Issuu

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill Vol. 43 No. 19 | October 7, 2026

Contents

News 4

Most business owners don't have a succession plan for after they retire. A new initiative in Durham aims to change that. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW

Durham leaders are sounding the alarm about proposed constitutional amendments they say would limit their ability to fund schools. BY TORI NEWBY

A look at each of the bond referenda on Wake voters' ballots this fall, including measures to fund schools, housing, and parks. BY CHLOE COURTNEY BOHL

Thousands of students are getting college credits, professional certifications, and even degrees while they’re still in high school. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW

Meet the one couple who hasn't sold their property to the multibillion-dollar mixed-use development taking over a corner of Apex. BY JASMINE GALLUP

Culture 16

Incoming! A mysterious Nathan Fielder documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, Mahershala Ali in Your Mother Your Mother, and more films coming to local theaters this month. BY GLENN MCDONALD

The Justice Theater Project's new production tells the true story of one woman's nightmarish experience with immigration bureaucracy. BY BRIDGETTE NALLY

"I wrote this for a different version of myself, and now I am that person who needs this,” said the musician Jacob Sharp, newly relocated to Durham, whose debut solo album, Middle Kid, releases on October 9. BY CORBIE HILL

You might not like all the characters in Adam O'Fallon Price's debut short story collection, Objects of Desire. But you'll probably find yourself rooting for them. BY SARAH EDWARDS

Regulars 3

Backtalk

Calendar

30 Puzzles / Classifieds

Cover ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE

Chapel Hill writer Adam O'Fallon Price's debut short story collection, Objects of Desire, released on October 6. PHOTO BY MAT T RAMEY

We Made This Publisher John Hurld

Editorial Editor-in-Chief Sarah Willets Wake County Editor Jane Porter Culture Editor Sarah Edwards

Staff Writers Lena Geller Justin Laidlaw Tori Newby Report For America Corps Reporter Chloe Courtney Bohl Contributors Jasmine Gallup, Desmera Gatewood, Elliott Harrell, Brian Howe, Glenn McDonald, Cy Neff, Andrea Richards, Barry Yeoman, Russ Campbell, Colony Little, Shelbi Polk, Ryan Cocca, Lauren Wingenroth

2 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

Copy Editor Brian Howe Editorial Interns Bridgette Nally

Creative

Advertising Publisher John Hurld Director of Revenue Mathias Marchington

Creative Director Nicole Pajor Moore

Director of Operations Chelsey Koch

Production Design Specialist Ellie Bruno

Sales and Marketing Associate Lauren Boyle

Circulation

Berry Media Group

Membership/ Subscriptions John Hurld Mathias Marchington

INDY | indyweek.com

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BACKTALK

For our annual Pride edition last month, Lena Geller wrote about Anchor Powerlifting and its third-annual “Weight, Not Hate” deadlifting event to benefit the Durham LGBTQ Youth Center. Anchor owner Holli Mann “likes to joke she’s building an army for the current situation at hand,” Geller wrote. Readers weighed in on the story on social media.

From Instagram user @LINI_LEIGH: Hell yeah! What a wonderful program. Get strong, besties. We’ll need every bit of strength to make it through this bleak timeline. From Instagram user @GRIMMORY: This event was such a blast, I had so much fun AND hit a personal best!! From Instagram user @CAROLINAGAYNIACS: This was so fun we loved getting to attend and sponsor this fundraiser!! From Instagram user @THEWHEELYBINSAGA: That name is epic... Weight not hate! Love it Also in our last edition, freelance writer Nick McGregor wrote about Durham musician Chris Fisina, who performs under the name Lou Hazel and sold his own watercolor paintings to pay a crew to help produce a new, as-yet unnamed record. From Instagram user @MARISSAMOBS: It’s crazy that all this talent is just a portion of who @louuhazel is!! From Instagram user @603BRETT:

VOCES8 Lead Me Home

Finally, freelance writer Jasmine Gallup reported on the closure of CAM Raleigh, and asked if the nonprofit museum’s board could have done more to keep its iconic building in downtown Raleigh’s Warehouse District. Readers on social media had thoughts. From Instagram user @J.WARD____: Could have been saved. I don’t think they had a clear direction on how to utilize the space. From Instagram user @TUTTLE_RECALL: “Our boldest chapter yet” and it’s just selling out to a real estate developer lmao From Instagram user @GUYTAYLOR68: Maybe they could have installed something people were interested in? And a pointed critique from Instagram user @JASONEARLLORD: Beyond Birth and Death Announcements: Could INDY Week Do More to Support the Writers Who Pull People into Spaces like CAM? When was the last time y’all had someone write about an exhibition at CAM? 2019? Is the INDY’s greatly reduced visual art coverage in recent years related to this closing?

I love it whenever Lou comes out to the Northeast. Great songwriter and live performer.

Thu, Oct 15 | Duke Chapel Celebrated British vocal ensemble VOCES8 explores the traditions that shape American choral music, from early voices like William Byrd to contemporary composers like Caroline Shaw.

Upcoming Highlights include... Oct 17–18 | von der Heyden Studio Theater

Falling: a disabled love story Written & Performed by Aaron Pang Oct 27 | Reynolds Industries Theater

WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN BOLD? indyweek.com backtalk@indyweek.com @INDYWeekNC @indyweek

Christian McBride & Ursa Major* *Limited tickets remain

Learn more at

dukearts.org

October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 3

NEWS

Durham

Work in Progress Most business owners don’t have a succession plan in place. A new city program in Durham aims to help them pass on their businesses to workers. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW jlaidlaw@indyweek.com

Susie Sneeringer, an employee-owner of Electric Violin Shop, speaks at the launch of Keep It Durham-Owned. PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF DURHAM

laise Kielar, founder of Electric Violin Shop, spent decades building a niche but thriving business, shipping instruments to customers in dozens of countries from a storefront in South Durham. But in 2016, when he decided to walk away from the shop to spend more time as a performing musician, Kielar didn’t want to leave his three employees without jobs. Kielar discovered his path forward thanks to Anne-Claire Broughton, founder and former executive director of the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center, who helped Electric Violin Shop’s employees become owners of the business. According to Susie Sneeringer, who 4 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

joined Electric Violin Shop in 2010 before becoming manager in 2014, the team struggled at first to convince traditional banks to finance the employees’ acquisition of the business from Kielar. “They were like, ‘Oh, I think you’re nice, but the music stores are not doing great right now,’” Sneeringer said. “They were all being sold off to private equity. We really needed something that was kind of specialized to our situation.” Broughton helped the shop pursue cooperative lending through Shared Capital. In 2016, Sneeringer and her colleagues became worker-owners, drafting their governing bylaws with free help from law students from Duke’s Community Enterprise Clinic.

Kielar wasn’t alone in not having a strategy for who would take over his business after he left. Over one-third of the city’s legacy businesses have aging ownership without a concrete succession plan. According to city and county officials, 34% of Durham County’s roughly 6,500 businesses have owners 55 or older, and nationally only about 30% of business owners have any succession plan in place. The city of Durham recently launched Keep It Durham-Owned, a campaign to connect business owners with the tools to begin succession planning, which could include selling to their own employees instead of closing shop, selling to a larger company, or selling to private equi-

ty. City officials, nonprofit partners, and a handful of employee-owned businesses gathered on September 14 at Provident1898—a coworking space at the historic headquarters of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company—to celebrate the launch. “When you keep Durham businesses in Durham, you preserve not only the economic benefit, but that culture, that feel, that grit that makes Durham Durham,” Joshua Gunn, Durham’s economic development director, said at the event. The yearlong campaign, housed inside the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), is a partnership with the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center and the Democracy

at Work Institute. The two groups are offering participating business owners free advising and mentorship. Durham is one of three pilot cities for this type of partnership, along with Raleigh and Cincinnati.

“It speaks to the fact that this can be an important part of a city’s economic-development package.” - Carl Rist

The initiative focuses on three employee-ownership models. Employee Stock Ownership Plans are the most common nationwide and allow employees to own company stock. Worker Cooperatives, like Electric Violin Shop, are businesses owned by the employees and governed democratically, with each employee typically receiving one voting share. Employee Ownership Trusts provide added benefits to employees after basic business expenses are met. Few companies in Durham are employee-owned. According to data from the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, Electric Violin Shop is one of three worker-owned businesses along with Bountiful Backyards landscaping and tilde Language Justice Cooperative. Educational assessment services company Measurement Incorporated, which touts hundreds of employees, and audiovisual design firm Kontek Systems are also employee-owned and headquartered in Durham. Momentum for worker-ownership in Durham has been building for years. In 2018, Durham was one of four cities to participate in the Shared Equity in Economic Development (SEED) Fellowship, developed by the National League of Cities and Democracy at Work Institute, which specifically targeted legacy Black-owned businesses. Durham has a rich history of Black business ownership dating back to Black Wall Street in the early 1900s.

Keep It Durham-Owned builds on this work with a broader range of Durham businesses. At the launch, Mayor Leonardo Williams pointed to a common refrain of his: When Durham residents shop locally, roughly 41 cents of every dollar stays in the community, compared to 14 cents at a national chain. Councilmember Carl Rist, who advocated for the program along with his colleague Nate Baker, brought the idea to Gunn shortly after he was hired last year. The program is one of a handful of tools the city is using, Rist said, to support Durham’s small-business owners and entrepreneurs. The challenge moving forward won’t just be getting business owners to buy in, but building the network of service providers who understand employee-ownership structures and can help implement them. “What we want to do is form relationships with people who would be advisors, accountants and attorneys, making sure folks in that ecosystem are familiar with employee ownership,” Rist said. “The hope would be that if we can show this works and get some traction, we would expand or fully fund this at OEWD to have a person or a couple people that could play this role. In some bigger cities like Boston and New York, they have an office. It speaks to the fact that this can be an important part of a city’s economic-development package.” A decade later, Electric Violin Shop has grown to five member-owners. Sneeringer said the team has learned a great deal about the process, like how to navigate big decisions—hiring and new vendors— by consensus, but there’s still room for improvement. “Nobody was in here saying, ‘Well, I know about cooperatives, and this is how they should be,’” Sneeringer said. “We’re all babies when it comes to this.” The hardest part, she said, wasn’t developing governance structures, it was finding financial professionals who understood a small worker co-op’s unique tax situation, a gap she still navigates. “If other business owners want to talk to me about the process, I’m always like, ‘Yes! I will talk to you,’” she said. “I’ll tell you ‘this was hard, this wasn’t hard,’ and then you can decide whether it’s for you.” Interested business owners can request a consultation from the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center by visiting the city’s website. The core initiative will run through the end of 2027, with technical assistance and resources remaining permanently available. W

W IN N E R

VOTE

GENERAL ELECTION INFO AT-A-GLANCE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3

ELECTION DAY All polling places are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. On Election Day, you must vote at your assigned polling place. Find your polling place at vt.ncsbe.gov/pplkup.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20

Absentee ballot request deadline Find more information at votebymail.ncsbe.gov

OCTOBER 15–31

In-person early voting W I

NNER

Voters can register to vote at early voting sites with valid photo ID and proof of current address on a utility bill, bank statement, or paycheck. You can vote early at any voting site in your county. Find an early voting location at vt.ncsbe.gov/EVSite.

Don’t Forget Your ID! North Carolina voters will be asked to show ID. Voters unable to show a photo ID can still vote by filling out an ID Exception Form. Learn more about acceptable forms of ID at ncsbe.gov/voting/voter-id.

Research the Candidates on Your Ballot

W IN N E R Check out the INDY’s ballot generator tool to find out which races are on your ballot. Visit indyweek.com/elections2026, enter your address, and find bios for each candidate. While you’re there, read candidates’ responses to INDY’s election questionnaires.

VOTE

FIND MORE INDY ELECTION COVERAGE ONLINE In-depth reporting Election day liveblog Ballot generator tool Candidate questionnaires & so much more!

