Graffiti ordinance on Asheville City Council agenda

Asheville City Council will consider an ordinance next week aimed at attacking the city’s problem with graffiti. The Council will consider tougher penalties for the perpetrators while making property owners responsible for cleanup.  The ordinance calls for a three-way approach to dealing with  the issue: education, enforcement and rapid removal. A city staff recommendation would […]

Connecting with Cuba: A celebratio­n and discussion in Asheville

In the last six months, dozens of Asheville travelers have visited Cuba, creating growing connections between the local area and the island nation. And on April 22 members of those local delegations are hosting an event that aims to help bridge the divide between our different cultures and communities. Featuring live Cuban music and art […]

Building a mystery

Local author Sallie Bissell returns to her Mary Crow series Sallie Bissell describes herself as a “flatland Southerner,” and you can hear it in her voice. But this Nashville native who grew up reading Nancy Drew and the historical fiction of William O. Steele (now her touchstone for a good read), developed an ambition to […]

Thinking big: Buncombe County plan points way toward sustainabl­e future

“In North Carolina, sustainability plans are pretty rare,” reports Scott Mouw, recycling director at the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “Not many communities have taken on the task of comprehensively looking at their environmental footprint and worked through ways to reduce that footprint.” In fact, Buncombe County is one of only a handful in the state to have such a plan, unanimously adopted by the Board of Commissioners May 15, 2012. But what is it, exactly? And what does it mean for current and future residents?

Smart Bets: The Tills

Asheville-based psychedelic indie pop rocker outfit The Tills arose from the ashes of its former, and apparently legally bound name, The Critters, in January after receiving a cease-and-desist phone call from the 1960s pop band of the same name. The local obliged and promptly released its new album, Mixtape Vol. 1, a frenzied 13-track outburst […]

Frances Mayes reads from new memoir, Under Magnolia, at Malaprop’s

Travel and food writer and memoirist Frances Mayes returns to her pre-Under the Tuscan Sun days in new book, Under Magnolia.
You probably watched the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, where Diane Lane (as Frances, an American) gets over a painful divorce by starting a new life in a scenic Italian villa with a makeshift adopted family of workmen, neighbors and expatriate friends.

Green party

Asheville Earth Day celebrates sustainability and optimism “I think what’s really cool about Earth Day is that it can provide this umbrella for all the nonprofits in Asheville to come together,” says Ben Colvin, development director for Wild South, the nonprofit host of Asheville Earth Day. That daylong outdoor festival returns to Lexington Avenue on […]

Spring onstage

Asheville’s theater season heats up Provocative works and cutting-edge performance collectives are still making their presence felt — and in fact, the arrival of longer days and warmer temps means dramatic offerings can now be presented outdoors. For more local theater, check out our calendar and mountainx.com. Flat Rock Playhouse’s season continues at a breathless […]

Planetary alignment

Earth Week events around Western North Carolina Save the shrews, celebrate the trees, take in a film and clean up a stream or two. For more ideas, visit Calendar and mountainx.com. Climate change talk at Warren Wilson College — Everyone knows what planktonic foraminifera is, right? Still, a little refresher from a Smithsonian scientist never […]

Smart Bets: Zansa

Local Afropop band Zansa has big news: Frontman Adama Dembele recently returned from a trip to his home country, Ivory Coast, where he performed at the weeklong MASA Festival, according to a press release. Fellow Ivory Coast native and dancer Barakissa Coulibaly (pictured) just made her way to Asheville, where she’ll be teaching and performing […]

Future vision: Local sustainabi­lity graduate research targets real-world benefits

The first group of students in Lenoir-Rhyne University’s new sustainability studies program may be small, but the fruits of their research might eventually have a big local impact. Based at the Asheville campus, the new master’s degree program requires students to complete a “capstone” project combining graduate-level research with real-world conditions and needs. This spring, […]