The State of Things

Celia Rivenbark, one of our favorite humor columnists, is out with a new collection of essays, "You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl" (St. Martin's Griffin, 2011). In it, she riffs on yoga, Twitter, sleeping hip-hop stars, cinema and, of course, Aunt Verlie.

College exposed cellist Shana Tucker to a world of musical possibilities. Before enrolling at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Tucker had only been trained to play classical music. But during her time as an undergrad in the nation’s capital, she was introduced to jazz and the magic that can be created with improvisation. Tucker, a singer-songwriter, now lives in North Carolina where she is fast becoming a staple of the music scene in the Triangle. Her debut solo CD, “Shine” was released this year.

AIG was one of the most vilified culprits of the financial crisis, but now the insurance giant says it was actually duped by Bank of America. AIG claims in a new $10 billion lawsuit that the Charlotte-based bank misrepresented the quality of its mortgage-backed securities.

Clyde Edgerton's new novel, "The Night Train," focuses on the transcendent power of American music as witnessed in the small, fictional North Carolina town of Starke. In the summer of 1963, protagonists Dwayne, who is white, and Larry Lime, who is African-American, strike up a friendship despite the social mores of the time. Dwayne wants to be James Brown. Larry Lime worships at the altar of Thelonius Monk.

Your digital life has a life of its own. Whether you’re on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter or linked in to any social network server, it’s likely that your online existence will outlive you. Authors John Romano and Evan Carroll started thinking about what happens to people’s online presence once they die. They found that much of the information – from emails and blog postings to financial records and photographs – is at risk of being lost forever in cyberspace. Their book, “Your Digital Afterlife” (New Riders Press/2010), tells readers how to preserve and protect their online legacies.

James Augustus McLean was a powerful force in North Carolina's art world for most of the 20th century. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and turned down an offer to teach at the prestigious school to return to his home state. His fledgling art school in Raleigh fell victim to the Great Depression, but McLean continued to create and inspire other artists throughout North Carolina until his death in 1989. McLean is the subject of a new exhibit at Gallery C, which has recently moved from its longtime home in Raleigh's Ridgewood Shopping Center to an historic building downtown.