MILLA MONTHLY MUSIC, ARTS, LITERATURE AND FOOD PUBLICATION OF THE CARRBORO CITIZEN VOL. 5 + NO. 1 + OCTOBER 2011 INSIDE: t OCSC TURNS 10 t BOX TURTLES t STORIES OF AIDS t SPIDER BAGS t 27 VIEWS OF CHAPEL HILL t PEPPERFEST 2 carrborocitizen.com/mill + OCTOBER 2011 MILL BUSY TIMES arT NOTES So September seemed kinda busy, what this month – Orange County Social Club is 10 with school having just started back and all, but years old and will commemorate the birthday summer’d just ended, and really, it’s all relative. appropriately with a week full of parties (see page In the galleries October is awfully busy. 18 for details). At the Ackland Art Museum on the Election season is in full swing, and campaign Down in Silk Hope, the Shakori Hills Grass- UNC campus, “Carolina Collects: 150 signs litter lawns about town. Candidates are roots Festival will kick off Oct. 6, with a few acts Years of Modern and Contemporary answering questions left and right and chatting sure to put on quite the show (see page 17), and Art” is on display through Dec. 4. The up any available ear, and good for them – strong over in Saxapahaw, bands, brews and barbecue exhibit features nearly 90 hidden trea- civic participation is one of the awesome things will invade on Oct. 22 for the annual Saxapahaw sures by some of the most renowned about our community. Oktoberfest celebration. artists of the modern era, gathered Our high school sports teams are well into With all that on the schedule, the lazy days of from private collections of UNC their seasons. Farmers are harvesting crops. Col- summer seem a long-forgotten memory. alumni, including works ranging from lege students are gearing up for mid-terms. Not a – Susan Dickson an oil painting by Claude Monet and a minute to spare. suspended sculpture by Olafur Elias- But let’s focus on the more important matters On the cover: Phil Blank’s illustration of a scene son to an Alexander Calder standing at hand: celebrations! One of our beloved com- at OCSC, which heralds its 10-year anniversary mobile and a Pablo Picasso gouache. munity watering holes will mark a major milestone this month with a week-long celebration. New multimedia acrylic works by local artist Jacques Menache are fea- tured at Panzanella through Nov. 7 in “Amoebic Stream,” by Jacques Menache Robert Dickson PublisHer Kirk Ross an exhibit titled “Magnifications.” The [email protected] contributiNg eDitOr exhibit consists of about 20 pieces in [email protected] Susan Dickson editor mixed-media acrylic, dealing mostly with amoebae, protozoa, paramecium, [email protected] Marty Cassady ad director bacteria and other simple cell forms that inhabit our bodies and environ- [email protected] ment. A reception will be held Oct. 10 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Duncan Hoge art director The 23rd annual “Sculpture in the Garden” [email protected] contributOrs Vicky Dickson, Ashley exhibit at the N.C. Botanical Garden opens Taylor Sisk Melzer, Mary Parker Sonis, Oct. 1 and runs through Nov. 19, featuring the contributiNg eDitOr Margot Lester, Jason Cole, works of 30 sculptors using a variety of media, [email protected] Rose Laudicina including stone, stainless steel, concrete, clay, MILL wood and recycled aluminum. More than 50 one-of-a-kind sculptures by new and return- ing artists from around the state will be placed ROSS’S ALMANAC amid the native wildflowers. At FRANK this month, member artist I watched October / Flare today / The Flames spread across the highway / Across the Sudi Rakusin will display the paintings in her ridges, along the creek banks / Where sycamores marched naked “Chorus of Saints” series that inspired her – Sam Ragan, “I Watched October” latest project, “Journey Cards,” a divination “Building Blues,” acrylic and deck built around the 19 imagined female The light and temperature plunge this month, but expect a little reminder from graphite on canvas, by Lisa Creed saints and 36 goddesses drawn from cultures nature that we are still a southerly place. Indian Summer typically takes place in late around the world. Rakusin will give a talk at October here in the Piedmont, after the first frost. For what its worth, a study of frost FRANK on Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m. dates from 1951 to 1980 has the Chapel Hill frost date as Oct. 23. Over at LIGHT Art + Design, “RE:,” an exhibit that delves into the mean- Please note that we don’t drop the daylight savings time thing until the first week in ing of the prefix “re,” is on display this month through Nov. 12. Much of the