WHAT: Pretty Faces: The Story of a Skier Girl benefit screening WHEN: Thursday, Jan. 8, 6 p.m. WHERE: The Millroom, 66 Asheland Ave., Asheville WHY: Pretty Faces, a film celebrating women who thrive in the snow, originated with professional big-mountain skier and SheJumps co-founder Lynsey Dyer, whose objective was to give women and girls, young […]
Year: 2014
Showing 1-21 of 2688 results
Job statistics don’t tell the whole story for local economy
On Nov. 21, Gov. Pat McCrory’s office released a statement saying that all of the jobs North Carolina lost during the Great Recession — some 62,000 positions — had been gained back. Not long after, local unemployment numbers started coming in, showing that Asheville had the lowest unemployment numbers among the North Carolina metro areas at […]
2014’s greatest hits: The year’s most-viewed stories at Mountainx.com
While not quite as attention-getting as the impending end of the world would’ve been, the “tube-ocalypse” sucked in a drove of zombie-hungry readers this year: The most-viewed story on Mountainx.com in 2014 was “Asheville Tries for Tubing World Record with ‘Zombie Float.’” Here’s a look at the the top-10 most-viewed stories.
Smart bets: Freeway Revival
Recently topping the ReverbNation Americana charts for Asheville, Americana/country-blues collective The Freeway Revival writes songs about the Appalachian mountains but spends a lot of time touring outside Western North Carolina. Upcoming dates take the group to the Carolina coast, upstate New York and into the Midwest; last spring the band traveled to L.A. to record […]
Asheville cooking instructor celebrates ‘made-from-scratch’ life
A recent story in Our State magazine by Durham, N.C., writer Christina Cooke focuses on the efforts of Asheville cooking instructor Barbara Swell to celebrate and preserve old-time recipes and cooking methods. Cooke also highlights Swell’s belief in the importance of gathering around a table and eating together without distraction. When she was a girl, Barbara […]
Hidden in plain sight: Asheville’s food deserts
How does Asheville, one of the busiest tourist hubs in the state — a place where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a chef or a farmer — have so many people lacking access to good food or outright going to bed hungry?
Smart bets: Laney Jones & the Lively Spirits
Laney Jones could pull her weight simply performing as the banjoist for Laney Jones & the Lively Spirits, but thankfully she shares her vocal talents with the world as well. Marrying the sprightliness of youth with the tame confidence of an old soul, Jones’ live vocals venture freely from smooth to saucy, with lyrical content […]
Mission Health takes aim at bias and disparity in health care
How does a culture combat an entity that cannot be seen? Start with awareness of the issue. “As humans, we all have bias,” says Dr. Rebecca Bernstein of Mission Health. “It doesn’t make us bad people, but when that bias affects how we make decisions, it can have adverse effects on our patients.” “We hope to help […]
Looking East: Gan Shan Station opens on Charlotte Street
Just a few months ago, the old Gulf gas station at 143 Charlotte St. was a hollowed out shell. Peeking through broken windows, you could see piles of rubble sparkling with shards of broken glass. Now, the gray building casts a bright yellow glow from its large-pane windows, and from the street you can see crowds milling […]
Veteran disappointed in local job prospects
As a returning veteran and a local born and raised in this community, I am very disappointed in what myself and other veterans face when it is coming to getting hired in our communities. That is especially true for those [who, like me], are also currently serving in the North Carolina National Guard. What fellow […]
The best of 2014 in local theater
There’s an old saying that goes, “Theater has been failing for thousands of years.” The mid-2000s saw some lean times for the arts, and many theater organizations have struggled to maintain, reinvent and grow new audiences. But 2014 felt like a page had turned for the better on most counts. The arts in general (and […]
Smart bets: Fred Eaglesmith
Most touring artists gather stories and experiences to fuel their writing while on tour, but Fred Eaglesmith also collects used deep fryer oil to power his converted 1990 tour bus. This feisty mentality pervades other aspects of Eaglesmith’s persona, making him the type to hand-draw his concert posters, hook audiences with a comical tale or […]
Jon Stickley Trio hones its sound and finds its audience
“I was looking for some things to jam along with one day,” says local guitarist Jon Stickley. Known for his flatpicking prowess, he usually practiced to a bluegrass playlist. “But then I started going into some other areas on my iPod, like hip-hop and rock, and I started having more fun playing along with that […]
Contaminated CTS site gets national attention with AP story
It’s a “nightmare scenario” for residents living near or on land associated with the former CTS site south of Asheville on Mills Gap Road, according to a Dec. 29 Associated Press story that ran in the Charlotte Observer (“An Old Plant, tainted Land, and Worried Homeowners”). The story takes particular aim at the developers who purchased the more […]
Is Asheville no longer a ‘weirdo’ city?
In a piece originally titled “Remembering Max and Rosie’s,” Katie Herzog, social editor at Grist, takes a look back at Asheville’s changing cultural landscape over the last 10-ish years. The commentary, originally written for Charlotte’s NPR station in October, shows both Herzog’s nostalgia of Asheville’s “weirdo” population from a different time and her sadness that it has evolved […]
Cranky Hanke’s Weekly Reeler December 31-January 6: January Is Upon Us
In Theaters. It was as inevitable as Dick Clark’s shrinking posthumous billing on New Year’s Rocking Eve that January would arrive bearing slim tidings mixed with the nuggets of expanding Oscar-bait releases that have yet too penetrate the provinces. Well, this week we get none of the latter (next week promises to be better) and […]
Smart bets: Brian Mashburn art exhibit
Portentous and meticulously crafted urban landscapes typify painter Brian Mashburn‘s body of work, which often juxtaposes a calm observer — perhaps iconic of nature or purity — among background rubble. The artist, who has lived and worked in Asheville for more than a decade and garnered increasing national and international attention over the past two […]
Show review: Carolina Wray
It seems like the dust has barely settled since brothers Dillon and Jantzen Wray disbanded their last project, Old North State, and regrouped as Carolina Wray. But in the time it’s taken for many of us to adjust to the name change, Asheville-based Carolina Wray has already released an album (Long Road Home), two EPs […]
The year in art
The year 2014 was one of introspection — in the arts, that is. You could argue that self-analysis is a core concept underlining many, if not most, artworks. And you would be right. But this year it seemed to permeate every surface and layer of the arts scene, from paintings and photos to leases and fundraising […]
Beer Scout: New Belgium’s year-end update
Giant brewhouse tanks rolling through the streets of Western North Carolina are nothing new. Oskar Blues shipped in plenty of large ones to its space in Brevard, and Sierra Nevada closed roads from the coast to the mountains bringing its tanks into Mills River. However, when New Belgium brings in its oversized brewhouse and fermentation vessels, […]
Small Bites: Peaberry Press brings coffee, smoothies to River Ridge
A new coffee shop is open in East Asheville; Dough closes for remodeling; Hopey & Co. announces downtown expansion plans; Asheville Mardi Gras plans a Cajun Cook-off and