INDYWEEK.COM/ELECTIONS2026 October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 5

NEWS

Durham ILLUSTRATION BY ELLIE BRUNO

‘There Are Going to Be Cuts’ Constitutional amendments on ballots this fall would limit income and property tax revenue. Local leaders say the measures could hobble funding for Durham Public Schools and other services. BY TORI NEWBY tnewby@indyweek.com

orth Carolinians will have the option to vote for statewide income and property tax limits this November, and Durham leaders are sounding alarm bells that these constitutional amendments could affect their ability to fund public schools and other local services. One proposed amendment on the ballot would lower the cap on the income tax rate from 7% to 3.5%; income tax revenue funds the state budget. The other amendment would direct the state legislature to limit local property taxes, which make up a large portion of municipal budgets, though a specific limit would be determined later through legislation. Neither of these amendments, if passed, would cut taxes, but rather would limit the amount that taxes 6 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

could increase in the future. The legislators sponsoring the bills have said the measures will help alleviate constituents from a rising tax burden. Property taxes account for 61% of Durham’s general fund revenue, according to county spokesperson Dawn Dudley, and the county uses that money to fund schools, public safety, roads, and other essential services. Durham leaders say that enshrining the power to cap property taxes in the state constitution will reduce the county’s flexibility to address future spending needs. The Durham Public Schools (DPS) Board of Education passed a resolution on September 24 encouraging constituents to vote against these measures, and the county commissioners passed a similar declaration

against the property tax measure in April. “A lot of the services that we rely on will decrease,” County Commissioner Michelle Burton told the INDY in regard to the property tax amendment. “There are going to be cuts, particularly in public education. We will not be able to fill in that gap anymore if this passes.” The county has historically stepped up property taxes to pay for capital improvements and bonds, which are loans that the county uses increased property taxes to pay back. In 2022, voters approved a bond funding construction of a new Durham School of the Arts building, renovations at Glenn Elementary School, and the construction of Murray-Massenburg Elementary School. If approved, the proposed amendment could limit county commissioners’ ability to raise property taxes for projects like this, but it’s unclear to what extent since no limit has been set. School board member Millicent Rogers said the property tax amendment could severely inhibit the district’s ability to address its nearly $1 billion in maintenance needs. The district has plans to consolidate several aging elementary schools into fewer, newer buildings, which would require funding from another bond. “But we can’t do that if we don’t know that we have reciprocal revenue coming in to pay for the necessary equipment,” Rogers said. Each budget cycle, DPS makes a request to the county for a dollar amount, but its requests in recent years have been more than what the county says it can afford. Durham County increased property taxes by 2.5 cents in the budget passed in June to pay for raises for DPS classified staff, and the budget still fell short of the district’s ask. “The ability to [support DPS] using natural growth and revenue has all but dissipated,” the county’s budget director said in March. “And we’re at the point of needing property tax rate increases every year potentially, just to handle some things that we used to be able to, in the past, handle with natural growth.” The county also lost out on millions in property tax revenue this past budget cycle after officials granted $4.4 billion in property value reductions, mostly ben-

efitting corporations and far exceeding the revenue loss the county had projected, an INDY investigation found. While the county is responsible for funding schools’ capital costs, the state covers instructional costs like teacher salaries and transportation. But state funding for public education has declined over the past several decades, leaving counties to fill funding gaps. Durham funds 39% of public school costs, among the highest percentages in the state, as well as 248 teacher positions, according to 2024–2025 data from the nonprofit NC Budget & Tax Center. While the property tax amendment most directly affects school funding, limiting how much income tax revenue the state receives could put even more of the burden on counties to fund public schools and other services. Rogers said if these two tax amendments pass, DPS could also see a slowdown in teacher pay increases, cuts to services like mental health programming, and an increase in class sizes. “We want to get to a living wage in Durham, but we’re not going to get there if the county commissioners can’t raise taxes in the way necessary,” Rogers said. Durham County has already absorbed federal funding reductions for programs including Medicaid and food assistance (SNAP), Dudley wrote in a statement. “The central question becomes what residents are prepared to forgo, delay, or scale back while the County continues to meet its mandated obligations,” Dudley said in the statement. “To date, Durham has funded mandated services and invested in resident priorities beyond statutory mandates. A state-imposed cap could eliminate or severely restrict the County’s capacity to invest in these priorities, which directly affect residents’ quality of life.” Neither the income tax cap nor the property tax limit would offer a tax cut to North Carolinians. The current income tax rate is 3.99% for individuals, which, under the most recent state budget, will be lowered to 3.49% in 2027. The corporate tax rate is 2% and is on a path toward 0% by 2030. The property tax amendment would allow the legislature to create a levy limit, which would take the amount of money collected in the previous year and allow it to grow by a certain percentage, considering the fact that property values rise each year. (This is different from the property tax rate.) An analysis by the North Carolina Housing Coalition used a 2% levy limit

(which takes the previous year’s collections in each county and adds 2%) to project how the property tax amendment could affect voters. Applying this limit to each county’s most recent property values showed that the average North Carolina homeowner would save $84 per year in property taxes, and corporate landowners would save millions of dollars. The analysis suggests Durham would have lost 11% of its total property tax revenue, amounting to a local funding loss of more than $32 million. (The 2% limit was chosen based on projections the tax policy nonprofit Tax Foundation gave to a state House committee on tax reform when pitching the idea of a levy limit.) Proponents of the amendments argue that the limits will help out North Carolina residents who are seeing their tax bills creep up. Brian Balfour, senior vice president of research at the John Locke Foundation, said taxpayers should be able to keep more of what they earn. “We don’t want to be too dismissive of what these savings could amount to, even as a relatively small amount,” Balfour said. “What seems like a small amount to a lot of people could be a meaningful amount to the people who are actually paying the bills.” With limits to income and property taxes, local governments will have to rely on increased service fees and sales tax to fill in the gaps, said NC Budget & Tax Center Executive Director Alexandra Sirota. “The reality is, costs don’t disappear, and elected leaders need to look to other sources of revenue to fund those costs,” Sirota said. Balfour said tax limits will put pressure on local governments to “more wisely spend” taxpayer dollars, for example by hiring contractors instead of full-time employees with salary and benefit costs. He also suggested there could be provisions in the legislation to allow local governments to raise property taxes above a state limit by getting voter approval. But Burton said it would be a logistical barrier to ask voters each time the county needs more money and that elections are costly to run. “If you take away that local decision-making and you put it in the state, they’re just basically making decisions for the counties and the cities,” Burton said. “You’re just taking away the local control and what’s best for each county, each city, each town, because you won’t be able to do what is needed for the people who live in your community.” W

NOTICE OF DURHAM COUNTY GENERAL ELECTION Tuesday, November 3, 2026 The General Election for Durham County will be held in Durham County, NC on Tuesday November 3, 2026. All Durham County precincts will be open from 6:30 am until 7:30 pm.

The following contests will be on Durham County ballots: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

US Congress NC Supreme Court NC Court of Appeals NC General Assembly Durham County Superior Court Judge Durham County District Court Judge Durham County District Attorney Durham County Sherriff Durham County Clerk of the Superior Court Durham County Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor City of Raleigh City Council* Local Bond Referendums* Constitutional Amendments

*Offices will only appear on your ballot if you are eligible to vote for the respective contests.

DURHAM COUNTY EARLY VOTING LOCATIONS South Regional Library North Regional Library 4505 S. Alston Avenue, 221 Milton Road, Durham Durham Duke University – Karsh Alumni Center 2080 Duke University Road, Durham Southern High School 800 Clayton Road, Durham

Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship 4907 Garrett Road., Durham

NCCU Law School 640 Nelson Street, Durham

Durham County Main Library 300 N Roxboro Street, Durham

Durham County Board of Elections 3825 S. Roxboro Street, Suite 101, Durham

Little River Community Complex 8307 N. Roxboro Street, Bahama

Early voting schedule: Thursday, October 15, 2026 – Saturday, October 31, 2026 Hours are consistent at all early voting sites. • • •

East Regional Library 211 Lick Creek Lane, Durham

Weekdays: 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Saturdays: 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Sundays: 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE:

The voter registration deadline for the General Election is Friday, October 9, 2026 (25 days prior). Voters that miss the registration deadline may register and vote during the Early Voting period. Voters who are currently registered need not re-register. Registered voters who have moved or changed other information since the last election should notify the Board of Elections of that change by October 9th.

SAME DAY REGISTRATION: Voters are allowed to register and vote during early voting. It is quicker and easier to register in advance, but if you have not registered you can do so during Early Voting with proper identification. This same day registration is not allowed at polling places on Election Day. For more details on the requirements associated with Same-Day Registration during Early Voting, visit our website at https://www.dcovotes.com/voters/voting/early-voting. Information regarding registration, polling locations, absentee voting, or other election matters may be obtained by contacting the Board of Elections. Website: www.dcovotes.com Phone: 919-560-0700

Email: elections@dconc.gov Fax: 919-560-0688

PAID FOR BY DURHAM COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS

October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 7

NEWS

Wake County

Bond Questions Here’s what to know about the bonds on ballots in Wake County this fall. BY CHLOE COURTNEY BOHL chloe@indyweek.com

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE

hen you go to vote this fall, don’t forget to flip your ballot over. On the back, after Wake voters have bubbled in their picks for U.S. Senate and county commissioner and maybe city council, and weighed in on three proposed constitutional amendments, they will see at least two and as many as four local bond questions. In addition to countywide public schools and community college bonds, Raleigh voters will decide on a housing bond and a transportation bond, and Knightdale will vote on a parks bond. If approved, the various packages will pay for a wide array of public projects, from overdue school HVAC repairs to protected bike lanes and affordable homes. Local governments issue bonds to 8 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

finance capital investments like new buildings, renovations, or equipment purchases—projects that need a one-time cash infusion. Once the money is gone, it’s gone, so you won’t see recurring costs like salaries or program expenses in a bond package. Bonds often (but not always) require a tax increase in order to pay back the principal amount plus interest. Big public projects will always cost money, but municipal bonds are generally considered to be one of the most secure and cost-effective options for governments and taxpayers alike due to their lower interest rates compared to other types of borrowing. Wake County voters tend to support bond referenda by wide margins. The

2024 library bond passed easily, as did the 2022 public schools and community college bonds. Raleigh’s 2020 affordable housing bond sailed to approval. Notable recent exceptions to this trend include Cary’s failed 2024 parks and housing bonds, which, with a combined price tag of $560 million, were too pricey for voters who were already staring down higher-than-expected tax bills after that year’s property revaluation. Bond referenda need a simple majority of votes to pass. It’s worth noting that if North Carolina’s proposed constitutional amendment requiring limits on local property tax increases passes, it will hamstring governments’ ability to issue bonds in the future. Even though Wake vot-

ers have historically been enthusiastic about bonds that improve their schools, infrastructure, and public spaces, a September Elon University poll showed 71% statewide support for the property tax amendment among likely voters. Limiting property tax increases and bond issuances could conceivably force local governments to cut spending elsewhere to pay for big projects, or else abandon them. Look up your sample ballot on the North Carolina Board of Elections website to preview what you’ll see when you vote, including the exact language for each referendum. Early voting begins October 15 and Election Day is November 3. Read on for more information about each bond referendum.

WakeCounty County Schools Wake Schools BondsBonds

Wake Tech Bonds Wake Tech Bonds New school design and construction ($143,200,000)

Technology upgrades, property acquisition, and other future planning ($160,100,000)

Facilities updates ($20,400,000)

IT and equipment updates ($22,700,000)

Total: $832,300,000

Total: $149,100,000

HVAC, boiler, roof, and other inflastructure replacements ($156,800,000) School renovations and replacements ($372,200,000)

The total comes to $832.3 million instead of $680 million because of Wake County's additional $152.3 million cash commitment for these projects. Created with Datawrapper

Southern Wake Campus renovations ($65,000,000)

Workforce program expansions ($41,000,000)

Created with Datawrapper

Amount: $680 million

Amount: $149.1 million

In a nutshell: Funding to construct two new schools, replace or majorly renovate six schools, and design an additional four new buildings or make renovations. Plus, funding for HVAC, technology, security, and other capital improvements around the district.

In a nutshell: Funding to expand Wake Tech’s public safety, skilled trades, automotive, and dental hygiene programs, renovate the Southern Wake campus, and update basic infrastructure and IT across all seven campuses. Estimated taxpayer cost: $0.90 per $100,000 of assessed property value per year.

Estimated taxpayer cost: $4.10 per $100,000 of assessed property value per year. (Look up your property’s assessed value on Wake County’s real estate search website.) Who votes: All registered voters in Wake County The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) serves around 161,000 students across 204 schools, some of which sorely need renovations and infrastructure replacements. The district also needs to build new schools to accommodate population growth. With funding from this bond, plus an additional $152.3 million cash commitment from Wake County, the district plans to construct two new elementary schools in Wendell and Knightdale and design a future elementary school in Zebulon. Nine existing elementary, middle, and high schools in Raleigh, Cary, Garner, and Wendell are slated for renovation and replacement. The bond would fund construction for six of those projects and design for another three. (Find the full list of projects on the WCPSS website.) Other schools around the district would get money for technology, furniture, and equipment refreshes. For example, according to a district presentation, the bond would support HVAC replacements at 11 schools and new fire alarms at 15 schools. WCPSS’s capital needs go beyond what this bond would fund, so voters should expect to see more bond referenda in future election cycles. The district’s long-term Capital Improvement Plan involves adding one additional elementary, middle, and high school over the next decade and renovating or replacing seven more beyond what’s included in this bond package.

