Xam Xam, chocolate-shop worker How has the recession affected you? “Well, yesterday I was completely broke and out of food stamps, so I had to borrow some food from a neighbor.” What are you doing to deal with it? “I just got a job, at Kilwin’s Chocolates. I’m living as cheaply as I can, finding […]
Year: 2009
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Riffing on the Molton “Pigdemic” cartoon controversy
In today’s issue, Xpress contributors Asheville Disclaimer and Brent Brown revisit the Molton matter
This weekend on a shoestring
Here’s another roundup of budget-friendly music options. From benefits to new bands; from honky tonk to hip-hop (like Funk-Sway, pictured), there’s nothing on this list over $5 (except for one worthy show—but even it comes with a get in free option).
Plan D: Council weighs in on CTS cleanup
Council weighs in on CTS cleanup By the time the Downtown Master Plan came before the Asheville City Council May 12, they were just about the only group in town that hadn’t already commented on it. The two-year process of crafting the plan entailed some 5,000 hours of volunteer time, mostly by members of the […]
Banding together
The Burton Street neighborhood has changed a lot since DeWayne Barton was a boy. “All this used to be a wooded area,” he says, motioning toward a line of houses adjoining the neighborhood’s community garden. “The whole place used to be like a little forest. I remember, growing up, I would play out here, only […]
The Green Scene
Go to Wikipedia’s “civil disobedience” entry and you come face to face with a portrait of Gandhi, who helped India win independence from Great Britain. You’ll also read about Henry David Thoreau, who refused to pay his taxes to protest the Mexican War. There’s mention of Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement as well. […]
Local nonprofit wins grant to help minority cancer patients
African-Americans are roughly twice as likely as other Buncombe County residents to suffer from diabetes, prostate cancer and breast cancer, Elaine Robinson reports. And as executive director of the Asheville-Buncombe Institute of Parity Achievement, she’s trying to do something about it. Since its inception five years ago, the organization has worked to address such local […]
Asheville, say “Cheese!”
In this town, a whole lot can happen in a single day. That’s part of the premise behind the third annual Day in the Life of Asheville community photo project. Starting at noon on Friday, May 22, scores of photographers—pros and amateurs alike—will disperse to varied locales and start snapping away, capturing as many facets […]
Thinking broadly
The push to expand broadband Internet access in and around Asheville may be building steam, thanks to federal stimulus money. Mayor Terry Bellamy is meeting with state representatives and looking for ways to use money made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help make it happen. In April, Bellamy was invited to […]
Back Track
Sixteen years ago, Charlotte- and Asheville-based rock band, Charlie’s On Acid, was at the top of its game. The band’s members appeared as Hangman’s Joke, the backing band to Brandon Lee’s rocker character in The Crow. Then, Lee (son of action star Bruce Lee) was accidentally killed during filming in Wilmington. “Back when it was […]
The one who “transfigures American music”
Will Oldham, the Palace/Palace Music/Palace Brothers chameleon, who has been releasing a series of stunning albums and weird EPs since 1999’s I See A Darkness under the Bonnie Prince Billy moniker, will be making a rare Asheville stop in support of his excellent new album, Beware (Drag City). Someday Bonnie Prince will come: Fans have […]
Mountains to sea, North Carolina brew stars in locally made road-trip documentary
What happens when seven guys, including four who comprise a band called Rat Jackson, hit 27 breweries and play five gigs during a two-week road trip from North Carolina’s mountains to its coast? Watch the movie Beer Y’all and find out. Cheers, mates: Asheville’s Curt Arledge and friends make a real fun film called Beer […]
Artillery
The Urban Loft + Art Tour sponsored by the Asheville Art Museum last week provided an interesting glimpse at the lifestyles and interiors of Asheville’s downtown dwellers. The apartments and condos that rise above this little city provide some breathtaking views, and it’s hard to not feel a hint of envy at the plebian’s limited […]
Spork
There’s so much to spork this week, you better start shovelin’. We got big news and it might take an extra tine or two to get it all in. Photographer George Masa’s early 20th-century photos of the Great Smoky Mountains must be seen at the Asheville Art Museum before July 5. Filmmaker Paul Bonesteel, who […]
Outdoors: Guide me
I admit it: I’m guilty of not getting enough dirt on my boots so far this season. Despite ambitious winter-laid plans, I’ve not explored anything much wilder than a few garden trails at The North Carolina Arboretum and the sidewalks of West Asheville this spring. That’s far short of my intention to visit lookout towers […]
Horizons
Flavor: Inventive continental Ambiance: White tablecloths, a piano player and the region’s longest wine list Price: $10-$39 Where: 290 Macon Ave. Contact: 252-2711 Hours: Mon.-Thu., 6 -9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 6-9:30 p.m. Even the oysters at Horizons have come out of their shells. I can’t recall if Horizons, the Grove Park Inn Resort and Spa’s signature […]
Espalier: the Frenchman’s bonsai
I’ve always had a fascination with plants that have been manipulated by man. At one time in my life, I had a collection of at least 25 shallowly rooted plants, procured in the wild and at nurseries and chosen as the most grotesque and malformed specimens I could find for bonsai culture. Well-trained and fruitful: […]
Seeking nonviolent solutions to gangs
I am responding to the article featured on your “Gangland” cover [“Putting in Work,” May 6]. The article pointed out that the shared “knowledge factor” of crime among gang members on a national level makes them more of a problem than individuals because they help to train one another with a best-method approach. We should […]
When will they ever learn?
News that the city of Asheville is negotiating with the McKibbon Hotel Group to build a seven-story hotel in front of St. Lawrence Basilica is disheartening, to say the least. Was it only three years ago that public outcry helped kill a high-rise parking-deck plan on the same site? We were short of downtown parking […]
Threatening Guastavino’s rose
The power brokers of Asheville are at work again. If you thought the only indignities left to tarnish the most important building remaining in the city consist of graffiti, traffic, bad condo design and poor sanitation, take a look at the out-sized hotel under construction on the former Chamber of Commerce site, just down the […]
Mixing bikes, kids and cars
With the warm weather come more children playing outside and riding bikes in the street. I live off of a road that is not only busy but also narrow, windy and steep. While some drivers take care to drive slowly, there are many who tear down the road with no regard for other vehicles, much […]