Friday, September 15, 2006

Davidson, and other great things about the region

How cool is it that we have a college in our back yard – Davidson – that’s not only one of the top-ranked liberal arts schools in the nation, but can regularly draw world-renowned authors to the area?

I was there last night with family members and friends to catch Annie Proulx, author of the short story that became last year’s “Brokeback Mountain” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Shipping News.” Previous authors to appear in the Davidson series have included Salman Rushdie (“The Satanic Verses”) and Michael Cunningham (“The Hours”).

The Q&A after Proulx’s reading, in which she confessed that “Brokeback” was the most difficult story she ever wrote, was the liveliest part. Not cool: Someone let their cell phone ring an ice-cream-truck-on-steroids tune for so long that she actually had to interrupt her reading to ask them to turn it off.

Davidson College is one of the things I appreciate about living here (full disclosure: My great-grandfather was a professor there). What about you?

Following some of the recent discussions about what restaurants, stores and other institutions that Charlotte-area transplants miss from wherever they moved from, I’m turning the discussion around in my column in tomorrow’s New Home section of the paper. What would you miss if you moved away from Charlotte? Please e-mail me at Ldyer@charlotteobserver.com.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Davidson is a nice town. It's too bad more of the towns around Charlotte aren't like Davidson.

12:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Davidson is a gem in the Charlotte area (both the college and the town) that are quite often overlooked!

12:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wish I had known about this BEFORE it happened. Where was this publicized in the Observer? I look in the University City section every sunday for events - and in the weekend guide - and didn't know it. Anne is a cousin of one of my parents and I would have loved to chat with her.

3:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think it is interesting how people overlook UNC Charlotte.

1:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is because UNCC is so disconnected from the rest of the city. Hopefully LIGHT RAIL will help integrate it into the rest of the city.

9:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The best thing about Davidson is that it isn't Charlotte.

The same can be said for Huntersville and Cornelius.

Let's hope Charlotte doesn't ever swallow up the towns in the northern part of the county the way it has in the south.

10:59 PM  

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