Nearly a third of the way into the free-bus-ride experiment here in Asheville, it’s still too early to tell what, if any, lasting impact the program will have on the number of people using city buses. But I am willing to jump on board with the principles behind the program right now. It’s exciting to […]
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Everyone’s Hero
Such an odd little movie. Everyone’s Hero is a mighty well-intentioned children’s feature, with nary a naughty word in the dialogue. It has a distinct nostalgic palette, prettily recreating the Depression Era with viewer-friendly CGI animation. It’s got one of those “keep slugging no matter what the obstacles” themes that kindergarten teachers love. It also […]
Midlife Cycle
A middle-aged man in full: Rodney Crowell’s songwriting keeps maturing. For Rodney Crowell, there really is life after country radio. He just needed some downtime to figure out what direction it would take. Crowell’s last few discs — The Houston Kid, Fate’s Right Hand and The Outsider — form the soundtrack of a middle-aged man […]
Cartoons
First impressions
Most homeowners have only a short pathway to work with between the street and their front door. Here at The North Carolina Arboretum, we have a half-mile of entry landscape. From the moment drivers begin their leisurely 20 mph journey down Frederick Law Olmsted Way, our plantings are intended to engage and excite them. Designing […]
Fright and flight
It’s just the sort of memorable adventure one hopes for on a family camping trip — rushing your swelling and hysterical son to the emergency room via a long fire road. It’s that special time of year when the yellow jackets are extra-frisky, testing hikers and bikers at their skills in screaming down the trail […]
Breaking bread and bad news
Back in the days of the Regional Water Authority, the Council of Independent Business Owners was very much a power player in local water politics. Asheville Water Resources Director David Hanks found that out the hard way in 2003, when Buncombe County killed a proposed meter fee to fund long-overdue system maintenance after CIBO came […]
Letters to the editor
Mastering development After reading in the Xpress about the grassroots resistance to hillside development, and [having moved] here myself to escape sprawl, I not only sympathize with the grassrooters, but warn them that unless they can convince the local politicians to stop talking and start moving on the problem, sprawl will come as sure as […]
Rock the house
Insurance policies for Tar Heel homeowners now specify that any earth movement “caused by or resulting from human or animal forces or any act of nature” is not covered. In June, Buncombe County received applications for 23 major subdivisions encompassing more than 3,000 acres, with much of the development planned for steeply sloping and potentially […]
Letters to the editor
How green was my rooftop? I just read Mountain X‘s coverage of the last City Council discussion of the Civic Center with its leaks [“A Heaping Helping,” Sept. 5] and noted that Jan Davis was quoted as saying, “The biggest problem it has is its stigma. We have to change the image … of that […]
In memory of memories
Our mountain communities are becoming nothing more than pictures in real estate pamphlets. There’s an old fellow and his wife who live up the creek from me. He’s getting up in years, well past 80, but he still puts in a big garden and a large tater patch. His wife cans some of the produce, […]
Out from the belly of the beast
Still trotting along: Mark Linkous walks a lonely road to fame. (c) Tim Saccenti “For a while there, I just gave up,” says Mark Linkous. “And I was sure that everyone had given up on me and moved on.” It’s as heart-rending as it is perplexing to hear such self-doubt from Linkous, the creative maestro […]
Slow hand
“Kitchen,” 4×6″, watercolor, gouache, graphite and conte crayon on Fabriano paper. Artists who use their exotic travels as inspiration are sometimes cautioned that they might make more authentic work by painting or drawing the things they know best. Charles Ritchie has taken this warning to heart. For more than 20 years, he has described in […]
This book is not about Native Americans
“We all know people, Indian and non-Indian, who have no soul,” says Native American author MariJo Moore, a WNC writer with more than a dozen titles and numerous literary awards to her credit. “People,” she continues, “who have destroyed the lives of others, and continue to do so, by making greed-based decisions that will affect […]
Gallery gossip
• Congratulations to Candler’s Geoffrey D. Giles, who has won the New Talent Award from the American Jewelry Design Council and the coveted Abelson New Designer of the Year Award — in the same year! Giles works in 18K gold and makes one-of a-kind pieces with an industrial flair. • Robert and Arlene Winkler deserve […]
Cartoons
Heredity on the hook
courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service The earliest memory I have of my dad is of him losing a fish. We were standing on the mud bank of a green cow-pasture pond, watching our bobber sit inert on the water, and then — BAM! It dunked and zigzagged wildly across the small pond, my dad […]
Spray-painting is not (always) a crime
Keep Your Paws Off My Pilsner: This detail of an indoor mural at Westville Pub, by local artist Holly McGee, reflects the increasing interest by business owners in claiming the spaces they lease as truly “theirs” (not unlike the motivation expressed by graffiti writers). As with other murals, indoor works are rarely preserved from one […]
Still hungry
Tim O’Brien bows to the past. It’s been nearly a year since Tim O’Brien made his “Springsteen move” — releasing two albums simultaneously — so, needless to say, he’s not looking to “saturate” the market by putting out another new disc anytime soon. Of course, we’re only being tongue-in-cheek when we pose the notion of […]
Cartoons
Letters to the editor
This is our moment We are at that “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” place in regards to mountainside development in Buncombe County, when decency and honesty are all that can save the day. And hundreds of citizens are using their power of free speech to let our government officials know that approving steep-slope development plans […]