Complete mayhem

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of grisly crimes. Mountain Xpress doesn’t generally report such stories, but we felt that the brutal nature of the crimes, the depth of community concern and the larger issues raised justified doing so in this case. Although much of the material quoted here is public record, we’ve also […]

Faith in focus

In a time when many religions are witnessing a drop-off in attendance at worship services, evangelicalism is booming: It’s the fastest-growing form of faith in the United States today. A substantial 26.3 percent of American adults define themselves as evangelicals, according to the 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion […]

Welcome to A&E

Prodigies of cool: Teen sensations Skinny Legs and All. There have always been upstarts, like high school kid-turned-Rolling Stone-writer Cameron Crowe, and skatepunk-turned-bluesman Jonny Lang. Asheville’s answer to those prodigies of cool has to be Skinny Legs and All. The quintet, ages 12-17, started as a music club at Evergreen Community Charter School. But these […]

Larger than life

“Each project is like an expedition,” says Christo. “This is why it’s so exciting.” Really, every aspect of the shared life of husband and wife artist team Christo and Jeanne-Claude reads like an adventure, from their identical birthdates to their fated meeting (Christo was hired to paint a portrait of Jeanne-Claude’s mother). Artists Jeanne-Claude and […]

Better late than never

Talking to Patterson Hood, it’s easy to notice that the guitar-playing, rabble-rousing and whiskey-swilling frontman of the Drive-By Truckers isn’t quite the same person at home. Is that the sound of his daughter playing in the background? Truckers’ delight: WNCW listeners voted Brighter Than Creation’s Dark No. 4 on the station’s list of 2008’s Top […]

Old Kentucky Homework

Six slightly scruffy boys listen as their instructor reads from Look Homeward, Angel. She stops and asks, “How is Wolfe using melodrama here?” Tentatively at first, the boys offer answers, then discuss how they use melodrama in their own writing. Janet Hurley reads to her writing students from Look Homeward, Angel. The middle-school aged group […]

Edgy Mama

I admit it. I have a cougar crush on Troy Bolton. Yes, on the romantic athlete-slash-theater geek character in the three High School Musical movies (a cougar, for those of you who don’t know, is a woman of a certain age who goes for much younger men. I’m not really a cougar, I just have […]

Pan-fish secrets

With plenty of places in Western North Carolina to catch various pan-fish and bass species, you don’t need to stealth cruise over highway fences to have a good time. Jeff Curtis of Curtis Wright Outfitters pointed out that old farm ponds have long been considered the holy grail of pan-fish angling, because farmers have stocked […]

Outdoors: The Practical Fly

A couple of years ago, I spent about three months restoring the exteriors of the two log cabins at the President James K. Polk State Historic Site, just south of Charlotte. The site is in an urban area, and Little Sugar Creek, a nondescript stream about the size of the Swannanoa, runs adjacent the property. […]

The staff that eats together …

Order up: Chefs at Savoy fine-dining restaurant display the shift’s “family meal.” There are people who eat at Asheville’s finest restaurants every single night. These people are, of course, the workers who staff them: the servers, sommeliers, bussers, bartenders and hostesses who can’t duck out of a bustling dining room for a traditional lunch break. […]