Who votes: All registered voters in Wake County Wake Tech is North Carolina’s largest community college by population with more than 72,000 students across its network of campuses. According to college president Scott Ralls, it’s the largest public safety education provider in the state and the largest health care education provider in Wake County. If voters approve this bond, $41 million would go toward expanding Wake Tech’s workforce programs, including its public safety, automotive, skilled trades, and dental hygiene offerings, which Ralls said are some of its most in-demand. “Wake County runs on Wake Tech,” he said. “If you’re in a hospital, the nurse, the radiographer, the EKG technician, the sonographer tech—if you ask, you’ll find out a lot of times they’re from Wake Tech. If you happen to be in an accident and a police [officer] or paramedic [shows up, there is a] very good chance that they’re from Wake Tech. If your car needs to be repaired, very good chance that those technicians are from Wake Tech.” $65 million from the bond would fund renovations to Wake Tech’s Southern Wake campus. $20.4 million would go toward facilities updates around all seven campuses, including HVAC repairs, accessibility upgrades, and roofing. The remaining $22.7 would fund technology, vehicle, and equipment purchases. This year’s proposed bond builds on a $349 million bond passed in 2018 and a $353 million bond passed in 2022. Those investments mostly went toward building new facilities, Ralls said, while this smaller bond is mostly dedicated to renovating Wake Tech’s existing space. High-quality teaching spaces and equipment are especially important for a jobs-focused college like Wake Tech, where students often need hands-on training with physical tools or technology, he said. “Online and [traditional] classrooms are not sufficient, so we have to create these unique spaces for these types of careers and jobs that are very important to us in our community,” Ralls said.

October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 9

Raleigh Transportation Bonds Raleigh Transportation Bonds

Raleigh Housing BondsBonds Raleigh Housing Homebuyer assistance ($10,400,000)

Homelessness response ($12,000,000)

Traffic calming, intersection safety, and transporation partnerships ($10,000,000)

Total: $101,500,000

Total: $101,500,000 Aﬀordable housing development and preservation ($57,600,000)

Revolving loan fund ($21,500,000)

Created with Datawrapper

Sidewalk and bikeway projects ($40,000,000)

Roadway and BRT projects ($51,500,000)

Created with Datawrapper

Amount: $101.5 million

In a nutshell: Funding for affordable housing construction and preservation, homebuyer assistance, and homelessness response.

In a nutshell: Funding for roads, sidewalks, bike lanes, bridges, curbs and drains, bus and train stations and shelters, and other transportation-related projects around the city.

Estimated taxpayer cost: $0 per year Estimated taxpayer cost: $0 per year Who votes: All voters with City of Raleigh–registered addresses Who votes: All voters with City of Raleigh–registered addresses Last year, Raleigh began setting aside money from property and sales taxes in a dedicated fund so that it could issue (and pay back) bonds at regular intervals without raising taxes. Using this “steady state” financing model, the city expects to issue $203 million worth of bonds every four years for the foreseeable future, assuming voters approve the bond referenda. This cycle, Raleigh is asking voters to support a $101.5 million affordable housing bond and a $101.5 million transportation bond. The housing bond is split into four buckets: $57.6 million for affordable housing development and preservation, $21.5 million for a mixed-income revolving loan fund, $12 million for homelessness response, and $10.4 million for homebuyer assistance. According to a May presentation to the city council, the city expects to create or preserve between 160 and 510 housing units, provide homebuyer assistance for 40 to 50 units, and provide services to 125 unhoused people annually for the next four years. The homelessness response funds will be contributed to the Wake at Home program, which provides a year of housing and services to transition people out of homelessness. The revolving loan fund will contribute to city-owned developments at Moore Square and the old Southeast Raleigh DMV site. Terrell Midgett is a cofounder of Raleigh Raised Development and a cochair of the “Vote Yes Raleigh” campaign to pass both city bonds this year. Raleigh Raised is building the Cottages of Idlewild, a cottage court neighborhood of 18 affordable-priced homes near downtown. The project is using public and private dollars and a land trust model to keep the homes permanently affordable. Midgett said the housing bond will pave the way for more affordable housing like the Cottages of Idlewild. “This bond is something to help us create and preserve the footprint of a growing city,” he said. Raleigh passed an $80 million affordable housing bond in 2020, funding the creation or preservation of about 2,500 affordable housing units. Midgett said this new bond would build on the work of the previous one, which “did everything it’s supposed to do, but still the need is greater.”

10 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

Like Raleigh’s housing bond, this one requires no tax increase thanks to the steady state financing model. If it’s approved, $51.5 million would go toward South Wake Bus Rapid Transit lanes and deferred road projects including Marsh Creek Road, Trawick Road West, and Ebenezer Church Road. $40 million would go toward building five miles of new sidewalks and 50 miles of “high-comfort bikeways” across Raleigh over the next five years. The remaining $10 million would go to neighborhood traffic calming, intersection safety, and transportation partnerships. Midgett, the Raleigh builder, said affordable housing goes hand in hand with roads, bike lanes, and bus lanes. “We can’t build [housing] without the infrastructure,” he said.

Town of Knightdale Parks and Recreation Bonds Amount: $55 million In a nutshell: Funding for a new public park and community center. Estimated taxpayer cost: $35 per $100,000 of assessed property value per year. Who votes: All voters with Town of Knightdale–registered addresses With the bond funding, Knightdale proposes to build a new public park at 2004 Marks Creek Road complete with a playground, an athletic field, a lawn, a stage, meadows, a pond, a basketball court, pickleball courts, a paved jogging track, and a community center with a gym, an indoor stage, multipurpose rooms, and fitness studios inside. Knightdale currently has one recreation center but no multiuse community center like the one proposed here. See a rendering of the proposed park and read more about it on the Town of Knightdale’s website.

NEWS

Durham J.D. Clement Early College is hosted in an academic building on North Carolina Central University’s campus, seen here on September 22, 2026. PHOTO BY ERIN WOODIEL

Fast Track More and more high school students are dual enrolling at community colleges and universities. Durham Public Schools hopes a quarter of its graduates will also have an associate’s degree by 2028. BY JUSTIN LAIDLAW jlaidlaw@indyweek.com

aisley Russell was an extremely busy high school student. By her senior year at Riverside High School in Durham, she was the cocaptain of the softball team and president of the school’s National Honors Society chapter. She was also taking classes on two campuses: her high school and Durham Technical Community College. Russell had learned as a sophomore about dual enrollment, an initiative that allows high school students in North Carolina to earn college credits—and in some cases a two-year degree or industry certification—through partnerships with local community colleges and universities. Russell had her sights set on becoming a doctor, and after attending a virtual Q&A about dual enrollment, she decided it would help her get to her dream job faster.

“I wanted to go super far in my degrees, and this felt like a head start,” Russell said recently. In the spring, Russell graduated from Riverside with a high school diploma and her associate’s in science from Durham Tech. Thanks to all the credits she accrued as a high schooler, she began her first semester at UNC-Greensboro this fall as a junior majoring in kinesiology on a pre-medicine track. She stands to save more than $15,000 on tuition if she finishes her undergraduate degree in two years. Participation in dual enrollment plans has exploded since the General Assembly established the free Career and College Promise (CCP) program in 2011. About 95,000 students participated across the state in 2024–25, up from 78,800 the previous school year and 11,000 in 2014.

Durham Public Schools in 2023 set a goal that by 2028, 1 in 4 of its students would graduate with a high school diploma and either an associate’s degree or equivalent certification. In 2024–25, the most recent school year for which data is available, 22% of DPS graduates simultaneously earned a community college credential, up from 18% the previous year. “As we look at trades and other jobs, there are so many great jobs that make so much money that fit these kids’ needs,” said Oluwunmi Ariyo, director of college recruitment and high school partnerships at Durham Tech. “The exposure is so much better in high school than it is when they’re finished, and now they’re trying to figure out what to do, and there’s no one to point them in the right direction.” October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 11

Workforce Development Students walk on campus at North Carolina Central University, where Durham Public Schools’ J.D. Clement Early College is located.

When I graduated from Riverside in 2008, students and school administrators talked about community colleges as schools for flunkies. If you weren’t smart enough to get into a four-year school, you enrolled at a community college. Years later, those same community colleges are being heralded by graduates—like my mother and me— and administrators as places to jump-start a career. The dual enrollment boom comes as North Carolina’s community colleges are emphasizing their role as growth engines for the state’s workforce. State lawmakers have pointed to community colleges as a way to connect workers, particularly young adults, with growing business sectors in healthcare, biotechnology, and life sciences. The North Carolina Community College System appropriation in this year’s budget was $1.86 billion, up 51% from fiscal year 2020. That’s compared with a 17% increase between fiscal year 2010 and 2020.

PHOTO BY ERIN WOODIEL

“What we want to do is to make sure that ... we tie our programming to regional education and economic development needs, but also to a child’s passion and their interest.” - Sneha Shah-Coltrane

This year, lawmakers gave the system $57.5 million for a new funding model called Propel NC. It’s designed to reward schools for programs that lead to jobs in high-demand sectors, rather than solely compensating them based on course enrollment. North Carolina’s dual enrollment program launched in 1983 when the General Assembly passed legislation allowing high school students to enroll in community college courses. The state later introduced additional programs that created more ways for students to earn college credit. In 2011, the state consolidated all of those programs into Career and College Promise. Participation grew modestly, but representation from minority groups was uneven, according to a study commissioned by the State Board of Education in 2022. The state board adopted new policies to deepen 12 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

relationships between community colleges and public school systems and to appeal to a wider group of students. “I think the key difference now is that we are more aligned than ever before,” said Sneha Shah-Coltrane, senior director of the Office of Advanced Learning and Gifted Education at the NC Department of Public Instruction. “Districts, colleges, the state agencies, et cetera. It’s not as random. Before, a kid could take any course they wanted, doing anything they wanted, and it was just what you did. Now, we are trying to get more integrated and aligned.” Students can take three dual enrollment pathways. College Transfer students can take college courses taught by a professor in partnership with a local institution, with the expectation of moving to a two- or four-year institution after

Jovonia Lewis, left, and her sons Andrew and Joshua, who have both participated in dual enrollment. PHOTO COURTESY OF JOVONIA LEWIS

graduation. Through the Career and Technical Education pathway, they can earn a certification for specific jobs or industries. A growing number of students are enrolled in Cooperative Innovative High Schools, also known as early colleges, which are often housed on a community college or university campus and focus on a particular industry like healthcare or environmental sustainability. City of Medicine Academy, a healthcare-focused school in Durham, sits two blocks from Duke Regional Hospital. College Transfer is the most popular pathway, accounting for 59% of dual enrollment students, with Cooperative Innovative High Schools at 24% and Career and Technical Education at 17%. The state says all three pathways have yielded mostly positive outcomes for par-

ticipants, compared with their peers on traditional high school tracks. According to a 2026 report by the Department of Public Instruction, students with Career and Technical Education credentials saw 14% higher cumulative wages compared to students who didn’t have those credentials over a seven-year period. College Transfer students earned 7% higher wages over the same period. The report also said that while there were no “statistically significant differences in employment rates or annual wages” for Cooperative Innovative High School students, economically disadvantaged students and students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups who took that route saw positive impacts on their annual wages. “What we want to do is to make sure that, as much as we can, we tie our pro-

ty, J.D. d.

gramming to regional education and economic development needs, but also to a child’s passion and their interest,” Shah-Coltrane said. “I feel like our students and families are getting more choices than ever before in high school and K-12. We want them to feel prepared and to have choices and know that they have options.”

