Delta rising
by Samantha Thompson Hatem Most of Raleigh might have missed it, but Delta Rae, the edgy alt-pop band, has quietly set up home here over the past year, and its six members are now on their way to becoming some…
Author Archives: zonker
Hard java
Coffee cocktails are having a moment. Not the steamy, desserty kind, thick with whipped cream and Bailey’s. Not the toddy variety, curing what ails you. This coffee cocktail is serious, and it’s iced. Dry – even lemony – and spiked…
Inner strength
by Charman Driver What a fantastic year of fun and fitness adventures I’ve had with Walter. I’ve run, kicked, jumped, stretched, melted, boxed, danced, climbed – even joined the circus! People often ask me how I maintain the discipline and…
In all its forms: Close ties, deep roots, and forward focus at the North Carolina Symphony
by J. Peder Zane As the hot summer night embraced Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater, sweet smoke drifted through the air, propelling the sell-out crowd to the heights of ecstasy that happen when music meets dance. Gray-haired men in tie-died shirts boogied with…
Up all night with Lionel Vatinet
by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio At 2 a.m., as liquored-up college kids are polishing off a game of cornhole outside the Back 9 Pub in Cary, master baker Lionel Vatinet is arriving at work next door. The yeasty…
Betting on bluegrass
by Samantha Thompson Hatem The International Bluegrass Music Association and its members arrive in late September for the group’s annual conference, when they’ll turn downtown Raleigh into a bluegrass mecca with more than 150 bands, a street festival, and big-name…
A Boy and his Dog
by Charles Upchurch photographs by Geoff Wood Field trial champion Robert Vaughan, 18, has hunted since he was 9 years old. “The first time I went quail hunting, in the fourth or fifth grade, I remember two English pointers getting…
A Victorian dowager gets a facelift
by Liza Roberts photographs by Geoff Wood When Dan Forest, newly sworn-in as lieutenant governor of North Carolina, walked into the stately Victorian house with the wrap-around porch on Blount Street that was to be his office, he was amazed….
Greg Jones: The rockin rev
by Dean King Put an ear to a window of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church a little shy of midnight on a random Wednesday or Thursday night, and you might just hear music. Not sacred music, but roof-raising rock ’n’ roll….
A persistent pastime: Pete Sack paints baseball players and much more
by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio Artist Pete Sack, 37, has always been drawn to photographs of the human face. Strangers in yearbooks speak to him; archival snapshots of orphans, schoolchildren, and athletes hold unusual sway. One particular brunette…
Eureka! A glimpse of blue Tricyrtis lasiocarpa
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson It was early in the morning, a sunny Monday morning, when Mark Weathington of Raleigh’s J.C. Raulston Arboretum and I sped down the winding roads of Alishan mountain on the island of Taiwan,…
Play on
by Jesma Reynolds photograph by Lissa Gotwals “If music be the food of love, play on.” So wrote William Shakespeare to open Twelfth Night, and so says Robert McMillan about living life to the fullest. The Raleigh trial lawyer turns…
Kari Howe Stoltz: Banking on community
by Todd Cohen When she was a first-grader at Mary P. Douglas Elementary School in Raleigh, Kari Howe Stoltz volunteered to help raise money for a bike-a-thon to support a girl in her neighborhood who had cystic fibrosis. She’s been…
The Walter cocktail contest
by Wilton Barnhardt, author of the new novel Lookaway, Lookaway I suspect Sir Walter Raleigh, back in 1618, went to the executioner convinced of the utter failure of his ventures, having fallen out of favor with Queen Elizabeth as well…