The List: 7 highlights of the last week

by Eric Ginsburg

1. High Point exploration

After checking out Penny Path Café, the Triad’s only crepe shop, for this week’s food story, it only seemed right to spend a little time perusing High Point. My friend Ruth and I wandered over to Golden Oldies, a truly bizarre place with old metal swings, chairs and rides outside. Walking into Princesas, a dingy CD and video store that also handles money orders to Latin America, felt like stepping into an alternate dimension. We dropped into Granny’s Donuts for some cheap doughnut holes, too.

2. ACC Tournament

Greensboro was looking out for me, and somehow I landed four free tickets to see Duke and Wake Forest battle it out in the ACC women’s basketball tournament (thanks SynerG and VF!). Then last week, my friend Tim called and invited me to join him for a session of the men’s tourney, which included UNC’s victory over Louisville. It was my first time seeing my favorite college team play live.

 3. Guest speaker

Let it be known: I will come speak to pretty much any class at any time. So it was with great pleasure that I accepted an invite to talk to a group of Guilford College seniors who are probably more than a little freaked out about the prospect of graduating. It’s a great class taught by the incomparable Maia Dery, who has been generous enough to invite me back to speak every spring since I participated in it as a student in 2010.

4. The Trials of Darryl Hunt

Somehow I convinced myself that I had already seen this classic documentary about the wrongful conviction of a Winston-Salem man, who spent nearly 20 years in prison. I’m glad my friend Shaheen invited me to the free screening at A/perture. Afterwards, Hunt’s lawyer Mark Rabil, friend and former city alderman Larry Little and investigative journalist Phoebe Zerwick spoke.

5. Rooftop beers

This item could really just say, “Hell yeah, summer weather.” I took advantage of the warm weather to drink beers with friends on a roof three times last week, a sure sign that things are headed in the right direction. I should add that our sportswriter and my dear friend Jeff was among them, and given his rapidly approaching departure, the experience was all the more significant.

6. Underground noise show

The stuff my high school friend Dan listens to doesn’t really count as music. It’s more like the sounds of a wildebeest in the last throes of life mixed with feedback, heavy distortion and five horror-movie soundtracks playing simultaneously. But when he came into town last weekend and dragged me to his noise show in an underground show space that was fully engulfed by a fog machine, I kinda loved it.

7. Date night

I had a really enjoyable date night last week that I think everyone should know about, and I’m planning to have another one on Wednesday, too. Just to clarify, I’m talking about the beer from Gibb’s Hundred Brewery in Greensboro; the Belgian strong ale is probably going to disappear soon, but it’s an excellent gateway into dark beer for the uninitiated, a full but easy brew that I hope makes a comeback.