Clarion Content

The Nasher museum is hosting a fantastic show of works from the Baltimore Museum of Art. The exhibition features pieces from Matisse, Picasso, Gauguin, Renoir, Van Gogh, Pissarro, and Courbet among others.

These works came to Baltimore as the titles alludes through the efforts of two women, sisters, Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone. These two cultural visionaries, according to the Nasher's website...

began buying art directly out of the Parisian studios of avant-garde artists in 1905. At a time when critics disparaged Matisse, and Pablo Picasso was virtually unknown, the Cones followed their passions and amassed one of the world’s greatest art collections.

Striped Robe, Fruit, and Anemones---Matisse

This week there are two special events in conjunction with the exhibit.

Wednesday, at 6.30pm in the Cameron Village Library, in Raleigh, Juline Chevalier, Curator of Education at the Nasher and Dr. Marianne Wardle Ph.D, Coordinator of Academic Programs at the Nasher, give an "Art with the Experts" talk entitled: “Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters.”

Thursday night ticket holders for the exhibit at the Nasher Museum itself, can attend a free wine tasting there at 6pm. Join Noel Sherr, owner of Cave Taureau (The Bull’s Cellar) which opened just last month in downtown Durham, he has personally selected six French wines for the evening.

Labels: Art, Duke, Durham, Pop Culture

The Clarion Content posted a story last week on the restoration of two 8-foot high, solid bronze gates to the Washington-Duke Mausoleum in Maplewood Cemetery by Liberty Arts sculptor, Mike Waller. The Durham Herald-Sun and columnist Cliff Bellamy caught wind and did a fabulous piece on the restoration and installation.

Bellamy notes that Waller has been working on the restoration for about five months, much of the time researching how the original gates looked. The Herald Sun got some great photos last week when the team swung the nearly 400 lbs gates back into place, drilling into the granite doorway to fasten a metal frame for the gates.

Check out the photos and read the whole piece here.

Labels: Art, Duke, Durham

Liberty Arts, the Durham based sculpture collaborative, and artist Mike Waller have taken on a unique Durham challenge. Waller is restoring two 8-foot high, solid bronze gates from the Washington-Duke Mausoleum in Maplewood Cemetery. The mausoleum was built around 1900, but unfortunately, the massive gates were stolen last fall along with those from two other tombs. They were discovered in a nearby scrap metal yard and recovered shortly afterward.

Waller is playing detective first, trying to figure out what kind of hinges, glass, window frames and fasteners were on the original, a task made more difficult by the lack of photo documentation.



"It’s been an honor to be asked to work on such a magnificent piece of Durham’s heritage," says Mike, "but it was a surprisingly intricate and challenging project".

The gates are being re-installed at Maplewood Cemetery Wednesday, October 10th.

Labels: Art, Duke, Durham, Pop Culture

Friends of the Clarion Content Envision with Me and The Creative Populist, are sponsoring a fantastic contest for young entrepreneurs ages fourteen to thirty.

The idea is to send in a video about how entrepreneurship fuels your creative passion. Give them your personal Creative Manifesto. The Clarion Content knows a lot of hot young Durham entrepreneurs who qualify on the basis of that description.

$1000 in cash prizes are available.

A longer article on the Creative Populist, and founder, Duke professor, Carl Nordgren, coming soon in these pages.

Enter the contest here. Official rules here.

Labels: Duke, Durham, Economy

The Clarion Content had a fabulous time on the bus yesterday. We cannot overemphasize what a good deal a free bus that runs down Main Street is for Durham.¹

Want to see something at the Nasher?

What about an event at Goldenbelt?

Perhaps get a drink and listen to some tight grooves at the Pinhook?

Or have a $1 PBR on Monday at the James Joyce?