Skipping Ahead

Dual enrollment students in Durham have access to world-class universities, Research Triangle Park, and Duke University Hospital System. Durham Tech, where high school students are enrolled in 100 courses this fall, has doubled down on partnerships with companies like pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk to help build curricula that feed into life sciences jobs. In 2024, Durham Tech partnered with Durham Public Schools and Duke Health to establish the Durham Early College of Health Sciences with the help of a $29 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. The school started this year with 101 students. Duke Health plans to hire at least 60 students after graduation to fill much-needed positions for nurses and technicians. Families who participate in dual enrollment save thousands of dollars on college tuition, which is covered by their school district, though students are on the hook for textbooks and course fees. In addition to the tuition help, Durham Tech works with families to remove barriers like transportation and scheduling conflicts that might interfere with a student’s ability to join the program. “They have access to all the resources peers onthey need,” Ariyo said. “We have people Accordingin [Durham Tech] student government tment ofas high school students. We have stuh Careerdents who use all our resources, from tials sawour pantry to free tutoring. They really comparedare embedded as college students, they hose cre-just look younger.” d. College Tevin Jones has been working as her wagesDurham Tech’s campus liaison for dual also saidenrollment partnerships since 2020. ically sig-Jones works with students as early as ent ratesninth grade to help set them on the path e Innova-that is academically best for them. This onomical-kind of early planning makes an accelerstudentsated associate’s degree possible, he said. nd ethnicA full degree requires roughly 20 coursw positivees. Students get six terms of eligibility—11th and 12th grade, plus two summake suremers—which works out to three or four our pro-classes a term, often split across two

eight-week blocks. Jovonia Lewis, a former Durham Public Schools Board of Education member, has put both her sons—Andrew and Joshua—through the early college at J.D. Clement, a Cooperative Innovative High School located on North Carolina Central University’s campus. Students take courses with other early college and NCCU students. Andrew graduated from J.D. Clement last year and is now beginning his first year at Tuskegee University, a historically Black university in Alabama, with enough credits to classify as a junior. Joshua is a junior at J.D. Clement. He plans to pursue a degree in criminal justice after graduation; NCCU is on the list of possible schools. “Giving them those opportunities to expand their perspective has been amazing for us financially,” Jovonia Lewis said. Even though Joshua is enrolled in early college, he is still involved in student activities at Jordan High School, his district school. Joshua plays on the soccer team and enjoys going to football games with his friends. Dual enrollment students have more schedule flexibility than their peers. In addition to in-person classes, schools offer asynchronous courses online, which Jones said many students prefer because they can pursue sports, jobs, and other commitments. But the programs come with tradeoffs. Students miss out on activities like pep rallies at their high school and aren’t in class every day with the kids who will attend their senior prom. Between softball and academics, Russell—the aspiring doctor who started at UNC-Greensboro this fall—already had a tight schedule. Her college course load left little room for socializing; Russell took eight classes her junior year, five at Durham Tech and three at Riverside. “Throughout the process, I continuously thought about stopping it and going back to only high school classes because I sacrificed my entire social life for it,” Russell said. “I lost a lot of friends starting out, and no one understood why I was doing it.” Still, the savings on tuition and the head start on her degree made the commitment worth it, and Russell says she would recommend dual enrollment to her friends. “Absolutely, do it,” Russell said. “When you look back at it, you’re gonna have no regrets, and especially if you want to go into a rigorous career, it sets you up very well.” W

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NEWS

Apex

The Couple Who Didn’t Sell A rural Apex road will transform into Veridea’s main street. Almost everyone who once lived there has sold—with the exception of two lifelong Apex residents. BY JASMINE GALLUP backtalk@indyweek.com

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE

he winding road to the Whitehouse home, a beautiful brick two-story surrounded by towering pines, used to be called Old Holly Springs–Apex Road. Today, it’s Veridea Parkway, renamed for the multibillion-dollar mixed-use development taking shape on either side. Greg and Brenda Whitehouse, a married couple in their 70s, are one of the last families who still live here. In early September, some of the final holdouts—their neighbors— moved on after decades in Apex, with Wake County real estate records showing they sold their properties to RXR Capital, the New York development company in charge of Veridea. Over the next five years, apartments, retail stores, and even an elementary school will be built on the 1,100 acres surrounding Veridea Parkway. The new NC Children’s Hospital, expected to bring 8,000 jobs to Apex, will be close to the Whitehouse home. Still, Greg and Brenda have decided they aren’t going anywhere. 14 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

Deal or No Deal? Developers have been buying up land around what is now Veridea Parkway for years, even before the project was officially proposed in 2009. Property purchases stalled after the development ran into legal challenges, but picked up again after RXR Capital took over in 2022. Joe Graziose Sr., executive vice president of development, is buying properties around Veridea with an eye toward future development, he told The Line in a July interview. Wake County real estate records show those purchases include land around Veridea Parkway. Last month, one of the Whitehouses’ neighbors sold 2.7 acres, and their single-family home, to RXR for $1.7 million. Just two years ago, the property was valued by Wake County at around $660,000. Another neighbor, who also sold in early September, got $700,000 from RXR for their nearly 1.4 acres and one-story home, a property originally valued by Wake County at around $350,000. The homeowners, and others who once lived on

the property around Veridea Parkway, could not be reached for comment despite several phone calls and in-person visits to the area. RXR has paid above market rate for most of these properties, records show: in some cases, hundreds of times their assessed value. One 0.3-acre parcel, for example, was valued at around $20,000 by Wake County, but sold to RXR for $125,000. Greg and Brenda told The Line that RXR made an offer on their property, too. In fact, the couple has already sold about 27 acres they’re not living on, real estate records show. But when it comes to their lifelong home, the Whitehouse couple says they aren’t moving anytime soon. “I’ve told Joe [Graziose Sr.], I’ve told everybody with this outfit at one time or another, ‘Forget about the price of the land. You’re asking me to sell our life,” Greg told The Line. “If they want me to leave, they’ll have to pay me for the land, but they’re going to have to pay us to give up all the memories [too]. You know, we’ve been here a long time.”

The Whitehouses declined to have themselves or their property photographed because of their age and privacy. When asked about the offer and other property deals, a RXR spokesperson declined to comment, writing that “out of respect for the privacy of the property owners, RXR does not disclose details of private land negotiations.” The Whitehouses told The Line that all their communications with RXR were verbal, either in person or over the phone.

A Lifelong Home “A long time” is an understatement. Greg and Brenda built their house in 1972, right after they got married. In fact, they used the money they’d been saving for their honeymoon, and ended up going to a family cottage in Topsail Beach instead of flying to London or Acapulco. “We put all the money into the house,” Greg said. “We couldn’t even go to Fuquay, let alone London.” Before that, Brenda grew up on this land, once a 200-acre family farm. The entire area used to be farmland, Brenda recalled, all connected by a one-lane dirt road. “It was a different life back then. It was

the farm life,” Brenda said. “I didn’t go to the Brownies and the Girl Scouts. I was never allowed to do all that because we had to work the farm.” As teenagers, Brenda and her sister would harvest and chop tobacco. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, the entire family—Brenda and her many aunts, uncles, and cousins— would get together up at the big farmhouse, owned by her grandparents. “I do miss those early days of the togetherness, of the whole family being out here,” Brenda said. “Of course, as things progressed and everybody grew up, it changed a lot.” Several of the people who sold their homes on Veridea Parkway are related to the Whitehouses in some way. Brenda’s aunt and two uncles continued living on the family land long after they inherited it, later passing it on to their children. Over the years, though, all the cousins moved on. In 2023, for example, some 75 acres once owned by Frank D. Prince, Brenda’s uncle, was sold to RXR for $5 million, real estate records show. Overall, more than 150 acres that once belonged to Brenda’s family are now in the hands of RXR, according to real estate records. And while many family members moved on to buy homes in other parts of

the state, money was certainly a motivating factor, in Brenda’s opinion. “It was a substantial sum that they got,” Greg added. “Probably everybody has their price.”

Never Say Never The Whitehouses aren’t completely against selling their property at some point, they said. But the amount of money offered would have to be enough to convince them to give up their lives here—in the millions, maybe. “Who knows? In the next year or so, when they do get more ready to do something, somebody may come along with a price that we can’t refuse,” said Brenda. “We’ll just hang around and see what happens.” In the meantime, they aren’t worried about the construction. The two don’t want to be surrounded by high-rises, but the children’s hospital is “a good thing,” Greg said. Like many, they hope Apex will invest in the infrastructure needed to accommodate such massive growth. Traffic, as always, is a concern. Whatever happens, Greg doesn’t want to be forced out, he said. A top-of-mind example for him is close to home. A few years ago, just 10 miles down

the ETHICS of with host Adriane Lentz-Smith

the road, the North Carolina Department of Transportation seized more than 20 homes under eminent domain to support a major new commercial development. The plan was to create highway access to a manufacturing facility planned for the area. The now-infamous project, for electric vehicle manufacturer VinFast, ultimately fell through, leaving homeowners “SOL,” Greg said. “The people that had owned that property since the late 1890s, they not only got rid of them, they took their homes and then they tore down their churches. They just leveled it,” he added. “And all they’ve got to show for it now is a big muddy field. That was terrible.” As the Whitehouses mull over the future, muffled shrieks of joy and surprise filter into the living room. On a scorching afternoon in August, nieces and nephews are playing outside in the pool, still a gathering spot for family. Upstairs, Greg carefully points out local landmarks he’s hidden in a massive model train set he’s been working on for more than 20 years. The model fills the entire room, with mountain peaks reaching toward the ceiling. It’s set into a custom wooden table, complete with electrical components and controls installed by Greg. Needless to say, it’s impossible to move. W

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7 PM · Thursday, October 15, 2026 Durham Arts Council October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 15

INCOMING!

Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything

A MONTHLY FEATURE SPOTLIGHTING INTERESTING FILMS COMING TO LOCAL THEATERS

PHOTO COURTESY OF A24

Incoming! Surprise Documentaries, Conflicted Killers, and Murderous Crows A mysterious Nathan Fielder documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, Mahershala Ali in Your Mother Your Mother, and more films coming to local theaters this month. BY GLENN MCDONALD arts@indyweek.com

f you’re hoping for a quality movie night out this month, you’re in luck. October is packed with interesting films playing in the Triangle. You’ll have to slalom through all the Halloween scary movies, of course, but local theaters are providing some good options there, too. First up, the documentary film that everyone is talking about. You Can See Everything was supposed to be fairly straightforward—a profile of disgraced executive Elizabeth Holmes just before she left to serve an 11-year federal prison sentence. Holmes, of course, was famously convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors of millions with her biotech startup company, Theranos. The documentary project got weird, fast. Holmes—who hadn’t granted an interview in years—invited filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim into the San Diego home she lives in with her partner, Billy Evans, and their two young children. The couple gave the filmmaking crew full access, 24/7, for the next 34 days. The film’s title is taken from Holmes’ promise: “You can see everything.” What happened then? That’s what everyone is dying to find out. The documentary, assembled quietly over the last 16 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

three years, premiered a few weeks back in a top-secret screening at the Telluride Film Festival. Reviews were ecstatic, dumbfounded, and careful to preserve the story’s surprises. The film, we are assured, is like nothing we have ever seen. Since then, the filmmakers have released two mysterious, evocative trailers. Codirector Nathan Fielder is the other wild card here. The Canadian comic auteur, who appears in front of the camera throughout the new doc, has built his brand exploring the increasingly tentative nature of consensual reality in the 21st century. You Can See Everything is clearly a movie for our times, and it’s the best mystery you’re likely to find this Halloween season. Switching gears entirely, Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali returns to theaters this month with the action-thriller/character study Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. The film’s title refers to an ancient Islamic tale whose relevance soon becomes clear. Ali stars as Latif, a devoted religious man whose life is thrown into misery when his wife dies, leaving him with three young children to care for. Complicating things fur-

ther: Latif is an assassin, a legendary killer with a dark and complicated past. What is it about the conflicted-assassin story that makes it so popular for screenwriters? Who knows? But it works! The Professional. Ghost Dog. Knox Goes Away. La Femme Nikita. In Bruges. Kill Bill. John Wick. The Jason Bourne movies. Director Bassam Tariq looks to expand and improve upon this proud cinematic tradition. Your Mother is an action movie, never fear. Ali reportedly took the role after training in martial arts for a Blade reboot that never happened. But reviews from the festival circuit reveal that the film is primarily a detailed character portrait, threading in elements of lapsed faith, modern masculinity, Islamophobia, and military veterans returning to civilian life. A family-friendly third option this month is Wildwood, a fantasy adventure from the independent stop-motion animation studio Laika. The film, long delayed, is adapted from author and musician Colin Meloy’s absolutely lovely 2011 fantasy novel of the same name. Steeped in the traditions of classic folk tales, Wildwood chronicles a quest by two middle schoolers to rescue a baby

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill November 27, 2024

A Little Respect A new campaign asks, “Does Duke respect Durham?” by Justin Laidlaw, Erin Gretzinger, and Ren Larson, p. 10

