Mystic Mountain Mardi Gras

Asheville has, by some accounts, become a haven for New Orleans ex-pats. Perhaps it’s a shared enthusiasm for dressing in costumes. Or a love of great music and a lot of dancers. Or maybe it’s a sense of community—that ethereal, much-lauded and oft-coveted state—that pervades both places. Feathers, beads, face paint: Mardi Gras revelers dress […]

Asheville City Council

Council approves veterans memorial Multilingual signs here to stay Asheville City Council members are still settling into 2009, tweaking the priorities laid down at their January retreat and adjusting to the ramifications of a slumping economy. Nonetheless, they took two votes during their Feb. 10 meeting that showed strong support for the city’s developing greenway […]

A bridge to Africa: Motherland Internatio­nal

There’s no shortage of disease and poverty in Africa. But for Christopher Keiser-Liontree—co-founder of Motherland International Relations—there’s another way to see the continent. Making connections: Christopher Keiser-Liontree (center-left), co-founder of Motherland International Relations, on his third trip to Ghana in 1998, where he was a facilitator with a group that built a Habitat for Humanity. […]

Books as building blocks in Bolivia: BiblioWork­s

The premise behind BiblioWorks is simple: Books build communities. Over the past four years, the nonprofit has opened six libraries across Bolivia, mostly in rural areas, with the help of Peace Corps volunteers and Bolivian churches, authorities and nonprofit agencies. Young readers: Children in Morado K’asa, Bolivia, celebrated the opening of their first library in […]

Teaching Jamaica’s teachers: WCU’s Jamaica Program

On the campus of Western Carolina University, it’s simply called “the Jamaica Program.” Graduation day: These students are graduates of Western Carolina University’s master of arts in education program with a concentration in college administration, which is based in Discovery Bay, Jamaica. The university has been involved in teaching Jamaica’s young teachers for four decades. […]

Putting a name on the I-26 debate

There has been no shortage of stances in the I-26 connector debate. Resolutions have been passed, endorsements made. Buncombe County and the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce have supported the option known as Alternative 3. Asheville City Council and several community groups and developers have backed the Asheville Design Center-initiated Alternative 4b. (See Xpress ongoing […]

Root Shock: Weighing the cost of urban renewal

Urban renewal, once hailed as the savior of urban areas, has often led to unintended consequences. The drastic reshaping of a city can prompt the demolition of entire neighborhoods, often including homes that were historically owned by African-American families. Asheville has its own history of troublesome urban renewal, especially in the East End neighborhood, where […]

WPVM volunteers present management plan

Volunteers at Asheville’s low-power community radio station have proposed a new management structure for the station. The plan was presented during the Feb. 10 meeting of the Mountain Area Information Network’s board; the Asheville-based organization, a nonprofit Internet service provider, holds the station’s broadcast license. MAIN’s board oversees WPVM, which broadcasts at 103.5 FM from […]

When the bough breaks

“Two more accidents occurred the following week on Shanty Mountain,” writes local author Ron Rash in his latest novel, Serena (HarperCollins, 2008). “A log slipped free of the main cable line and killed a worker, and two days later the skidder’s boom swung a fifty-pound metal tong into a man’s skull.” WCU professor and author […]

Welcome to A&E

How cool would it be if Asheville had a Moogseum? That’s a current goal of the Bob Moog Foundation: To create a museum of electronic music pioneer Moog’s extensive archives and have space for interactive instrument-based exhibits. To that end, the foundation, along with jam-favorites Umphrey’s McGee, will hold a benefit Saturday, Feb. 21, at […]

“Sometimes when people mumble, they say good things”

Brooklyn-based trio The Mumbles shares a name with a British electro-goth group, but that’s where the similarities stop. Born by accident from 14-piece hip-hop collective Chronic Electronic Orchestra (CEO), singer-songwriter Keith Burnstein and drummer Ethan Shorter invented their uniquely vintage-y, jazzy folk sound one night when they were the only two musicians to show for […]