Eight things to do in the Triangle on Memorial Day weekend

It’s Memorial Day weekend! I’ll be celebrating my birthday, but I realize we can’t all be lucky enough to have birthdays to celebrate this weekend. So, here’s a list of things to do around the Triangle …

SATURDAY

* The Taste of Durham is from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday.

* Here’s a different way to Go Green … do it with Drag Bingo. What? That doesn’t even make sense, but it sounds fun, doesn’t it? “Go Green Drag Bingo” happens at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Durham Armory.

* If you’re sick of pretending to be Tony Hawk, ditch your Playstation and see some real skaters. Cary is hosting its “Spring SK8 Contest” from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and its “Spring BMX Contest” from noon to 10 p.m. at SK8 Cary (the Cary skate park). It’s free to watch. Here are the details on what to expect.

* Tour the Triangle Brewing Company. The brewery will offer tours Saturday starting at 1:30 p.m.

SUNDAY

* The Modern Scene ADF Block Party is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday at Peabody Place in downtown Durham. It’s free and features food, games, giveaways and a cash bar. (Yikes. This block party is Sunday, May 31.)

* Watch belly dancers and learn how to cook Lebanese food. The 11^th annual Lebanese Festival is from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday in the Kerr Scott Building at the N.C. State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. In addition to dancing and cooking demos, you can also load up on Middle Eastern food and goods. Admission is $2.

ALL WEEKEND LONG

* If you want to get away from the Triangle without leaving, then you could explore some country roads. Indy writer Grayson Currin has a cool article about his recent backroads adventure.

* Rent a boat. There are several city lakes in the Triangle with boat rentals. I only have experience with Lake Johnson in Raleigh. They’ll be open from 6 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. this weekend, including Memorial Day. They have paddle boats, kayaks, canoes, jon boats and sailboats for rent.

* Go to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and watch the ACC Baseball Championship Tournament.

As always add your suggestions in the comments section.

12+ cheap things to do in the Triangle this weekend

Triangle residents rejoice! It’s that time of year when the area starts coming alive with festivals, outdoor events, and more. The randomness that will ensue every weekend between now and fall will be so much fun. And I will try to keep you posted on some of the more interesting events (especially for families and those of us on a budget).

Let’s start with this weekend:

* Dog owners might want to take their pooches to Moore Square between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday for the SPCA Dog Walk.

* Go camping, dancing, crafting, Earth-saving, concert rocking at the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, which starts Thursday and continues through Sunday.

* Listen to a free performance by the Durham Symphony at 5 p.m. Sunday at Trinity Park in Durham as part of the Pops in the Park concert series. And if the weather holds up to the forecast, then head over to Francesca’s Dessert Cafe on Ninth Street for some stellar gelato (the Sweet Cream is my favorite) or to LocoPop’s on Hillsborough Street for a gourmet popsicle treat.

* Check out the Durham Art Scene. This weekend is the annual Durham Art Walk. Make a day out of it by wandering over to the American Tobacco complex and hanging out by the water or head in the opposite direction to the Scrap Exchange to make crafts with the kids.

* The weather will also be perfect for a picnic at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. I plopped myself down on a blanket there last weekend, played some frisbee and snacked on Peanut Butter sandwiches. Cheap way to be romantic with your honey or let the kids burn off some energy.

* Go to the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science for the Butterfly Bash. It features dung beetle races, butterfly releases, insect eating and more.

* Saturday is Earth Action Day at the Morehead Planetarium. The family-friendly event is from noon to 5 p.m.

* You can go see “Pride and Prejudice” on stage at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Paul Green Theatre in Chapel Hill.

* The Durham Bulls are out of town this weekend. But UNC baseball has a home game against Miami at 1 p.m.  Sunday.

* If you’re a Wilco fan, you might want to check out the screening of the band’s new documentary “Ashes of American Flags” which airs at 11:55 p.m. Saturday at Galaxy Cinema in Cary.

* Go to the N.C. State Fairgrounds. The flea market is best when the weather is beautiful, so I can almost guarantee this weekend’s market will be filled with a variety of vendors. The flea market is from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every weekend. While you’re at the fairgrounds you can eat some Mediterranean food and learn about Turkish culture at the N.C. Turkish Festival, which runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday.

