PopCult Rudy Panucci on Pop Culture

Interesting Times

newsign.phpThe PopCulteer
July 24, 2015

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

So, has anything notable been happening your way this week?

As you have probably heard by now, there has been a seismic shift in the local media scene, and it has a direct affect on PopCult. The Charleston Gazette and The Charleston Daily Mail, our city’s two fierce rival newspapers, merged. It was inevitable, but the suddenness surprised everyone.  I guess that whole “marriage equality” thing became infectious and now everybody’s tying the knot.

I do not know what this means for the future of PopCult, and I would imagine that hardly anybody else at the newly-merged paper has given it much thought. We are not exactly a high-priority in this situation.  This is a massive and complicated undertaking, and lots of good people, many of them friends, are going through a very stressful process. I hope to remain part of the Gazette-Mail team, and the fact that they have moved us to a new URL is a good sign that I’m cheap enough to keep around, but I don’t presume to have any idea what’s going to happen next.

Moving that URL has resulted in the temporary breakage of our video-embedding capabilities. You might have noticed that all of our videos are missing in action, replaced with a bit of html code. This is a bit jarring for a blog that has video in about a third of its posts. Radio Free Charleston will probably take next week off while the bugs are worked out.

Fortune-cookieI expect that little glitch will be fixed by next week, but in the meantime I ask that you bear with us and watch for whatever entertaining replacement for video that I manage to think of over the weekend to take the place of our regular video features.

For the time being, PopCult is still here, and regardless of what decisions are made, your PopCulteer will continue in his mission to bring you all things pop cultural, where ever that may be.

Leonoro’s

Photo07172001We have a treasure in this town that I have not yet mentioned in PopCult. Leonoro’s Italian Restaurant on Charleston’s East End is celebrating a century of serving delicious meals–the food of MY PEOPLE, no less–to Charleston citizens.

I hadn’t eaten there since a disastrous date in 1989. The food was great that night, but the rest of the date went so badly that it was more than 25 years  before I went back.

Last week, armed with my lovely wife by my side, I decided to go back, and I’m glad I did. The food was fantastic, the service spectacular and the ambiance perfect. I had the Chicken Cacciatore and a salad, and split some Spumoni with my Melanie. The house salad dressing was a terrific tomato sauce, oil and vinegar blend and the entire meal was deeply satisfying.

I will not wait another 25 years to return to Leonoro’s. It’s a real gem among Charleston’s eateries.

Il cibo era molto buono!
Il cibo era molto buono!

Synn-tilating Poetry

Remember when I told you about David Synn’s book of poetry, Art of Disillusionment? Well, next Friday evening, between 6 Pm and 7:30, you can go to Taylor Books, meet David and pick up your own copy. You might even run into me there.

Read Bill Lynch’s profile of David HERE.

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Stuff To Do

There’s a ton of stuff to do in town and the surrounding area this weekend, as usual, here are the highlights…

FRIDAY

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SATURDAY

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SUNDAY

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MONDAY

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That’s it for this week’s PopCulteer. Check back to see if I figure out how to cope with not having video embedding in this blog for a few days.