Year: 2009
Showing 1240-1260 of 2958 results
Black & white
Photo by Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt
Book Report: The Well and The Mine
Sensitive, sweet and real (yet blissfully light in all the places it so easily could be dark), Gin Phillips’ The Well and The Mine moves with the ease of a beach read yet offers the pithy substance of a time-tested classic.
Bracelets
—Photo by Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt
Asheville City Council seeks 2009 federal economic stimulus funding
Asheville City Council is seeking federal economic stimulus funding for a number of projects. This June 2009 staff report updates the city’s efforts in three areas. First, the city is looking for grant money to create 10 handicapped accessible units in the Aston Park Towers public housing complex. Second, staff is asking for the OK […]
Romantic antics: Review of ‘Til Beth Do Us Part at ACT
‘Til Beth Do Us Part, the new comedy by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, premieres at Asheville Community Theatre.
Congressional reports on the threat of EMP attack
For years, some national-security experts have warned of the potentially catastrophic results of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States. The scenario is the plot anchor for Black Mountain author Bill Forstchen’s 2009 novel One Second After. (See the July 8, 2009, Xpress article “Apolalypse WNC” for a profile of that book and […]
State approves permit for The Cliffs
On July 2, the North Carolina Division of Water Quality issued a water-quality certification permit for The Cliffs at High Carolina, a golf-community development located between Swannanoa and Fairview.
The Cliffs at High Carolina development
This is the July 3, 2008, public notice of the Cliffs at High Carolina’s request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to impact about 6,000 linear feet of stream channel, .2 acres of wetlands and .03 acres of open water to build a golf course and residential development on 2,780 acres off Patton Cove […]
48 Hour Film Project Wrap-up
This was my third year as a judge, and as usual I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of the entries, but then I’m impressed that anyone can create anything that’s even watchable in 48 hours—and most of these were much more than merely watchable.
Holy Ghost Tent Revival at the Rocket Club (***update: tix won***)
Eclectic roots-jazz-ragtime ensemble Holy Ghost Tent Revival rolls to the Rocket Club on Thursday, July 9. They’ll play with brand-new, Asheville-based jazz band The Funk Messengers. Want to go? Xpress is giving away two spots on the list. ***Update: Tickets have been won! ***
Making it personal
District Court Judge Gary Cash paints a frustrating picture. Of the thousands of criminal filings that came through the 28th District Court during the past year, many were the kinds of misdemeanors associated with homelessness. Think public intoxication, public urination, prostitution and aggressive panhandling. All in all, he notes, this is familiar ground for Asheville. […]
Apocalypse WNC
The lights go out. Your car coasts to a halt while trains and subway cars careen into crashes and airplanes plunge to earth. Forget about the Internet, or using your radio, phone, refrigerator or microwave — they're all disabled. You're suddenly off the grid, because it's fried: Everything with electronic circuitry has shut off, and […]
Feed thy neighbor
Over the past 27 years, MANNA FoodBank has established itself as the go-to group for food drives in Western North Carolina. Now, the nonprofit aims to change the way we look at food drives. To that end, MANNA is asking neighborhoods to get in on the action. Bank on it: MANNA Food Bank is getting […]
Filing period for local elections begins
The local political season officially launched at 8 a.m. on July 6 with the start of the filing period for people seeking seats on the Asheville City Council or any of a host of other local town boards. Candidates file at the Buncombe County Board of Elections, and the filing period runs through noon on […]
Local unemployment rises
Asheville and environs saw increased unemployment in May, state figures show. The unemployment rate ticked up in both the Asheville metropolitan statistical area and Buncombe County. Figures released by the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina show unemployment rising from 9 percent to 9.2 percent in the Asheville metro area — a state designation that […]
Fee, fie, oh no
Whether you're an Asheville developer, a homeowner or a corpse that's ready to be buried in Riverside Cemetery, the cost of living (and dying) in Asheville is going up. Bearing the brunt: Asheville City Council has raised fees for a range of city services, from water and recycling to parks. For example, the cost of […]
Tiles go in at Pack Square Park
A Weaverville artist has begun installing hundreds of stoneware tiles in Pack Square Park, including 400 square, brown-and-blue ones created and signed by students in the Buncombe County Schools. One tile at a time: Ceramic artist Kathy Triplett is installing hundreds of handmade tiles on the stage being built in the new Pack Square Park. […]
The Green Scene
If you're hunting for cancer-fighting substances, there's no need to journey to the Amazon in search of some rare plant dangling in the upper reaches of the jungle canopy. The Bent Creek Institute here in Asheville and its partners at Wake Forest University have discovered a dozen plant species that are “cytotoxic to breast and/or […]
Spork
Walking from midtown (the nickname I've tried and failed to give the land between Merrimon and Broadway, but it never catches) to downtown has gotten a lot different over the years. Used to be, you'd walk past punk/art houses and under the blandy I-240 overpass into what was really just prime hobo territory. Now you've […]
Crafter cotillion
Even though craft is integral to both the heritage and economy of WNC, it wasn't too long ago that “craft sale” smacked a little too much of church basement bazaars, spray-painted pine cones and crocheted tissue box covers. At the “debutante ball for Asheville craftisans”: More than 3,000 people came to the last Big Crafty, […]