To many who lived in Asheville during those days of downtown desolation, the sculpture came to represent the town’s resurrection. Every work of art has a life story, and Asheville’s Energy Loop — the city’s first public sculpture — has a fascinating one. Controversial from the beginning, its modernist style proved grating to residents used […]
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Letters to the editor
Figuring out the Civic Center When I view the Civic Center “fix,” I admit that I am seriously conflicted. I am at once an Asheville resident and taxpayer, a Buncombe County taxpayer, a fiscal conservative, a symphony subscriber and a member of the Asheville Civic Center Commission (ACCC). There is no doubt that “something” must […]
A journey into mystery
I would like to add a personal note to the current debate about the proposed “Road to Nowhere” in the Smokies (see “The Road Less Traveled,” March 8 Xpress). I am a direct descendant of the families who once occupied the towns of Proctor and Hazel Creek. But my paternal grandparents, Pat and Elva Cable, […]
Phat Girlz
Here’s the skinny on Phat Girlz — it’s a whole lot better than you’d expect, especially coming from a first-time director (Nnegest Likke). It delivers a worthwhile message about the joy of loving yourself for who you are. At times, it’s funny, even sweet, and the most gorgeous male creature on the planet is the […]
The Second Chance
Fans of Christian-music star Michael W. White might welcome The Second Chance because it lets White stretch his creative wings and try acting. But don’t count on seeing much of his gold-record singing. If the filmmakers had actually made a vanity piece for White and allowed him to do what he does best, the movie […]
Sad songs say so much
“You know you’re coming to some kind of understanding/When every dream you’ve dreamed has passed and you’re still standing”— Patty Griffin, “Poor Man’s House,” Living With Ghosts Outsider artist: Patty Griffin. If you want living proof of the ameliorating effects of sad music, you need seek no further than Patty Griffin. Offered up in a […]
Eric Clapton called
Robert Randolph is evidently shooting for the stars — and maybe even the heavens. Asked to describe his upcoming CD, slated for June release, Randolph says the disc “is really going to surprise a lot of people — it’s going to be a lot better than the last one.” Son of a preacher man: Robert […]
Earful
Local Music News The Dark Continent goes Orange Big congratulations to West African groove interpreters Toubab Krewe, who became the first local band to ever sell out the Orange Peel Social Aid & Pleasure Club on Saturday, March 25. The show was a launching pad for the group’s huge national spring and summer tour, which […]
Cartoons
Naughty, terrible and just plain wrong
Let’s not call them children. Let’s call them what they are: sticky, uncouth hooligans whose more riotous ambitions are curbed only by poor coordination and an inability to organize over the Internet. Luckily, there are manuals to help. Some are written to help parents cope. Others are aimed at the hooligans themselves, in seeming hope […]
Dinosaur senior
Hunkered down in an Amherst, Ma. apartment during the grimy mid-’80s scene, drummer Emmett Murphy was keeping busy playing in local bands. Fresh off a stint in the underground Connecticut group All White Jury, he was asked to join a new outfit with J Mascis and Lou Barlow. Murphy, affectionately known to Mascis (and now […]
Color him impressed
“Form/Function 3,” by Dustin Spagnola. Dustin Spagnola has studied art history, but the inspiration for his work doesn’t come from Da Vinci or Manet or even Jackson Pollock — it comes from the streets. He can’t understand, he says, “why a serious new international art movement should be criminalized and marginalized.” That’s because he’s too […]
Gallery gossip
• If you find an abandoned bowling ball on your doorstep, don’t call the police — just paint something clever on it and get it to a member of the Terpsicorps board: It’s time for their annual Bowl-a-Thon! • What’s this about Bob Godfrey and the directorship of a museum in Upstate NY? • Watch […]
Earful
CD reviews Ahleuchatistas, What You Will (Cuneiform Records): Four Stars • Genre(s): Experimental, jazz, art rock. • You’ll like it if: You favor rapid, multi-instrumental conversations over extended solos. • Defining song: “If, Whenever” — Not even a minute long, the song makes its point in what usually takes a full album. Thus, the philosophy […]
Cartoons
The Tomato Sandwich
She wanted a tomato sandwich with the right amount of mayonnaise which I understood just fine because I don’t like mayonnaise and knew it would have to be applied just so to be edible. She did not want salad dressing but real mayonnaise smeared even on both sides, slightly thick, not dripping off edges, soggy. […]
Lawn Sofa
Unknown, unwelcome guests parade the house peripheral pharmaceutical crushing leaning towards countertop-labradorite-esque scars with ferns overhanging under bare fluorescent bulbs, where I fear for osmotic absorption — should I not feel fear for cubistic fluorite landscapes here, from underneath this alien dust? Flushing proves useless as guests self-replicate — so I pull the plug and […]
spikes
hurtling along in a hypoglycemic warp through cinnamon scent of south carolina pines dry grass stretches brown and the sky is white and sharp twenty minutes gone by like two U2 beats like my blood wailing cacophonous grind it’s too loud it’s just noise highway screams under the truck doing 90 in 70 and it […]
Wake up and smell the season
Wow, it’s spring already! Where did winter go? And what happened to those cozy days of reading seed catalogs by the fire? Well it doesn’t matter now, because there’s no holding back the exuberant show: the spring greens of grass and foliage, the Easter-egg pinks and yellows of bulbs and flowering shrubs. So I guess […]
Letters to the editor
Editor’s note: We have received a number of responses to our March 22 cover [“Don’t Say the F-Word”] and feature story “Comfortably Numb“] about the F-Word Film Festival at UNCA. Please see the replies from the writer and the cover designer at the end of the following three letters. This is no time for silence […]
Moving with the times
The Asheville and Hendersonville metropolitan areas are growing rapidly, and many residents are concerned about how we can maintain our quality of life while we grow. Good transportation planning is key to sensible growth and land use. But though the local road network is well established, the professional advisers who determine the highways and transit […]