Or anywhere and everywhere in between and then some. Free. Pull the cord, the Bull City Connector will drop you off where ever you want.²

Yesterday, they let the Clarion Content team, photographer, Jessica Arden,³ and Creative Director, Cady Childs⁴ hop aboard the bus to photograph a fashion shoot, the latest of our Durham Fashion Drive-by series. We mingled with the public.⁵ The drivers, especially our pal Medoza, were amazingly accommodating, able to get their passengers to their appointed destinations on time and keep up with our photographic needs and desires.


We can't wait to show you the whole thing...but in the meantime can we whet your appetite with a preview?


Models from left to right, Cody Tyler of Totes Codes parties and events, director, Ned Phillips, aka the Cozmik Gangsta of the ODD crew, and musician Joe Hall of Hammer no More the Fingers and Blanko Basnet…


Amazing men's clothes from Vert & Vogue.

Special thanks to the stylists at Rock, Paper, Scissors Salon and Gallery for their work with the model's hair.


Notes
¹It is our contention that the bus is an important public good and a social justice issue. In this day of modern transportation and therefore distance, people need cheap options to travel to work.

²Seriously, for more than fifty Durham restaurants, bars, clubs, art spaces and more, the Bull City Connector's service is just about door-to-door.

³This was a physical shoot, can't wait for the behind the scenes footage. Ms. Arden must be doing her pilates, because it was circus act to keep a steady base to shoot from while winging around corners, stopping at traffic lights and otherwise having the floor move beneath her feet, as the wheels on the bus went round and round.

⁴Managing three models, nine outfits, in the drizzle on a moving public bus while coordinating with three PR people, two videographers and three photographers; a veritable whirlwind, Ms. Childs was unbelievable. This all after coming off of working the fabulous soft opening at Durham's newest hot spot, Mateo Tapas.

⁵It wasn't quite this packed.

Labels: Duke, Durham, ecology, economics, Fashion, Fashion Drive-bys, Politics

The Clarion Content is stoked to support the bus.

We are delighted to live in the kind of city that supports the bus. Free municipal bus routes are a fantastic public service. The bus is an old, school kind of throwback idea. It hearkens to an era when people knew their neighbors and front porch culture dominated.

The practical personal benefits of taking the bus are legion, from decreasing the propensity to drive drunk, to saving on gas, to safety. The societal benefits of taking the bus are extensive, too. The list includes decreased pollution and traffic congestion, less need for public parking and hence more open space. The bus encourages a pedestrian culture that helps local business. People walk when they get off the bus.





You should take advantage of the wonderful, free, Bull City Connector bus any and every chance you have. It hits all the spots on Main Street, it is a great way to get out to the Scrap Exchange, Liberty Arts, the Cordoba Center for the Arts, Goldenbelt, American Tobacco and more.

And while the bus makes sense every day, tonight we have a special opportunity for you. Do you want to be an extra in a fashion shoot? Would you like to highlight how easy it is to get to your place of business by Durham's free bus?

Then join the Clarion Content and our fabulous Fashion Drive-by team, photographer, Jessica Arden, and Creative Director, Cady Childs tonight at 6pm along the Bull City Connector route.

We are shooting our latest Fashion Drive-by. We will be photographing on the bus with the amazing fashions of the Independent's Men clothier of the year, Vert & Vogue.

We will be highlighting business along the route. Hoping off at stops to take pictures. There will plenty of opportunity for by-standers and patrons of your establishments to become extras. Wave at us through the windows of the bus and you may end up in the background of a high fashion shoot.


We would like to offer our special thanks to the good folks at the Bull City Connector and the Durham Convention and Visitor's Bureau who reached out to the Clarion Content about making this happen.

Labels: Duke, Durham, ecology, energy policy, Fashion, Fashion Drive-bys, infrastructure, Politics

"just between us" an art experience by Sarah Goetz opens Friday at The Carrack Modern Art, 111 West Parrish Street in Durham.



