Top 100 movies of the decade

I’m sure this collaborative list from Justin Souther and myself (and it really is a collaboration—we’ve been batting these choices back and forth for weeks) is going to have its fair share of detractors—and that’s fine. I can already make a pretty good guess at the outrage over the omission of certain titles, and what […]

Wild Ones

Those Darlins play kick-ass rock and roll. Period. With Link Wray-style guitar riffs, three-piece harmonies delivered with a Loretta Lynn "Fist City" swagger, and songs full of booze, family, sex and food, Those Darlins are plowing a row through rock 'n' roll history.  Girls just wanna have fun: Those Darlins share a common last name, […]

Artillery

For those of you who just can't shake that scene from Ghost — the one where Patrick Swayze's apparition cozies up to Demi Moore while she works at her potter's wheel — Odyssey Center for Ceramic Arts (in Asheville's River Arts District) is your kind of place. The studio is offering clay "date nights" every […]

Junker’s Blues

When we last left the junker, he'd just visited the condominium of a recently widowed woman. She was divesting the trappings of her culturally active life with her husband (they = the Bohemians of said fable), including hundreds of vinyl records. Most were no longer in vogue, but the junker set aside a number of […]

Junker’s Blues

In the last installment of Junker's Blues, a handshake deal for a large collection of records goes bad when the junker receives a mysterious anonymous phone call. He's told there was a misunderstanding and that the LPs had never been for sale in the first place. This leads the junker, prone to fanciful narrative flights […]

Outdoors: Catawba Falls

I heard about Catawba Falls as soon as I started hiking in Western North Carolina — how it was so beautiful, but it was such a shame you couldn't hike there anymore. It didn't take me long, though, to realize that the access trail was privately owned, and people shouldn't have been going there in […]

Waking up to racial profiling

Regarding your Dec. 23 cover story, "The Right Profile": As a woman, I have long been frustrated at what ultimately amounts to a lack of freedom for women in our "free" country. It is difficult for me to move about alone and feel completely safe. I am amazed at those women who brave a hike […]

A safe cyclist follows vehicle rules

As someone who has spent 37 years commuting on a bicycle (ever since I rode 15 miles round-trip [each day of] my senior year of high school), I have to respond to Christopher Craig's recent uninformed, condescending and self-indulgent comments about cars sharing the road with bicyclists [Commentary, "Finding Equlibrium," Dec. 9]. Folks like Mr. […]

Thanks to an anonymous snow angel

During the recent snowstorm, my friend and I finally ventured out of the apartment to get some air, see the snow, and find out how everyone around town was fairing. Snowball fights, snow sculptures, warm food and slushy puddles abounded. After a nightcap with some newfound friends, I walked back to my place. Somewhere along […]