November. Oct. 1 – Sunrise: 7:11 a.m.; Sunset: 7 p.m. exhibit has an environmentally Oct. 30 – Sunrise: 7:37 a.m.; Sunset: 6:21 p.m. conscious slant, embodying recy- cling, reuse, restoring and renew- Moon Phases able materials, featuring works by staple LIGHT artists Lynda First Quarter – Oct. 3 Full Moon – Oct. 11 Curry, Beverly Dawson, Al Frega, Peg Gignoux, Lynda Sanders, Last Quarter – Oct. 19 New Moon — Oct. 26 Leigh Suggs and others, as well The Full Moon in October is the Hunter’s Moon, Travel Moon and Blood Moon. Some as woodworker Tom Shields, a people insist that the Harvest Moon is in October rather than September. new artist to LIGHT. An opening Planets & Stars: Earth passes through the dust of Halley’s Comet late in October reception will be held Oct. 8 from and that means the Orionids meteor display. The radiant for meteors is a little left of 5 to 8 p.m. Orion and runs from roughly Oct. 17 to 25, with peak viewing on Oct. 21. At Hillsborough’s Eno Gallery, October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Cookie Lisa Creed will display “Crossing Month, Diabetes Awareness Month and, yeah, Sarcastic Month. The first week is Get Paths,” a solo exhibition of new Organized Week. paintings, this month. The exhibit Significant Dates features canvases that swing with shape, color and texture. An • Oct. 1 is Homemade Cookies Day and World Vegetarian Day • Child Health Day is Oct. 3 opening reception will be held • National Denim Day is Oct. 7 Sept. 30 from 6 to 9 p.m. and the • Columbus Day is Oct. 10 exhibit will run through Oct. 23. • University Day and Farmers’ Day are on Oct. 12 In Saxapahaw, the works of • Oct. 17 is Black Poetry Day Suzanne Connors and Nancy Woodwork by Tom Shields • Mother-in-Law Day is Oct. 23 Raasch, including art-to-wear and • United Nations Day is Oct. 24 jewelry, are on display this month • Halloween is Oct. 31 through Oct. 30. A reception will be held Oct. 7 from 6 to 9 p.m. rossalmanac.com/journal MILL OCTOBER 2011 + carrborocitizen.com/mill 3 FAUNA BY MARY PARKER SONIS The Undaunted Photo by Mary Parker Sonis hen I was a little busy, we would all pile out to destinations. We find them in our terrestrial turtle that is more girl growing up look at the turtle. After the usual driveways or crossing grocery closely related to our aquatic in Virginia, my exclamations of delight, there was store parking lots. We see them pond turtles than to members weekdays were always an entreaty: “Why can’t in fields and on the trails. They of the tortoise family. It is the filled with school we keep him?” But my father are gentle, slow moving and only turtle in North America that Wactivities. We rarely left the would point the turtle back in the determined. can fully close the hinge on its neighborhood, and never even direction it was traveling, we’d The eastern box turtle is a plastron. The Blanding’s, mud got into the Country Squire station sigh as it disappeared into the wagon that my parents shared; underbrush and off we went to but when the weekend came, the our next destination. road adventures began. I was so enthralled by these Typically, we stopped at drive- beautiful turtles that I would sit in ins for burgers and then headed the back seat, week after week, out to wander the countryside staring intently out the window and visit all the special places hoping to see that characteristic where wildlife was abundant. dome on any and all roads that On the back roads that led to we traveled. I rarely joined in various swamps and meadows, conversation. I was intent on we occasionally would see an finding the box turtle. eastern box turtle crossing the Here in North Carolina, our road – a very exciting find. My dad children have this same privilege. would pull to the side of the road We get to see the perseverant and bring the turtle to the car for box turtles as they wander our all of us to see. If the road wasn’t roads on their way to their special 4 carrborocitizen.com/mill + OCTOBER 2011 MILL and musk turtles also have hinged turtle has a completely flat if the turtle has to cross six lanes, taken from the wild each year in plastrons, but only the box turtle plastron, whereas the male has an it will do so. If you see a box turtle North Carolina, and most of these can close up shop so completely indented plastron. This concave crossing a road and have the turtles will die. An adult box turtle to exclude predators. shape allows the male to fit over ability to safely do so, pull over taken into a home will not be Box turtles are as slow to the female during mating.