* And finally, consider supporting local comedy (you know I’m a fan). DSI Comedy in Carrboro has an out-of-town guest who tracked me down on facebook and made me laugh with her message, so I’ve got to give her a plug. Sara Benincasa will be performing a one-woman show at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at the theater.

Of course, I probably inadvertantly snubbed about 50 other local events happening this weekend. As always, feel free to promote them and post links to them in my comment section. Let us know if there’s other events we should be checking out.

Break out your camping gear and head to the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival this weekend

Sometimes you just have to ditch your laptop and your phone and get in touch with music and nature. But since I can never seem to afford and/or get the time off for Bonnaroo, I have to look for options closer to home. That’s why I’m trilled about this weekend’s Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival.

The four-day family-friendly festival in Chatham County features 40 bands performing on 4 stages and BEST OF ALL you can campout there. The festival holds a special place in my heart because in 2005, it’s where I was first introduced to the Avett Brothers.

There are children’s activities — ranging from crafts, story time and skits — and plenty for us big kids to do too. From dance workshops (maybe I’ll finally learn how to hoop like Brandy) … to music workshops (maybe I’ll learn the art of West African drumming) … to movement workshops (finally time for some yoga). There are even plans for a grown-up game of Capture the Flag, basketmaking, pottery and more. You can see all the wonderful random happenings here. Photos courtesy of Todd E. Gaul and Shakori Hills website.

There will also be a sustainability fair, featuring all sorts of lectures and forums.

But best of all, the festival will be packed with incredible performers. I had Jake, the MyNC music guru, look over the list of bands to let me know who I needed to be sure to see, here’s how he responded:

Donna the Buffalo, Jim Lauderdale, Justin Townes Earle, Lunch Money, Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys, Steep Canyon Rangers, The Horse Flies, Todd Snider

Locals:
Big Fat Gap*
Birds and Arrows
Butterflies*
Colors of Flying
Des Ark (solo)*
Firehouse Rhythm Kings
Greg Humphreys*
Hobex (a Greg Humphreys band)*
Lafcadio*
Lost in the Trees*
Midtown Dickens*
Northwood Jazz Ensemble
Old 86
Orquesta GarDel
Rootzie
Sweet By & By
The Beast
The Old Ceremony*

*best of the best locals

Lafcadio album release party slideshow:
http://music.mync.com/2009/01/slideshow-chapel-hills-lafcadio-opens-for-sunfold-at-506/

Lost in the Trees performance video from DBB6:
http://music.mync.com/2009/03/lost-in-the-trees-performs-at-double-barrel-benefit-6/

The Old Ceremony on Sessions at Studio B:
http://music.mync.com/2009/02/sessions-at-studio-b-with-the-old-ceremony/

Greg Humphrey’s will be on Sessions at Studio B on April 23 at 4 p.m.

So with Jake’s musical advice in hand and a weekend weather forecast that seems too good to be true, you can bet you’ll see me disappear into the woods for a while.

Here’s what you need to know about the Raleigh Twestival

If you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably read something about the Raleigh Twestival. Details about it have been leaking out under the hashtag #RalTwestival for some time. Here’s what you need to know and why you should go.

What’s the point of Raleigh Twestival?

The Raleigh Twestival is the Triangle’s version of a fundraising event that will be hosted on the same night by Twitter communities in appx. 160 cities worldwide. The goal is to raise money for “Charity: Water” an organization that works to provide access to clean water in developing nations.

When and Where?

The party/fundraiser is from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday Feb. 12 at Edge Office in downtown Raleigh. This is the same cool space where we had the 30THREADS launch party and the most recent Triangle Tweetup.

What will the fundraiser be like?

Um, super fun! Among the highlights:

* The new Raleigh brewery Lonerider Brewing Company will be pouring its hefeweizen, Shotgun Betty, which must be pretty good b/c it received a favorable review on always-picky New Raleigh.

* A video booth where you can record a message to be posted on MyNC and the Twestival blog.

* A silent auction/raffle that includes items from local social media firms, giftcards, and a cute handcrafted Twitter necklace that I made especially for the event.

* A chance to socialize with all the Triangle Tweeps you’ve been following online, but missed at the Triangle Tweetup.

How much are tickets?

Tickets are $11.40 if you buy them in advance or $14 if you buy them at the door. All of the proceeds go to “Charity: Water.” If you can’t attend, but still want to show your support, you can make a $5 donation (or more) via the Raleigh Twestival website.

