Ani!

Consider this a public service announcement:

DiFranco's music is equal parts warm, funny and profane. Her energizing music is enough to make even the most committed cynics grin and dance and sing along. Belting out her infamous feminist hits will give new fans a look at what m any others discovered long ago: an Ani DiFranco concert simply rocks.
Ticket Information: Tickets go on sale: Dec 12, 2008 11:00 AM
Ticket Prices: $34; Members: $31
Fletcher Hall Box Office Hours are 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, and on day of show one hour before showtime. To order tickets by phone, call the Box Office at (919) 560-3030 or toll free at 1-888-241-8162 or go to www.carolinatheatre.org/tickets.

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End of the World

Mrs. D's a long time Werner Herzog fan, so we decided that his new documentary, Encounters at the End of the World, playing at the Carolina Theatre, would be a more entertaining way to spend a Monday than either a City Council meeting or watching Bob Costas' toupee on the TV.

It's a fascinating movie, made in conjunction with experimental/noise guitarist Henry Kaiser, who, it turns out, spends a good deal of his time diving below the ice shelf and photographing the almost alien world at the bottom of the earth. Kaiser also did the music for the documentary, which some reviewers thought the best part, but i have to say i found distracting and obtrusive at times.

Herzog made it to Antarctica on a National Science Foundation grant. Scanning through the list of other grant recipients, there's only one other filmmaker, so it'll be interesting to compare "Encounters" with Anne Aghion's Ice People. Herzog focuses, if you can use that word about this documentary, on the oddest things in his environment. Interviewing a scientist who's spent 20 years observing penguins, and who is supposedly renown for his reticence, Herzog asks if he's ever seen any penguins go insane. (Later in the documentary he actually finds one.) The underwater scenes, and the audio of the seals singing below the ice are spectacular, but as at least one other reviewer noted, at the end of the movie you probably have gotten a better understanding of Werner Herzog than of Antarctica.

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Carolina Theatre re-opening scheduled

Hooray - the Carolina Theatre has completed its renovations ahead of schedule and is ready to reopen Friday, 8/17. Hopefully, they've had a chance to put the new air-conditioning system through its paces with this week's heatwave, and everything is working properly.

they're going to have some ticket giveaways and free popcorn and stuff for the grand re-opening event.

Schedule available here.

UPDATE: edited to clarify that tickets will be given away for the shows. Sorry for the confusion.

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Doing the "Wright" thing - followup

OK, so i didn't get to meet Steven Wright the other night at the Carolina Theatre.

See, the first time i saw him, either on Johnny Carson or the Letterman show back around 1983, he told this one joke that makes me laugh every time i go the beach:

"I have the world's largest seashell collection. I keep it on beaches around the globe. Perhaps you've seen it?"

So i was hoping to give Steven one of my shells, apologize for having stolen it when i was younger, but ignorant of the fact that it was his, and ask him to sign it. Kinda like this:


I wonder if he chuckled, or if this wasn't the first time someone's asked for that particular autograph?

Thanks, Connie!

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Doing the "Wright" thing

Well, good news and bad news about Steven Wright's performance tonight at the Carolina Theatre.

This was the last live performance before the Carolina shuts down for the summer for some much needed repairs, and they decided to turn it into a fundraiser. For an extra 60 bucks, you got a ticket to a pre-show reception at which it was strongly hinted that Steven Wright would be in attendance.

Upon arrival, Connie Camponaro reminded us that the ticket packet included a disclaimer that "celebrity appearance was not guaranteed." Actually, upon reviewing my ticket packet, i don't see anything like that. On the other hand, the publicity never really says "Meet Steven Wright at a pre-show party," so i guess i should have read much more closely. The money went to a good cause anyway, and the All About Beer folks stocked up the bar with some interesting brews, so that was good.

I'm more disappointed at not getting a chance to have an item of personal significance signed by Steven, and missing the chance to explain to him why it was significant, rather than upset by the way that whole thing went, but hopefully Connie will be able to get him to sign it and relay the story to him backstage.

The good news is, he was as funny on stage as i expected him to be, and i'm glad to have gone, but damn if i can remember any of his jokes. I wonder if he does that on purpose?

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