she holds up to the light in Recovering Debs, asking, “Why does this event, which is rooted in sexism, racism, and classism, still exist?”
Richards also explores those questions at length, drawing on the tradition’s origins and her own experiences as a mother. We’ve heard from several former (reluctant) debutantes since, whose debut balls date back as far as 1957—and who have chosen to raise their own families differently. From one reader, on her experience: “Yes, what a weird thing to do! Classist, yes. Racist. Creepy. I’ve reframed it as a fascinating anthropological experience.”
Thanks for reading! Onto the rest of the newsletter.
“It wasn’t until last fall when inflation really started to kick in and started to affect everybody that everybody started going, ‘Oh, crap.’ The major label stuff—especially the Taylor Swifts and the Noah Kahans—went up an average of $10 a record,” says Schoolkids Records store owner Stephen Judge. Photo by Angelica Edwards.
elsewhere in the culture section
At one point, Schoolkids Records had outposts in college towns across the Southeast; in recent years, its stores have contracted back to Chapel Hill and Raleigh. This week, Schoolkids owner Stephen Judge announced that the Franklin Street store, open since the mid-1970s, is closing its doors.
Record store culture isn’t what it once was (I’m thinking of Empire Records) for obvious reasons, but as a nucleus of the local scene—members of bands like The Connells and Megafaun have worked there, over the years—and as one of the last non-chain holdouts on Franklin Street, the closure is a huge loss. Streaming culture, as writer Ryan Cocca wrote several weeks ago, continues to have some serious collateral.
Also: writer Gabriel Bump spoke with Duke sinologist Carlos Rojas, who is a primary translator of Yan Lianke, one of China’s most renowned writers—and one of its most banned. In this fascinating profile, Rojas discusses what he’s learned from Lianke about making art under authoritarian conditions.
ICYMI: A bookstore relaunches as a co-op, Skylar Gudasz’s new album floats effortlessly between registers, the Can Opener cracks open. And, this piece is trending again.
out and about in the triangle
On the note of record store news, this one a bit happier: Hunky Dory is relocating from Seaboard Station to Raleigh Iron Works. As the opening of the Crawford Brothers Steakhouse in Cary draws near, Axios profiles Scott Crawford’s prolific year. Following the recent closure of Cheeni Indian Food Emporium, Preeti Waas is opening a new location in RTP’s HUB development.
Finally: There’s a new bar in downtown Durham, High Dive, located off Mangum in a space previously occupied by Quarterhorse and Glori. Those two bars did not have great luck in the space, but owner Daniel Sartain of Virgile and Annexe hopes that by extending high-end hospitality into a PBR dive will prove successful. Per the News & Observer: “It’s chandeliers and (cheap) beers.” Also, Alley Twenty-Six is partnering with Night School Bar on a cocktail-making course. (I don’t normally share classes, but these are so rad!).
out and about in the world
Ta Nehisi-Coates on the DNC and the Democrats’ promise of a “big-tent” approach. “Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space?” (No!!! Never!). Were the 90s the best time for the movies—or at least movie critics? I thought this podcast interview with critic Vinson Cunningham on criticism, democracy, and grief was brilliant.
— Sarah Edwards —
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