But I just went to the Triangle Tweetup two weeks ago, why should I pay to go to this?

The Triangle Twitter community has grown a lot in the past two years. It includes people of all different ages, professions, backgrounds and more. Tweetups usually have presentations and not enough time to socialize. This entire event will be a chance for you to socialize and network with all those new tweeps who you didn’t have time to meet recently. All the money goes to charity and it includes beer and food, so really it’s a great bargain.

I think Twitter sounds stupid, should I go anyway?

Absolutely. While this event is targeted toward people who already use Twitter, it’s not exclusively for Twitter users. So consider attending to meet an interesting cross-section of Triangle residents who appreciate the Internet (this does not mean we’re all geeks who blog in our pajamas). Also, this is a great event where single women can meet men and vice versa (so say my single Twitter friends). You may even leave the event convinced that you should join Twitter before it turns into the MySpace of the Internet.

I’m @GinnySkal, and this was your public service announcement about Twitter and Charity: Water. For more details, follow @RalTwestival on Twitter. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section and I’ll try to get additional information to you.

Six things to do in the Triangle this weekend

I wanted to clue you in to some events happening around the Triangle this weekend. Because sometimes we just need something different to do.

1. First Friday is tonight in downtown Raleigh. Here’s a list of participating galleries.

2. Watch people run two miles, down a dozen Krispy Kremes and then run a dozen miles back all for charity. The Krispy Kreme Challenge starts at the N.C. State belltower on Saturday morning, but I recommend watching it from Krispy Kreme on Peace Street, where the runners will be eating and puking.

3. See the circus. Ringling Bros. is in town.

4.Get your passport. You need to have one now to travel anywhere outside the United States. Durham is hosting a passport fair from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at its post office downtown.

5. Celebrate Bob Marley’s birthday. There will be a tribute to him at Cat’s Cradle on Saturday night.

6. Buy some used furniture. The Junior Women’s Club of Raleigh is hosting its annual furniture consignment sale at 1 p.m. Sunday at the State Fairgrounds.

Capitol Broadcasting CEO jokes that Raleigh is “stupid” for not accepting downtown light art

A thin, blue light will regularly be jutting into the downtown Durham skyline. The light sculpture by renowned Spanish artist Jaume Plensa is the newest piece of public art in the Triangle, making its home outside the Durham Performing Arts Center. It was unveiled Monday during the ribbon cutting for the new theatre.

The beam of light is not without its critics, including astronomers and other pro-environment types who see it as light pollution. Capitol Broadcasting Co. (which seems to own everything in Durham’s tobacco district) agreed to pay for the sculpture if the city of Durham agreed to maintain it for 25 years. The News & Observer reported that the annual utility bill for the light will cost an estimated $3,350, along with an additional $4,415 being spent on annual maintenance.

Those of you who pay attention to the local art/development scene may remember that this isn’t Capitol Broadcasting’s first attempt to bring a lighted Plensa piece to the Triangle. The Independent’s David Fellerath explained the failure of that effort in this article:

In 2006, Raleigh City Manager Russell Allen, after civic debate and feasibility studies, recommended the city reject an ambitious Plensa project that would have brought a dizzying matrix of overhead water and lights to the re-opened Fayetteville Street. The rejection came in spite of $2.5 million proffered by Goodmon that would have covered a quarter of the initial cost.

So now that you have context for the Raleigh v. Durham Plensa debate, watch this video from the Plensa unveiling.

If you’ve had a chance to see the new blue light beam in downtown Durham, tell me what you think about it.

The view of the downtown Durham skyline is changing

I was cruising down the Durham Freeway this morning when I spotted some sort of green mural on the side of the new parking deck that adjoins the Durham Performing Arts Center. At first I thought the Chapel Hill mural bug must have bit the Bull City, but I as I got closer, I saw that they were mesh panels hanging from the top of the deck.

I was so glad to see these panels camoflaging the concrete deck.

In July, I wrote a spokeswoman for the city of Durham and asked whether there were plans to conceal some of the concrete. Here’s what the parking deck looked like then:

She responded saying the banners were forthcoming. Eventually, there will be a building adjacent to this parking deck, which will block the deck’s view from the road. In the meantime, I applaud the city for taking steps to spruce up a generic parking deck. I hope the folks building the parking deck for the new Hue development in downtown Raleigh take a similar approach.

