Enviro-spouse and I concur that, given the current financial crisis and everyone’s need to cut back on expenses, we’ll start preparing the kids early for a sparse holiday season. Clearly, October is not too early to start.
‘Anywhere USA’ will get Asheville screening
Here’s your chance to see Anywhere USA, the Asheville film that won an award at the Sundance Film Festival at the start of the year, and help send its director of the London Film Festival.
Book Report: Holy Roller
Snake handling, the rapture and a life led in the shadow of Jesus: This is just part of what makes Diane Wilson’s Holy Roller a fascinating read.
Pat & Alli’s Weekly Winners
Each week Xpress reporter Alli Marshall and WOXL DJ Pat Ryan team up to bring you their entertainment suggestions.
Thomas Rain Crowe talks about destruction and change
Poet Thomas Rain Crowe talks about gated communities, weather changes, The End of Eden and how one person can make a difference. His new book, a collaboration with artist Robert Johnson, will be released Thursday at Blue Spiral 1.
Inventing a genre
At home at Handcranked: Jason Krekel also creates illustrations, prints and ephemera at the downtown Handcranked Letterpress studio. Photo by Sandlin Gaither People used to ask Ami Worthen, “What is that little thing you’re playing,” says her Mad Tea Party partner, Jason Krekel. “These days, the majority of comments are like, ‘Oh, I’ve started playing […]
Internal combustion
When it comes to opening for The Black Keys (playing a sold-out show at The Orange Peel this week), Ryan Schaefer (front man of Knoxville-based Royal Bangs) says his group is “kind of nervous.” Driving ambition: Royal Bangs have always taken a D.I.Y. approach. These days they’re taking advice from The Black Keys. “With the […]
Oderus among us
For nearly 25 years, a rumbling has come from the seedy heavy-metal underground. Covered in foam-rubber masks, claiming to be born on another planet and found while hibernating in Antarctica, GWAR has gone from a curious oddity of Richmond, Va.‘s metal scene to a metal institution. But when asked about the band’s status to some […]
Rallying cry
The hardest part of any endeavor is the beginning, says poet Thomas Rain Crowe. “It’s that way with writing,” Crowe tells Xpress via e-mail. “Getting started is the hardest part of writing. Once you’re ‘into’ the story, or the poem, or the piece for the newspaper, it’s easy.” And so it is with the fight […]
Fierce dedication to craft
It’s hardly a commune, but the nine artists featured in this year’s core show at Penland Gallery live, work and play together while also sharing the same studio space. Upon acceptance into this competitive two-year program, Core Fellowship artists work part time for Penland School of Crafts, doing everything from preparing meals and collecting linens […]
SoundTrack:Psst! It’s The Secret B-Sides
Justin Timberlake may have brought sexy back from the ‘70s and ‘80s, but Asheville’s own The Secret B-Sides are bringing it back from much further—roughly 65 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth. At a recent show on Hannah Flanagan’s patio, front man Juan Holladay sang the praises of the prehistoric reptiles as much […]
New radio station launches Wednesday
Asheville Radio Group has just announced a new station. 98.1 The River launches Wednesday, Oct. 1, and promises to provide area listeners with an eclectic mix of tunes.
Edgy Mama: Inheriting the future
We’re all, to some extent, motivated by fear, particularly fear of what we can’t control. As a parent, I realize that there’s a lot to be scared of, but I also recognize that, outside of encasing my kids in plastic bubbles, there’s only so much I can control.
Book Report: (Not That You Asked)
Funny (and often off-color) essayist Steve Almond makes an Asheville stop on his current book tour.
Pat & Alli’s Weekly Winners
Each week Xpress reporter Alli Marshall and WOXL DJ Pat Ryan team up to bring you their entertainment suggestions.
Talking with Black Mountain College’s first African-American student
Alma Stone Williams, an African-American woman from Savannah, Ga., attended Black Mountain College in the summer of 1944 to study music – nearly 10 years before many other colleges admitted black students. She will be a panelist at the “What Was it Like to be Woman at Black Mountain College?” symposium at 3 p.m. Oct. 4 at UNCA’s Humanities Lecture Hall. Xpress talked to Williams from her home in Savannah about her experiences at BMC.
Working on a building
Richard Sharp Smith’s legacy lives on—or rather is lived in—Asheville’s turn-of-last-century neighborhoods and public buildings. Built to last: An illustration of the 1900 Inn on Montford appears in Smith’s sketchbook. Originally a private residence, it is now a bed-and-breakfast. Photos By Jonathan Welch Smith is the architect who envisioned Biltmore Village, large parts of the […]
Project celebrates the women of Black Mountain College
Cora Kelley Ward in Emerson Woelffer’s painting class at BMC, summer 1949. Photos courtesy Of Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center What was it like to be a woman at Black Mountain College? To help answer that question, a yearlong project kicks off next week that celebrates the women of Black Mountain College and […]
The drunken lounge singer as high art
Andy Kaufman was famous for his willingness to create jokes so big they smeared the line between comedy and reality. When he died in 1984, people speculated Kaufman had faked it. He’s got dancing girls: “This isn’t just Tony Clifton flapping his mouth and pouring water on people, this is a big stage show,” Clifton […]
Asheville Ballet presents Shakespeare in Ballet
“I wanted to combine the passions, characters, tragedies, joys and comedies of Shakespeare’s fantastic creations and express them through movement, through a different and enriching vocabulary,” says Ann Dunn, describing Asheville Ballet’s debut performance of Shakespeare in Ballet. Fulfilling the prophesy: Sarah McGinnis as the devious Lady Macbeth. Photo courtesy Asheville Ballet Determined to bring […]
Not that you asked, but Steve Almond’s coming here anyway
Writer Steve Almond will be in Asheville this weekend to, as he says, “free America from the tyranny of, uh, America.” His publisher, however, probably thinks the goal of the writer’s “2008 Swing State Tour” is to sell Almond’s book, “Not That You Asked: Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions.” Like Vonnegut: Almond says he tries to […]