Pressing Matters

Volume
20
/ Issue
32

Cover Design Credit:

Lori Deaton

Cover Photography Credit:

Carrie Eidson

arts

  • Time capsule collection: Asheville Affiliates bring back ’60s fashion

    -by Webmaster
    The Product of the ’60s Fashion Show features local stylists and clothing purveyors, including designers Charles Josef, Kristina Benshoff, Simone Berhardt, Aurora Moulin, Rhetorical Factory and Danielle Miller of Royal…
  • Smart Bets: Karen Russell

    -by Xpress Staff
    Vampires in the Lemon Grove is not your average collection of short stories. From the title tale, about a pair of immortal beings who quench their thirsts with fresh fruit,…
  • Smart Bets: Squirm Burpee Circus

    -by Xpress Staff
    The Squirm Burpee Circus is a cartoony, over-the-top “vaudevillian melodrama” complete with slapstick comedy, daredevil juggling and a host by the name of Baron Vegan von Hamburger. According to a…
  • Wales watching

    -by Webmaster
    “What’s with the flower?” is a question John Brute has become accustomed to answering on March 1 each year.  Since his youth in the small Welsh town of Mochdre, which…
  • Smart Bets: Blowfly

    -by Xpress Staff
    It's not every rapper who's honored with a bobblehead likeness. Then again, Blowfly (aka Clarence Reid) is not just any rapper. Performing in a cape, mask and yards of gold…
  • Smart Bets: Arooj Aftab

    -by Xpress Staff
    Arooj Aftab is one of Pakistan’s few female guitarists. She’s also one of NPR’s top 100 composers under 40, founder of Rebuild Pakistan — an initiative that began in response…
  • Rising tide

    -by Webmaster
    For longtime Asheville music fans, it might still feel that Future Islands is a local band. The group got its start in Greenville, N.C., as members of the lo-fi new…

food

  • Pairing Elements

    -by Webmaster
    Art and craft. They share similar audiences, but split crowds when it comes to applying those definitions to the work itself. It’s a dialogue that’s most often played out in…
  • Mardi Gras dreams

    -by Webmaster
    OpenDoors of Asheville hosts its “Art Affair 2014: One Night in New Orleans” art auction and gala Saturday, March 1. More than a dozen restaurants, bars and social lounges will…
  • Kitchen class

    -by Micah Wilkins
    DOUGH’s classroom kitchen was designed to look and feel like a typical home kitchen, says the chef and owner Brian Ross. And it’s probably true that many of us would…
  • FIKA FILES

    -by Elizabeth Reynolds McGuire
    Fika is the Swedish tradition of taking time each day to share and savor coffee with family and friends. In the middle of downtown Asheville, I found the perfect little…
  • SMALL BITES

    -by Gina Smith
    Short Street Cakes will celebrate its fifth year in business on Tuesday, March 4, by partnering with its Haywood Road neighbor, Urban Orchard Cider Co., and turning the bakery's annual…
  • BEER SCOUT: Twin Leaf brewery

    -by Thom O'Hearn
    When you walk into the Twin Leaf space, it’s clear that the brewing system is the pride and joy. The 10-barrel setup is the first thing you notice. While the…

news

  • What’s in a name?

    -by David Forbes
    “I'm scared sometimes,” says local activist Basil Soper, an A-B Tech student who, more than a year ago, began challenging the school’s requirement that students use their legal name in…
  • The power of lifting

    -by Cameron Huntley
    Powerlifter Jennifer Payne pushes her limits in life and sport. Photos by Josh Vaughn
  • Arts in medicine summit

    -by Ann Marie Molnar
    Launched by Caty Carlin and Connie Schrader of the Asheville Center for Arts and Medicine, the Asheville Arts in Medicine Summit is open to artists, healthcare providers and anyone interested…
  • Serious consequences

    -by Webmaster
    An extensive joint study by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force highlights the hazards transgender people face. Among the findings of the…
  • Seeds of knowledge

    -by Jen Nathan Orris
    Early March is a key season to study up on new techniques and approaches for growing in the Southeast. For the past 21 years, professional farmers and amateur gardeners alike…
  • Evolution

    -by Jesse Farthing
    About 50 people squeezed into Firestorm Café and Books on Feb. 19 to talk about the café’s upcoming relocation and restructuring. Firestorm’s worker-owners were expecting a fraction of that turnout,…
  • Clean and green?

    -by Jake Frankel
    Their argument wasn’t quite toxic, but Buncombe County Commissioners fiercely debated a resolution extolling the virtues of green cleaning Feb. 18. Pushed by Vice Chair Ellen Frost, the “Resolution Regarding…

opinion

  • Smoking Ban

    -by Molton
  • That Snow owl

    -by Brent Brown
  • Conversations

    -by Jake Frankel
    On Feb. 15, roughly 5,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled in West Asheville, much of it flowing into Hominy Creek and the French Broad River. The source was an above-ground…
  • Eyes on the prize

    -by Letters
    I hope that I am not alone in my supreme discomfort at the casual discussions our City Council is having regarding placing a larger surveillance network of cameras in downtown.…
  • Electric vehicles are rolling in right direction

    -by Letters
    Thanks for your reply to my EV letter, Melissa [Oglesbee] [“Are Electric Vehicles the Answer?” Feb. 12, Xpress]. My complaint was about the tax on innovation by the state, seemingly…
  • Bison aren’t self-sacrificing

    -by Letters
    Mark Bennett’s sales pitch for bison consumption [“Reviving the Herd,” Feb. 5, Xpress] contained several erroneous statements. First, he claimed that unlike beef cattle, bison don’t need hormones or antibiotics.…
  • Coggins development not transparent

    -by Letters
    My family and I have owned property adjacent to the Coggins’ property on Old Farm School Road referenced in the article, [“Colliding Visions,” Jan. 22, Xpress] for 70 years. The…
  • Asheville Disclaimer 02/26/14

    -by Webmaster
    Acquisition of white trolley company by red trolley company has many worried about homogenization of local trolley services