Arts & Culture
This area has been known for decades for its thriving creative music scene. Many people travel from around the region – and sometimes around the world – to attend shows at the Cat's Cradle and other venues in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Less famous, but also doing us proud, are visual artists, dancers, actors, and filmmakers around the Triangle. In fact, Chapel Hill was home to the first Flicker festival, which now takes place in ten cities around the world!
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, January 29, 2005
Aided and abetted by the Federal Communications Commission, an ever-shrinking number of corporations control an ever-larger proportion of the media. This has prompted media critic Robert Mc-Chesney to label media reform our most pressing issue, linking the corporate media to misplaced government priorities, a variety of corporate scandals and our troubled campaign finance system.
Recently, McChesney reported optimistically that "the movement to fix our badly broken media system is gathering momentum." He includes in this movement, efforts "to strengthen alternative, independent and non-commercial media." Our area is home to a number of those initiatives, most recently WCOM community radio.
In January 2000, the FCC authorized the licensing of Low Power FM radio stations (LPFM). This opened the door for community and alternative radio, previously pretty much confined to large metropolitan areas, to spring up in small towns across the country.
Two local coffee shops in Carrboro and Chapel Hill have won national TOPS awards from the Specialty Coffee Association of America, based "not only serv[ing] excellent coffee, but also distinguish[ing] themselves as outstanding businesses." Both the Open Eye Café and Caffé Driade are co-owned by Carrboro resident Scott Conary and have been a part of the community for 6 and 9 years respectively.
“For us, quality comes first whether it is the product, the environment or the service,†Conary said. “We are passionate about what we do.â€Â
Although both cafes focus on providing the same quality to customers, each has its own distinct environment.
A laid-back and comfortable space that has been a part of the town for six years, Open Eye Café is sometimes referred to by locals as “the living room of Carrboro.â€Â
Conary, a Carrboro resident, said the cafe reflects his desire to create a coffee shop that reflects the quaintness of the town and the community's closeness.
Paul Jones, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, a guest poster and frequent commentor on OrangePolitics, and also a "polymath" (who knew?) is interviewed by John Murawski of the News & Observer on the implications of IBM's recent decision to release 500 software patents to the public.
Q:IBM this week gave open-source users access to 500 software patents. Why is this significant?
A:It removes the fear of ever being sued for violating those over-broad patents.
If nothing else, they remove barriers that keep individuals and groups from being more creative and productive.
In the larger scheme, it signals that some things are wrong with the copyright-and-patent system. Recent developments in the past, say, 25 years have gone in the direction that is counter to creativity and production.
One of the open things about open source and sharing communities is that they are greater than local. They allow people to be creative across time, space and culture.
The headline says "A cup of coffee on every corner" and I don't think they're far off. One of the newest additions will be in the building between Franklin and Rosemary Streets right before they merge into East Main Street. So far it seems the only unique thing they have to offer is wireless internet access (whouch should be a no-brainer for any business that wants people to hang out there). There's also a new coffeeshop hiding in the Courtyard that I didn't know about and of course another Starbucks is on the way.
So what do you think - how many coffeeshops can southern Orange County hold? How much is too much coffee?
Chapel Hill Herald, Saturday, December 25, 2004
Through all the focus on state and national political matters over the past few months, an important event in the life of Carrboro received inadequate attention. I refer to the August (and august) reappointment of Carrboro's poet laureate, Patrick Herron.
With all the decidedly non-lyrical voices coming over the TV and radio during election season and its aftermath, it's refreshing to be able to step back and reflect on the significance of poetry to our lives and culture.
Although we often don't credit it today, poetry has been a key factor in marking the changes that accompanied what we consider the development of modern society.
One seminal work in defining that relationship was the French poet Baudelaire's 1865 prose poem "Loss of a Halo." Given Carrboro's current focus on downtown traffic flow, it is appropriate to consider Baudelaire's poetic look at a prominent poet who has crossed one of what were then the still recently constructed boulevards of Paris.
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