Don’t forget, tonight is the official ribbon-cutting for the Durham Performing Arts Center. The public event starts at 5:30 and includes the lighting of the light sculpture “Sleep No More,” by artist Jaume Plensa.

A Vietnam War photography exhibit you must see

It bothers me how easy it is to forget American soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems the wars rarely makes headlines anymore. If you don’t have some connection to the military or seek out information about it, it’s easy to go days without even realizing we’re at war. But then enough soldiers or civilians will die or a politician will invoke the vote that led us to the Iraq war and the fighting will quickly reappear on the news, tucked between stories about gas shortages and Clay Aikens coming out of the closet.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the N.C. Museum of History to check out the Vietnam War photograpy exhibit. It’s called “A Thousand Words: Photographs by Vietnam Veterans” and it moved me to tears. Sixty images were hand picked to show off the various aspects of the Vietnam War from the solider’s perspective.

Fear. Sadness. Bravery. Boredom. Courage. Beauty. Strength. Homesickness. It’s all captured on film.

What makes the exhibit particularly outstanding is that each photo includes a brief summary of the image told in the verbatim words of the soldier who shot the photo. As a result, you get a one-of-a-kind perspective on what transpired and the emotions tied to a given image.

The traveling exhibit was born out of a class photography project at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem. The teacher, Martin Tucker, advertised in 2003 that he was looking for Vietnam veterans with the goal of obtaining some negatives his class could turn into prints. In five months he received more than 2,600 prints and slides, according to a press release about the exhibit. Only 60 photos were chosen.

After selecting the images for A Thousand Words, Martin and his team of volunteers and students invited the veterans back to tape interviews about the photographs. Their gripping words range from the anguish of fighting near the Cambodian border to enjoying a 1966 Bob Hope Christmas show or finally taking a field “shower” in a rice paddy in 100-degree weather.

In this digital age, our youngest veterans have already amassed millions of photos and videos. They don’t need to wait for another roll of film to capture a moment (mundane or murderess) on camera. Their only limitations are their batteries. Can you imagine what a similar exhibit will look like for today’s wars in 40 years?

The exhibit runs until Nov. 17. It’s free, but donations are encouraged. Find the time to stop downtown to see these images. It’s important.

(Top photo of the exhibit courtesy of Goodnight, Raleigh).

Local gallery features Raleigh photographers, including me

My friends know that I rarely go anywhere without my camera. I’ve learned the hard way that if you leave it at home you will miss the photographic moments that will never repeat themselves. For me, this realization came when I was at Snoopy’s hot dog stand in Raleigh one Saturday afternoon and a limo pulled up. Out stepped a bride and groom in their frilly and formal glory. They were there to order a hotdog because that’s where the met. But alas, I was without my camera.

So when a friend invited me to participate in a friendly photo competition with the promise of a gallery viewing at the end, I couldn’t resist.  Stan at Crocker’s Mark Gallery in Raleigh agreed to open up his gallery walls to 50 entrants from the Raleigh Flickr group. For some of us, it was the first opportunity we’ve ever had to see our work hanging in a gallery.

The contest rules were simple. Any photo shot anywhere between Aug. 1 and Sept. 1, 2008 was eligible. With such broad guidelines, you can imagine how diverse the entries were (everything from a controversial close-up of a penis to serene nature scenes).

The show opened on First Friday and runs through the end of December. If you’d like to see my photo (it’s the one the guy below is looking at) and the other interesting and well-composed shots, stop by the gallery.

The gallery is open from 11 to 2 p.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. It stays open till 9 p.m. on Wednesdays and on Saturdays you can pop by from 1 to 4 p.m., so says the gallery’s website.

A lot of the photos are for sale (mine’s not, but if someone made and offer, I’d probably sell it to you). So please check it out and support local photographers.

A sneak peek of Raleigh’s shimmer wall … lit up

Workers were testing the LEDs that will back light the shimmer wall that adorns Raleigh’s new convention center on Monday night. They appeared to only be testing one panel, at least when I stopped. So I snapped the photo below.

The plan is to officially light up the entire waving Oak Tree on Sept. 5, when the convention center officially opens.

When fully lit, the wall can shimmer in tons of colors. They can even tailor the colors to match holidays (say green for St. Patrick’s Day) and special events (say red if the Hurricanes win the Stanley Cup).

Here’s a sneak peak of a single panel.

Can you imagine how beautiful this will look when it’s all lit up?