Like everything at The Carrack Modern Art¹, it will be here and gone quickly, showing only through Thursday, June 7th. If you can make the time in your hectic modern schedule to get there, you should. And if you feel like you can't make the time in your schedule to get there, it is even more reason why you should.

If you can't make it for the opening, which is Friday night at 7pm, the Carrack Modern Art is open 12pm–6pm, Tuesday through Friday and Saturdays 2pm-5pm. Goetz installation needs to be digested and absorbed for the full impact.

The artist, herself, is extremely distinguished, having graduated from Duke University, where in 2011 she won the Louis Sudler Prize in the Creative and Performing Arts, the Julia Harper Day award in Documentary Studies, the Sue & Lee Noel Prize in Visual Arts, Distinction in Arts of the Moving Image, and Highest Distinction in Visual & Media Studies.

See her work and you will believe.

However, the real interest is in the message, the nuanced feel and understanding that girds the output. Goetz is grew up in Oklahoma² and at first blush her installation in The Carrack is surely reminiscent of a storm, perhaps a tornado gathering force. The way it is hung, the work responds to air flow, swaying as people move about it.

Goetz readily admits to the storm motif and the influence of her past. But, she is openly also operating on another level. Goetz says she has spent nearly all of her free time consumed with this event since conceiving of the installation and confirming the Carrack date nearly a year ago, just as she was graduating Duke.

The thought that went into the process is immense. As she explained it to the Clarion Content, Goetz has been making multimedia installations and film for some time. She has only more recently come to painting. The exhibit brings all three together. The theme is about emptiness, the space between, which as Goetz demonstrates, without stooping to the ironic, can be quite full.

Paraphrasing her stream of consciousness. As we sat in The Carrack, with the late afternoon light pouring through the windows, she let flow, "from seeming emptiness, one can build an interest, recognition of little irregularities..." I drift along with her.

Personally, thinking back to being a small child, I can remember my endless fascination with dust motes in sunlight. I remember how I could amuse myself for hours, chasing them about, trying to capture bits of the ephemeral, in shafts of sun, that now, in my middle decades, I walk by without a second thought, presuming them empty, ignoring the texture, the microcosmos which once held the mysteries of an entire universe.

Goetz continues her thought on perceived emptiness, "but as soon as you add color or recognizable forms or people, the empty space suddenly becomes shockingly barren." Goetz has always been fascinated by, "the space between things," whether film splices, silence or white canvas. She melds this theme not only to her work, but to her understanding of human relationships and interactions. She asks, "What happens when you create a closed self-sustaining existence that is suddenly interrupted by something much more beautiful, that is subsequently taken away?"

Her thought hangs in the air, neither empty, nor visible.

What is left of those white spaces, those closed lives, when a dash of color is added, then snatched back? We are left, in her words, feeling abandoned and scared. The transcendence of her art is its mating with her experiences, its reflection of the commonality of all human experience.³ One is suddenly reminded of the Pearl Jam lyrics from, "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town." Vedder sings "...haunting, familiar, yet I can't seem to place it...lifetimes are catching up with me...hearts and thoughts they fade...away..."

Goetz work feels hauntingly familiar, gives the aching sense of having experienced something similar. Bright color, joy, vibrancy has come into each of our lives from seemingly out of nowhere and fled again just as rapidly. The Buddhist finds momentary pleasure in a world of samsara. Yet when that moment of pleasure passes away, gone and as intangible as time passed, we are not left blank and empty. Time has passed and been experienced. The space between things has its own realm, as textured and nuanced as the colorful. Goetz refers to this reality as "the presence of absence."

Goetz exhibit also includes a short film she made called, "For the forgotten face of my lover/the silence after a cold goodbye." At eleven minutes with hardly a word spoken, one might be forgiven for thinking it would be impossible to follow or unreasonably dull. Hardly. Space flows, light moves, silence and shadow play, we are reminded of her caveat about the details and grains in what is seemingly plain, white, 'empty space.'