It’s no secret: physical media is disappearing. Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything PHOTO COURTESY OF A24

abducted by crows. Word nerds will recall that the group name for a gathering of crows is murder—a murder of crows—so this, of course, does not bode well. The quest takes the children into a parallel realm known as the Impassable Wilderness. The combination of Meloy’s novel with Laika’s animation style promises visual delights. Laika is the studio that brought us superior children’s fare like Coraline, and Meloy’s original book was illustrated by the inimitable dark andCarson Ellis. Parents should be aware that both the hat makesbook and the film are aimed at older kids: it works!The movie has a PG-13 rating—and you can mme Niki-expect some violent conflicts and heavy e movies. themes. In the voice cast: Peyton Elizabeth rove uponLee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Awkwaan actionfina, Angela Bassett, Tom Waits, and, hey! er trainingIt’s Mahershala Ali again! ened. But ilm is priements ofQUICK PICKS d military The independent European import Fjord ldwood, ais a family drama and legal thriller about otion ani-a conservative immigrant family and their pted fromconflict with the progressive Norwegian jusvely 2011tice system. Fjord won the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Wildwood Japanese superstar Rinko Kikuchi headlines ue a babythe dance-themed comedy/drama Ha-Chan,

Shake Your Booty!. The film centers on a love story in the Tokyo ballroom scene, with dialogue in English, Japanese, and Spanish. Also in the mix: Elaborate dance numbers, magical realism, and a Dirty Dancing tribute. Clearly, this can’t miss. If you’re looking for a Halloween movie, your best multiplex bet is probably the psychological horror creepshow Other Mommy. Jessica Chastain plays dual roles as a worried mom and as the malevolent supernatural entity impersonating said mom. Weird bonus trivia: Chastain played a similar maternal role in the 2013 horror film Mama, from Argentine director Andy Muschietti. It’s pretty good! As usual, local theaters have gotten into the Halloween spirit by offering special screenings of classic scary movies. For instance, The Cary Theater is showing Shaun of the Dead and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. The Alamo Drafthouse in Raleigh will host its annual Dismember the Alamo marathon, along with goodies like the 1994 Italian horror classic Cemetery Man. And The Carolina Theatre of Durham has several choice selections, including Ghost Story, Event Horizon, The Fog, and the ninth annual Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween Ball. Check online listings for times and dates. W

Online is convenient, we get it. We have archives, newsletters, even our crosswords on our website (did you do this week’s?) Digital news is the wave, but it’s important not to neglect its roots. As a print reader, you know we’ve put out a physical newspaper for decades, and we’ve never charged a dime for it. You can hold it in your hands, flip through the pages of award-winning coverage, and check out the (responsibly-sourced) ink-printed cover illustrations made by our amazing creative team. You can spare your eyes from screens for a precious few moments. And you can do it all for free—or you can keep print alive.

By joining the INDY Press Club, you can be one of the readers that keeps our coverage in publicly available stands across the Triangle. Don’t let physical media be a thing of the past. Hold the news in your hands, preserve a piece of history. Keep it INDY, keep it real—join the Press Club today. Membership is about more than just support. You get perks like special updates, access to events, plus an exclusive decal that lets everyone know you’re in our club. Explore Press Club membership at indyweek.com/ join.

With $5 a month, you’ll join 1,500+ members already making an investment in the INDY. We’d love for you to join us. —The INDY Scan this QR code to join the Press Club today! October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 17

STAGE

THE COURTROOM: A REENACTMENT OF ONE WOMAN’S DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS

Through Sunday, October 18, various times | The Justice Theater Project, Raleigh

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE PAJOR MOORE

Deep Breaths In The Justice Theater Project’s production of the The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman’s Deportation Proceedings, transcripts and breathwork help make the nightmare of immigration bureaucracy come alive. BY BRIDGETTE NALLY arts@indyweek.com

n opaque immigration system. Complex legal proceedings in a second language. The prospect of being separated from her husband and two children. These were all the things that Elizabeth Keathley faced during her nearly decade-long saga in federal immigration court. Keathley is the central figure in The Justice Theater Project’s (JTP) latest production, The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman’s Deportation Proceedings, which opened in Raleigh on Friday, October 2. Keathley’s story began at the DMV, where she checked a box that illegally registered her to vote. Unaware of federal election law, Keathley—who is Filipina and was on a nonimmigrant K-3 visa—voted in the 2006 midterms, a mis18 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

take later revealed during a citizenship hearing, which then resulted in a Department of Homeland Security deportation order. Keathley’s trials lasted until 2014, escalating from the Chicago Immigration Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. The actual court transcripts from her hearings, which took place from 2004 to 2008, make up the script of The Courtroom, arranged by the actor and screenwriter Arian Moayed. It’s a drama that feels timely, given increasing backlash to ICE raids and aggressive federal immigration policy. But this production, director Patrick Torres explained in an interview with the INDY, is more focused on understanding the system from the perspective of the people navigating

it. In connection with that goal, the Raleigh-based company—which has a mission of producing shows to “create community dialogue and give voice to social concerns”—is offering two “Dive Deeper” events, on October 11 and 16, respectively, that explore topics like immigration and the election system and the psychological toll of bureaucracies. The play, first produced in New York in 2019, was not, Torres said, created to “address some of the bigger, scarier things that are happening in the world right now to immigrants and people from different countries.” “It distills the immigration system down into a very personal story. I think the frightening thing about this play is that there isn’t a villain,” Torres continued. “Everybody in

this case is just doing their job and trying to do their job in good faith. To me, what makes the play really frightening rather than infuriating is that there is no one to blame and everyone to hear.”

“To [see] those scripts in hand is just this constant reminder that this is an actual text that was actually spoken in a real human being’s life.” - Patrick Torres

Almost all of the cast of JTP’s production of The Courtroom have a personal connection to the play’s material. Shana Fisher, playing defense attorney Richard Hanus, is an attorney herself. Phillip Andrew Solano, playing Elizabeth Keathley’s husband John, is the son of an immigrant and has experienced the fear of a loved one at risk of deportation. Veniza Catlett, who plays Elizabeth Keathley, has biographical overlap that drew her to the role—like Keathley, she moved to the United States after meeting and marrying her partner, a citizen. “[Elizabeth Keathley is] from Mindanao and I’m from Mindanao,” said Catlett. “During that time in the script as well, she has a toddler, and I also have a toddler.” All of these personal connections create a rich well for the actors to pull from during their performance. Still, Torres emphasized that he is resistant to the idea of having actors lean too much on lived experience. “I don’t want to ever put anybody in a dangerous spot where they’re using a traumatic memory to create an emotion onstage,” Torres said. “So we’re really focused on the text.” In the case of The Courtroom, this focus on the text is very literal—during the live performance, actors hold the transcripts in

their hands and read from them, a twist that comes from the play’s original 2019 staging. Having the actors read from the transcripts, rather than memorize the lines, serves as an audience cue. “Because audiences are accustomed to seeing a memorized piece,” Torres explained, “To [see] those scripts in hand is just this constant reminder that this is actual text that was actually spoken in a real human being’s life.”

Breathing as a Tool for Feeling Rather than their own experiences and memories, Torres instructed the JTP cast to rely on breath as an entry point to the text. Developed from ancient Indian performance theory, the breathwork technique Rasaboxes comes from the Sanskrit word “rasa,” meaning flavor or essence, and focuses on eight core emotions—surprise, love, fear, disgust, laughter, sadness, rage, and courage. “If somebody is breathing the breath of true laughter, you don’t even have to know the context and all of a sudden you find yourself laughing along,” said Torres. “If somebody is having a true breath of grief,

and you’re sitting with them, it is very difficult to not also feel grief and sadness for them and with them.” After introducing the cast to the eight rasas at the beginning of the rehearsal process, Torres asked them to identify lines in the transcript that fall into those categories. Then, when delivering those lines, the actors embody a breath that aligns with the emotion. In speaking to the cast about the rehearsal process, nearly every member emphasized the foundational importance of the breathwork. “Your breathing is different for different feelings,” said Callie Hammond, who plays Judge Michael Stephen Kanne. “It’s not just an ‘I’m smiling so I’m happy’ kind of thing. Your emotions are actually in your body, in your breath, in your words.” Solano shared a similar sentiment. “The biggest thing from rehearsals that’s stuck with me is just how powerful the breath of a person can be,” he said. “So much emotion is in how someone is breathing, and how someone says something. Even the little pauses before things—you can really feel how they’re feeling and understand where they’re coming from without any words.” W

sed comto “create cerns”—is 1 and 16, n and the aucracies. was not, er, scarier to immi-

very perhis play is rybody in October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 19

MUSIC

JACOB SHARP: MIDDLE KID ALBUM RELEASE SHOW

Friday, November 13, 8 p.m. | Cat’s Cradle, Chapel Hill

New Ground After fleeing his beloved Los Angeles home during the wildfires last year, former Mipso member Jacob Sharp is back in North Carolina with a solo record and a new perspective. BY CORBIE HILL music@indyweek.com

Jacob Sharp PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT

n late January 2025, Jacob Sharp returned to Altadena, California, for the first time since the Eaton Fire, making a stop at the National Guard checkpoint to prove that he was not a looter or a gawker. The air was thick with fumes. He wore an N95 mask in his car. Through his speakers, he listened to gentle piano over birdsong—the latter of which he’d recorded the year prior in his beloved Altadena backyard. He’d received the masters of Middle Kid, his debut solo record, on January 7, the first day of the fires in LA County and the day he evacuated Altadena, where he’d lived since 2023. He finally had a chance to listen as he passed the checkpoint near his house. “Find your breath and let it slow, like a friend who don’t let go,” he heard himself sing on “Shadows.” “There’s always a way, you know, to live a little easier.” 20 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

“I received this gift. I wrote this for a different version of myself, and now I am that person who needs this song,” Sharp told the INDY. “I hoped that it would be a balm for people. I didn’t know that it would be my balm.” Jump forward to August 2026, with Sharp on his screened porch in Durham, his faithful dog Lula by his side. Though he is newly back in North Carolina, his history in the local music scene runs deep. In 2011, as a fresh-faced student at UNC-Chapel Hill, he cofounded Mipso, a string band at the time. Over the course of six LPs and 13 years, the four-person band evolved from bluegrassy pop to restlessly inventive folk fusion, rarely covering the same ground twice. Last October, the band played its final show and split amicably. Sharp is the last of his former bandmates to release music outside of Mipso.

Libby Rodenbough crafted a couple of solo records. Wood Robinson cut a songwriter record and a jazz album. Joseph Terrell also made a solo LP and, more recently, has casually gone viral with a series of protest songs. During that time, Sharp was falling for a new West Coast hometown, only to see it burn. Now Sharp has come home to a state he hadn’t planned to return to, where he’ll release Middle Kid outside of the LA songwriter community that first nurtured the record. His life was abruptly rebooted, yet he’s at peace. “I’m sharing [Middle Kid] for the joy it brings me, not for how it will give me something new in a music career. In a way, I’m trying to find myself in music again,” Sharp said. “I want to know if it’s possible to release a record where the goal is not growth from a career or financial perspec-

tive [but] growth from a community and a joy perspective.” Middle Kid is out October 9, with a release show at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room on November 13. There’s a handful of other live dates, including an appearance at Raleigh Wide Open on October 2 and a daytime date in rural Nebo on October 3, but Sharp’s show schedule looks more like that of a local act than a seasoned professional. That’s by design. The album’s sound, too, is more direct than the technical progfolk that had become Mipso’s sandbox by the end. Middle Kid is a tastefully produced album with a lyrical, melodic nucleus, written in 2022 and 2023 while Sharp was living on the West Coast and finding his footing as a songwriter. Things had been good in Altadena. Sharp relished its mountains and wildlife. It reminded him of his native Morganton,

MOTORCO MUSIC HALL (DURHAM) 10/9 FRI

OCT W/ LEWKY

10/10 SAT

Tokyo Tea Room W/ ARGONAUT & WASP

10/11 SUN

Chanel Beads W/ HORSE VISION, CAR CULTURE

10/13 TUE

Great Lake Swimmers W/ COLLEEN BROWN

10/14 WED

IDA

10/16 FRI

Carsie Blanton W/ THE BURNING HELL

10/20 TUE

Chasing Abbey W/ TRIPPERS & ASKERS

10/21 WED

Chris Gethard/Dave Ross

10/22 THU

Oso Oso W/ LEISURE HOUR, BAD LUCK.

