02/26/10

Magazine Day!

Tomorrow, Saturday, February 27 is the first-ever Magazine Day. It just might be my new favorite holiday.

Magazine Day was dreamed up by a writer and reader named Kevin Smokler. Here's his description of it:

"On Saturday, February 27th, ordinary folk across America (like you, like me) will spend the day "attacking the stack" or reading their way through the unread magazines they've accumulated. ... Magazine Day is open to everyone, no matter where you are. Invite friends over and rummage though each other's stacks. Spend the day reading at your local coffee shop or library. Multch your magazines and construct a giant paper mache wildebeest.... Read more »

Posted at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

02/25/10

Center City Needs Pick-up Basketball

Right now, Charlotte Center City Partners is seeking community input for its 2020 Vision Plan. I submitted an idea of which I'm very fond. So fond, in fact, that I'm going to share it here:

Center City Hoops

North Carolina is known as a basketball-loving state. Granted, that love is more pronounced on so-called Tobacco Road, which is home to the “big four” schools in the ACC. But Charlotte is somewhat basketball-crazed as well. Drive around town, and a hoop is almost standard issue on most driveways. From January to March, basketball talk dominates water cooler conversation. And of course, Charlotte boasts the state’s... Read more »

Posted at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

02/23/10

New: Music Tuesdays. This week: Lucero, Drive-By Truckers, Dave Alvin

I've been wanting to start this for a while, so here goes. My goal: Every Tuesday, post a quick roundup of good live music shows in Charlotte in the week ahead. Charlotte's live music scene has been getting better every year that I've lived here, and now it's become tough to keep up with all that is going on. Some weeks I may only pick one show; other weeks it will be more. I may miss a week here and there. After, we have a magazine to put out once in a while.

Note: I plan to pick shows solely on my personal preference. This is not about "supporting" certain venues or bands. This is about me recommending the shows that I think are worth attending, based on my particular taste. Also note: Expect to see mainly rock, roots rock, and singer/songwriter stuff. Although... Read more »

Posted at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments: 2

02/23/10

Tale of Two Cities on Charlotte Talks

This morning, WFAE's Charlotte Talks did a show based on the cover story of our January issue. Titled "A Tale of Two Cities," Jen Pilla Taylor's piece looking at the growing divide between urbanites and suburbanites. Jen and I were guests on the show, along with Jeff Michael from the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and Chris Leinberger from the Brookings Institute. It was an interesting show, and the producers tell me they received a lot of feedback. Here's the link with audio to the show. It will also be rebroadcast tonight at 9 p.m. on WFAE (90.7 FM).

Posted at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

02/22/10

Objective Journalism?

With rise of blogs and social media, there's an entire subculture of journalism about journalism, which I find annoying -- but strangely captivating. So I've decided to add to it. Let's start with the editor's note that kicks off the brand-new March issue:

There's a story in this issue that deserves a little bit of background.

In a piece titled “Revival,” Miriam Durkin, who was the longtime arts editor of the Observer before retiring last year, profiles Theatre Charlotte and its executive director, Ron Law. This story comes from two places. The first was a conversation I had last year with a local arts leader. At... Read more »

Posted at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

02/16/10

iPad hype building

So hype about how Apple's iPad device will transform magazines -- or rather, how magazines will transform themselves for the iPad -- is starting to build. At a recent conference, WIRED magazine offered a demo of an iPad version of the magazine, shown in the video below. It's like a better, richer website -- edit and ads. And if you work in this business, that last part is important. But what do you think? Assuming for a moment that you owned the device, would you pay for an iPad version of your favorite magazine? If so, how much? $1 a month? $5 a month?

02/14/10

NYT loves on Levine Museum

New York Times critic-at-large Edward Rothstein, who often writes about museums, had some pretty nice things to say about Charlotte's own Levine Museum of the New South in Saturday's national edition. He lauds both the permanent exhibit, "Cottonfields to Skyscrapers," (while also mentioning the LMNS President Emily Zimmern told him that the conclusion of the exhibit, which tells the familiar story of Charlotte as a major banking center, is about to be revised) and the current exhibition, "Changing Places: From Black and White to Technicolor."

He seems especially impressed with the straightforward storytelling approach that the Levine takes -- that... Read more »

Posted at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

02/14/10

Steph Curry from long range

In NBA rookie game practice today, Steph Curry drained not one but two 75-footers (because I guess that's what you practice during the All-Star break). Watch:

Posted at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

02/12/10

Slumburbia

Our January cover story, "A Tale of Two Cities" by Jen Pilla Taylor, has generated much discussion. The story exploring the growing urban/suburban divide in Charlotte by focusing on two families, one that lives in Plaza Midwood and one that lives on the N.C./S.C. state line.

But a sidebar to the main story has generated even more feedback. Titled "Suburban Slumming," the short piece looked at Waxhaw, and a new subdivision called Millbridge in particular, as a potential example of what noted urban planning thinker Chris Leinberger has taken to... Read more »

Posted at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments: 1

02/11/10

Steph Curry.

This morning, when I got up, my cell phone was already vibrating. Seems I had a few text messages left over from the night before. Late the night before.

Seems a good friend of mine was sitting in his car in the driveway listening to an NBA game on XM radio. At 1 in the morning. It was a Warriors-Clippers game, which is about as unremarkable as it gets in terms of NBA matchups. But Steph Curry plays for the Warriors, and he was having a big night. The last text I got from my friend:

"Yessssss! Curry grabs a rebound with 1 second left. 36/13/10!!!!!!!!!!!"

Translation: Steph Curry got a rebound to give himself a rare basketball feat, the triple-double. That's when a player obtains double figures in three statistical categories. Curry had 36 points, 13... Read more »

Posted at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments: 0

02/05/10

All That Remains: Update

Over the past couple years, few stories we've done have received the level of feedback of "All That Remains," which ran in the November 2009 issue. This was a passion project of Ken Garfield. He proposed that we photograph and tell the stories of as many area Holocaust survivors as we could find. The result was a stunning, moving portfolio of Ken's words and Chris Edwards's photos. Ken was interviewed on several radio stations about the project, and he continues to speak to school and community groups.

A few weeks after the piece was published, a woman named Julianna Toth contacted Ken. Turns out she had her own Holocaust survival story. So we Read more »

Posted at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0