When color appears it is transformative. The process takes center stage as brush touches canvass, but we have already been shown that the void, the blank, is not as empty as it appears. She raises questions that have been beguiling philosophers from Genesis, Chapter One, Verse One. "In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was without form and void...let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters..."

What was pre-existent? From whence come those waters? What form the void? G-d too, as detailed in the story, started with black and white, darkness and light, before dry land, vegetation, plants and fruits; and their concomitant bountiful explosion of color.⁴

Goetz says she drew some of her inspiration from a poem by Phillip Booth, "Relations: Old Light/New Sun/Postmistress/Earth/04421."

The opening lines appear at the beginning of this piece, the closing lines are below.




"just between us" an art experience by Sarah Goetz now showing at the Carrack Modern Art through June 7th.

It is not to be missed.



Notes
¹Coming soon our piece on The Carrack's amazing first year.
²Though at this point she considers herself Durham through and through.
³Isn't this why art exists?
⁴Let alone made animals and man; Creationism aside, a Darwinist tells the story in much the same way, unable to conceive of a existence pre-existence, the void is as incomprehensible as the infinite for both believers and non.

Labels: Art, Duke, Durham, Pop Culture, thought

Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans passed Wednesday in Duke Hospital at the age of ninety-one. The Clarion Content could not have said it better than the Duke Chronicle, "Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans shouldered the legacy of the Duke's founding family with remarkable grace, unwavering commitment and indiscriminate love."

As long time readers know, it is the Clarion Content's contention that Durham is what is because it is built on what was. There are few better examples of those who laid the foundation of this great cultural city we share than Ms. Semans.

The members of the Clarion Content editorial board who had cause to interact with Ms. Semans found her remarkably gracious and kind. She had no reason to treat us as anything other than anonymous minions and she did nothing of the sort.

We are grateful for her life and works and we join those who mourn her passing.

Labels: Duke, Durham

Your Clarion Content’s correspondent attended the Durham Cultural Advisory Board’s meeting last Monday, November 7th. This meeting, at the Nasher Museum on Duke's campus, was a fascinating coming together or perhaps collision would be more accurate, between Durham City government, the non-profit world, and the public. The Durham Cultural Advisory Board is the successor to the Durham Cultural Master Plan.

The event brought the City Council appointed chairman of the Cultural Advisory Board, along with representatives from Durham City government, most notably, Councilman Mike Woodard, and E’vonne Coleman Cook of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau, together with the leadership of the biggest arts non-profit in Durham, the Durham Arts Council (DAC) and its Executive Director, Sherry DeVries. The public was also invited to attend.¹

Michael Schoenfeld, Vice-President for Public Affairs and Government Relations at Duke University, and the Chairman of Durham Cultural Advisory Board, was invited to speak first. In a data heavy presentation, Mr. Schoenfeld briefed those in attendance on what the Cultural Master Plan had been and what might be up next. As he rolled through slide after slide dutifully narrating his Powerpoint presentation, Mr. Schoenfeld, who noted he had only moved to the Durham area three years earlier, laid out a lot of facts and figures.

He broke down the $222k budget of the Cultural Master Plan. The two biggest numbers were $60k for "Festivals" and $43.5k for "Arts Education." And on the face of it, it is hard for Durham art supporters to begrudge either of those numbers. Of course, there are always devils in the details. How, and on what, is that money spent? Later, when we got to the public forum portion of the evening, we realized we weren’t the only ones worried about those kind of questions.

The other number that the Clarion Content found oddly noteworthy in the line item budget Mr. Schoenfeld rapidly recited was $13 grand for a Business Committee. This was more than the Durham Cultural Master plan spent for our dear city on either public art or planning for the Durham Historical Museum. Mr. Schoenfeld, who moved to Duke and the Bull City from Vanderbilt and Nashville, Tennessee, noted: we in Durham are part of the largest city in North Carolina without a dedicated historical museum.

We hope that the committee was up to some important business.