10/24 SAT

Low Cut Connie W/ BRIAN DUNNE

STANCZYKS (DURHAM) “I wrote this for a different version of myself, and now I am that person who needs this song,” said musician Jacob Sharp PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT

only with LA’s many facets immediately next door. He was surprised at how deeply he and his then-fiancée Cate Parker loved it. “It was a joy to see Jacob spread his wings,” said Sharp’s former bandmate, Joseph Terrell, who spoke by phone in the minutes before boarding a plane to join songwriter Samia Finnerty as a touring guitarist. Sharp flourished in a community of West Coast musicians who got to know each other through cowriting. After all his years in Mipso, Sharp knew his former bandmates’ voices like he knew his childhood bedroom. In LA, though, he learned to relate to new collaborators, such as Benjamin Lazar Davis of Okkervil River and Bridget Kearney of Lake Street Dive. Terrell, who Sharp describes as a brother-level friend, was the only other former member of Mipso to play on Middle Kid, so named because its songs are often about (or written within) the ways people relate to themselves and others. Terrell heard elements of Sharp’s personality emerge in the album sessions that hadn’t been there for Mipso. He points to Sharp’s irreverence on “Hotter Than Shit,” a peppy pop number about relating to a seemingly cooler person, only to realize relative hipness is illusory anyway. Sharp’s vulnerability and pop refinement were always present in Mipso. On Middle Kid, those elements move to the front. “Things were too good in LA to leave unless we were pushed,” Sharp said.

he night before the fire, Sharp said, felt like a dry hurricane. Trees fell to howling Santa Ana winds. Then January 7 dawned eerily. Lula was on edge all day. “You could see Eaton Canyon from our house, basically. I heard from Cate that a fire had started nearby,” Sharp said. “I was putting away some dishes. I looked out the window and could see a huge ball of flame hundreds of feet in the air. It was clear that it was gonna be bad.” Sharp gathered some clothes, the dog, his instruments, and a few necessities. He and Parker raced away from the apocalyptic scene of smoke and blowing ashes. They escaped to what amounted to a climate refugee hotel—the first of 16 places Sharp and Parker and Lula bounced between after Altadena burned. “My home was on the edge of the fire destruction. The fire came within a block of our house. In the moment, [the house surviving] felt like a big gift,” Sharp said. “Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we learned it was much worse. Everything was ruined from toxic smoke damage.” One by one, Sharp threw out early lyric notebooks and family heirlooms. He held the last letters from his mother, who died when he was a teenager, in the gloves of a full hazmat suit. And then he let them go. “What’s beautiful is that I got to see all those things again,” he said. “You get to process slowly that these are just items that we carry.” Though transient, Sharp and Parker

10/7 WED

Joey Cash W/PILOTHEAD

10/8 THU

Sub Urban W/ GOLDEN CATS

10/9 FRI 10/10 SAT

kept their wedding date of February 22, 2025. They celebrated the people who kept them afloat. And they started looking for a place to make a soft landing. In September, Sharp and Parker left California for Durham, settling in an older, wooded neighborhood. And in January 2026, a year after they were driven from Altadena, they welcomed baby Marina. Having lived through disaster and started a family, Sharp’s priorities became clear and uncluttered. “Jacob has been distilled or refined,” Terrell said. On his Durham porch, Sharp said he feels like he’s living in the Triangle for the first time. Mipso toured hard, sometimes hitting the road for 250 to 300 days a year. Back then, Sharp felt like a tourist in his own town. He knew bits and pieces of the Carrboro scene, but that was it. Now, though, he’s solidly in Durham, his calendar wide open and free of tours. Even with Middle Kid releasing soon, he’s not trying to game algorithms or chase Spotify streams. He’s on the far side of a successful music career, and a life he tried to build on the West Coast, and somehow the familiar things feel new again. “I want to text my friends [that] I’ve got a record out. I want to see them at the coffee shop and let them know that we have a Cat’s Cradle show coming up that I’d love it if they were at,” Sharp said, his voice warming with enthusiasm. “I’ve never played a solo show. That’s wild to me.”

Shawn James

W/ GRAVEDANCER, TRAPPERS PASS

The Dream Syndicate

10/12 MON Cardinal Bloom W/ HOLDFAST. 10/13 TUE

Token W/ CLARK D, DJ LUCAS

10/14 WED

ULTRA SUNN W/ SOFT VEIN

10/16 FRI

Noah Gunderson

W/ BREAKUP SHOES, NATHAN EVANS FOX

10/17 SAT

Colby Acuff W/ BRENDAN WALTER

10/18 SUN

OUT IN FRONT

10/20 TUE

Wishy W/ DEAD SULLIVAN

10/21 WED

Buddha Trixie W/ FLIGHT BY NOTHING, PLEASER

10/22 THU

Be Your Own Pet

W/ FARMER’S WIFE, MEAN HABIT

THE PINHOOK (DURHAM) 10/13 TUE

Bayonne W/ BAD SNACKS

10/22 THU

LUCY (Cooper B. Handy) W/ WIFIGAWD

10/24 SAT

Elanor Moss W/ NATALIE JANE HILL

FUZZY NEEDLE (DURHAM) 10/7 WED

Rosali Trio/Simon Joyner & The Ghosts W/ DAVID NANCE

KINGS (RALEIGH) 10/8 THU 10/21 WED

Toth W/ ANNA MOSS Guerilla Toss

W/ TRUTH CLUB (DJ SETS BY PHILM)

LOCAL 506 (CHAPEL HILL) 10/7 WED

Improvement Movement W/ THE POINT.

10/18 SUN

Sorry Ghost

10/23 FRI

Lilyisthatyou W/ JAMES THE SEVENTH

SOLD OUT!

more shows listed at

andmoreagainpresents.com October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 21

PAGE

ADAM O’FALLON PRICE: OBJECTS OF DESIRE

Autumn House Press; October 6

“It’s a bad time, obviously, for universities and the humanities in general, but it’s kind of a boom time for creative writing,” said Adam O’Fallon Price, an assistant professor of creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill PHOTO BY MATT RAMEY

Unsung Antiheroes You might not like most characters in Chapel Hill writer Adam O’Fallon Price’s exceptional debut short story collection, Objects of Desire. But you’ll likely find yourself rooting for them. BY SARAH EDWARDS sedwards@indyweek.com

want to sit this one out. To anyone who likes dark literary fiction with stripes of Denis Johnson and Ottessa Moshfegh: welcome! There’s a fair amount of addiction throughout, and several suicide attempts, such that it might be difficult to spend prolonged periods of time with characters who possess tremendous appetites for self-destruction. Luckily, the short story form has brevity on its side: If a novel is a cross-country road trip, a short story is a hitchhike wherein, en route from point A to B, you might open the passenger console and find either a stash of old Burger King napkins or a gun. In Objects of Desire, you’re liable to encounter both. And while Price’s agent is right that story collections don’t typically sell—over the past two decades, the genre has occupied an increasingly slim portion of both book deals and awards—hopefully this one can be an exception to the rule, and readers will hop in for a ride. Price is a gifted writer, and it’s fun to read him. “I love Adam’s dedication to the quiet domestic stories of failed writers and failed relationships—people who are just sort of seeking meaning in their lives,” Faliveno said. “It feels very resonant and, I think, deeply human.”

n Objects of Desire, Chapel Hill author Adam O’Fallon Price’s debut short story collection, writing advice is dispensed by various characters—many of whom are, themselves, writers in various stages of despair. Make sure there’s dramatic action. Make your characters change. Here’s another common piece of advice—don’t write short stories; nobody reads them. “My agent has consistently pointed me away from trying to sell a collection because they don’t sell. People don’t read short stories, you know—which she’s right about, from a business perspective,” a cheerful Price said recently, over coffee at Carrboro’s Weaver Street Market, a few miles down the road from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he teaches creative writing. While he’s written two novels, Objects of Desire is his first story collection. “The market for literary fiction is getting smaller and 22 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

smaller,” he continued. “In the 15 years I’ve been publishing, I’ve seen it shrink.” With this in mind, it’s safe to say that any author who continues to crank out stories is doing so for the love of the game. Objects of Desire, which won the 2025 Autumn House Fiction Prize and comes out October 6, reads like it was written by someone who truly enjoys what they do. Across 11 stories, points of view shape-shift, sunny North Carolina quads give way to city streets and Midwestern cornfields, and a sequence of maladjusted characters wrestle with their demons—largely unsuccessfully, it must be said. “Adam writes at this perfect intersection of the sort of everyday everyman experience, but like, an everyday everyman who has deeply fucked up,” said the writer Melissa Faliveno, Price’s colleague in the creative writing department at UNC. If you’re someone who reads for a happy ending, you might

ertainly, the characters in Objects of Desire are seekers. They want valor, recognition. They want to pop a cold one. They want designer clothing they can’t afford. They want to see where the night goes. They want sex—sort of, at least, so long as a bit of semi-clinical copulation temporarily staves off other forms of thirst. They want to cast just one look over the brink, pausing for long enough that you, the reader, wonder if they might best their demons and turn away, only for them to nudge one toe over the rim. They want another pour. “I’m always telling my students to have your characters want something,” Price said. “Vonnegut said that thing about [how] a character should always want something in a scene— even if it’s, like, a glass of water.” There’s Ethan, the alcoholic English teacher in “Hoboken,” who is drinking his way back to the family home he’s been kicked out of. There’s Leigh, the young soccer player in “Stone Lions,” who is outrunning a difficult childhood by brutishly taking out anyone in her way (literally). There’s also Paul, a creative writing professor in the collection opener, “Sandstorm,” who becomes fixated on Peltz,

Adam O’Fallon Price PHOTO BY MATT RAMEY

an army veteran in his class. Unlike the usual “blank-faced babies” in his courses, Peltz is alert and engaged, ready to spar with Paul over the merits of Raymond Carver’s fiction. He’s also talented, a fact that Paul, who is experiencing a writing slump—a life slump, really— feels threatened by. Soon, the two men are locked in a battle of ego and class anxiety, tussling through red-penned feedback and outright aggression. You couldn’t be faulted for assuming, as I did, that Paul, who teaches at a familiar-feeling “Big Local University,” is a standin for Price. But when I asked Price about it, the truth turned out to be much more interesting: When he wrote “Sandstorm” in 2011, he was an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill, much closer to the perspective of Peltz than Paul. At the time, he’d returned to school after dropping out in the mid-1990s to pursue a handful of dice rolls—first, life on the road with his power-pop band, The Mayflies USA; later, a stint as a professional poker player. Then: back to school. “It was great. Everybody should go to

college at 35,” Price said. “I took History of Naval Power from this guy, Dr. Caldwell, [who] brought in part of a Greek longboat. I look around, and the students to my left and right are both asleep—you know, because they’re 20 and that’s where you’re at. But for me, I was like, ‘This is fucking amazing, that I get access to this guy.’” At UNC, Price was mentored by the fiction writer Pam Durban, who, in a kind of academic fairy godmother move, submitted one of his stories to a journal without telling him. It was accepted, an affirmation that he was on the right track; soon after, he submitted “Sandstorm” to The Paris Review; that story was also accepted. As for the dice, Price has landed some straights: After graduation, he did an MFA in fiction at Cornell University and published two novels, The Grand Tour in 2016 and The Hotel Neversink in 2019. Now, he’s back at UNC, on the other side of the classroom. (Also: The Mayflies USA released their fifth album last year and have another on the way next year, so that’s going well, too.) And in contrast to the jaded outlook of

some of the book’s writer-type characters, he seems to feel a lot of warmth and hope for the next generation. “It’s a bad time, obviously, for universities and the humanities in general, but it’s kind of a boom time for creative writing,” said Price, adding that his last intro fiction class had a 45-student waitlist—a demand, he said, that is not an anomaly in the department. “There has been such a concerted push to sell STEM,” he continued. “There are so few jobs, and [students] feel so much pressure to do STEM classes and get those jobs. They have told me it’s a tremendous relief to just be in a class that’s fun and intellectually interesting. It’s what I think you would like college, all of college, to be like, but most of their college is really grinding this career path.” Part of Price’s approach to teaching creative writing is helping to steer students away from black-and-white thinking: A protagonist doesn’t have to be relatable, and an ending can be ambiguous. Part of the joy of a short story is filling in the blanks.

My favorite story in the collection, in fact, is about a student—a demographic that Price said he enjoys characterizing because “people are just becoming something.” “Dancing with Berg Hermly” centers on Mark, a college freshman plagiarizing his way toward feeling interesting. Mark is, by any measure, a little shit. But as the story goes on, you begin to feel a little touched by his struggle—a core dissociative feeling of self-hatred and not belonging. Price writes: “For as long as he could remember, there had been a Markness about himself that he—that others— could not stand. Was it his face?—its chinlessness, the cast of simpering ingratiation? Was it some social cue he’d never learned?—a password they’d given out, in, say, third grade, that he’d been out sick for?” Who hasn’t felt that, especially in college? Reading, you begin to see why Mark is the way he is. “You don’t have to like a protagonist,” Price said. “You have to understand them.” W October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 23

C U LT U R E C A L E N D A R WED 10/7

THU 10/8

FRI 10/9

MUSIC

The Back Project 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Good Moon Festival Oct. 8-10, various times. Various locations, Durham.

Candlelight Concert: Fleetwood Mac 7:45 p.m. The Rialto, Raleigh.

