If hanging out in bars with wasted strangers no longer seems a viable strategy for scoping out your next potential relationship, and Internet dating feels entirely too frightening, take heart: A surprising and altogether different sort of social scene awaits. On Amboy Road in west Asheville, there’s a place where the wind blows through the […]
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Pieces Of April
“What a great movie!” a young man exclaimed as he and his companion crossed paths with my husband and I on the sidewalk outside the Fine Arts after seeing Pieces of April. “Low-key and low-budget,” he added, summing up the movie precisely. “Thank goodness it had a happy ending!” I chimed in, still reeling from […]
Love me?
“What makes these kids so unique is that they know what they don’t have: They really want to be part of a healthy family.” — Carrie Lauterbach, Adoption Plus After a risky pregnancy some years back, Cyndi McDaniel was advised by doctors not to have any more children. But even though she’d already birthed three […]
Letters to the editor
Southern-gospel story truly sings I wanted to thank you for [Tracy Rose’s] great article on Southern gospel [“The Secret Landscape of Southern Gospel” cover story, Xpress Dec. 10]. It was insightful and informative. As an avid reader of your newspaper, I wanted to let you know that, miraculously, I can enjoy your newspaper and be […]
Letters to the editor
This Nut seriously cracked I wish to inform all of the hundreds of people who spent their hard-earned money on the Saturday [Nov. 29 Thomas Wolfe Auditorium] performance of The Great Russian Nutcracker ($39 for the orchestra seats) that they did not see The Nutcracker ballet. The original was choreographed by Marius Petipa, with music […]
I went crazy over the fiddle …
What, exactly, sets the fiddle apart from other old-time-music instruments? Bobby Hicks is pretty sure he knows. “The fiddle kind of sings and hums the words,” notes the recent Fiddler’s Hall of Fame inductee and Madison County resident. “Some fiddles can talk.” Indeed. And when four renowned fiddlers take the stage at Black Mountain’s The […]
Random acts
Of note Tastes like jam: Asheville jazzsters Delicious have just released their self-titled debut. With just three songs running to a total of 30 minutes, some serious jamming is surely involved. Yet coming from a band known for running toy laser guns through their guitar pick-ups (and putting on otherwise unforgettable live shows), this improvisation […]
Cartoons
Vital signs
“OK, now lock your shoulders like this,” says Jon Berbaum, stiffening his shoulders by way of demonstration. “Now pretend you’re a bicycle and these are your handlebars,” he continues, grasping my hands. “I’m going to steer you around.” “Oh, good,” I say nervously. “I often imagine I’m a bicycle.” He starts maneuvering me around the […]
Somebody else’s song
One bygone night in a Key West bar, after exactly the right number of gin-and-tonics to polish shame into confidence, I took to the stage. And beneath the not-all-that-bright lights, and guided by the little bouncing ball on a TV on a nearby wall, I sort of held the assembled several, bathed then in the […]
Post-definition jazz
Now that there are more styles of jazz than Louis Armstrong box sets, it’s necessary for the young (34 — a baby in the jazz world) tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander to define where he fits in the messy genealogical charts of jazz musicians and their influences. But when asked the question, Alexander pauses and then […]
Cartoons
Helping hands
“MMF created a community network — people cheering for you and giving you new ideas.” — Julie Stehling, Early Girl Eatery “Entrepreneurs are made, not born,” proclaims Executive Director Greg Walker-Wilson of the Mountain Microenterprise Fund. Since 1989, the nonprofit has helped a diverse array of WNC residents — low-income people, women, minorities, rural residents […]
Asheville City Council
“Environmental protection does not have to come at the expense of the economy of our state.” — Nancy Thompson, Progress Energy Remember the Asheville Smoke? Who could forget the sights and sounds at the Asheville Civic Center on a game night: The eerie blue-white glow of the rink, the sound of skate blades carving tight […]
Fire and brimstone
A Nov. 17 gathering in downtown Asheville’s Public Works Building had all the conflict and passion of an old-time town hall meeting as city residents came together to hear about — and comment on — redevelopment plans for the South Pack Square area. The packed public meeting began with a presentation by representatives of the […]
Upsetting the apple cart
EDNEYVILLE — A few years ago, Anthony Owens was just as worried as many other local apple growers. The orchard that had been his family’s rock for more than 30 years was looking more and more as if it might tumble out from under him. Gerber Products Co. had closed its Arden plant in 1998 […]
Letters to the editor
Xpress election coverage rocked! I can’t thank you enough for your coverage of the [Asheville] City Council candidates, both for the primaries and for the Nov. 4 election. Usually I go to the polls feeling rather unformed when I cast my vote. This time, I was able to make choices with confidence. Your newspaper is […]
Tainted love
In the winter of ’68, in a drafty motel room in Port Huron, Mich., Anne Murray and I had a brief, doomed affair to the soundtrack of border-bound freight trucks rattling through the frigid dark beyond our desperate door. And I am a better man for it — though Anne, soon to become a world-famous […]
Cartoons
The Human Stain
Having seen the previews of this movie, I was eager to see the full film, which promised a tragic May-December romance between Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins, direction by Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer) and writing by Nicholas Meyer (Fatal Attraction). Plus, it’s all based on the celebrated Philip Roth novel — how could it […]
Looney Tunes: Back In Action
As an escapee from Hollywood, I found the movie-biz in-jokes throughout Looney Tunes: Back in Action pretty hilarious. But as my husband’s glower cued me, I was actually the only one in the audience doing any laughing. In fact, the only reaction I could hear around me was the snoring from the woman down the […]