Mr. Schoenfeld didn’t say. He did say something about a sixty-three member steering committee having been assembled to form a committee that wrote the Durham Cultural Master Plan. It is a wonder under the momentum crushing weight of all of that bureaucracy that anything happened at all.

But happen it did, as Ms. Sherry DeVries, the Executive Director of the Durham Arts Council, who was up next, demonstrated. She had all the facts and figures about Durham’s renaissance at her fingertips. Despite the national trend, recession and economic stagnation, Durham saw 10% job growth in the creative industries.² DeVries also noted Durham exceeds the national average for jobs classified as creative by 75% and the North Carolina state average by 218%, with more than 6,600 jobs classified as high creative generating an estimated economic impact of $103 million.

Taking the podium from Ms. DeVries, Ms. E’vonne Coleman Cook of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau, who spoke smoothly and without notes, briefed the assembly on some of the work done at www.Durhamculture.com This is a website, the Clarion Content admittedly, had not accessed previously. Now that we have, what a resource! It is worth the time and visit for the events calendar alone. Ms. Coleman Cook also told the group that it was easy to register, and then, one would be able to update the collective calendar personally. This openness is a double-edged sword because it does not lend itself to specificity. The calendar is jam-packed with information and the list format is somewhat unwieldy. But, these are petty complaints for what the site offers.

Ms. Cook disseminated her valuable information succinctly and handed off to Mark Lee, a local radio host and the emcee of the Durham Blues Festival to moderate public discussion. Mr. Lee, a man with the sweetly resonant voice of an on-air personality, spoke only briefly, the coterie who proceeded him having gone on for nearly an hour and fifteen minutes of the forum's allotted hour and thirty minutes. He spoke about his personal experiences with Durham residents who had gone on to greater artistic success. He mentioned, though didn’t elaborate on, an encounter he had with the Raging Grannies and their singing number at Occupy Durham. And then turned it over to the public for questions.

This was both the briefest and most fascinating part of the evening. There was a passionate crowd. There were questions about how to best make contact with students and young people. There were concerns raised about reaching youth who might not be able to afford transportation to and classes at the Durham Arts Council.³

What did the numbers reflect about arts spending and the arts economy in Durham beyond the building of facilities? The public wanted to know.

There were real concerns amongst the arts supporters in the audience about reaching young people effectively. One Durham teacher noted that an amazing opportunity to learn to make documentary films on the public schools-arts nickel had been taken up only by four students. Not for lack of interest, she suspected, but rather because of the struggle to communicate the opportunity available to students and their parents.

The Clarion Content, among many others in the audience, chanced to bemoan the lack of effective use of social media by many of these organizations, including, and perhaps especially, Durham Public Schools (33,000 students, an estimated 57,000 parents and 238 Twitter followers? Really??) and the Durham Arts Council too (1279 followers, two tweets since August.)

More questions were raised about how to face these and other challenges in the light of shrinking state and local school and arts budgets, especially by Ms. Coleman Cook, but by that time the Nasher security personnel were flashing the lights in the auditorium and attempting to shoo people out of the room and into the lobby for catered snacks.

The unanswered questions echoed loudly as the audience began to filter out of the room. It could not fairly have been directed at Mr. Lee, he was only charged as the moderator. Ms. Coleman Cook posed the questions. Mr. Schoenfeld moved here in just 2008. Ms. DeVries shuffled her notes. Councilman Woodward, the only councilman who had been in attendance to hear a City Council appointed board talk about spending the public's money, had already left the building.

What is to become of the arts in Durham? Obviously, authority does not have an easier answer. The reality is that it is up to each of us.



¹De-emphasis of the public is deliberate in this context.

²Albeit with backward looking data from 2006-08. But there are two ways to look at that older data, because, although it mostly predates the Bush II recession, it also does not include Durham Performing Arts Center, which most certainly created jobs in Durham.