Joey Cash 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

New Flesh: Goth Dance Party 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Dax: The Anger Management Tour 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. Improvement Movement 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill. Lettuce: Cook Tour 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh. Palmyra, Jodi Jones 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Music Trivia Bingo Thursdays with Stormie Daie Thursdays at 8 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham. Ravyn Lenae Presents: Blue Island 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh. Sub Urban 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham. Whitney, Oscar Lindsey 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Robert Lester Folsom, Liz Cooper 8 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Carrboro. Russian Circles, Pelican 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD?

SAT 10/10 MUSIC Mendelssohn Violin Concerto October 9-10, various times, Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

The Floor, Seance 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Rising Stars: Shane Profitt, Taylor Austin Dye, Julia Golden, Cole Goodwin 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Friday Night Shift DJ Dance Party 9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.

River Shook Album Release Tour with The Dead Tongues 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Jphono1, Rabbit Fighter, Snowship 8 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Rod Smith with Crazier, Nicole Tester 7 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Jason Kutchma 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Shawn James, Gravedancer 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

Keith Ganz Quartet with Ariel Pocock, Paul Creel, Jake Richter 7 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

STAGE The ComedyWorx Show 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman’s Deportation Proceedings Oct. 2-18, various times. The Justice Theater Project, Raleigh.

Donnell Rawlings Oct. 9-10, various times. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

Brian Fallon & The Painkillers, Tim Barry 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro. The Dream Syndicate 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

Hush Hush Fridays at 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

Edith Marquez: ETERNA E INOLVIDADLE 8 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

LOL Raleigh Comedy Show 8 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Inter Arma, Antichrist Siege Machine, Hilt, Natural End 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Rumors by Neil Simon Oct. 9-18, various times. Pure Life Theatre, Raleigh.

JJ Grey and Mofro with special guest the 502’s 6 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh. Mega Colossus, Vassal, Mortal Man 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble 7 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham. Onyx Club Boys 7 p.m. Succotash, Durham. Saturday Night Dance Party at The Velvet Hippo! 9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham. Shallow Cuts presents Adulting 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Annie & The Caldwells perform at The Pinhook for the Good Moon Festival aftershow on Saturday, Oct. 10. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PINHOOK

24 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

C U LT U R E C A L E N D A R

FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

SUN 10/11

MON 10/12

MUSIC Turnpike Troubadours, Muscadine Bloodline, The Creekers 7 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh. STAGE Abelardo: La Dulce Vida (En Español) 5 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. Capital City Culture Club 7 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. Fates & Foolery 9 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. Hum Sub Diwali 9 a.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary. SCREEN Grease: Singalong! 7 p.m. The Rialto, Raleigh. Marbles Film Festival 10 a.m. Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh. Southern Doc Fest 1 p.m. Durham Arts Council, Durham.

beabadoobee: The Powerlines Tour 8 p.m. Lenovo Center, Raleigh. BurnDown Tour 2026: Knumears, Catalyst, Love Letter 7:30 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill. Horse Lords w/ Magic Tuber Stringband 8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

WED 10/14

MUSIC

Rafael Green performs Pink Moon, Georgia Moon performs Blue 7 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Beggar Weeds, The Cadets 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Ally J on the Roof 7:30 p.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby: Irreversible Tour with Common People 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Songwriter’s Exhibition 7 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

Freddie McClendon 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Sunday DRIFT Rooftop DJ Sets at The Velvet Hippo! 4 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham. STAGE

Kathy Gelb 3 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Adrián Uribe: 50 y Pico Tour 8 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

Long Distance Swimmer with Loose Green and Autumn House 7 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

GIANT ROBOT FIGHT CLUB 7 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

More Souvenirs from Paradise – A Tribute to John Prine 2 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

TUE 10/13

Pinky Patel 4 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Cardinal Bloom, Holdfast 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

Open Mike Eagle, Kenny Segal, Katie Blvd., Ronesh, Ampursand 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. STAGE Everything Happens Live with Kate Bowler Taping with Tim Shriver 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

AZ Chike: No Rest For the Wicked 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. Bayonne: The Filters Tour 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Machine Girl, Portrayal of Guilt, yesterdayneverhappened 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Photo Jam 7 p.m. The Fruit, Raleigh

Mongo, Drugula, Big Tow 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Silverada With The Pink Stones 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Sonidero Cuir: Communal Dancing feat. Salsa, Bachata, Cubia y mas 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Token, Clark D, DJ Lucas 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

Thundercat: Distracted AF Tour 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham. STAGE

Ultra Sunn, Soft Vein 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham. STAGE Eva Evans: Oak City Comedy Festival 8 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

Chris vs. The People 7:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. Jay Legend 8 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. Maybe Happy Ending Oct. 13-18, various times. DPAC, Durham.

October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 25

C U LT U R E C A L E N D A R THU 10/15 MUSIC

FRI 10/16

Avery Anna: Blood Runs Thicker Tour 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Guardin, Kennedy XOXO, Fijimar 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

The Tallest Man On Earth 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Bring Out Yer Dead 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Halicon, Tacoma Park, Zeke Graves 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Ty Myers: The Legal Tour with Brent Cobb, Benny G 7:30 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

Canaries, Ex Iguana, Charlie Paso, Kai + Clyde 8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

LaMP (ft. Russ Lawton, Scott Metzger, Ray Paczkowski) 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

STAGE

Cosmic Charlie does JGB 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Franny Starlight & The Brass Boudoir: Terror, Titties & Trombones 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Dean Turnley 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Magpie 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Longform House Teams 7 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

Femme Friday: Third Friday Dance Parties! 9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.

Mike Munson, Country & Western 8 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Oak City Comedy Festival Against the Grain by Shari Diaz 9 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh.

Music Trivia Bingo Thursdays with Stormie Daie Thursdays at 8 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.

SAT 10/17

MUSIC

Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox: The Future is Vintage World Tour 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Gaelic Storm 8 p.m. The Rialto, Raleigh.

LIKE TO PLAN AHEAD?

Friday Favorites: Rhapsody in Blue 12 p.m. Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh. The Harry Show 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. The Linda Lindas 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw. Max Gowan with Dreamscent, Jupiter 2, and The Stray Lions 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

MUSIC No One Mind Record Release Show, Slow Teeth, Mind Over Mirrors 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

The Brook & The Bluff: The Werewolf Tour with The Sways 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Noah Gundersen: Rites of Spring US Tour 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

Colby Acuff, Brendan Walter 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham.

Pasquale Grasso 9 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Colombia Earthquake Relief Benefit Show 7 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Signal Transmission 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham. Well Hell / INCARI / Moon Womb 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. STAGE The Harry Show Fridays at 10 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. Hush Hush Fridays at 9 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham. Maybe Happy Ending Oct. 13-18, various times. DPAC, Durham. SCREEN The Rocky Horror Picture Show 11:55 p.m. The Rialto, Raleigh.

Fresh Baked - A Standup Showcase 9 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. James Austin Quartet 7 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham. JUELZ - DRAMATICA TOUR 9 p.m. The Fruit, Durham. Longform Night 7 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. Maggie Rose 8 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh. moony with Willingdon and Homemade Haircuts 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill. Pure Prairie League 8 p.m. The Rialto, Raleigh. Quadeca 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro. Saturday Night Dance Party Saturdays 9:30 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham.

26 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

SOJI / Mean Habit / Survival Tactics / Speedbag 7:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. The Whom 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro. SCREEN Evil Dead 2 8 p.m. The Cary Theater, Cary. STAGE The ComedyWorx Show Matinee Saturdays at 4 p.m. ComedyWorx, Raleigh. Conor Janda 7:30 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. Mario Adrion 7 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. The Racket - Indie Comedy ft. Chatty Yeti 6 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham. Show And Tell & Lakehouse 7 p.m. Mettlesome Theater, Durham.

C U LT U R E C A L E N D A R

FIND OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR AT INDYWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

SUN 10/18

MON 10/19

TUE 10/20

COMMUNITY

MUSIC

STAGE

MUSIC

Bullhorn Fest 12 p.m. Shadowbox Studio, Durham.

Baron Tymas & the Swingtet 3 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

Conor Janda 9:45 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

After 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

DJW Student Showcase 6 p.m. Sharp 9 Gallery, Durham.

The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman’s Deportation Proceedings 3:30 p.m. The Justice Theater Project, Raleigh.

Crush Fund / MEGABITCH / Autumn House 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Jerry’s Middle Finger 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Light The Night 5:30 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary. PAGE Michael Hanson 7 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

Benjamin Tod & Lost Dog Street Band 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro. Evan Honer: It’s An Even Longer Road Tour 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw. Flowerbomb / Shrimp / big mistake 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham. Out in Front: Still Out of Place Tour pt. 2 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham. Sorry Ghost 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill. Sunday DRIFT Rooftop DJ Sets Sundays at 4 p.m. The Velvet Hippo, Durham. Trampled by Turtles 6:30 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary. Waylon Wyatt - Dustpiles World Tour 7 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Justin Whitehead 8:15 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh.

Wishy 8 p.m. Stanczyks, Durham. STAGE Dan and Phil 7:30 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

Mario Adrion 6 p.m. Goodnights Comedy Club, Raleigh. Michael Blaustein: The Taste Me Tour - The Final Leg 7 p.m. Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh. Tica not Tica 2 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro. SCREEN El Tonto Por Cristo - The North Carolina Triangle Premiere + Director Q&A 5 p.m. Varsity Theatre, Chapel Hill.

The Dream Syndicate performs at Stanczyks on Saturday, Oct. 10. PHOTO COURTESY OF STANCZYKS October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 27

WED 10/14 @ CAT'S CRADLE

BRIGITTE CALLS ME BABY SAT 10/24 @ CAT'S CRADLE

POPSICLE FEST FT. THE CONNELLS

SAT 10/31 @ CAT'S CRADLE

SAXSQUATCH

CAT'S CRADLE OCTOBER 10/7 WE: RUSSIAN CIRCLES W/ PELICAN 10/8 TH: WHITNEY W/ OSCAR LINDSEY 10/9 FR: RIVER SHOOK (FULL BAND SHOW) W/ THE DEAD TONGUES 10/10 SA: BRIAN FALLON & THE

PAINKILLERS / TIM BARRY 10/14 WE: BRIGITTE CALLS ME BABY W/ COMMON PEOPLE

THU 10/8 @ CAT'S CRADLE

WHITNEY

10/17 SA: QUADECA W/ DERBY, OLEKA 10/18 SU: BENJAMIN TOD & LOST DOG STREET BAND W/ TOMMY PRINE 10/23 FR: WINYAH W/ FOXTIDE 10/27 TU: THE HAILS W/ THE OCHO 10/28 - 10/30: JULIEN BAKER W/ TOMBSTONE POETRY

SOLD OUT

10/31 SA: CAT'S CRADLE + ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENT: SAXSQUATCH W/ DPUGISH, GARBIEGHOUL

NOVEMBER

SUN 10/18 @ HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX)

EVAN HONER

11/1 SU: THE ARCADIAN WILD W/ ADDSON AGEN 11/3 TU: MENZINGERS, HOT WATER

MUSIC, WEAKENED FRIENDS 11/5 SU: HARBOUR 11/6 FR: THE STEWS W/ TOMORROW’S PROBLEM

11/7 SA: THE AFGHAN WHIGS 11/8 SU: SLOW PULP W/ SNUGGLE 11/9 MO: JULIA JACKLIN W/ JORDAN PATTERSON

THU 10/15 @ HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX)

THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH

SOLD OUT SOLD OUT

11/12 TH: CHARLIE PARR W/ MAISY OWEN 11/13 FR: DEERHOOF W/ MEAN HABIT, HEX FILES 11/14 SA: PROTOMARTYR W/J.R.C.G.

