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/209961
NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD Norwegian public television (NRK), which introduced the now-legendary continuous, live log-burning show (12 hours long, with "color commentary" on the historical and cultural importance of fire), scheduled a new program for this week in its appeal to serenity (labeled "Slow TV"). On Nov. 1, NRK was to televise live, for five hours, an attempt to break the world record for producing a sweater, from shearing the sheep to spinning the wool and knitting the garment (current record: 4:51, by Australians). (In addition to the log, NRK viewers have been treated to live cams on a salmon-fishing boat and, for five days, on a cruise ship.) Said an NRK journalist, "You would think it's boring television, but we have quite good ratings for these programs." [Los Angeles Times, 10-4-2013] The Entrepreneurial Spirit Extract of cockroach is a delicacy among some Chuck Sheppard Chinese, believed able to miraculously reduce inflammation, defy aging and cure tuberculosis, cancer and cirrhosis. Quartz reported in August that Yunnan province is a Silicon Valley-type business center, where pulverized roaches can sell for the equivalent of about $89 a pound, and five pharmaceutical companies have contracts with ranches that have formed the Sichuan Treasure Cockroach Farming Cooperative. (In August, a start-up farm in Jiangsu province was, police suspect, vandalized, allowing at least a million cockroaches being prepared for market to flee to adjacent neighborhoods.) [Quartz (qz.com), 8-27-2013] [Agence France-Presse via Daily Telegraph (London), 8-252013] When entrepreneur Michelle Esquenazi was asked by a New York Post reporter in September why her all-female crew of licensed bounty hunters (Empire Bail Bonds of New York) is so successful at tricking bailjumpers into the open, she offered a five-letter vulgar euphemism for a female body part. "It's timeless," she continued. "Of course he's going to open his door for a nice piece of (deleted). ... The thing about defendants is no matter who they are (of whatever color), they're all dumb. Every single last one of them is stupid." [New York Post, 9-27-2013] COPYRIGHT 2011 CHUCK SHEPHERD WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPES BY HOLIDAY For the Week of November 16, 2013 ARIES (March 21-April 19) You will bounce between opening up as many options as possible and using your instincts, experience and taste to narrow things down. Your successful outcome depends on going from very wide to very narrow. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) When someone agrees to help you, you're careful not to put a lot of terms and conditions on that help. Others aren't so smart about this. Beware of the person who asks something from you and then attaches rules to the deal. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Your image and actions will add up to a bottom line. If you speak that bottom line instead of letting people come up with it themselves, they'll feel cheated out of doing their own assessment and will require additional testing. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21) Brilliant, simple-seeming achievements are often the result of years of work and thought and numerous failed attempts. Realizing this will help you stay motivated this week. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) You can motivate yourself by raising your expectations. Expect yourself to do too much, and you'll get discouraged and give up. Expect too little, and you'll be bored and abandon the mission. Raise your expectations 10 percent; it's the perfect challenge. CANCER (June 22-July 22) You don't often think about how relaxation contributes to your best efforts, and yet you can be sure that you'll be better off because you took the time to recharge your battery by doing absolutely nothing. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) In the past, you've underestimated your charisma and attracted an intensity of affection you weren't expecting. You want to matter to a certain someone, but not so much that thoughts of you are a main preoccupation. This week you'll make an impression. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Sensitive people can be more work, but these types are a gift to your life this week, offering a point of view that will shift your thinking and enrich you. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Beliefs structure your mind and experiences. Not believing opens you to possibilities. Neither is inherently good or bad; it just depends on what you want to do with your life. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) You are a harder worker than people realize. They assume they could do what you do, but that's where they go wrong. You should feel great about your abilities and know that you really are uniquely talented. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) The tendency most people have is to believe they are farther along than they really are. An accurate estimation of the amount of work that needs doing and the time it will take to accomplish will lead to success. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Your position demands that you rely on what people tell you. They'll try to be truthful, but memories lie, conflating events, changing the order in which things happened and omitting key details. You're better off getting many versions of a story so you can compare and contrast until a unified theory starts to emerge. By Holiday Mathis Good Morning Fayetteville with Goldy & Jim W Weekday Mornings 6-10 a.m. Talk Line: 910-864-6400 Local News, Weather, Traffic & Sports ADVICE GODDESS Crappily Ever After My husband of a year is the most selfish, inconsiderate, cold-shouldered man I've ever known. He's 24; I'm 22. He behaved similarly when we were dating, but when he proposed, he made promises to treat me better, and I believed him. Well, we pretty much only do what he wants to do. If it's an activity for me, he'll whine and act miserable the whole time. He often cancels our plans to hang out with his friends. On our anniversary, we had reservations at a fancy restaurant 45 minutes away. I got ready, and he suddenly decided he didn't want to drive there and took us to some random place nearby. At that point, our evening meant nothing. He is king of the silent treatment and never admits fault or listens to my feelings. We've sought out marriage counseling, but when there's no sex, compromise, communication, or friendship, should I still hold out hope? I'm trying to because I told myself I'd only get married once. — Upset Sure, this Amy Alkon guy showed promise as a boyfriend; that is, he made empty promises that he'd be completely different after marriage. For future reference, anybody can say he'll be different. Only after he consistently shows he's different over time does it makes sense to believe him. Unfortunately, it's hard to think so sensibly if, like many early 20-somethings, you see marriage as an express elevator to adulthood: Hop in; press the "just married" button; get off at grownup-land, where you'll magically become mature adults and get on with all that happily ever after stuff. Your husband has his merits, like that both of his kidneys seem to work and he has yet to express an interest in drowning squirrels. Couples therapy could help — if you had a guy who just didn't know how to be married but cared deeply for you and wanted to learn. Your husband's behavior, however, reflects the lack of empathy common to narcissists. Empathy isn't something you can train an adult to have — not to any meaningful degree. What you can do is accept that you were naive and amend your "marry only once" pledge to "marry idiotically only once." You might also take a more positive view of mistakes. They tend to be pretty amazing teachers — providing we admit we've made them so we can learn from them instead of sticking around to see if we can't make a bunch of sociopathic babies with them. Amy Alkon all rights reserved NOVEMBER 13-19, 2013 UCW 23