³Here an opportunity was missed to mention the amazing work being done by KidZNotes with at-risk families and their children. The Walltown Children's Theater could have also been cited as reaching out into the community answering the claim that all the arts programs are based at the center of town as the questioner, incidentally a Wake County resident, stated.

Labels: Art, Duke, Durham, Economy, Politics, Pop Culture

Harvard Coach Tommy Ammaker learned from the best...

The Clarion Content was on this story many moons ago. Duke alum, Tommy Ammaker, and his Harvard Crimson, have a shot at the school's first Ivy League Men's Basketball title in 100 years of competition. They are the only one of Harvard thirty-four varsity sports not to have won a single league title. They are the antithesis of Jack Nicklaus, having finished second only twice in school history. Once was under Coach Ammaker, with a star, who has since matriculated to the NBA, Jeremy Lin.

This year Coach Ammaker's squad is the youngest in the Ivy League. With wins in their remaining games against league pillars Penn and Princeton, this team can do something never accomplished in the history of Harvard basketball. The New York Times quotes the coach, "I’m not sure you can walk anywhere on this campus and find something that hasn’t been done before," Amaker told the Times this week. "But we are on the verge of doing it."

Read the whole story here.

Labels: college basketball, Duke, sports

The Duke Blue Devils backed into the #1 ranking in the land this weekend when the four teams ahead of them lost. However, last night Duke took a much more definite step forward when the Most Outstanding Player at last year's Final Four finally exploded. Much like the beginning of last season, Duke's Kyle Singler has battled to find his place in the offense. Singler has rotated over the course of his career between center, power forward and wing player, depending on the needs of the team.

This year, like last year, as the team has grown around him, Singler has been willing to sublimate his own game to let others develop theirs. About this time last year Brian Zubek's emergence as a defensive and rebounding presence helped clearly define Singler's role and led to Duke's run.

Last night, against a banged up Temple squad, Singler exploded for twenty-eight points without the benefit of a single three-point shot. Temple Coach Fran Dunphy said, "He was just not to be denied."

Singler humbly noted, "The bigs were actually passing the ball to me, so I got good post entries and ... just kept getting the ball and putting it back up."

Has the Duke offense turned a corner?

Labels: college basketball, Duke, sports

The Clarion Content has long been a vocal opponent of ACC expansion. We do not believe in diluting one's core brand, in this case outstanding basketball, for the vain hope of improvement in something that has never been a core competency, football. The ACC has been a classic case for our point of view. The new schools (Va Tech excepted) have not made the ACC any better at football. In fact, the ACC has dragged Florida State and Miami, once perennial college football powers, down to its level of mediocrity.

Now the second stage is kicking in, loss of focus has gradually damaged ACC basketball. The last two years of ACC basketball, save at the very top of the conference, have been some of the weakest ACC basketball in its history. More than once, a .500 record in league play has not been good enough to qualify an ACC team for the Big Dance. In the league's heyday, as the nation's premier basketball conference, that never would have happened. This year, the ACC is even worse.

For the first time since the poll's inception, the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll this week has not only just one ranked ACC team, #1 Duke, but beyond that, not a single other ACC team so much as received votes. None. That had never happened before; Duke stands alone. How the mighty have fallen!

Labels: college basketball, college football, Duke, sports

The redoubtable Jon Scheyer

The Clarion Content is an unabashed supporter of Duke basketball and Coach Mike Krzyzewski. We root for Duke. At the beginning of the season the Clarion Content thought, like many other Duke supporters and members of the sports media, that Duke was a good team, but by no means one of the very best Duke teams in Coach K's illustrious history.

The Blue Devils proceeded to have a remarkable season, going 28-5 and sharing the ACC regular season title. The Blue Devils look like a lock for at least a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament, and possibly even a #1 if they can win the ACC tournament final today. Does this mean that they are better than we and the so-called experts thought at the beginning of the season?