11/18 WE: THE BENDS W/ FUDGE 11/20 FR: CARBON LEAF

28 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

11/28 TH: CRAZY CHESTER (CARRBORO TRIBUTE TO THE BAND AND THE LAST WALTZ)

10/16 FR: NO ONE MIND, SLOW TEETH,

W/SUGAREE STRING SOCIETY

SOLD OUT

FIJIMAR

MIND OVER MIRRORS

10/17 SA: THE WHOM, THEM PANTS,

KNOCKOUT ARTIST

10/19 MO: AFTER

DECEMBER

SOLD OUT

12/3 TH: HARVEY STREET W/TOBACCO ROAD, WIM TAPLEY

10/21 WE: AJ LEE & BLUE SUMMIT W/ THE CODY SISTERS

12/5 SA: TEMPLES W/GIFT

10/22 TH: YHWH NAILGUN

12/10 TH: FRIENDSHIP W/CHARLOTTE CORNFIELD, MORE EASE 12/12 SA: SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS W/DEAD RAT DISCO

10/25 SU: KARINA RYKMAN W/ WAX MONKEY 10/29 TH: MAGOO W/ SUNS OF STARS

SAT 10/10 @ CAT'S CRADLE

BRIAN FALLON & THE PAINKILLERS 12/8 TU: ELIZA MCLAMB

12/11 FR: THE ONLIES W/ TATIANA HARGREAVES

MARCH 2027 3/5 FR: AUBORY BUGG

HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX): 10/15 TH: THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH W/ GWENIFER RAYMOND 10/16 FR: THE LINDA LINDAS W/ GRACE BOWERS 10/17 SA: THE BROOK & THE BLUFF W/ THE SWAYS

10/30 FR: DANA AND ALDEN

10/18 SU: EVAN HONER W/ ZACH SEABAUGH

2/18 FR: HE IS LEGEND'S HOLIDAY HOOTENANNY + GUESTS MAYLENE & THE SONS OF DISASTER, VANNA, VALLETTA, BRONCO

NOVEMBER

11/11 WE: THE JAYHAWKS W/ MARY GAUTHIER

11/1 SU: ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS: TABITHA MEEKS W/ JESSE FOX

11/15 SU: JOY OLADOKUN W/ NAT MYERS

12/19 SU: DILLON FENCE

11/3 TU: JOHN WOOD BAND, WALLABIES

& WILD OAK

JANUARY 2027 1/8 FR: CRANK IT LOUD/ EMO NT

11/4 WE: SAM SHACKLETON

KARAOKE

11/5 TH: MICHIGANDER W/ WILDERNESS

FEBRUARY 2027

11/6 FR: AARON LEE TASJAN W/ MADELEINE KELSON

2/15 MO: MARIAN HILL 2/18 TH: DINOSAUR JR W/STARCRAWLER

SOLD OUT

MARCH 2027 3/10 MO: MISSIO W/ FIFTEEN0EIGHT

APRIL 2027 4/10 SA: MEI SEMONES W/ ARON!

CAT’S CRADLE BACK ROOM OCTOBER 10/7 WE: PALMYRA W/ JODI JONES 10/10 SA: MEGA COLOSSUS, VASSAL,

MORTAL MAN

10/12 MO: OPEN MIKE EAGLE W/ KENNY SEGAL, KATIE BLVD, RONESH, AMPURSAND

11/19 TH: DIE SPITZ W/ FAETOOTH

RIVER SHOOK

10/15 TH: GUARDIN, KENNEDY XOXO,

11/16 MO: ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS:

11/17 TU: THE WLDLFE W/ LANDON CONRATH

FRI 10/9 @ CAT'S CRADLE

11/21 -22: HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER I’M PEOPLE TOUR W/ SAM AMIDON

10/11 SU: RAFAEL GREEN PERFORMS

W/ JOHN ROBERT

THE BROOK & THE BLUFF

THE LINDA LINDAS

11/15 SU: FRUIT BATS W/ SARAH KLANG

AX AND THE HATCHETMEN

SAT 10/17 @ HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX)

FRI 10/16 @ HAW RIVER BALLROOM (SAX)

PINK MOON GEORGIA MOON PERFORMS BLUE

10/13 TU: AZ CHIKE 10/14 WE: BLUEGRASS IN THE BACK ROOM:

JOE TROOP AND THE TRUTH MACHINE AND MAX WAREHAM AND THE NATIONAL BLUEGRASS TEAM

11/7 SA: YANA 11/8 SU: ANDMOREAGAIN PRESENTS: THE TUBS W/ TANNER YORK, BEEPER 11/10 TU: TILLIE W/ BELLA PEADON

(OF DE DANNAN)

11/12 TH: EAST NASH GRASS 11/13 FR: JACOB SHARP MIDDLE KID ALBUM RELEASE SHOW W/ TAYLOR ASHTON 11/14 SA: GILLA BAND 11/15 SU: TOMMY FLEECE W/ RESERV 11/20 FR: LIANA FLORES

12/19 SA: JAKE XERXES FUSSELL 1/22 FR: RAYLAND BAXTER

MOTORCO (DURHAM) 10/7 WE: ROBERT LESTER FOLSOM W/ LIZ COOPER 10/26 MO: DEV LEMONS 11/8 SU: DEER TICK 11/5 SU: GREG FREEMAN W/ ROBBER ROBBER 12/16 WE: KING BUFFALO W/ IRATA

11/11 WE: FRANKIE GAVIN

11/16 MO: JOSIE EDWARDS

11/20 FR: THE WAR AND TREATY W/ BUTTER AND GRIT

FESTIVAL AT CAT'S CRADLE 10/24 SA: POPSICLE FEST THE CONNELLS, YOUNG FRESH FELLOWS, SUPERDRAG, THE MAYFLIES USA, THE POPES, & MORE

LINCOLN THEATRE (RALEIGH) 11/17 TU: TINY HABITS W/MARIE DRESSELHUIS

SOLD OUT

11/21 SA: L'RAIN W/ VISTA 11/22 SU: SCATTRBRAIN

DECEMBER 2026 12/4 FR: HOLLER CHOIR 12/6 SU: LA SECURITE W/ CDSM

KINGS (RALEIGH) 10/24 SA: PORCH LIGHT W/ HOTEL FICTION

SOLD OUT

THE RITZ (RALEIGH) 5/14 FR: MICHAEL SHANNON & JASON NARDUCY AND FRIENDS PLAY R.E.M.’S DOCUMENT

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October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 29

PUZZLES CROSSWORD

RELEASE DATE—Sunday, October 4, 2026

To download a pdf of this puzzle or view its solution, visit indyweek.com/puzzles-page

Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle Edited by Patti Varol

92 *Dropping 132 Sunrise locale hints about the 133 “Hey, c’mere!” release of a 134 Like a haunted director’s cut, house perhaps? ACROSS 95 Take the wheel DOWN 1 Beauty 96 Hill worker? 1 Just terrible entrepreneur 98 User without an 2 River past Arles Elizabeth account 3 Classmate of 6 Resort near 99 Small ensemble Beavis Snowbird 100 Assn. 4 AED-trained 10 28-Across flow 102 Hard water? pro 14 Captain with an 105 Backspace over 5 Zero chance ivory leg 107 *Blueprints for a 6 __/ace: 18 Frisbee maker new wardrobe? LGBTQ+ 19 Like samosas 113 Nonconformist orientation and wontons 117 Invisible ink? 7 In real time 20 Vein contents 118 “This instant!” 8 Saw things? 21 Spanish 120 Accessory for a 9 Lover of “nothing” fish tank Aphrodite 22 *Motto of a 121 Versailles 10 Chop (off) calligraphy monarch 11 Playground enthusiast? 122 Rotary phone retort 25 Turning point? part 12 Put on a 26 Mono- kin 123 *Like a sawmill pedestal 27 Brand of kitchen without disposal 13 Criticize harshly gadgets facilities? 14 Symbols in 28 Sicilian peak 127 Walking pace Egyptian 29 Locale for clam 128 Piece in Azul or iconography diggers mahjong 15 Capital city 31 Weapon in Clue 129 Patronage that’s home to 34 *Transgressions 130 Spanish boys Turtle Tower included in 131 Concludes 16 Embellish textbooks? 36 Second chance for a student 38 Canonized Mlle. 39 In the style of 40 Like much music of the 1990s 43 Jaguar’s roar 45 Inexact no. 47 Birds similar to crows 52 *Devoted followers of painter O’Keeffe? 56 Dessert that may have a lattice crust 58 Alfa __: sports cars 59 Cause of a quick blessing 61 College official 62 Chemical suffix 63 Scratchy sound 66 Most twisted 68 Indoor rowers 69 Part of LGBTQ+ 71 *Timepiece worn by a “Star Wars” pilot? 74 Actress Arthur 75 Video file format 77 Country that borders 14 other countries 78 Jekyll’s counterpart 80 __-pitch softball 83 Off the mark 85 Sudden bursts 88 46-Down deliverer 90 Trial version of a puzzle app, e.g.

“RANGE OF MOTION” BY ZHOUQIN BURNIKEL

www.regulatorbookshop.com

720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705 10-6 Daily SUDOKU

Difficulty level: HARD

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box. The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered. Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you’re stumped, find the answer keys for these puzzles and archives of previous puzzles (and their solutions) at indyweek.com/puzzles-page or scan this QR code for a link. Best of luck, and have fun! 30 INDYweek.com October 7, 2026

10/4/26

17 Naive ones 19 Series of setbacks, in slang 23 Travel permit 24 Like sprinters 30 In short supply 32 Hip-hop pioneer from Compton 33 Those, in Tijuana 35 Support for a driver 37 Little ones 40 Fantasy monster 41 Very bright 42 “I need a ride home” 44 “I’ll be!” 46 Public address 48 “I’ll be!” 49 Marian Anderson, for one 50 “It’s Too Late” singer Carole 51 Scenographer’s designs 53 Like many horror films 54 Genre for Talking Heads

55 Repeated word 97 “__ we meet in a Doris Day again” classic 101 Take turns 57 Works in a 103 “Mi __ es su ... ” gallery 104 Catch in a snare 60 Concealer target 106 Wyoming range, 64 Moo __ shrimp or when read as 65 Relay three parts, how 67 Hesitant around the answers strangers to the starred 70 Reach clues were consensus formed? 72 Govt. intel org. 107 Sundae topping 73 Bank deposit? 108 Like swifts, but 74 North Atlantic not Swifties hazard 109 Prim and proper 75 GQ and Cosmo 110 Hits the brakes 76 Exam for HS jrs. 111 Matters of 77 Reuben bread opinion? 79 “Stop right there” 112 Sushi bar 81 “The Real” bottles co-host Love 114 Supermodel 82 Approximately Shayk 84 Deft 115 “The Weir” 86 “R u kidding!?” playwright 87 Root veggie McPherson 89 Subsequently 116 __-face: 91 Flower on smooching Mississippi’s 119 Social media state quarter labels 93 Swarm (with) 124 Get in a pool 94 Christmas and 125 Trivial complaint Easter 126 Shaving brand

ANSWER TO TODAY’S PUZZLE

CL ASSIFIED EMPLOYMENT

Business System Analyst III First Citizens Bank seeks Bus Syst Anlst III in Raleigh, NC to source, compile, and interpret data. Reqs: BS in CS, Syst Sup, Analytics, Op Sup or rel + 4yrs Remote role. Base pay gen b/w $139,050 to $169,945/yr. For more info & to apply, go to https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/jobs & ref Job #2026-35630 Consulting/Principal Software Engineer Consulting/Principal Software Engineer sought by RELX Inc dba LexisNexis USA in Raleigh, NC to develop/lead large multifunctional software development activities. Solve complex technical problems, write complex code for computer systems, serve as senior source of expertise w/ respect to software development. Minimum of Bachelor’s degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical/ Electronic Engineering, Information Technology, or rltd + 7 yrs exp in job offered or rltd occupations required. Employee reports to LexisNexis USA office in Raleigh, NC but may telecommute from any location within US. Interested candidates should send email to ResumesICT@RELX.com. Ref job code: R118852 ($169,736.16 to $177k/yr + standard corporate benefits) Senior Research Associate Senior Research Associate, Plant Traits sought by Terrana Bio (Durham NC) Implmt & optimize plant-based bioassays for RNA-driven trait discovery. Req. MS & 4 yrs exp. Send resume to hr@terranabio.com w/ subj TERR-1347.

ke up w a W i

Senior Software Engineer First Citizens Bank seeks a Sr Software Eng in Raleigh, NC to manage & maintain cloud infra, ensuring high avail. & performance. Reqs: BS in CS, IS, EE, SW Eng, or rel + 5yrs. Remote role. Base pay gen b/w $159,910 to $203,509/yr. For more info & to apply, go to https://jobs.firstcitizens.com/jobs & ref Job #2026-35629

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October 7, 2026 INDYweek.com 31

INDY’S BEST OF THE TRIANGLE IS HAPPENING NOW! Winning INDY's "Best of the Triangle" Readers’ Poll has been a coveted honor for the past 25 years. The contest is organized in rounds throughout the year by region: Orange & Chatham Counties, Durham County, then Wake County. At the end of the year, the winners of each region go head-to-head to claim the title of “Best of the Best of the Triangle”.

Best of the Triangle voting is open now! A RTS

B U S I N E S S ES

FO O D & D RI NKS

HE A LTH

PEO PLE & MISC.

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Find this year's winners for Best of Durham, Best of Orange & Chatham Counties, Best of Wake, plus winners archives, and so much more at:

INDYWEEK.COM/INDY-BEST-OF-THE-TRIANGLE

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