By the time classical Greek poet Aristophanes wrote his second anti-war comedy, 15 years had passed since The Acharnians, his initial foray into pacifist theater (and humankind’s first extant anti-war drama). For six years longer than that, the poet’s beloved Athens had been at war with Sparta. It was autumn of 413 BC, and thousands […]
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A man would ruin this …
“The woman I loved was rushed into the arms of grace this morning, sometime close to dawn.” — opening sentence of Divining Women, by Kaye Gibbons It’s 1918. Death seems everywhere. The Great War continues to rage in Europe. The flu epidemic that will kill millions worldwide is beginning its rampage. Expectant mothers won’t buy […]
Does louder equal dumber?
Volume is power, as Pete Townshend once said. And yet refusing to blare one’s message may be an even mightier move. With aggressive restraint, lo-fi ponder-rockers American Analog Set have bravely evoked an emotional and tonal palette that seems unorthodox even against the standards of today’s underground music. Onstage, the nearly decade-old, Austin-based quintet known […]
Cartoons
Deer-resistant plants
The intrusion of unbridled development into an area that has hosted four-footed wildlife for millennia has inevitably escalated tensions between gardeners and hungry critters. Here are some plants that deer seem to dislike. Datura or angel’s trumpet (Datura inoxia and D. metel) is the annual form of a family of deadly plants best known as […]
Forever, right now
After all these years, I still get a bit pissy when faced with anything from movie mogul John Hughes’ ’80s adolescent-whine oeuvre. And that goes double for Pretty in Pink. Forget that my own teen angst had nada to do with what the 1986 flick’s Brat Pack principals were able to convey through blatant overacting. […]
Cartoons
Don’t yank that chickweed!
The fruit trees are blooming, the birds are back, the sun is rising earlier each day, and it’s time to start clearing a space for this year’s garden. But it goes without saying that the weeds will already have gotten the jump on you. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” the saying goes. But […]
Playing in the mountains
Characterizing the RBC Centura Mountain Sports Festival is a lot like trying to describe Asheville itself. A response I recently overheard began with, “Got a minute, ma’am?” Since the festival’s inception in 2001, it’s been part celebration, part recreation, with a little bit of recognition tucked inside a whole lot of participation. Factor in a […]
Letters to the editor
Note to Mumpower and Worley: Wrong! I want to thank the Mountain Xpress for writing such a thorough and appropriate story [“Dam Long,” March 31] on the March 23 City Council meeting. Not only was this a lengthy meeting, but a historical one demonstrating the power of a neighborhood pulling together and defeating a “money-hungry […]
Home on the Range
It’s the Old West, and big, bad cattle rustler Alameda Slim (voiced by Randy Quaid) has been using his hypnotic yodel to steal all the cattle within earshot. Without their herds, the small ranchers are forced into bankruptcy and lose everything. Maggie, a prized prima donna dairy cow (voiced by Roseanne), is given a new […]
Asheville City Council
“When we start criminalizing poverty, we’ve gone too far.” — Council member Terry Bellamy It’s been said that admirers of law and lovers of sausage should watch neither being made. And the March 23 formal session of the Asheville City Council might serve as a case in point. It was well past midnight when the […]
The tale of the tape
“The camera is a deterrent to a lot of unnecessary talking that leads to nothing.” — local-government watchdog Jerry Rice Jerry Rice has an unusual collection of videotapes, which he keeps in safe storage somewhere in Western North Carolina. He won’t say where. The roughly 1,100 tapes, accumulated over the past 15 years, record every […]
Letters to the editor
Hey, APD: Consider this my outcry I’m sitting in the Buncombe County Detention Facility for the second time in two weeks. Two weeks ago, I was tackled to the ground by an Asheville Police officer and placed inside a paddy wagon with other police-brutality victims. Now, I’m here again [on Friday, March 19], two weeks […]
Experience meets innocence
It’s hard to imagine two more wildly divergent painters than the pair whose work will open Asheville Area Arts Council’s pristine, newly expanded Front Gallery. He’s mature; she’s very young. His resume is crammed with high-profile museum exhibits; hers lists a few student shows. And this stark opposition also extends to their respective paintings. Both […]
Cartoons
Channels
Nan’s friend, Moira, says her New Age guru asks, “What lessons are we learning?” whenever Moira gripes about a problem. Nan wants to slap her. The guru that is. She’s never met the woman, but the second-hand question makes her growl over the checkbook. “What can you learn from a sewer pipe?” She has gotten […]
Br_k_nh_art@singles.com
Brokenheart is out of love, but wants in again. Brokenheart sends soul-revealing e-mails in which she wonders why her heart breaks all the time. I write back (shorter missives, less revealing), but Brokenheart and I never speak. What we do is trade calls. Each day, her recorded voice says, “Tag, you’re it.” When I call, […]
Creed’s Land
The one sure thing in Pinch Cove was water. Even in dry times the rocks glistened. Springs seeped up in the middle of the rutted road that climbed from the valley, crossing and recrossing the stream until they became one track, littered with pumpkin sized rocks. This was Creed’s driveway. Creed McDowell is what outlanders […]
Got Saki?
It seems only right that a list of recommendations of great short fiction be just that: short. So with a respectful nod, we’ll hop over the Sakis and O. Henrys, the Cheevers and the Weltys, and move to the quick (by which I mean practitioners of the short story) who are still quick (by which […]
Rain gardens
April showers bring May flowers — but only if the soil is friable and well drained and the rain is gentle enough that the soil can soak it up and make it available to growing roots. When the rain comes fast and hard and the soils are compacted or covered with impermeable surfaces, the soils […]