For the Clarion Content, the answer is no. This has been one of Coach K's very best coaching jobs. He has gotten the maximum out of this squad. Nolan Smith has developed wonderfully. Kyle Singler has adjusted to his new role. Brian Zoubek has grown by leaps and bounds. But in our view, the heart and soul of the team has been guard Jon Scheyer. Scheyer has been a stalwart all season, he carried the team through the early stretches of the schedule while Singler was adapting to his new position. Scheyer leads the Duke team in both minutes and scoring.

We wonder, however, as the NCAA tournament is about to begin, is Jon Scheyer wearing down? Our answer is an unqualified yes, and that response is at the core of our thinking that says this team is what we thought it was. We would be very surprised to see Duke get past the Elite 8. We would not be shocked by a loss in the Sweet Sixteen.

Scheyer, who has been playing 36 minutes plus per game since the beginning of the season, has continued to get those minutes and more over the final ten games of the year. Unfortunately, his scoring has dropped a bit, and worse his shooting percentage has fallen dramatically. This is frequently a sign of fatigue, wear and tear, tired legs, especially in a terrific, high percentage shooter like Scheyer.

Going into today's ACC final against Georgia Tech, Scheyer had averaged about a point per game below his season average over the last ten. But that was misleadingly augmented by an outstanding performance in the first UNC game. Scheyer has actually failed to reach his season average of points per game in five out of the last eight contests. Worse, only twice in the last ten games has Scheyer matched his season long average for field goal percentage. Scheyer's field goal percentage over the last ten games is a troubling 34.6%. In four of his last eight games, Scheyer hasn't hit even 30% of his field goals.

It is an ominous sign for Duke that their best player, their glue guy, is worn out. It is one of the main reasons why the Clarion Content thinks Duke will be long by the time they are playing the Final Four.

Labels: college basketball, Duke, Predictions, sports

For the last month the Clarion Content's sports editor had been telling Duke fans in Durham, NC that Gerald Henderson the younger was going pro at the end of this season. The draft experts had all been listing him as a top ten prospect. Duke fans had been insisting that it was different for him, despite how well he was playing he wasn't leaving. His dad was a pro baller, he wasn't broke, he was staying. The Clarion Content was insistent, he was too good, he was going.

The equation changed tonight in the Sweet Sixteen. The Clarion Content thought Gerald Henderson would showcase as a NBA draft lottery prospect in the NCAA tournament. 33% from the field against Binghamton, 33% from the field against Texas, then on national television this evening, he had an awful, ugly outing, 1 for 14 from the field against Villanova. Is Gerald Henderson going pro this year, the Clarion Content is no longer so sure.

If he comes back to Duke, he is going to hugely motivated, that could help his game and his draft status.

Labels: college basketball, Duke, NBA, Predictions, sports

The guy who should
have gotten the job,
Gus Johnson


Or good riddance, goodbye!

Suffice it to say the Clarion isn't sorry to hear that caustic jerk and lead CBS NCAA basketball announcer Billy Packer is retiring. Packer denies being pushed out the door but The Sporting News Reports, Packer resigned with "six or seven more years" remaining on his contract.

Packer has broadcast the last 34 Final Fours. He will be replaced by the wooden and cautious Clark Kellogg. Clearly, in picking Kellogg CBS is trying to go for the anti-Packer. Kellogg, whose best feature, his good looks, won't be visible during play-by-play, rarely says anything with the slightest bit of controversy. He loves to parrot the NCAA line.

The Clarion had disliked Packer's bombastic know-it-all style for ages, but the incident that sent us over the top occurred several years at Duke when Packer accosted two female undergraduates, who not recognizing him were slow to allow him admission to Cameron Arena. Hey, big time, these are kids! Why don't you take it easy! What are you DMX?

Packer's comments at the time (allegedly) "Since when do we let women control who gets into a men's basketball game? Why don't you go find a women's game to let people into?"

Labels: college basketball, Duke, sports