Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/133137
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD The beauty pageant each April at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, requires traditional skills like interview poise, evening-gown fashion and talent, but also some ability and inclination to milk and skin rattlers. High school senior Kyndra Vaught won this year's Miss Snake Charmer, wearing jeweled boots one night for her country-western ballad, then Kevlar boots and camouflage chaps the next as she took on dozens of rattlers in the wooden snake pit. Vaught expertly held up one serpent, offered its tail-end rattles for a baby to touch, then helped hold, measure, milk and skin a buzzing, slithery serpent. A Los Angeles Times dispatch noted that Vaught hoped to be on her way soon to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. [Los Angeles Times, 4-12-2013] The Continuing Crisis That there are flea "circuses" is bizarre enough, but in March a cold spell in Germany wiped out an entire troupe of "performing" fleas, requiring the flea whisperer to secure replacements (because, of course, the show must go on). Trainer Chuck Sheppard Robert Birk reached out to a university near Mechernich-Kommern for 50 substitutes, which he apparently worked into the act over one weekend. (Fleas, with or without training, can pull up to 160,000 times their own weight and leap to 100 times their own height.) [The Independent (London), 3-31-2013] The owner of a restaurant in southern Sweden told authorities in March that the former owner had assured him that "everything had been approved," apparently including the appliance the restaurant used for mixing salad dressings and sauces — which was a table-model cement mixer. When health officials told the owner that it certainly was not approved, he immediately bought another, "rust-free," mixer. (Health authorities had come to the restaurant on a complaint that a screw had turned up in a customer's kabob.) [The Local (Stockholm), 3-30-2013] Modern Anglers Chad Pregracke, 38, a Mississippi River legend, spends nine months a year hauling heavy-duty litter out of waterways with his crew of 12. He told CNN in March that he has yanked up 218 washing machines, 19 tractors, four pianos and nearly 1,000 refrigerators — totaling over 3,500 tons of trash — and has collected the world's largest array of bottles with messages inside (63). [CNN, 4-18-2013] COPYRIGHT 2011 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY ADVICE GODDESS ARIES (March 21-April 19) Attitude is everything. Too bad changing your attitude also happens to be one of the hardest things to do. The steady climb of your good attitude this week is something to really celebrate. My girlfriend is constantly late, which is annoying, but what's more annoying is that there's always an excuse: She had to do one more thing at work; traffic was horrible; her dog wouldn't pee, so she had to walk him longer; she couldn't get somebody off the phone. She always apologizes and is always late the next time. I don't take her lateness as a sign she doesn't care enough about me, but it doesn't exactly feel great, either. — Waiting For the Week of June 2, 2013 TAURUS (April 20-May 20) A keen intellectual energy pushes you along this week. It will feel like you can solve the toughest problems by just thinking them through. By the weekend, you'll need to recharge with mindless fun. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) Who needs external sources of entertainment when you have such a rich fantasy life? Whether waking or asleep, there is power in your imaginings. Write down your visions, and later you'll find entertainment and solutions in these mental sprees. CANCER (June 22-July 22) You'll be a stabilizing influence on someone who usually plays that role for you. You may help out by showing your feelings when the other person is closed off to emotion, or by providing a voice of reason to the other person's irrationality. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) How you talk to yourself inside your head is more important than the events going on in your life. For now, it's better to work on trying to see the bright side than trying to change the weather of your circumstances. The weather has its own agenda. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) What's going on behind the scenes is distracting you. You may find yourself frequently flowing off topic in conversation or drifting away from the work you're supposed to be doing. The way back to your purpose is through addressing the elephant in the room. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) What do you do when the winds of fate offer to give you a ride, but you don't really like the direction they are headed? Put down your sail. Lay low. Let them blow over. When things calm down, you can put up your sail again and steer your vessel toward the destination you were aiming for in the first place. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) Relationships can't be forced into a better place, but they perhaps can be coaxed, humored or tempted to go there. Relationships can, however, be forced toward stiffness, weirdness and awkwardness. So take it easy. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) You never want to be so consumed with your own desires and interests that you can't see the big picture. That's why you keep assertive people around you and remain open to their opinions. Doing what they want to do a few times this week will give you the edge of a boosted perspective. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Your brave heart will have you moving into circles of people you know nothing about. The adventure of it brings on such an adrenaline rush that your experiences this week could set a tone for future behavior. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) You have a healthy sense of wonder, and you're willing to entertain the other side of an argument. But don't buy into ideas that rub against your intuitive knowledge of what is correct. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) The friends who tempt and intrigue you make it harder to be "good," but consider this: "We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death." — Thomas Bernhard By Holiday Mathis Charlotte Blume presents :WYPUN -LZ[P]HS VM +HUJL +DYH VRPHWKLQJ QHZ WR WDON DERXW DW WKH ZDWHU FRROHU 8QOLNH WHOHYLVLRQ \RX ZRQҋW PLVV D ZRUG %H ZDUQHG WKDW WKH ODWHVW PXVW VHH PRYLH LVQҋW D PXVWVHH IRU \RX 3RQGHU \RXU KRURVFRSH *HW WKH RQ WKH ODWHVW ORFDO KRW VSRWV 208 Rowan St. 484-6200 NOW ONLINE! www.upandcomingweekly.com Megan Still Soloist in the production. A Variety Show: Classical Ballet Tap Contemporary and Dances for Children Sunday, June 2, 2013 2:30 p.m. Crown Center Theatre Tickets on sale at the Crown Box Office or online at ticketmaster.com Time is on Her Side It's hard for the punctual to understand how anyone can treat time like it's stretchy. But the chronically late aren't necessarily the disrespectful, power-tripping jerks who those always sitting waiting for them in restaurants sometimes suspect them to be. Julie Morgenstern writes in Time Management from the Inside Out that if someone's late by varying amounts of time — 20 minutes here, 12 there — their lateness is probably "technical," involving errors like underestimating how long things Amy Alkon take, rather than psychological (as in, "I'll show you who's queen!"). Morgenstern advises the chronically tardy to avoid the temptation to cram in "just one more thing" by viewing time as we do space — seeing an hour as a finite container, which can only fit so many activities. Over a week, she suggests jotting down how long tasks actually take, including hidden time costs (such as travel time, cleanup time, interruption time and dog bladder cooperativeness). She alsoadvises building in "cushion time" — an extra 20 percent on top of the time you think a task will take. Explain to your girlfriend that you understand that her chronic lateness isn't an attack on you, but if there is "one more thing" she could squeeze in, perhaps it could be the thought of how you feel sitting all alone in a restaurant. Give her Morgenstern's book, and tell her it would mean a lot to you if, for the next three weeks, she'd make a serious effort to show up when she says she will. (Of course, three weeks is just a start, but that sounds less daunting than "Change your deeply ingrained habit right now!") Praise any efforts and improvements you see, and don't expect perfection. Just hope for a day when "the most unbelievable thing…!" is her on-time arrival — as opposed to another eight-car pileup on her suburban culde-sac, making her even later than she already was, thanks to her dog's insisting on watching the rest of Days Of Our Lives. Amy Alkon all rights reserved. MAY 29 - JUNE 4, 2013 UCW 19